From: Rich Burroughs <richieb@teleport.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 15:12:00 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970105151251.00969b90@mail.teleport.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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At 05:34 PM 1/5/97 -0500, dws <dws@intercom.com> wrote:
[snip]
>Drawing on exclusive interviews with serial killer Kevin Poulsen, who's
>                                            ^^^^^^
>currently serving time in federal prison, journalist Jonathan Littman
>takes readers along on the wildest, most colorful crime spree in the
>annals of cyberspace...
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

And I thought he just rigged a few radio contests.  Maybe there was more in
that storage compartment the cops searched than computer stuff...

>Yikes!  Seems this book will have more revelations than I had previously 
>thought.  Maybe CoS will take down that page with all the bad stuff they
>say about him (http://www.theta.com/goodman/crime.htm) now that he's out.

BTW, I've see people make links to that article, even on pages purporting
to support hackers.  That article originally occurred in "Freedom" (sic)
magazine, published by CoS (they have a trademark on the word
"freedom"...), and it had a few insidious purposes, IMHO:

1) To whip up fear about Internet crime, to aid the CoS strategy of
branding the critics who have allegedly violated their copyrights as
computer criminals.

2) To smear (or "dead agent" in CoS lingo) Dennis Erlich, a critic that CoS
is suing for copyright infringement, by placing him in the company of some
of the country's best known hackers.  Dennis is not a hacker by any means
-- he didn't even use remailers when he posted Scientology "scriptures."

3) To smear Justin Tanner Peterson ("Agent Steal").  It has been rumored
that Peterseon did some wiretapping for a CoS-employed PI in L.A. -- they
may have wanted to distance themselves from him, and/or to make him less
credible in case he reveals any dealings with them.

#3 is pure speculation on my part, but the first will be pretty obvious to
people who have followed the Scientology campaign against their Net critics.

Personally, I would advise people against linking to this article as a
resource about computer crime or hacking.



Rich



______________________________________________________________________
Rich Burroughs  richieb@teleport.com  http://www.teleport.com/~richieb
U.S. State Censorship Page at - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/state
dec96 issue "cause for alarm" - http://www.teleport.com/~richieb/cause