==Phrack Inc.== Volume Four, Issue Thirty-Seven, File 1 of 14 Issue XXXVII Index ___________________ P H R A C K 3 7 March 1, 2024 ___________________ ~Promoting The Free Exchange Of Information In The New World Disorder~ WELCOME TO PHRACK VOLUME FOUR! "I'm too sexy for my Phrack... Imagine that!" Looking back at Volume III, we observe some historic dates relating to Phrack: 02/24/89 - Phrack 24 released. 01/18/90 - Knight Lightning raided by the U.S. Secret Service because he was editor of Phrack. 01/23/90 - Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak raided by U.S. Secret Service. 02/06/90 - Knight Lightning and The Prophet indicted in Federal District Court in Chicago, Illinois. The Prophet, The Leftist, and The Ur-Vile indicted in Federal District Court in Atlanta, Georgia. 02/15/90 - Knight Lightning enters plea of NOT GUILTY. 03/01/90 - Erik Bloodaxe, The Mentor, and Steve Jackson Games raided by U.S. Secret Service. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Phrack is BACK! Welcome to the first issue of Phrack Volume Four! This issue we feature "Exploring Info-America" by The Omega and White Knight. Other articles of note include TWO articles by Count Zero, Black Kat's latest installment on his VAX/VMS series, and information on VOS by Dr. No-Good! Also, starting this issue, we introduce Pirate's Cove by Rambone. Its a new regular column about the pirate community. Finally, a very special thanks goes out the the newest member of the Phrack Staff, Spirit Walker for the help with assembling this issue. There is a little surprise in Phrack Loopback. Our old pal THE DICTATOR has been corresponding with Knight Lightning and myself over the nets. Yes, you heard right! Dale Drew, who played a key role in busting people during OPERATION SUN-DEVIL and spying on our friends at SummerCon '88 is back and believe it or not... he wants Phrack! And speaking of Operation Sun-Devil, the federal government convicted their first defendant -- details in Phrack World News (Part 2). Phrack World News (Part 3) contains everything you need to know about how the Regional Bell Operating Companies feel about our private hobby bulletin boards and next issue we will have information about what YOU can do about it! Also, next issue watch for preliminary details for SummerCon '92!!! Will ESP be there again? Before the rumor mill starts churning again, I will clarify what is happening with Phrack management. Crimson Death has decided to retire from Phrack and start working on his new UNIX based BBS, CyberWaste! If you are interested in keeping in touch with Crimson Death, you may do so by writing: cdeath@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU for the time being. However, keep an eye out for the CyberWaste hostname; @DEMONSEED.COM! Well that's it for now. If you are going to the Second Conference on Computers, Freedom, & Privacy (a/k/a CFP-2) in Washington, D.C. (March 18-20, 1992), Knight Lightning and I will see you there! Sincerely, Dispater phracksub@stormking.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - HOW TO SUBSCRIBE TO PHRACK MAGAZINE The distribution of Phrack is now being performed by the software called Listserv. All individuals on the Phrack Mailing List prior to your receipt of this letter have been deleted from the list. If you would like to re-subscribe to Phrack Inc. please follow these instructions: 1. Send a piece of electronic mail to "LISTSERV@STORMKING.COM". The mail must be sent from the account where you wish Phrack to be delivered. 2. Leave the "Subject:" field of that letter empty. 3. The first line of your mail message should read: SUBSCRIBE PHRACK 4. DO NOT leave your address in the name field! (This field is for PHRACK STAFF use only, so please use a full name) Once you receive the confirmation message, you will then be added to the Phrack Mailing List. If you do not receive this message within 48 hours, send another message. If you STILL do not receive a message, please contact "SERVER@STORMKING.COM". You will receive future mailings from "PHRACK@STORMKING.COM". If there are any problems with this procedure, please contact "SERVER@STORMKING.COM" with a detailed message. You should get a conformation message sent back to you on your subscription. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Phrack FTP Sites -- Here is the short list of some reliable sites. A more ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ extensive list will appear next issue. Washington University in St. Louis WUARCHIVE.WUSTL.EDU 128.252.135.4 Location: /doc/policy/pub/cud/Phrack Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF.ORG 192.88.144.3 Location: /pub/cud/Phrack University of Chicago CHSUN1.SPC.UCHICAGO.EDU 128.135.46.7 Location: /pub/cud/phrack - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Table Of Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Introduction by Dispater 08K 2. Phrack Loopback by Phrack Staff 15K 3. Pirate's Cove by Rambone 08K 4. Exploring Information-America by The Omega & White Knight 51K 5. Beating The Radar Rap Part 1 of 2 by Dispater 44K 6 Card-O-Rama: Magnetic Stripe Technology and Beyond by Count Zero 44K 7. Users Guide to VAX/VMS Part 2 of 3 by Black Kat 25K 8. Basic Commands for the VOS System by Dr. No-Good 10K 9. The CompuServe Case by Electronic Frontier Foundation 06K 10. PWN Special Report VI on WeenieFest '92 by Count Zero 14K 11. PWN/Part 1 by Dispater and Spirit Walker 31K 12. PWN/Part 2 by Dispater and Spirit Walker 30K 13. PWN/Part 3 by Dispater and Spirit Walker 29K 14. PWN/Part 4 by Dispater and Spirit Walker 31K Total = 346K One last thing... Ninja Master, this one's for you! "But you see you are not anybody. You are nobody. And you chose to be so of your own free will. Legally -- officially -- you simply don't exist!" From "The Shockwave Rider" [-=:< Phrack Loopback >:=-] By Phrack Staff Phrack Loopback is a forum for you, the reader, to ask questions, air problems, and talk about what ever topic you would like to discuss. This is also the place Phrack Staff will make suggestions to you by reviewing various items of note; magazines, software, catalogs, hardware, etc. ______________________________________________________________________________ Review of 2600 Magazine Autumn 1991 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PO Box 752 Individual Subscription Rates: Middle Island, NY 11953 US : 4 issues (1 year) $21.00 InterNet: 2600@well.sf.ca.us OS : 4 issues (1 year) $30.00 Phone: 516-751-2600 Corporate / Business Rates: Fax: 516-751-2608 : 4 issues (1 year) $50.00 By Dispater 2600 Magazine has been published since 1984 by Emmanuel Goldstein. "The Hacker Quarterly" runs just shy of 50 pages and is printed with nice glossy covers to make a 5.5"x8.25" magazine. In 2600 you will find the usual articles about hacking and phreaking, as well as a few surprises. 2600 often covers topics that do not necessarily pertain to hacking or phreaking, but are quite useful. There is also a "letters to the editor" section and even a place for people to buy/sell goodies. This particular issue contains an article on Simplex locks and how easy it is to open them. Included are pictures of opened Federal Express mail boxes that use Simplex locks. The next most interesting thing I found was an article on those strange little lines on business letters. "Postal Hacking" will not necessarily tell you how to mail letters for free, but will tell you how you can speed up the process of delivery for free. Then there was the the "Protecting Your Social Security Number" article that was recently printed in Phrack Inc Issue 35. There was also an article about the video tape of the Dutch hackers breaking into the military systems. 2600 even offers to sell the videotape that was partially played on the evil Geraldo Show [dick]. There was also a good article written about psychology in the hacker world. The somewhat Freudian analysis of the female security agent fearing "mounting" (of her hard drive), "penetration" (of her system), "infection" (from viri), and "has a headache" (due to hackers) was insiteful as well as very funny. Moving on to the other parts of 2600, you can find scattered tidbits of misc information (ie: lists of COCOTs, NUAs, ANIs, small useful programs, and interesting business/government forms they get from readers, etc) Finally, this is the part that everyone complains about, the price. But, 2600 has a great deal for those poor college hacker out there. If you submit something to 2600 Magazine that is printed, you get a free subscription. That sounds fair to me! Maybe we should try the same thing with Phrack? All in all 2600 Magazine is a GREAT publication and is highly recommended. _______________________________________________________________________________ What's On Your Mind? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ :: Some People Never Get The Hint :: Recently Phrack Inc. received a subscription request from an individual who played a key role in Operation Sun-Devil. You may know him from bulletin boards where he often used names like "The Dictator" or "Blind Faith." We know him as Dale Drew. Who would imagine that he would dare to ask us for a subscription? I personally couldn't believe it. Just in case you forgot or have been living in a hole for the past two years, Dale Drew was a paid United States Service informant who secretly enabled government agents to videotape SummerCon '88 in St. Louis, Missouri. The following is an example of a Dale Drew/The Dictator/Blind Faith posting on a bulletin board. He claims to be a cosysop on Lutzifer as well as some other nonsense. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ZDDDDD Packet Switching Networks/PSNs DDDD September 27, 2024 at 8:52 pm DDDDD? 3 Left by Blind Faith (Level 40)Title: Telenet (No Replies)3 3 > <-702-> CoSys on Lutz (Tymnet) Dispater writes: > > I think the joke issue of Phrack (36) will contain a top 10 list of stupid > things the SS likes to take. I am consulting with the defense for an up coming trial and had the opportunity to examine the "evidence" seized in the defendant's home. Notable items: model rocket launcher, local area street maps, about a dozen 2500-style telephones, a typewriter, pre-recorded audio cassettes. An interesting item was left behind: a TSPS console. One wonders what (if anything) goes through the minds of the officers executing the warrant. John _______________________________________________________________________________ :: Fed Proof Your BBS, NOT! :: I'm sure many of you have seen text files on making your BBS more secure. One such file floating around is by Babbs Boy of Midnight Society. One of the members of our Phrack Staff showed this document to EFF's Mike Godwin, who is an attorney. He had the following comments: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Mike Godwin To: Phrack Inc. (In regards to some of the files about how to "fed-proof" your bbs:) > Let's start with the log on screen: If FEDZ want anything from your board, > they are required to provide 100% accurate information. This is false. Ask the legislators who've been convicted in "sting" operations. In fact, so far as I can tell in a brief run-through of this document, absolute no part of the so-called "legal" advice is true. Law enforcement agents who misrepresent their identities (e.g., "undercover agents") produce admissible evidence all the time. --Mike _______________________________________________________________________________ :: Diet Phrack is Good For You :: From: Gordon Meyer To: Dispater Subject: Phrack #36 Thanks for sending over Diet Phrack! It looks like some of the old energy has finally been renewed. I especially liked the introduction, there is intensity, pride, and humor sprinkled thru out. Reminds me a lot of some of the "old" PHRACK issues. Neat! Later, Gordon R. Meyer _______________________________________________________________________________ :: Anonymous Mail :: From: Creeping Death > Hi guys. I was wondering if you could tell me how to send anonymous > mail. I heard that you could but no one here at my university seems to have > a clue. Please help me out > There are many ways to do this. One way is to use the method described below. However, keep in mind there are other ways of doing this. Dispater - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Anonymous Mail via SMTP Using A Simple Shell Script ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From: The Artful Dodger This file is for those people who like/want to send anonymous mail via the net but don't like the hassle of raw SMTP commands. So, I wrote a simple shell script to take care of this. This program is quite simple but I will give a brief explanation anyway. There are two ways to run this program. Just type the name you save it as or the name you save it as plus the person you want to mail. Either way you will eventually get to the From: prompt. If you just hit return at this prompt it will assign your userid@your hostname. Otherwise you can type whatever you feel like. Next you will get the prompt asking you which host you wish to use for SMTP. If you are using the host you are on, just hit return as this is the default. Otherwise enter any host that allows telnet to port 25. Then you get to pick which editor you wish to use for mailing. It defaults to vi but you can use whatever you like. Basically, that is all there is interactively. After you enter this information, the program creates a file called tmpamail1. To this file it appends four lines of data. The first line is 'helo amail' as some host's SMTP port will not accept commands until one introduces themself to the host. The next line is 'mail from: ' and who the mail is from or who it is supposedly from. The third line contains 'rcpt to: ' and who the mail is going to. And the last line is simply the word 'data'. Now, these commands could all be entered manually but why bother when you have a program to do it for you. Ok, now the program invokes your editor and creates a file called tmpamail2. After you are done making the message and you exit the editor, it asks you if you want to send this message. I believe that is pretty much self explanatory. Then the program appends a '.' and a 'quit' to tmpamail2. Then it appends tmpamail2 to tmpamail1 so you have one file containing all the necessary header info to send a message via SMTP and quit >from SMTP. Then the program sends all this to port 25 of the host that was specified. And if all goes well, the person should have some mail waiting for them. And one last thing. The program deletes both tmpamail files after it is finished. Well, I hope you all enjoy this little script as it makes sending anonymous mail a little easier. The Artful Dodger =============================================================================== #! /bin/csh -fB ### This is a simple shell script for easy use of anonymous mail. To run the ### program just save it and delete everything up until the #! /bin/csh -fB ### line. Then just type the name you save it as or the name and whoever ### you will be mailing. e.g. amail bill@some.university.edu or just amail. ### ### The Artful Dodger if ($1 != "") then set mto=$1 else echo 'To: ' set mto=$< endif echo -n 'From: ' set mfrom=$< echo -n 'Use which host for smtp (return for '`hostname`') ? ' set usehost=$< echo -n 'Use which editor (return for vi)? ' set editor=$< if($editor =="") then set editor=vi endif if ($mfrom == "") then set mfrom=`whoami`'@'`hostname` endif echo 'helo amail' >> tmpamail1 echo 'mail from: '$mfrom >> tmpamail1 echo 'rcpt to: '$mto >> tmpamail1 echo 'data' >> tmpamail1 $editor tmpamail2 clear echo -n 'Are you sure you want to send this? ' set yorn=$< if($yorn == 'y') then echo . >> tmpamail2 echo quit >> tmpamail2 cat tmpamail2 >> tmpamail1 telnet $usehost 25 < tmpamail1 > /dev/null echo 'Mail has been sent to: '$mto echo ' From: '$mfrom endif rm tmpamail1 tmpamail2 Pirates' Cove Issue One A New Regular Column Appearing In Phrack Magazine By Rambone 1) Introduction Well first off, I'd like to introduce myself. I go by the handle Rambone, and I run a board in the Midwest area. I'm sure a column like this is a shock to a lot of reader's, but after talking to Dispater, many readers, and people in the hacking and pirate world, we came to this conclusion: Piracy and *Warez Dudez* have come a long way in the last five years, and are a definite part of the underground. Whether you read the magazine for information about hacking, phreaking, or even those great PWN stories, I think this column will be a welcome part of Phrack Magazine. 