From: Mark 13 <mark@zor.hut.fi>
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1998 02:27:34 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Crackers Set Sights on Iraq
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.981230194924.9105A-100000@zor.hut.fi>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Geniuses at work:

http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/17074.html?wnpg=all

> "It's a crime in itself to build weapons of mass destruction when the
> children of the country are starving," said a group member who goes by
> the name "kInGbOnG."

And do they hope to kill Saddam, or help in NOT starving the nation?

No, they plan to attack the government information systems used 
to rationing and planning deliveries of the food!

> Though the systems' geographic origin could not be positively confirmed,
> login prompts contained phonetic spellings of Arabic words.

And to top it off, they're not even sure which country they are attacking!
They can't possibly hit any military targets with this attack!

And they hope to further the human rights with this attack?

God save us from this kind of stupidity.
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http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/17074.html?wnpg=all

Crackers Set Sights on Iraq
by James Glave

3:00 a.m.  30.Dec.98.PST
A global group of 24 hackers and crackers spent Monday night probing,
mapping, and preparing to attack computer networks owned by the government
of Iraq. 

Quoting at one point from the Declaration of Independence, Steve Stakton,
a member of the seven-year-old Legions of the Underground group, called
for a concerted one-week cracking campaign against Iraq. 

"Iraq has treated human rights issues as poorly as China has," said
Stakton in a meeting of the group that was held Monday night on Internet
Relay Chat. "We need to carry out what the government won't, and can't,
do." 

Stakton, 24, quoted from the group's mission statement: "We are ready to
commence, and take [part] in electronic warfare if requested." 

Iraq has no connection to the public Internet, though Iraq Net, an
official government homepage, is based in New York. Group members claim to
be targeting an older, nonpublic network inside Iraqi borders that they
say runs on a vintage protocol called X.25. 

"We are targeting them via terminal dialup," said Stakton in an interview
conducted with group members on Tuesday over IRC, a global text-based chat
network where identities can easily be forged. 

Group members said they were probing sequential network numbers within an
older network owned by MCI, which they believed were assigned to Iraq. 
They described the system as "a gateway that handles systems that have no
local chain of numbers." 

"It would effectively isolate them from the world if we took out the
X.25,"  added a 19-year-old member based in Minnesota who goes by the name
"lothos." 

"If we wanted we'd be able to dial up and make a huge amount of connection
to their systems and possibly bring it down to its knees," Stakton said. 

One member said that he was analyzing network scans from the Iraqi cities
of Ar Rutbah and Al Kut. 

Scott Ellentuch, a network security specialist with Internet consultancy
TTSG, said X.25 networks are commonly used to connect older equipment. 
Iraq hasn't received any computers or computer supplies since the United
Nations embargo was put in place at the time of the Gulf War. 

"If they do have an X.25 connection into Iraq, and that is their only
network capability, someone could hop off the Internet and hop on to the
X.25 and ride into the X.25 network," said Ellentuch. The group said its
efforts partly involved "wardialing," a process of automatically dialing
one phone number after another looking for modems.  Members said that many
modems answered at 2400 bps -- a speed common in the late 1980s. 

"Many other countries don't have ... technology as [advanced as] the
United States," said Ellentuch. "The exploits that are possible on these
machines have been around for ages." 

A member of the group supplied Wired News with a log of attempted
connections to various institutional computer systems and bulletin board
systems. Though the systems' geographic origin could not be positively
confirmed, login prompts contained phonetic spellings of Arabic words. 

Stakton said that Legions' scanning efforts would continue Monday night,
but declined to say when the group hoped to launch its attack. The Legions
said that the attack was a legitimate act of protest against a rogue
dictator. 

"It's a crime in itself to build weapons of mass destruction when the
children of the country are starving," said a group member who goes by the
name "kInGbOnG." 

In recent months, Legions of the Underground, whose members are largely in
their 20s, has launched numerous attacks against China to draw attention
to that nation's human-rights record. 

Last July, in a demonstration of their technical abilities, members
claimed to have remotely moved a satellite dish owned by Time Warner
Cablevision.  The company confirmed a security breach in that incident.