Greetings All:



Woohoo! Three weeks in a row! I'm on a roll now!



As an aside this week: Thanks to VH1, I have discovered the music of Nelly Fertado and Jill Scott. I figured I'd give them props here, since they have been keeping me cheery all week. I suggest you all download them on Napster (they're not important enough to be filtered I guess), and then go buy their CDs.



Yours In CyberSpace,

John Vranesevich

Founder, AntiOnline









Greetings John,



I was reading with pleasure your story on that Cisco fiasco. Quite something
isn't it? There was something that caught my attention. He asked for you not
to publish his answer and you responded that you do not need his permission.
I'm supprised a bit, why don't you need the other party's permission to
publish the content of an e-mail? Are e-mails considered public property?
Also, I was curious to see if there was any other attempts from Erik to
contact you or flood you with more crap. What an idiot... does he feel high
in Maslow's pyramid because he work at Cisco as a who-know-what? My guess is
yes... *grin* Cisco should consider gathering information on his
activities..they could be supprised. InfoSec Group... *sigh*



Cheers!



P.S: Keep up the good work, I like your site and your columns.



Patrick Cameau



Well, there's a simple concept that allowed me to publish that e-mail without his permission: He said it wasn't his, and that it was a hoax. You can't say something is a hoax, and then that you don't give permission to publish it in the same sentence. It's sort of like when hackgroups get upset when we post mirrors of webpages that they hack. For them to claim copyrights to the hacked page, they'd have to do 2 things: Admit that they were the ones that created the page, and then provide their true identity.








I have been a little infrequent to your WebPages as of late (I used to love
reading your mailbags on my palm, but that hasn't been working for about the
last 6+ months). Any ways, I happen to be covering the grave yard shift and
got back around to antionline. Read you April 3 mailbag and went "Holy
****, I remember seeing that!". Last company I worked at as a network/sys
admin, the president of the company got a similar email to your "Mr. Amey
Konan Bedie" email. Told him it was a scam, and sure enough confirmed it.
Just thought you might like to see a variant of the email you got at:



http://www.scambusters.com/NigerianFee.html



Enjoy.



David A. Cafaro

- BSCE, CCNA

"Four letter acronyms mean CRAP" - myself



PS. Could you fix your Avantgo Mailbag, I loved reading your mail bags Monday...Tuesday..etc morning.



Thanks for the heads up on Nigeria. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one that gets really weird e-mails like that =) As for our Wireless/Palm content. We've had several people request this, so we'll work to get it back up this week.








Dear John,



I have router installed in my lan. Now it does not require my kids to dial in to get on the internet, because it is connected all the time, all they have to do is open their browser and they are in.(As I cannot be there all the time when they use their computer) can you please suggest me how do I control their connections? For their safety and worry-free for us?



Thanks,

Matt



Hey Matt. There are two products that I would suggest for you. Both of them are inexpensive, and are good investments IMHO. The first, is called "Surf Watch", which will serve to filter out "inappropriate" content that your children might come across. You can read more about it in our Fight-Back! section. The second is called "Addict", and for $15, it lets you control how much time your kids spend on the computer/internet each day. Hope that helps!








Hi there



I am needing anyones help who can spare the time to do so.
I know that you will think I'm pretty crazy for what I am going to ask
but I love my wife very much and I truly need to find out how far
things have gone.



If you guys don't have a clue how to help me then I understand ...
Basically I am asking almost the impossible !
If you want a challenge and feel inclined to help a fellow netizen
save his marriage ... I'll continue ...



My wife is using icq to message her "friend" Unfortunately not from
our pc ...(so can't go read logs etc...)



She uses av software, (Nortons), so can't use stuff like subseven or
netbus etc ...keyloggers are also pretty darn useless here.



I have already added her "friends" icq to my computer, (managed to
guess his password / his wifes name of all things) so I can see what
she sends him but I need to add her icq ID as well so that I can carry
on a conversation from both sides to see how far they are into each
other. We have 2 small kids and so does he. I want to try and save
both marriages here if possible !