2) Virii Some poor unsuspecting fool downloads a program, unzips it, and instead of checking it for a virus, starts the program up. After deciding it's a lame game, he deletes it and turns off his computer, going to sleep without a worry in the world. The next day he wakes up and tries to turn on his computer, but it tells him, "Bad or missing COMMAND.COM" or something of that nature. This is just an example of what's happened to countless people in the pirate world, not expecting what is soon to be hours of frustrating reconstruction of his hard drive. Even though virii have been a common problem for many years, it hasn't been until recently that they have made an impact in the Pirate world. Whether it's bickering between groups, or even a lonely individual who has absolutely nothing better to do than beat his meat and put out a trainer with a fucking virus in it, it is wrong. The people responsible for it that play a roll in the distribution of the software are, in my opinion, the biggest culprits; they know what they are about to do, and have no conscience in sending it out. Just the mere fact that the only way they think they can get back at another group is by distributing a program with a virus or a Trojan is moronic. I'm not preaching the fact that groups should or should not bicker. That is always going to happen. What I an saying is that there is a responsibility by the groups to be cool and stop the distribution of programs with virii or Trojan's. On the flip side of the coin, most sysops do not intentionally send out these infected programs. They are sent up to the BBS, and by the time they are caught, it's too late, and they are already all over the country. My main concern is for the user. If all one group was doing was giving another group problems, then there wouldn't be one. But to irresponsibly release a program containing a virus has to be one of the lowest retaliatory responses that can be done in the pirate world, and needs to be stopped to bring piracy back to a higher level it once had before the rash of bombs began. *Note to user* Most virii are in the form of trainers and cracks, so be wary of every one you have or get. The best way to check is with PKUNZIP -T and McAffee's Virus Scanner; I've found it to be the most reliable. If anyone is having trouble with being able to temporarily open a .ZIP, .ARJ, etc., I have a sharp .BAT file to do this and will type it up in a future issue. DO NOT use a program without at least scanning the directory you unzipped it to, even though scanning the zip is much safer. 3) Nets Some issues here will be the discussion of up and coming nets, as well as established ones. Let me first explain what a net is: a net is a group of messages sent out over the networks via modem. They are then received by a BBS and sent to the appropriate message subs for the sysop and users to read. One up and coming net in particular that would be appealing to a wide variety of sysops is called "CyberCrime." This net is looking for boards that are Fido compatible, i.e.: LSD, Telegard, WildCat, Tag, Remote Access, Omega, QBBS, Paragon, Infinity, Revelation, Cypher, etc. This net is heavy into P/H/C/A as well as pirate discussions. They are also hooked into TSAN general discussions and are working on sysop's connections with other nets. If you are interested in joining this net, apply at Infinite DarkNess, (305)LOOK4-IT, log on as Cybercrime and password=Death, and follow the instructions. Fill out the CyberCrime node application. MidNight Sorrow will call your BBS (must be a full-time system), login, and upload CYBER.ARJ, the CyberCrime official start-up kit. After that, you're in. 4) BBSes Because of NSHB/USA/TGR busts, I have decided to hold off on any reviews of BBS's. Hopefully the paranoia over these busts will subside, and we can pick this area back up. 5) News Update Well, as we all know by now, The NotSoHumble Babe and The Grim Reaper, sysop of The Void, got busted for carding. This has been written up and talked about in every magazine out, so all I'm going to say is that it's brought a lot of paranoia to the pirate community, and some good boards have gone down as a result. Since I have not spoken to Amy or Mike about this I will not go into specifics. Amy (NSHB) was a member of USA (United Software Association) and Mike (TGR) ran a BBS called The Void, and was an INC Distro Site. But until I hear back from a certain person at USA, I'm not going to talk about some 3rd party gossip, so this will be continued in the next issue. 6) New Warez Game of the Month: Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Graphics [CGA/EGA/VGA] Sound [ADL/SNB/PCSPK] Controls [Mouse/JS/KYB] Cracked by [EMC/USA/Razor?] Supplied by [?] Cracked by [Separate Crack] Protection [Dox Check] Three cracking groups claimed to put this out first. Since I saw it released by EMC first for a few hours, this is who I'll go with. This is one of those games that, whether you are a Trekkie fan or not, you'll love. The opening screen depicts the Enterprise screaming across your screen, and the music from the original soundtrack blares through your speakers (if you use a soundcard). You then are thrust into a mock battle with another ship, and your adventure begins. You are then directed by Star Fleet to go on your first mission, where you will try and save a planet. The graphics are excellent, and remind me a lot of the new Sierra-type games, with the backgrounds painted in. This game has an adventure theme as well as several space combat scenarios, and a mouse is recommended to be able to get around as quickly as you can in combat scenes. The puzzles involved are very hard, and there is both a walk-through and cheat out on your local BBSes. So if you cannot get through some of the puzzles, there is help out there; you just have to find it. *Note* Well that's it for now. I had to take out 60% of this article because many people are laying low for a couple of months, so look for more in-depth coverage in the future including interviews, BBS reviews, profiles, and cracking tips. :===:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:===: :== ==: :== Exploring Information-America ==: :== :=============================: ==: :== by ==: :== The Omega White Knight ==: :== Restricted Data Transmissions (RDT) Cult of the Dead Cow (-cDc-) ==: :== ==: :== ==: :== "Truth Is Cheap, But Information Costs!" ==: :== ==: :== ------------------------ ==: :== ==: :== "Textfiles: We're in it for the girlies and the money." ==: :== ==: :== Monkey-Boyz! 1/24/92 ==: :===:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:=:===: Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Information Era has only recently come of age; powerful database technology has become more affordable to implement (witness MCI's ability to maintain a database of the people you most frequently call for participation in its Friends & Family program), and parallel to it, information gathering has become more extensive and more scrutinizing. After weapons manufacturing, and drug running, "information gathering" is probably one of the most profitable enterprises in America. Over the past two decades, credit bureaus, telephone companies and direct marketers have collectively amassed complete consumer profiles on over 150 million Americans. But for the most part, this information has been used only to predict consumers' future buying habits, or worse: to influence them. For billing and marketing purposes, up-to-date address and telephone information, as well as information about your household has been incidentally maintained. But, until recently, none of this information was COMMERCIALLY available IN A SINGLE DATABASE, specifically with law enforcement, private-investigators, bounty-hunters and lawyers in mind. To our knowledge, Information America is the first accessible service to make use of previously collected data for the expressed purpose of providing the up-to-date whereabouts, personal profiles and information regarding legal entanglements (i.e., bankruptcy filings, lawsuits, etc.) of as many Americans as possible. Information America ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ "Whether you are conducting a background check, looking for a witness, skip tracing, or gathering information for court, [Info America] gives you a quick, easy method for gathering information on individuals across the country... at the touch of a key." Information America (IA) provides a single service whose databases cross- index the Postal Service's National Change of Address file (NCOA), major publisher and direct marketing companies' client information, birth records, driver's license records, phone books, voter registrations, various governmental records, and more. IA boasts that over 111 million names, 80 million households and 61 million telephone numbers are maintained (as reasonably up-to-date as possible) on-line. Together with IA's access to additional databases, such as Dun & Bradstreet, Secretary of State records and records from up to 49 government agencies, you can: * Locate a missing defendant or witness and obtain a neighbor listing for further investigation. * Locate corporate officers, share-holders, or missing heirs. * Locate individuals for collection purposes. * Locate a fugitive parent who's kidnapped his child from the other parent during a custody battle. * Identify the corporate affiliations of an individual. * Examine bankruptcy, lawsuit, liens and judgement records on individuals and businesses. * Examine Securities and Exchange Commission filings and business news compiled from major newswires. * Gather information about a company's officers, ownership, financial status and parent/subsidiary relationships. * Determine if a foreign corporation has a resident agent for local service of process (i.e., for serving a lawsuit). Logging onto IA ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~ Access to Information America is provided through your local Tymnet dialup (7-E-1); use a terminal identifier of 'a', and type "infoam" at the "please log in:" prompt. IA will prompt you with the familiar VAX 'USERNAME' and 'PASSWORD' prompts. Usernames of the form "BIDAxxxx" (where x is a digit) are recognizable to the VAX as IA accounts and cause it to execute the script that provides the interactive database environment once the correct password is supplied. Accounts which bypass the interactive environment and provide you with the normal VAX shell-access must exist, but neither White Knight nor I have explored that avenue. In any event, once you log on, you are greeted with something similar to: ----------------------------[ Title Screen ]---------------------------- Welcome to VAX/VMS version V5.4-2 on node ALAMO Last interactive login on Thursday, 17-SEP-1991 12:47 COMPUTER EQUIPMENT SELECTION MENU What type of computer equipment or software are you using? 1. PERSONAL COMPUTER (or 100% IBM compatible) 2. PERSONAL COMPUTER with WESTMATE SOFTWARE 3. WESTLAW TERMINAL 4. OTHER EQUIPMENT 5. NETWORK SYSTEM (TTY) 99. EXIT OFF SYSTEM Please call Information America's Client Support at 1-(800) 235-4008 if you would like assistance. Please specify number: 1 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * W E L C O M E T O T H E * * * * I N F O R M A T I O N A M E R I C A N E T W O R K * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * For details select menu option 75 on the beginning IA Menu * Information America Expands California Lawsuits! * Global Real Property Asset Locator Now Online! * Cover All the Bases...Using the NEW, IMPROVED CORPORATE GLOBAL Service! Enter your name (last name first): public, john ----------------------------[ Title Screen ]---------------------------- In most cases, IA's clients use IBMs or compatibles to connect. However, option 1 (PERSONAL COMPUTER (or 100% IBM compatible)) works well enough for anyone who can emulate VT-100. The "Enter your name (last name first)" prompt is purely for your own internal billing purposes so that you, as a legitimate account holder, can track account use by separate members of your corporation. Hypothetically speaking, if someone were interested in accessing the system without a valid account of their own, the most likely way to alleviate suspicion would be to use the name of someone who actually works at the account holder's organization -- the account holder himself, for instance. At some point, IA will prompt you to enter a Client Billing Code. Again, this information is purely for the account holder's own internal billing purposes. IA is an expensive service; on top of the $95 per month fee, there are hourly connect charges, per-item charges and several hidden costs. If only for that reason alone, IA's clients tend to be very anal about cross-checking their itemized bills. If possible, provide a Client Billing Code which is consistent with the account holder's organization's billing code scheme. Information America: Main Menu ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ There are 19 main search-options available through IA, which fall into three categories: - Corporate, UCC, & Related Records - Nationwide Services - County & Court Records ------------------------------[ Main Menu ]----------------------------- INFORMATION AMERICA NETWORK 1 I N F O R M A T I O N A M E R I C A B E G I N N I N G M E N U (Copyright 1991, Information America, Inc.) CORPORATE, UCC, & RELATED RECORDS 1. Corporate Global (CGL) 2. Corporate & Limited Partnership Records (COR) 3. State & County UCCs, Liens & Judgments (ULJ) 4. State UCC & Lien Filings (UCC) 5. Sleuth (SL) 6. Litigation Prep (LP) NATIONWIDE SERVICES COUNTY & COURT RECORDS 7. People Finder (PF) 15. County Records (COU) 8. Executive Affiliation (EA) 16. Bankruptcy Records (BNK) 9. Business Finder (BF) 17. Lawsuits (LS) 10. Business News (BN) 18. Real Property Asset Locator (RP) 11. SEC Filings (SEC) 19. Real Prop, Liens & Judgments (RLJ) 12. Duns Business Records Plus (DB) 13. Name Availability/Reservation (NAR) 75. Help Line (HL) 14. Document Ordering eXpress (DOX) 99. Exit the System (OFF) Enter the menu number or abbreviation of your choice: ------------------------------[ Main Menu ]----------------------------- Of the three categories, options under NATIONWIDE SERVICES are the most interesting. Information America is easy to use, completely menu-driven and features extensive on-line Help. That having been said, White Knight and I will cover only a few of IA's features and leave exploration of the more obscure ones to the reader. PEOPLE FINDER ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ The power of People Finder lies not only in its ability to tap various large store-houses of data, but in its flexibility of search criteria. (NOTE: People Finder is available Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to midnight, Eastern Standard time. Holidays are excluded.) People Finder is made up of four services: SKIP TRACER, TELEPHONE TRACKER, PERSON LOCATOR, and PEOPLE FINDER MULTITRACK. Depending on the information available, a People Finder profile may include current address, telephone number, residence type, length of residence, gender, date of birth, up to four household members and their dates of birth and a neighbor listing. SKIP TRACER traces a person's moves or verifies the current address when all you have is an old address. You will enter the person's name, street number, street name, and either the Zip Code or city/state. If your subject is in IA's files, a profile will display that includes the address he moved to (or current address), phone number, length of residence, and more. You may also request a list of 10 of the person's neighbors. A profile on the current resident at your subject's old address and up to 10 neighbors there may also be available. This gives you several contacts to help you find your subject. TELEPHONE TRACKER tracks down the owner of a telephone number. You must enter the phone number and either the area code or the city/state. If a match is found, you may look at a profile of that individual/residence and a listing of up to 10 neighbors. PERSON LOCATOR helps you locate a person when specific address information is unavailable. Enter the person's name and indicate whether you wish to conduct a search by city, state(s), zip or nationwide* PERSON LOCATOR will compile a list of names (up to 300 names for nationwide and up to 100 names for individual state searches) that match the information entered. When you find the right name, you may request a profile and neighbor listing for that individual. PEOPLE FINDER MULTITRACK helps you locate multiple people during one search. Search results are available the following business day. For each of your subjects, enter the name and indicate the geographic area you wish to search -- nationwide*, multi state, state, city or zip. You may enter up to 25 names per search. Sign off the system and let Information America do the work for you. The following business day, log on to Information America and access the People Finder Menu by entering PF at the Information America Beginning Menu. From the People Finder Menu, you may view the results of People Finder MultiTrack by entering RR (Review People Finder MultiTrack). REVIEW PEOPLE FINDER MULTITRACK allows you to review the status of each of the searches you requested. You may choose to view the results of each completed search at this time. Search results will be stored for seven days from the day you requested the search. You may review the search results at any time during the seven-day time period through the Review People Finder MultiTrack option. Search results include a summary listing of names that match the information entered (up to 300 names for nationwide and up to 100 names for individual state searches). From the summary, you may select individual profiles and neighbor listings. * Nationwide search is not available for specific common surnames. For a list of these surnames, enter #92 View Common Names (VC), from the People Finder Menu. -------------------------[ People Finder Menu ]------------------------- INFORMATION AMERICA NETWORK P E O P L E F I N D E R (Copyright 1991, Information America, Inc.) Client Billing Code: 123456 1. Person Locator (PL) (Search by name & location) 2. Skip Tracer (ST) (Search by name & last known address) 3. Telephone Tracker (TT) (Search by telephone number) 4. People Finder MultiTrack (PX) (Multiple searches by name & location with results available next business day) 5. Review People Finder MultiTrack Results (RR) 70. Revise Client Billing Code (BC) 75. Help Screen (?) 92. View Common Names (VC) 95. Description of Service (DES) 99. Go to Beginning Menu (BEG) OFF Exit off the System (OFF) -------------------------[ People Finder Menu ]------------------------- If People Finder locates your subject, a profile containing the following information can be displayed: Name Usually first and last name of head of household. Address Street or route, city, state, and ZIP. * The following fields will display only if the information is available. * Phone Number Current phone number, if listed in the phone book. Approx. Birth Date Birth date of the individual listed in the Name field. (May be an approximation.) Gender (FEMALE, MALE, UNKNOWN) Refers to person in Name field. Length of Residence Number of consecutive years this person has appeared at this address. Residence Type Number of last names found at this address. (Useful in identifying multi-family residences.) Can be single, double, triple, quad, 5-9 units, 10-19 units, 20-49 units, 50-100 units, 100+ units. Additional Household Names and approximate birth dates of up to 4 Members individuals residing at this address and having the same last name as person listed in Name field. (Usually taken from birth records.) People Finder: A Sample Search ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ ------------------------[ People Finder Search ]------------------------ Last Name: public First Name: jane Enter City or ZIP code. City: ANYTOWN ZIP Code: 90210 Searching... INFORMATION AMERICA NETWORK--PEOPLE FINDER Name Searched: PUBLIC JANE PERSON LOCATOR Last Name Summary No. First Name Street City/State ZIP Phone No. --- ------------ ---------------------- ---------------- ----- ------------ 1 JANE 27 AVENIDA AVE ANYTOWN CA 90210 213-727-8023 * 2 JOHN 69 CALLE DE LOS PUTOS ANYTOWN CA 90211 213-000-0000 * PUBLIC JANE has been found as an additional household member. Searching... INFORMATION AMERICA NETWORK--PEOPLE FINDER - Detail Name Searched: PUBLIC JANE PERSON LOCATOR Resident Profile Name: JANE PUBLIC Address: 27 AVENIDA AVE ANYTOWN, CA 90210 Approximate Date of Birth: 10/66 Gender: FEMALE Length of Residence: 3 YEARS Residence Type: SINGLE **** Additional Household Names **** Name Approximate Date of Birth MICHAEL 04/68 Searching... INFORMATION AMERICA NETWORK--PEOPLE FINDER - Detail Name Searched: PUBLIC JANE PERSON LOCATOR Neighbor Listing Resident: JANE PUBLIC Address: 27 AVENIDA AVE ANYTOWN, CA 90210 Residence Name Phone# Address Length(yrs)/Type ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WILLIAM PRESTON (818) 727-8125 12 BOGUS AVE 12 SINGLE THEODORE LOGAN (818) 725-8643 17 BOGUS AVE 04 DOUBLE KRIS APPLEGATE (818) 685-2112 19 BOGUS AVE 03 TRIPLE MARTIN MCFLY (818) 727-0353 26 BOGUS AVE 23 SINGLE STAN CISNEROS (818) 727-4973 30 BOGUS AVE 16 SINGLE LUCY BYRNE (818) 727-8765 33 BOGUS AVE 10 SINGLE JONATHAN DEPP (818) 725-2012 35 BOGUS AVE 06 SINGLE ------------------------[ People Finder Search ]------------------------ Notes on People Finder ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~ IA is only as accurate as public records reflect. People who move frequently or move from apartment to apartment (students, for instance) are either not likely to be found in IA, or the information IA provides is likely to be out-dated. In one search we performed, IA concluded that our subject had lived at his residence for 3 years when, in fact, the subject had been living there for over 15 years. Unlisted telephone numbers are frequently available through IA if, for example, your subject's unlisted number has appeared in a City Directory. Curiously, information seems to be disappearing from IA, in some cases. A year ago, White Knight and I looked up a celebrity's address and telephone number, both of which IA correctly found. When we performed the same search recently, IA failed to find the celebrity in its records. Searches on other individuals which once listed their unlisted telephone numbers now yield "000-0000". We have no explanation for why this seems to have happened. Overview of IA's other options ~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ SLEUTH ====== By creating a list of affiliated names -- "clues" -- Sleuth helps you uncover relationships between businesses and individuals. Enter a name and check official records from up to 49 government agencies. CONTENTS: Over 100 searches* combined in one... from these services: State UCC/lien filings in: CA,CO,IL,IA,MD,MA,MO,NE,NC,PA,SC,TX Corp/LP records in above states, PLUS: AZ,CT,DE,GA,IN,MI,NV,OK,OR,UT,WI Sales and Use Tax information in: CA, TX County Assumed/Fictitious Names from: Los Angeles, San Francisco (CA) Dallas, Harris (TX) County UCC filings from: Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, Gwinnett (GA) Dallas, Harris (TX) LITIGATION PREP ========== ==== CONTENTS: State Corporate & Limited Partnership Information from: Arizona*, California, Colorado, Connecticut*, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois*, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina*, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin (* indicates Limited Partnership information is not available from these states). Searches include the following, where available: Business Names, Owner Names, Prior Names, Assumed Names, Fictitious Owner Names, Trade Names, DBA Names, and Merged Out/Consolidated Names GENERAL DESCRIPTION: Litigation Prep allows you to simultaneously search state corporate and limited partnership information and county-filed fictitious business and assumed names, to assist you in obtaining the details you need to begin preparing a lawsuit. HOW THIS SERVICE WILL HELP YOU: Litigation Prep is designed to help litigation professionals when gathering information to file a lawsuit. This service provides the researcher with valuable pieces of information, such as business name, agent name and address, principal address, type and status. Good Standing/Existence Status is also available in the following states: AZ, CT, DE, GA, IL, IN, IA, MA, MI, MO, NE, NC, OK, OR, PA, SC, TX, UT, WA, and WI. CONTENTS/SOURCES: Below, you will find the informational contents searched in each state. Inactive records are included for informational purposes. Unless otherwise specified, files are updated weekly. HOURS: Litigation Prep is available Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM Eastern Time. The FLORIDA component of the service is only available >from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM Eastern Time, Monday through Friday. CORPORATE GLOBAL, CORPORATE & LIMITED PARTNERSHIPS ========= ====== ========= = ======= ============ CONTENTS: State Corporate & Limited Partnership Records from: AZ*, CA, CO, CT*, DE, FL, GA, IL*, IN, IA, MD, MA, MI, MO, NE, NV, NC*, OK, OR, PA, SC, TX, UT, WA, and WI (* indicates Limited Partnership Records are not available from these states). States included in the Officer/Partner Name search: CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, MA, MI, MO, NV, OR, PA, TX, and UT. State Corporate and Limited Partnership Records are available in many key states. A complete listing of states and the information provided by state is available on the following screens. Records are accessible one state at a time or all at once (CORPORATE GLOBAL). When you conduct a CORPORATE GLOBAL name search, an Index screen will list in which states matches have been found. You can either review all matches, or select specific states to view. From the CORPORATE GLOBAL menu, you have the following search capabilities: Business Name - Includes all entities available in the online state corporate & limited partnership files. Officer/Partner Name - Information varies by state, but may include officers, directors, incorporators and partners. Note: Individual states offer additional options such as a search by Corporate ID (Charter) Number or Registered Agent Name. SOURCE & UPDATE INFORMATION: State Corporate & Limited Partnership files are obtained from the official state agency. Records searched vary from state to state. For the exact types searched by state, see the following screens. Inactive records are included for informational purposes. Files are updated weekly unless noted in each specific state description. In California and Texas, there is a unique search option called BUSINESS LOCATOR. In