Guys ... in this lame world in which we live I actually found my "EVE"
I am not letting go without one helluva fight !!! DO YOU BLAME ME ?¿



Listen ... I am begging you to help me if you can or pass my message
on to someone else that may be able to help.



Her icq number is: removed and her nick is: removed



I Need Her Password ... I need to know how far gone things are so that
I can make a decision as to whether I must stand and fight for her or
just love her enough to let her and my children go.



I Love her and am willing to forgive her ... I really need to know !



If you can help me then please mail me asap



Thanks for being so patient with this long mail ... I so appreciate
any help that you can give !



Bye 4 now

Steve



Well, I am always glad to help parents out that are looking for ways to protect their children. What I won't do, however, is become a marrage councilor. I suggest you contact these two guys, they may be able to help you.








From: "The Phoenix"

To: help@antionline.com

Subject: Network Logs



I have been getting many probes on my systems from a bunch of different places. They seem to be coming mostly from China and Korea. My firewall has logged all of the attacks so I have IP addresses, DNS names and types of probes. What can I legaly do with this information besides look up and contact the IP block owner in the ARIN or corresponding IP database? Is it legal to probe their system back as long as I don't enter it?



Thanks for your time.



The last thing that you want to do is start a mini infowar with people from China. They can do a hell of a lot more to you and get away with it, than what you could do to them and get away with. I suggest you just block the IPs and move on with your life, the attacks are not worth wasting time on.








I am a human resource major at Towson University and
have been given the assignment to design a career plan
and compensation program for a computer hacker who has
been hired by a generic company to use his/her skills
for, among other things, to secure company computing
systems. This is purely hypothetical and for research
purposes only. Unfortunately, I know nothing about
hacking and haven't had the pleasure of meeting any
hackers and am having no luck finding information.
I need any kind of information about salary demands,
benefit demands, etc. that a hacker might want if
hired to use his/her skills. What kinds of positions
might this compare to skill level wise? What kinds of
skills are necessary to be a hacker?
Are there any formal classes (Such at college) that
are useful/helpful/educational to hackers? Are there
any documentable educational systems that are helpful?
Any information that you can think of would be very
appreciated. I understand you must be busy and I
appreciate the time spent.



Thank you.

Amy Fowler



You're right Amy, I am busy, and really don't have time to deal with stupid assignments from "I know, but can not do, so I teach" professors. However, for the sake of making this week's mailbag a little bit longer, I'll answer your questions.



I need any kind of information about salary demands, benefit demands, etc. that a hacker might want if hired to use his/her skills.



Most demands made by hackers meet the legal definition of extortion.



What kinds of positions might this compare to skill level wise?



Hrmf. A Mafia Hitman or a Street Gang Member in charge of "Protection Funds" perhaps?



Are there any formal classes (Such at college) that are useful/helpful/educational to hackers?



Most of them could stand to take a few PhysEd classes I guess.



Are there any documentable educational systems that are helpful?



You mean, other than "H00k3d 0n f0nikz"?









You've gone way to far in using the word HACKER incorrectly, and suggesting
that the most brilliant minds of the computer generation shouldn't be hired.
I sentence you to a full day reading the Jargon file. Perhaps then, you
will be a little bit more reasonable about bandying about terms that you
don't know the first thing about.



http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/



and also try the Hacker's Ethic at:

http://www.aracnet.com/~seebert/ethic.html



When you get a clue, perhaps you should hire a few of these bright young
lads to review your articles before you step into the muck.



After all, SOME hackers are crackers. And crackers write worms.



Ted



Argh! If I had a dollar for every person that e-mailed me with stupid semantics, I wouldn't need to be writing a mailbag each week. On another note, finding a brilliant young person is easy, they're a dime a dozen. Finding a brilliant young person that you can TRUST is another.