California, this option searches the Board of Equalization (BOE), Licensing and Taxation Information which is the official governing source of California Sales and Use Tax permit holders. This information is available only from the California menu and is not included in the Global service. The file is updated monthly. In Texas, this option searches the Sales & Use Tax Taxpayer Information file, which is comprised of the official record of the Office of the Comptroller of Public Accounts. As in California, this information is available only from the Texas menu and is not included in the Global service. The file is updated by Information America weekly. STATE & COUNTY UCCs ===== = ====== ==== CONTENTS: State UCC and lien filings from: California*, Colorado*, Florida, Illinois, Iowa*, Maryland, Massachusetts*, Missouri, Nebraska*, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas*. (* indicates Lien filings available from these states) County UCC, lien, and judgment filings from: California: Los Angeles and San Francisco counties Georgia: Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties Texas: Dallas Metroplex and Harris county GENERAL DESCRIPTION: State & County UCCs, Liens and Judgments allows you to search state UCC and lien filings, plus county UCC, lien and judgment filings. HOW THIS SERVICE WILL HELP YOU: State & County UCCs, Liens and Judgments may be used by anyone who is looking for information on outstanding UCCs, liens or judgments on an individual or business, as well as assets or financial obligations. For example, litigators, real estate specialists, and merger and acquisition specialists may use this service to assist them in the following ways: Litigators: ** Obtain financial information on prospective clients ** Help determine the outstanding obligations of the opposing party which could impact the client's ability to seize assets ** Help determine the financial relationships between the opposing party and other entities ** Help determine if the debts and obligations of the opposing party are a possible motive for filing suit Real Estate Specialists: ** Conduct a cursory look at the beginning of the transaction to help determine the existence of filings which could cloud title ** Help determine if the seller has outstanding tax liens filed against him/her ** Help determine whether any personal property involved with the transaction has a prior security interest Merger and Acquisition Specialists: ** Help determine financial standing of a firm or a principal of the firm and identify outstanding obligations ** Help determine the financial relationships the firm or principal has with other entities ** Determine personal property owned by the firm or principal that is being used to secure loans ** Conduct a final check before closing to help confirm that no new matters have been filed which could adversely affect the transaction SEARCH RESULTS: Searches by Name will retrieve matches of the name searched in the following: From the state UCC and lien files - debtor names From the county UCC, lien and judgment files - California: grantors Georgia: grantors, taxpayers, debtors, and defendants Texas: all parties (in Dallas Metroplex); grantors and grantees (from Abstracts of Judgment only), and debtors (in Harris County) PLEASE NOTE: Searches of debtors in Florida will retrieve only active filings. The option to view Florida's inactive files is offered, at no additional charge, when you select either E (=Exit) or N (=New Search) from the summary screen or last page of a detail report. HOURS: State & County UCCs, Liens and Judgments is available Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM EST. The FLORIDA component of the service is only available from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM EST, Monday through Friday. STATE UCC & LIEN FILINGS ===== === = ==== ======= GENERAL DESCRIPTION: STATE UCC & LIEN FILINGS allows you to simultaneously search UCC and lien filings in all of the states that Information America has on-line or you may search filings in a specific state. Our UCC service includes documents filed under the Uniform Commercial Code in the following states: California Colorado Florida Illinois Iowa Maryland Massachusetts Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Pennsylvania South Carolina Texas Additionally, the following liens are included: California: Federal and state tax liens, attachment liens and judgment liens. Colorado: Federal tax liens and judgment liens. Iowa: Federal tax liens, Verified liens and Thresherman's liens. Massachusetts: State tax liens and child support liens. Nebraska: Agricultural input liens, consumer liens, and statutory liens. Texas: Federal tax liens, utility security instruments, and farm filings. SOURCE: Data is obtained directly from the official state sources: The Secretary of State in California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas; the Department of State in both Florida and Pennsylvania; and the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation. SEARCH RESULTS: Unless indicated otherwise, a debtor name search will reveal listings of active and inactive debtors that match the name being searched. A secured party/assignee search will result in a list of matching active and inactive secured parties and assignees. Instrument numbers can be searched only in an individual state. In FLORIDA, a debtor or secured party search will reveal only active filings. The option to search Florida's inactive files is offered, at no additional charge, at the end of a detail report for an active Florida UCC. In MASSACHUSETTS, a secured party search will locate secured parties and, if the UCC has been assigned, assignors; it will not locate assignees since they are not included in the database. HOURS: STATE UCC & LIEN FILINGS is available Monday through Friday, from 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM EST. The FLORIDA component of the service is only available >from 8:30 AM to 7:00 PM EST, Monday through Friday. COUNTY COURT RECORDS ====== ===== ======= Information America provides online access to local court records from four states. California - Records are available from Los Angeles, Orange and San Francisco counties. Real Property Asset Locator is available for the entire state. Georgia - The Atlanta metro area is online. It includes Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties. Pennsylvania - Records are available for Philadelphia county. Texas - Records are available for the Dallas/Fort Worth metro area, which includes Collin, Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant counties. Records are also available for Harris County (Houston). Records vary from county to county, but may include Abstracts of Judgment, Assumed Names, Civil Suits, County UCCs, General Execution Dockets, Limited Partnerships, Lis Pendens, Probate and Domestic Suits, Real Property Filings, Tax Liens and Trade Name Index. The Court Record menus specify the records available in each county. LAWSUITS ======== LAWSUITS EFFECTIVE DATE INFORMATION File Source Begin Through ------------------------- --------------------- --------- -------- CALIFORNIA Los Angeles County County Clerk 01-01-80 12-31-91 Civil (Superior) Domestic (Superior) Probate (Superior) Criminal (Superior) 01-01-80 12-31-91 Orange County County Clerk 01-01-85 12-13-91 Civil (Superior) Family Law (Superior) San Mateo County County Clerk 01-01-84 11-09-91 Civil (Superior) CALIFORNIA Santa Clara County County Clerk 01-01-85 12-04-91 Civil (Superior & Municipal) Probate (Superior) Criminal (Superior) Family Law (Superior) Contra Costa County County Clerk 01-02-80 11-30-91 Civil (Superior) Probate (Superior) Family Law (Superior) Wills 01-02-90 11-30-91 San Diego County County Clerk 06-18-74 01-16-92 Civil (Superior) GEORGIA Cobb Civil (Superior) County Clerk 1982 01-17-92 DeKalb Civil (Superior) County Clerk 1981 01-15-92 Fulton Civil (Superior) County Clerk 1980 12-26-91 Gwinnett Civil (Sup/State) County Clerk 1990 01-18-92 ILLINOIS Cook Civil Law Division Clerk of Circuit Court 01-01-75 12-16-91 All Districts (Circuit) Cook Civil Municipal Clerk of Circuit Court 01-01-85 12-16-91 Division 1st District- Chicago- (Circuit) NEW JERSEY* Civil Law Division Clerk of Superior Court 01-01-88 SEE BELOW Atlantic 12-09-91 Bergen 11-19-91 Burlington 12-03-91 Camden 11-20-91 Cape May 12-05-91 Cumberland 10-18-91 Essex 12-04-91 Gloucester 12-09-91 Hudson 12-06-91 Hunterdon 12-10-91 Mercer 10-17-91 Middlesex 12-06-91 Monmouth 11-08-91 Morris 12-05-91 Ocean 12-04-91 Passaic 12-04-91 Salem 12-09-91 Somerset 11-22-91 Sussex 11-25-91 Union 12-02-91 Warren 12-02-91 *New Jersey Superior Court Civil Lawsuit information is collected for Information America. Extreme care is exercised in gathering this information. However, it is not the official legal reporting organ of the New Jersey Superior Court. Information pertaining to civil action arising from automobile accident claims, forfeiture, condemnation and name change litigation is not collected and is not contained in this file. NEW YORK New York (Supreme) & Office of Court *** 01-13-92 Suffolk County (County) Administration *** The beginning dates for New York County's Supreme Civil Court and Suffolk County Civil Court cases vary from county to county and are listed below. The "Current Through" date represents the date the Office of Court Administration last compiled the information for Information America. Bronx 11-1985 Nassau 02-1978 Queens 12-1985 Dutchess 08-1985 New York 11-1985 Rockland 09-1985 Erie 11-1985 Orange 08-1985 Suffolk 03-1983 Kings 11-1985 Putnam 08-1985 Westchester 01-1981 PENNSYLVANIA Philadelphia Civil Office of Prothonotary 01-1982 01-11-92 (Common Pleas) TEXAS Dallas Civil (District) County District Court 01-01-70 01-10-92 REAL PROPERTY ASSET LOCATOR ==== ======== ===== ======= Real Property Asset Locator integrates information from several sources to help users identify and estimate the value of real assets or identify the owner of a particular piece of property. The information, which is collected for Information America, is comprised of the tax assessor's official roll in each county. Additional information is obtained from private source databases to enhance tax roll information. Real Property Asset Locator provides four ways to search. 1. Asset Locator -- Discover the property owned by an individual or business by entering the name. You may conduct a global, statewide, metro area, county or city (where taxes are assessed at municipal level) search. 2. Ownership Locator -- Discover the identity of the property owner by entering the address of the property in question. 3. Property of Comparable Value -- Estimate value of real property based on sales of similar real property in the given geographic area. 4. Assessor's Parcel Number -- Discover the identity of the property owner by entering the Assessor's Parcel Number of the property in question. Real Property Asset Locator is available in Arizona, California, Washington DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia. REAL PROPERTY ASSET TRANSFERS ==== ======== ===== ========= Real Property Asset Transfers integrates information from several sources to help you identify recent real property ownership transfers. Use Real Property Asset Transfers to help confirm that your party still owns a particular piece of property or has recently acquired new property. Real Property Asset Transfers provides two ways to search. 1. Asset Transfers--Discover the property acquired or sold by an individual or business by entering the name. You may conduct a statewide, metro area or county search. 2. Ownership Transfers--Discover the identity of the seller and buyer of a particular piece of real property by entering the address of the property in question. Real Property Asset Transfers information, which is collected for Information America, is derived from deed transfers maintained by county recorders' offices in each county. However, it is not the official legal reporting organ of the county recorders' offices. Real Property Asset Transfers is available in select counties in Arizona, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington. EXECUTIVE AFFILIATION ========= =========== CONTENTS: Over 30 million executives nationwide. One search will display companies nationwide where an individual is listed as an executive. Two types of reports may be available: the Executive Profile and the Executive Brief. The Executive Profile is derived from information gathered by American Business Information, Inc (ABI). ABI compiles business listings from the yellow pages of 5,000 telephone directories. Telephone calls to every business are then conducted to collect the executive name and title. The Executive Brief is derived from Corporate and Limited Partnership Records filed in the following states: AZ,CA,CO,CT,FL, GA,IL,IN,IA,MD,MA,MI,MO,NE,NV,NC,OK,OR,PA,SC,TX,UT,WA,WI. NOTE: Delaware Records are not included. Executive Affiliation is invaluable when you need to know the business affiliations of an adverse party. When you enter an executive's name, reports on over 30 million executives nationwide are searched. You will receive a Summary Screen with a concise listing of where your selected individual is listed as an executive. The detail report for each affiliation will be either an Executive Brief or an Executive Profile. The Executive Profile is derived from yellow page listings of 5,000 telephone directories nationwide. The listings are individually verified to collect the name of the top executive at that location and their title. The information report may include this information in addition to the business address, telephone number, SIC code, and type of business. The titles for which an Executive Profile may be available include: President, Vice President, Chairman of the Board, Owner, Executive Director, Manager, Administrator, Principal, Publisher, Pastor, and Rabbi. The Executive Brief is derived from Corporate and Limited Partnership Records filed in the following states: AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, IN, IA, MD, MA, MI, MO, NE, NC, NV, OK, OR, PA, SC, TX, UT, WA, & WI. (NOTE: Delaware Records are not included. Florida Records are available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST.) The second line in the detail heading will list from which state Corporate/LP Record the information is obtained. The information report may include executive name, title, address, business name and address, as well as other executives' names, titles, and addresses associated with that business. Executive Briefs may be available for Officers, Partners, Agents, and Incorporators. USE EXECUTIVE AFFILIATION TO: * Learn about an adverse party's business affiliations as part of background checking. * Verify names and addresses for pleadings and depositions. * Uncover an executive's involvement in different businesses throughout the country to determine possible transfer of assets, or other companies to be named in a suit. * Obtain background information on an executive as a crucial part of performing due diligence. * Explore possible conflicts of interest by looking for an executive's involvement with other companies. * Check on the business affiliations of a prospective client. BUSINESS FINDER ======== ====== SOURCE: American Business Information, Inc. CONTENTS: Over 14 million U.S. and 1.7 million Canadian business listings compiled from the yellow pages of nearly 5,000 telephone directories. Contains over 9.5 million separate companies and 2 million professionals. UPDATES: ABI continuously revises the information in the file, and updates the data from available telephone directories within six months after publication of the directory. Information America receives quarterly updates from ABI. BUSINESS NEWS ======== ==== SOURCE: Comtex Scientific Corporation CONTENTS: News stories from major national and international newswires, such as UPI, Kyodo, and TASS, press releases, and other various sources. Stories are available from November 1989. UPDATES: Twice Daily Business News allows you to gather articles from major national and international newswires either by name, ticker symbol, industry or topic. Business News industry categories include: 1. Advertising (AD) 19. Electronics (EL) 37. Photography (PO) 2. Aerospace (AE) 20. Entertainment (EN) 38. Plastics (PL) 3. Agriculture (AG) 21. Environmental Srv (ES) 39. Prec Metals (PM) 4. Autos (AU) 22. Financial Srv (FS) 40. Publishing (PB) 5. Aviation (AV) 23. Food (FD) 41. Railroads (RR) 6. Banking (BK) 24. Forestry Prod (FP) 42. Real Estate (RE) 7. Beverages (BV) 25. Freight (FR) 43. Restaurant (RT) 8. Biotechnology (BI) 26. Health Care (HC) 44. Retail (RL) 9. Broadcasting (BR) 27. Industrial Prod (IP) 45. Rubber (RB) 10. Bldg Materials (BM) 28. Insurance (IN) 46. Ship Building (SB) 11. Business Srv (BS) 29. Machinery (MA) 47. Telecommun (TL) 12. Chemicals (CH) 30. Metals (ME) 48. Textiles (TX) 13. Computers (CM) 31. Mining (MI) 49. Tobacco (TB) 14. Construction (CN) 32. Nuclear Energy (NE) 50. Toys (TY) 15. Consumer Prod (CP) 33. Office Equipment (OE) 51. Travel Srv (TR) 16. Defense Contrt (DC) 34. Personal Care (PC) 52. Trucks (TK) 17. Education Srv (ED) 35. Petroleum Prod (PT) 53. Utilities (UT) 18. Electronic Publ (EP) 36. Pharmaceuticals (PH) BANKRUPTCY RECORDS ========== ======= SOURCE: The Bankruptcy Records are compiled for Information America from the official records at the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts. These records contain all publicly available cases filed in the following states: California, Georgia - Northern District (Atlanta and Gainesville only), New Jersey, Pennsylvania - Eastern District, and Texas. CONTENTS: Bankruptcy records for both individuals and businesses are available. The records include debtor names, case number, location and date of filing, chapter number and more. UPDATED: Weekly (California, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas) Bi-weekly (New Jersey) You may select bankruptcy records by debtor name, social security/FEIN number or by case number. SEC FILINGS === ======= SOURCE: SEC Online, Inc. CONTENTS: Full text documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by public companies traded on the New York and American Stock Exchanges as well as selected National Market System companies from NASDAQ. The documents available online - 10-Ks, 10-Qs, Annual Reports, Proxy Statements, and foreign company 20-Fs - contain all footnotes and selected exhibits. A Company Profile is also included that summarizes basic corporate information. EFFECTIVE DATE: Information current from 07-01-2020. UPDATES: Information America receives updates weekly from SEC Online. Searches may be performed by company name or ticker symbol. Notes on Information America ~~~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~ We mentioned that usernames beginning with "BIDA" are recognizable to the IA system as IA accounts (as opposed to shell accounts). More than likely, other usernames are also valid as IA accounts. As with most systems, IA passwords are often easy to guess. Initial passwords, which are assigned when an account is first created, are usually composed of the account holder's first name, or first name plus a middle or last initial. In some cases, the password is made up of the digits in the username plus the first name of the account holder. In other cases, the password is two random letters plus a two-digit number (ex: PG13). If users are ever encouraged to change their password from its initial value, they rarely seem to do so. You've probably noticed that IA has specific operating times (Eastern Standard Time). Most of IA's functions are inoperable during weekends and holidays and outside those specific operating hours. Occasionally on weekends, IA itself is down. Or more interestingly -- particularly on weekends -- the IA interactive environment will malfunction, dropping you into the VAX shell. IA's clients are mostly lawyers and paralegals working at legal firms, but the FBI is also a major IA client. Television programs in the 60s and 70s which depicted an FBI "Big Brother" computer system scared the public enough so that it and the Congress have continually resisted efforts by the FBI to implement such a system. In the mid 80s, for example, Congress voted against the implementation of an FBI computer system which would allow them to monitor telephone calls. Information America is the perfect solution for the FBI's bureaucratic quandary. IA has existed for at least two and a half years, but has remained relatively unknown to the Telecom community until last year when MoD began using IA's People Finder to locate and terrorize people. IA's low profile isn't surprising; public backlash against Lotus' "MarketPlace" CD ROM -- which contained marketing information on only a few million people at most -- forced Lotus to abandon its project altogether after having invested tens of thousands of dollars in advertising alone, just as it was about to release MarketPlace. What Lotus was doing wasn't unusual; large direct marketing firms, like National Demographics & Lifestyles (NDL) have been somewhat covertly marketing consumer names and information on CD ROM for years (with information such as how many telephones you have; the approximate ages of your household's members; the gender of the household head; the number and type of cars your household has; what the mortgage value on your house is; estimated incomes for the heads of the household, etc...). The difference was that Lotus was offering their CD ROM commercially so that anybody could, as the public claimed, have the power of "Big Brother" at their fingertips. If the public knew about Information America, knew that anyone could tap its eye-spy capabilities, the outrage would be tremendous. To market its database services, IA seems to have adopted a grass-roots kind of approach. IA employs liaisons in major metropolitan cities whose job it is to research and contact prospective clients -- lawyers, for example. We are unaware of any advertising in specialized journals. We take for granted the existence of government-run databases which contain even more detailed information on Americans than IA possesses. Even so, those databases are considerably smaller, and what's more, they're well-regulated: the agencies that run them accountable by Law. The potential for abuse by a system like Information America -- devoid of any checks and balances -- is spectacular. MoD has already demonstrated this to a small extent. The same technology advances which were supposed to make at-home shopping a convenience and tailor marketing to your needs have now made surveilling you cost-effective, accurate and as easy as touching a key. One of the least reported items to come to light out of the Iran/Contra proceedings was that, as head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) -- the organization which coordinates relief efforts across the United States during natural disasters -- Oliver North had drawn up FEMA contingency plans of a different sort: in the event of war in Central America, the Constitution was to be suspended and FEMA was to round up aliens (particularly Hispanics) and US Citizens considered "subversive," and interrogate them in Manzanar-like camps. Databases like Information America would no doubt have been employed in locating the whereabouts of these people. The importance of Information America isn't what it can do for you; rather, what can be done with it to you. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - White Knight and I can be reached at WKnight@ATDT.ORG and Omega@ATDT.ORG, respectively. Additionally, we may be reached on Demon Roach Underground or Pure Nihilism. We welcome any questions or comments you may have -- especially any new information you may be able to add. Please do not contact us asking for accounts or passwords. _______________________________________________________________________________ _____ BEATING THE RADAR RAP _____ / / \ / / \ ( 5/5 ) Part 1 of 2 : "Your Day in Court" ( 5/5 ) \_/___/ \_/___/ by Dispater ______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Introduction | Welcome to the first of two parts in a series designed to |______________| inform you about some of the aspects (both legal and technical) concerning traffic radar. The second part will appear in Phrack 38. I recommend you read both parts before attempting to apply the information you learn from this file. Any hacker will tell you to ALWAYS find out as much as you possibly can about any endeavor and weigh the risks before you act. For most of us driving is something that we must do in order to have a career, get to school, and enjoy ourselves. Therefore it is essential to know the rules of the road and to know what will happen to you when you make a mistake. For the majority of us, this mistake means being given a speeding ticket or some type of moving violation. This file will explain how to handle the situation should you ever need to go to court over a speeding ticket. I intend to provide you with a basic background so that the odds are a little more even. One of the nasty things about traffic court is that for some reason, the burden of proof has flip-flopped from the state having to prove you are guilty (the way it is supposed to be) to the defendant having to prove that he/she is innocent. First of all you are not alone in your quest to seek justice. Most judges are not evil and hateful. If you come into court, neatly dressed (not fancy, just look like a "semi-normal" person.), well informed of the issue, courteous, and acting a little humbled by the experience, the judge may lean a little more to your side. If you go to court, you will see a number of idiots who will stand up in front of the judge and argue or say "I wasn't doin' nothin'. I was just bein' harassed. I'm right and this pig was wrong. Nyah!" Obviously, the judge will not take kindly to this type of behavior. Would you? In order to be informed, I HIGHLY recommend that you get in touch with the: National Motorists Association Membership: $20 student 6678 Pertzborn Rd. per year $35 everyone else Dane, WI 53529 Phone : 1-800-882-2785 The NMA provides a great deal of resources to those of use who drive. They provide (with membership) a legal resource kit for a rental fee of around $20.00 a month. This kit consists of 2 video tapes, 2 books, and a HUGE stack of information. Much of the "HUGE stack of information" consists of precedent cases in which the defense won, ALL radar gun manuals, lots of related news articles, error analysis information on vascar and other useful tidbits of information. It is excellent and I urge anyone who drives to get involved. The NMA, among other things, is the nice name for the "anti-55 people." They claim that it is up to the local governments and states to come up with their own speed limits. It's not Washington's job to tell the rest of us how to live! The last thing I want to mention is that this is NOT a comprehensive file. Reading this will NOT make you a lawyer. If you can afford a lawyer, hire one. It is intended for people like me who can't afford a lawyer but who have some intelligence and guile in their personal make up. There's more than one way to skin a cat (cop) and you should NOT take this as a word for word way to proceed if you get nabbed for speeding. I intend for this to be the basis for building a good foundation for a case and to give you some ideas on how you might want to proceed. Do not go into the court room half-cocked. A good lawyer always knows the outcome of a case before he steps into the court room. ______________________________________________________________________________ | | | You Get Busted! | So the red lights are blinking behind you and your radar |_________________| detector is going wild because you weren't paying attention because you were too busy messing with the radio and jamming to MC 900' Jesus so loudly that it shakes the widows of the car next to you. The first thing you want to do is pull over immediately! Don't try to be an bad ass and out run them. In most cases the cop's car can go faster than yours and besides, he has a radio. After you pull over, just hand him what ever he asks for and play in his desire to be "in control". Always say, "Yes sir" and "No sir" They LOVE that. Be as NICE as you can. Act "humbled". I know this may sound difficult but just TRY. ALL and I mean ALL people that become law enforcement officials have taken that job because they have some personality disorder that they NEED to feel in control of others and a NEED for others to respect them. This is a weakness in their personality, in my opinion. Anyway, If he just had a good round of golf that day, he may only write you a warning. If he still insists on writing you a ticket, he will at least know that you will not be a threat to him. ALL police officers, especially in large urban areas, will always approach your car as though you are going to shoot them. Make the officer thinks you are nice person (for the moment) and that your just weren't paying attention and you made a mistake. Again, as soon as you prove to him you are not a threat, he will relax and things will go much easier for you. I ALWAYS do this and the officer is actually NICE back to me most of the time. Even though his first impression is "long haired kid in a hot rod car wearing a Metallica shirt," the encounter usually ends with a "Have a nice day." or a "Just make sure you be careful now. ok?" NOTE: If you are pulled over by a bull-dyke female cop, you are totally fucked. Social engineering is totally useless. ALL and I mean ALL bitch cops are just looking to prove something. They have a bad attitude because the "old boy" network back at the station doesn't like them and they think that most males will look on them as less of an authority figure merely because they are female, if they do not compensate (overcompensate) for the fact that they are women. They think that they will be challenged more often than not by you. I have yet to ever meet a NICE female cop. Lets face it, if they were NICE they would probably be an attorney or something. If you are women police officer reading this and you are not like what I have just described in the above paragraph then just ignore it and tell your cohorts to adjust the attitude! Continuing on...As you are sitting there with everyone slowing down to take a look at you, make note of EVERYTHING! Write down the following: 1) Location (intersections, curves, condition of the road) 2) Weather (rain, fog, snow : all hinder traffic radar) 3) Traffic and all types of vehicles present (large trucks?) 4) Time (rush hour?) 5) Buildings present (airport? radio station? bank? microwave towers? power lines? hospital? telephone office?) 6) Officer's attitude (if he's angry this will play in your favor later) 7) Etc (anything else I failed to list here) _____________________________________________________________________________ | | | Your Ticket and Pre-Trial Experiences | So. Now in your possession you have |_______________________________________| a little gift from whomever had a bad day at work. The first thing you will want to do is make sure that all the information on the ticket is correct. If it is not, make sure that you take note of this and be sure to mention it as soon as your trial begins! You might be able to get off on a technicality. Another thing to check for is to make sure that the officer didn't write any little messages to the judge on the back of the ticket. If he wrote "radar detector." or some other irrelevant evidence, make sure you point out to the judge that that the speeding ticket is inadmissible as evidence in court due to the fact that it contains information that does not pertain to the case. The idea behind this is that most people that are caught speeding have radar detectors. Therefore, the cop will try to play on this fact in an indirect way. Even though this evidence is irrelevant, he will attempt to submit it. If the judge is cool, you'll get off on a technicality. Other ways to get off on technicalities is to make sure that EVERY tidbit of information is CORRECT. Incorrect information is a great way to get off. This is a "procedural error" and might get the case dismissed. Continuing on.... Ok, so the ticket says you have to appear in court December 21st at 4:00. All this means is that if you wish to pay the ticket you must do so by this time and date. This does not usually mean you will actually go to court on this date. What you do next is go to the clerk's office and hand the lady behind the counter the ticket and say that you wish to contest it. They will set up a date (usually much later in the year sometimes a YEAR LATER if things are really backed up) and give you a piece of paper that you must bring to court with you. I highly suggest to everyone to ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS contest a ticket. Hell, you have to pay court fees whether you show up or not so you might as well go, right? The point is to make them work for your money! One good plan of action is to go to court a few weeks ahead of time and observe how proceedings work in your local court room. Just tell the bailiff that you are a criminal justice major and want to see how traffic court works and observe what REALLY goes on instead of reading it in a text book. If you are really clever, you might just want to ask one of the cops if you can go out and watch how police officers bust people speeding. Use the oldest, most classic social engineering maneuver ever invented, "It's for a paper for class." Let them think you are interested in becoming a cop. I don't care what they do or who they are, if someone comes up to them and appears to take interest in their profession, they will always be flattered. Always flatter the hell out of anyone you want to engineer! The first thing you want to do before actually going to court yourself, is to not go to court. About a week before the trial or less, call the clerk's office and ask for a "continuance." Tell them that your boss told you that you have to go out of town the day of the trial and they will schedule you a new trail date. This is important because most police officers are less willing to show up. Thus if he's not there to prosecute you, you get off! _____________________________________________________________________________ | | | Here come de Judge! Here come de Judge! | Ok, so you're now sitting there |__________________________________________| in the presence of the other poor idiots that are in a similar predicament as you are. As you are sitting there sweating your ass off (being this is your first time in court, hopefully) Make sure you make note of other people's cases. What do the officers say when someone mentions traffic radar? See above above paragraph about testing the water a little. I have obtained a ton of information on how departments REALLY operate when they know I'm not there to pressure them. Use the lame statements the officers make against other officers and the rest of the department, when it's your turn. One time, before it was my turn I watched this one cop say, "The radar units are calibrated by the manufacturer and sent to us." Needless to say, I won that case! Now the bailiff calls out, STATE OF TEXAS v. MR. OFFENDER! By this time you should know the routine. As soon as the judge opens things up to you ask him/her if you can examine the witness. They will say, "yes." Here is where you begin to make your case. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS : "What?!?!?!" This is what the cop has going on inside his head right now. You are no longer the innocent fool you appeared to be in your car? He immediately raises his guard and you must lower it my placing a few questions to him and wearing him down. This part of the questioning is done to see if he can remember the exact circumstances under which he pulled you over and to get him used to you taking control of the interrogation. A. What type of radar were you using on the date the citation was issued? - Make sure he gives you the model name and number. Answers like "traffic radar or Doppler radar" should not be permitted. B. Please relate the facts concerning the citation as you remember them. - Make note if anything differs from what you remember to be true. C. Was your audio doppler engaged at the time the citation was issued? - If he says he doesn't know what that is, he hasn't been trained! The hand held units. (Speedgun series don't have audio doppler!) This is a good question to trip him up on! If he says he had it engaged, merely whip out the manual and ask him if to point out where the heck it is. OR you can ask to subpoena the unit to court and ask him to find it! D. What speed was your audio alarm set for? - If he says he doesn't know what that is, he hasn't been trained! E. Was your automatic speed lock engaged? - If yes, you have already started to build your case that they made an error. If not then keep going. F. Were you stationary or moving at the time your radar unit's alarm went off? - Who cares unless you want to go off and provide some kind of "cosine-error" evidence later. G. Was I coming toward you or away from you? - Again, this doesn't matter H. Did you see me prior to the time your radar's audio alarm went off? - This is important, you are in effect asking him if he took a traffic history before he set up camp behind the bushes waiting to pop people. I. Could you estimate my speed? Irrelevant J. What was the apparent speed? Irrelevant K. How many seconds did it take you to react between the time you first saw my vehicle and the time your audio alarm sounded? - This doesn't matter, unless it was a case of you coming around a curve or over a hill and old Smokey is there waiting to bust the first thing that makes his little machine go beep. He must have tracked you long enough to get a good reading. This should be about 5-8 seconds to take into account spurious readings. If he didn't wait that long he is ignoring his training. L. Using this paper could you make a map of the area? - Most of the time to police officer will be unable to remember details of the surroundings since he hands out many tickets a day. This is a good place to establish doubt. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ESTABLISH THE OFFICER'S LEVEL OF QUALIFICATIONS: This is done in an attempt to make the police officer appear as unqualified as possible. Make the officer appear to have as little training as possible and be as unfamiliar with the radar unit as possible. The bigger a fool you can make the cop out to be the more points you'll score with the judge. A. How long have you been a police officer? Irrelevant unless he's just come straight from the academy B. How long have you been operating radar? Irrelevant unless it's a year or less. C. Have you received formal training on the operation of radar? - If NO then you've hit pay-dirt. D. Under what circumstances did you receive this training? Irrelevant unless he says, "in the locker room." In this case he may be on your side. E. How many hours of classroom training did you receive? - This is an important answer. If he says four or less, he's probably not qualified. Make note. F. How long ago did you receive this training? Irrelevant unless the answer is five or six years ago. He may be out of practice and probably wasn't trained on the model he used to bust you. G. Who taught the class? - If it was his sergeant, you have a case of the blind leading the blind. If it was the radar manufacturer you have a potentially biased source since the manufacturer will do anything to sell it's merchandise! If he was SENT to the manufacturer's school he's better than most. H. Since initial training, have you had any brush-up courses? - If he says yes, he's full of more shit than you are. Ask who taught them and when they were. I. Do you believe yourself to be a competent radar operator? - Sure he does J. Do you hold a certification? - In some states he MUST be trained at the manufacturer's school. If he says his sergeant certified him. You may be able to walk out of court right there. It's a case of the blind leading the blind. K. Did you receive your initial training with the model (the one he popped you with)? - If his formal training was with another unit, you've hit pay-dirt again! L. How many one-on-one sessions of field training did he receive? - Answers like, "I rode with another officer while he wrote tickets." are not good. Keep pressing him on this issue. Most likely he did not have this type of training unless it was done by a factory representative and then there were three other officers in the car at the time. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ESTABLISH THE LEVEL OF TRUST THE OFFICER PLACES IN HIS RADAR: These questions are used in an attempt to make it appear as though the police officer himself questions the reliability of traffic radar. This is where things get fun and he could even purger himself if he's not careful. In which case you win again! A. Do you believe the (radar unit he popped you with) to be a good unit? - Of course he does. If he doesn't he may be on your side. B. Have you ever encountered problems with the (model) radar? - If he says yes, make sure he tells you details, and not simply, "It quit working one day." C. Are you permanently assigned to one specific radar unit? - They will always switch around. He will most likely say that he uses the same brand name but different models. D. Do you believe there to be differences between brands of radar units or models? Will one have idiosyncrasies that others may not have? - He will most likely say that they all work alike. If he says he has differences make sure he tells you exactly what they are and how he noticed them. E. Do you believe that the (model radar) ever gives spurious or false readings? - If he says "no." Make sure you have documented evidence of this. (see above information on the NSA) This is a real good way to make him look like an idiot. Make sure that you repeat the question and emphasis the word "NEVER." After he says no again, hand the document to the judge and say something to the effect that, "I have written evidence right here that was written by an independent engineering firm that proves that (model radar) does have the capability to give false readings. Now, in a court of law you are not permitted to defend yourself while examining the witness, however, since you are not an attorney. The judge may permit you do submit your testimony. If the officer says "yes" he has seen false readings, ask him what percentage of the time it does give spurious readings. In the case STATE OF WISCONSIN vs HANSEN, in which HANSEN prevailed. It was proven that radar can give false readings up to 20% of the time. F. Do you believe you can always tell the radar unit is giving a spurious reading? - He will always say he can. If he says, "no" then you've already established reasonable doubt. When he says "yes," then proceed with the next two questions and then come back to this one again. G. Is there is a special number that appears on the screen that indicates a false reading. - Not! H. Does the unit give some visual indication that the reading is suspected to be false? - Not! (Believe it or not! The very first case I went to defend myself, the idiot cop said that there was an "indicator light that noted when there is radar disturbance in the area." HAHAHAHA!!! What a joke. I asked him to point it out to me and of course he couldn't. Therefore he just lied under oath. He fucked himself hard! Needless to say the judge wasn't too pleased, to see a police officer lying either! ;-) I. How then can you tell that the reading you are getting is spurious? - He will answer that there is no target or that the car is obviously not speeding. J. You said that there isn't some special speed or number that appears on the screen. All 86 mph speed readings are not spurious for example? - Of course not. K. So the spurious reading could be either 20mph or 70mph? - Of course. If he says not, he is out of his league and attempting to evade answers. L. The radar could give a speed of 20mph or 70mph, but you could see clearly, for example, that the car was going only 30mph? - He should agree with that. M. What if a car was going 55mph and you got a reading of 70mph? Is this possible? - He should agree with that. N. Assuming a car was approaching you at 55mph. You could recognize that? - He'll probably say he could. If he does, keep going. If he says he could not then you've already established doubt. O. If a car was approaching at 55mph and you get a reading of 56mph. Could you tell that it was a spurious reading? - Of course not. At this point keep the pressure on by rapidly asking the question over and over again and increasing the false reading by one mph until he gives. If you've led the cop into this trap you are doing great! He is totally fucked if he answers either "yes" or "no." This is because you are establishing more doubt each time he says "no" and if he does say "yes" too soon he will appear to have some super-human quality! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - USE OF AUDIO DOPPLER, AUDIO ALARM, AND AUTOMATIC SPEED LOCK: All radar units include features designed to make the officer's job easier. The AUDIO DOPPLER can be turned down or off, as is usually done, therefore it contributes nothing to reliability. The AUDIO ALARM is a warning tone that tells the officer the radar unit has "got one", and it is built into all radar units. The officer must dial in a speed above which he wants the alarm to sound. The only way to disengage the alarm is to dial the speed to 99 mph or 199 mph on some models. The AUTOMATIC SPEED LOCK is the worst thing ever put in a radar unit. It automatically locks up a speed reading when one comes above the preset level. If the reading is spurious, the officer never knows it. Your goal here is to establish his normal operating habits. Later, you'll find out how he was using radar on the day he busted you. A. Does your radar unit have an audio Doppler? That is a continuous audio single tone which converts the radar unit's Doppler shift into an audible signal? - He will say his unit does, unless it's a Speedgun, in which case it does not. If it was a Speedgun jump to question "M". B. Does the audio doppler have a volume control? - Yes it does. C. Do you ever use your audio doppler? - If he says "yes" continue. If he says no skip to question `M`. D. About what percent of the time will you listen to the audio doppler? - note percent E. When you operate your radar unit with audio doppler on do you operate it at full volume? Heh, yea right! F. At what volume do you operate it? - The question can only be helpful if he says he operates it at a low volume. Try to ask him a few similar questions that will make him answer "low volume." IE: "I know that that tone get's awfully annoying doesn't it?" G. Do you ever turn it off? - Sure he does. H. Why do you turn it off? - Because it is irritating as hell! I. Does the use of audio doppler ever interfere with your use of the police radio or your conversations with other officers? - He should say it does. J. So you operate with the audio doppler off about ___ percent of the time? - Fill in the number that he gave you earlier. K. Of the rest of the time, how often do you operate it with the volume on soft. - (Note the percentage) L. Do you consider the audio doppler an important tool to prevent operator error? - Only important if he says "no". M. Is your radar unit equipped with a dial that lets you select a speed above which an audio tone will sound if a violation speed is picked up? - Yes, all radar units have this feature. N. We'll call that feature the AUDIO ALARM. Do you commonly use that feature? - He has to. O. What percentage of the time do you use this? - If he answers anything less than 100%, ask him how he disengages it. He would have to disassemble the whole radar unit. P. If the speed limit on a highway is 55, what speed do you normally dial in as your pre-set violator speed? - Note speed. The answer isn't critical. Q. Do you find that feature to be a useful one for you? - He'll probably say it's sometimes useful. R. If a violation speed causes the alarm to sound, you need only reach over to lock in that speed, is that correct? - That's how it works. S. Does your radar unit also have a button or switch which permits the radar unit to automatically lock up the violation speed? - Yes, it does. T. Do you ever use that automatic speed lock function? - If he says "no", repeat the question with an emphasis on the "ever" and look skeptical. If he still says no, skip to the next question section. U. About what percent of the time do you use the automatic speed lock? - Note percent. V. Do you find that automatic speed lock convenient? - Sure he does. That way he can read a magazine or take a nap while the radar unit does the for him! W. Do you use the automatic speed lock for any other reason? - Note reasons, if any. X. Was the use of the automatic speed lock included in your training? - Answer isn't important. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ESTABLISHING WHETHER THE OFFICER USES A VISUAL BACK UP: When cops go to court, they have a "model testimony" used to establish their reasoning for giving out a ticket. One part of this testimony usually centers on the radar unit used only as a backup to their visual perception that you, the defendant, were traveling at a "high rate of speed" or at "X mph." Put in it simplest form, this is total hogwash. A trained officer can make a visual identification of speed at a distance of perhaps 500 feet. The radar can theoretically make that same speed determination at 5000 feet. The radar's alarm will sound many seconds before the policeman can make a visual speed determination. As it is, the cop will observation of a car will verify what the radar has already told him. THIS IS WRONG! The law states that "radar readings can ONLY be used as corroborative evidence." If the cop sees that the car is traveling slower than what the radar says, he will merely assume that the driver saw him and slowed down. The following questions are used to establish whether or not the cop did use visual back up, and trap him onto making a statement which can later be used against him! A. I'm going to start this question by defining a term I call a "traffic history". A traffic history is the continuous observation of traffic by a police officer. If an officer takes a traffic history, it means he is CONTINUALLY WATCHING TRAFFIC; looking for speeders, drunken drivers, or any other offenders. Do you understand what I mean by a traffic history? - If the officer doesn't understand, keep explaining until he does. B. With regard to speeding tickets, an officer who says he normally takes a traffic history can say that he observes traffic patterns for a period of several seconds -- usually three to five seconds -- before he sees what he believes to be a speeding incident. That is, three to five seconds before his radar unit sounds its alarm. He then continues to observe traffic fora period of several seconds while he determines that a citation should be issued. Do you understand that definition of a traffic history as it applies to speeding tickets? - The officer should understand. C. Using that definition, have you EVER taken a traffic history prior to issuing a speeding citation? - He will probably answer that he has. If he says no, see answer E. D. About what percent of the time can you say you have taken a traffic history when you issue a speeding ticket? - Note percent. It will probably be very high. E. Do you believe it is important to take a traffic history in speeding cases? - He'll probably say "yes." If he says no, you have a strong argument in court, namely that he had no visual backup; that he was relying solely on his radar unit. His "yes" answer, in conjunction with the fact that he didn't take one in your case, can be used against him in court. F. At about what distance can you make a determination that a car is doing a certain number of miles per hour? - Most policemen answer about 500. If he hedges or says it depends, set up a specific situation, for example, he is in the median strip of a level, straight, uncrowded highway. At what distance can he make a visual determination of the speed of an approaching car? If he says he still can't say, throw the 500 feet figure at him and see if he agrees. Shorten and lengthen the figure to get an estimate he can live with. G. When you take this traffic history and make a visual assumption about speed, you do so BEFORE your radar unit has sounded its audio alarm? - THIS IS A TRICK QUESTION. If he says "yes", he's in trouble because his radar unit's range is doubtlessly longer than his visual acuity. If he says "no", then he hasn't really taken a traffic history. If he says "yes", ask questions H and I. If he says "no", ask questions J, K, L, M, N, and O, P, Q, R. H. Approximately what is the range of your radar unit? - He'll probably say he doesn't know. Throw figures between 3,000 and 5,000 feet at him and see if he agrees with any of them. If he still doesn't know, ask if he'd be surprised to find out that his radar unit had a range of at least 3,000 feet. If he says yes to that question, you have just nailed him on a vital technical question. I. But you still stick to your statement that the radar unit does not sound an alarm prior to your being able to recognize the true velocity of a car? - Regardless of his answer, you've made your point. J. Then you don't really take a traffic history. - The neatest answer is "no", which he probably won't say. Instead, he'll say that sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. For the "sometimes it doesn't" answers, go back to questions H and I. For the "sometimes it does" answer, continue. K. If the radar unit sounds an alarm before you've had a chance to ascertain that a car is speeding, how can you say you've taken a traffic history? - He'll probably say it alerts him to look for a speeder. L. Do you look down to see how fast the radar unit says a car is going? - He'll probably he looks. If he says he doesn't look, tell him, "but you know a car is definitely going at least X mph over the speed limit?" To that, he has to answer yes. M. Does the knowledge that the radar unit has already "got one" influence your judgement in making a visual determination of a car's speed? That is, will you be more likely to agree that a car is going a certain number of miles per hour after the radar has already said that it was going that speed? - He should agree. If he doesn't, ask him why he doesn't just run his alarm setting up to 99 mph to make certain it never influences his judgement? His answer won't matter. N. Would you be more inclined to believe that a car in the left lane of a four- lane highway was a speeder if you heard your audio alarm go off? - If he's honest, he'll say yes. If he isn't, he'll say, "if it was passing another vehicle". Counter with "what if there wasn't a reference vehicle present, but the car was still in the left lane? If he still says "no", ask him again why he doesn't just run his alarm counter up to 99 mph. O. If there was a car going slower than the speed limit in the right lane, and a car driving at the speed limit in the left lane apparently passing it, and your radar unit either malfunctioned or misread the target, might you mistakenly conclude that the car in the left lane was speeding and issue the driver a citation? - If he's honest, he'll answer "yes", building your case for operator error. If he says "no", he could tell the car in the left lane wasn't speeding, you're back to question F. P. If your radar unit said it had picked up a car going, say, 70 mph, and when you were able to make out its speed, it was clearly going the speed limit, would you be inclined to believe the motorist had seen you and quickly slowed down? - The honest officer will say yes. Q. Would you still issue the citation based on the radar reading? - Again, he should say "yes". R. Why do you set your alarm counter for a certain number of miles per hour over the speed limit? - His answer may be that he was trained to do so (unusable), or that he needs it for special circumstances (worth following up). Any excuse will be lame. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ESTABLISHING THE LEVEL OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT BEAM WIDTH AND RANGE: Under HONEYCUTT, a police officer does not need to know the inner workings of his radar unit in order to have his testimony accepted by the court. The mistake is made by many persons challenging radar-backed speeding citations is to try and demonstrate to the court that they know more about radar than the cop that issued them a ticket. It really doesn't matter how much you know about radar. All the court wants to know is how much the officer knows. Few judges have ever questioned the qualifications of the citing officer. Your job as a defendant is to make the judge do just exactly that! You will have to plant a seed of doubt in his/her mind by showing that in several key areas, the officer doesn't know fundamental aspects of radar. A. With respect to everyday operation of your radar unit, do you know what its approximate range is? - Depending on the model, the answer can range from 3,000 to 7,000 feet. Refer to second article in this series that will appear in the next exciting issue of Phrack! B. At a distance of 1000 feet how wide is the radar beam? C. About how far from the radar antenna will the beam be when it is width of one lane of traffic, or about 11 feet? D. With what degree of certainty can you point your radar's antenna at, say, the left lane of oncoming traffic and at a distance of, say, 500 feet be focusing on just that lane of traffic? - The answer is zero. Anything else and he is wrong. E. In the stationary mode, you can lock the speed of traffic in either direction, that is, you can flip the antenna to record traffic going away from you or traffic coming toward you. Is that correct? - Yes it is. F. Can your radar differentiate between traffic direction? For example, if you're setting along a expressway, and you have your radar unit pointed toward you oncoming traffic, will your radar unit pick up only oncoming traffic, or might it also pick up traffic on the other side of the median strip moving away from you? - It will pick up traffic in either direction. Any other statement (e.g. "sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't" is ignorance.) G. In moving mode, can your radar pick up traffic both coming toward you and traffic moving away from you? - The Speedgun 8 is the ONLY radar that can do this. It can only clock cars coming toward it. No other radar unit can do this! H. [In the next two questions you will have to draw a picture. Draw a vertical roadway with a car (#) going up toward the top and the cops car | . | oriented perpendicular to the road (<:=). Next draw a line that is | . | perpendicular to the roadway (<---). This is the radar beam. You | . | should have a slightly larger drawing :) that looks similar to <-------<:= the one to the left. Hold this up so that the judge and the cop | . | can see it and ask the following question.] | .^| | .#| In this diagram, the radar is held at right angles to the roadway. A north bound car driving at 55mph enters into the radar beam. Will the radar unit pick up the car? - It cannot. There is NO doppler shift because there is no closing speed between the vehicle and the radar unit. If he answers correctly, skip to question "J". I. [Again you need to draw a picture similar to the one above, but this time add a car going in the opposite direction, in the other lane of course! It should look something like the picture below. Now present this to the cop and the judges and ask the following: (Refer to this as |#. | fig. `2`)] |~ | | . | <-------<:= | . | | .^| | .#| In this diagram, two cars are approaching from opposite directions, with the radar unit sill pointed at right angles on the highway. The north bound car (right) is going 55mph. The southbound car (left) is going 65mph. Which car will the radar unit pick up and how will you be able to distinguish between the two? - If he even thinks about answering this question he is an idiot. Neither car will register. (see question `H`) J. What kind of things will stop the beam? Will underbrush stop the beam or can you get a reading through tall grass, weeds, and bushes? - Radar will go through these things. K. Are there circumstances under which you can obtain the speed of a vehicle you cannot see? For example, can you obtain the speed of a vehicle around a corner or over a hill? - Not in this world. L. Will your radar beam bounce off a metal surface such as a sign, a car, a ,metal building, or a steal or concrete overpass? - Sure will. M. What happens to the beam when it bounces off a metal object? Could it pick up the speed of a car at an angle to the direction you have the radar pointed? - Yes it will. N. Could a high power utility transmission line interfere with the radar unit? - Yup. O. Could airport radar or military radar interfere with the radar? - Sure can. P. Have you ever noticed interference from things like neon signs or street lights? - Such things do produce interference - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FINAL QUESTIONS: By now you have either made a enemy of the officer (most likely outcome) or started him thinking about the incident (if he is a good police officer). The officer, of course, doesn't know what answers he got right and what ones he got wrong. Watch for variations between answers, or especially, any weakening in his determination that yours was the car which registered on the radar unit. Questions `N`-`Q` taken together represent critical procedural questions. It is important to differentiate between an internal calibration check (pushing a button) and an external check (holding a tuning fork to the antenna). A. Officer (such and such), let's go back over your recollection of the incident one last time. Can you relate the facts concerning the citation as you remember them? B. Was your audio Doppler engaged at the time of the incident? How loud or soft was it? C. What speed was your audio alarm set for? Had you moved it up or down during your shift? D. Was your automatic speed lock engaged? E. Were you using a manual on-off switch? F. Were you in a stationary or moving mode at the time? G. Was the defendant coming or going away from you? H. Did you see other vehicles either in front of or behind the defendant? Were they varied in size? Were they varied in direction of travel? I. Was there traffic moving in the same direction as you? (if moving) J. Did you see the defendant prior to the time your audio alarm sounded? K. Were you able to obtain an approximate speed reading based on your visual identification? What was your point of reference? L. How many seconds elapsed between the time you first observed the defendant and the time your audio alarm sounded? M. Were there any power lines in the area? Cars or homes with CB antennas? Buildings with two-way radio antennas? Had you been talking on your radio? N. Regarding calibration of the radar unit, using the INTERNAL calibration function, at what times before and after the citation did you check the radar? O. Using an "external tuning fork", at what times before and after the citation did you check your radar? P. In your estimation, what is the difference between the internal and external calibration function? Q. Do you consider one of the calibration checks to be a more accurate indicator of accuracy? Which one? ______________________________________________________________________________ | | | Closing Arguments | If you have done well you will have established a great |____________________| deal of doubt in the judges mind as to the capability of the officer in question to operate a radar unit. You have have set him/her thinking about the "big picture." That is, "Just how accurate is traffic radars?" This is what you want to achieve but it must be done in subtle way. You aren't out of the hole yet! Now that you have established doubt in the judge's mind you MUST provide testimony that will TIE all the testimony the officer gave in with YOURS. This is where you have to do the thinking on your own. It should be very obvious how to do this. Your job is to break down the testimony. You are looking for 1) Procedural errors, 2) Lack of knowledge on the part of the officer, 3) Possible radars errors. If you can get him on two of the three, you are set! Procedural errors include things like the previously mentioned incorrect citation. Other procedural errors that are easy to play on is this. The officer must use an external tuning that is certified as to it's accuracy in testing the radar unit immediately before he gives a citation. Two court cases that are examples of this are WISCONSIN v. HANSEN and MINNESOTA v. GERDES. Simply put, if you are in need of throwing around some weight in court, just cite these two cases. They are great! Ignorance on the part of the officer is pretty obvious. If he messes up the questions, he is ignorant. They are all pretty simple, I think. If a cop does things like, uses his automatic speed lock or doesn't use his audio doppler, he is blatantly ignoring his training. Most of the time they will bring a copy of their training manual to court. Just point it out to them! There are too many potential radar errors to mention here. You must try to locate them in the vicinity of where you encounter your ticket. Anything that transmits on uncommon frequencies is great to note. (e.g. burglar alarms, garage doors, CB's, Ham Radio, rain, fog, police radio, hospitals, etc, etc.) In closing, I hope you found this information useful and look forward to the second part in my series, "Beating the Radar Rap: The Technical Side." This will be a file where I go into picking apart the actual flaws that specific radar guns have. Card-O-Rama: Magnetic Stripe Technology and Beyond or "A Day in the Life of a Flux Reversal" Written by oooOO Count Zero OOooo Restricted Data Transmissions November 22, 2024 Look in your wallet. Chances are you own at least 3 cards that have magnetic stripes on the back. ATM cards, credit cards, calling cards, frequent flyer cards, ID cards, passcards,...cards, cards, cards! And chances are you have NO idea what information is on those stripes or how they are encoded. This detailed document will enlighten you and hopefully spark your interest in this fascinating field. None of this info is "illegal"...but MANY organizations (the government, credit card companies, security firms, etc.) would rather keep you in the dark. Also, many people will IMMEDIATELY assume that you are a CRIMINAL if you merely "mention" that you are "interested in how magnetic stripe cards work." Watch yourself, ok? Just remember that there is nothing wrong with wanting to know how things work, although in our present society, you may be labelled a "deviant" (or worse, a "hacker")! Anyway, I will explain in detail how magstripes are encoded and give several examples of the data found on some common cards. I will also cover the technical theory behind magnetic encoding, and discuss magnetic encoding alternatives to magstripes (Wiegand, barium ferrite). Non-magnetic card technology (bar code, infrared, etc.) will be described. Finally, there will be an end discussion on security systems and the ramifications of emergent "smartcard" and biometric technologies. *DISCLAIMER* Use this info to EXPLORE, not to EXPLOIT. This text is presented for informational purposes only, and I cannot be held responsible for anything you do or any consequences thereof. I do not condone fraud, larceny, or any other criminal activities. *A WARNING* Lately, I've noticed a few "books" and "magazines" for sale that were FILLED with FILES on a variety of computer topics. These file were originally released into the Net with the intention of distributing them for FREE. HOWEVER, these files are now being PACKAGED and sold FOR PROFIT. This really pisses me off. I am writing this to be SHARED for FREE, and I ask no payment. Feel free to reprint this in hardcopy format and sell it if you must, but NO PROFITS must be made. Not a fucking DIME! If ANYONE reprints this file and tries to sell it FOR A PROFIT, I will hunt you down and make your life miserable. How? Use your imagination. The reality will be worse. ** MAGSTRIPE FIELDS, HEADS, ENCODING/READING ** Now, I'll get down to business! First, I am going to explain the basics behind fields, heads, encoding and reading. Try and absorb the THEORY behind encoding/reading. This will help you greatly if you ever decide to build your own encoder/reader from scratch (more on that later). FERROMAGNETIC materials are substances that retain magnetism after an external magnetizing field is removed. This principle is the basis of ALL magnetic recording and playback. Magnetic POLES always occur in pairs within magnetized material, and MAGNETIC FLUX lines emerge from the NORTH pole and terminate at the SOUTH. The elemental parts of MAGSTRIPES are ferromagnetic particles about 20 millionths of an inch long, each of which acts like a tiny bar magnet. These particles are rigidly held together by a resin binder. The magnetic particles are made by companies which make coloring pigments for the paint industry, and are usually called pigments. When making the magstripe media, the elemental magnetic particles are aligned with their North-South axes parallel to the magnetic stripe by means of an external magnetic fields while the binder hardens. These particles are actually permanent bar magnets with TWO STABLE POLARITIES. If a magnetic particle is placed in a strong external magnetic field of the opposite polarity, it will FLIP its own polarity (North becomes South, South becomes North). The external magnetic field strength required to produce this flip is called the COERCIVE FORCE, or COERCIVITY of the particle. Magnetic pigments are available in a variety of coercivities (more on that later on). An unencoded magstripe is actually a series of North-South magnetic domains (see Figure 1). The adjacent N-S fluxes merge, and the entire stripe acts as a single bar magnet with North and South poles at its ends. Figure 1: N-S.N-S.N-S.N-S.N-S.N-S.N-S.N-S <-particles in stripe --------- represented as-> N-----------------------------S However, if a S-S interface is created somewhere on the stripe, the fluxes will REPEL, and we get a concentration of flux lines around the S-S interface (same with N-N interface). ENCODING consists of creating S-S and N-N interfaces, and READING consists of (you guessed it) detecting 'em. The S-S and N-N interfaces are called FLUX REVERSALS. ||| ||| <-flux lines Figure 2: N------------N-N-S-S-----------------S --------- flux lines -> ||| ||| The external magnetic field used to flip the polarities is produced by a SOLENOID, which can REVERSE its polarity by reversing the direction of CURRENT. An ENCODING head solenoid looks like a bar magnet bent into the shape of a ring so that the North/South poles are very close and face each other across a tiny gap. The field of the solenoid is concentrated across this gap, and when elemental magnetic particles of the magstripe are exposed to this field, they polarize to the OPPOSITE (unlike poles attract). Movement of the stripe past the solenoid gap during which the polarity of the solenoid is REVERSED will produce a SINGLE flux reversal (see Figure 3). To erase a magstripe, the encoding head is held at a CONSTANT polarity and the ENTIRE stripe is moved past it. No flux reversals, no data. | | <----wires leading to solenoid | | (wrapped around ring) /-|-|-\ / \ Figure 3: | | <----solenoid (has JUST changed polarity) --------- \ / \ N S / <---gap in ring.. NS polarity across gap N----------------------SS-N-------------------------S ^^ <<<<<-direction of stripe movement S-S flux reversal created at trailing edge of solenoid! So, we now know that flux reversals are only created the INSTANT the solenoid CHANGES its POLARITY. If the solenoid in Figure 3 were to remain at its current polarity, no further flux reversals would be created as the magstripe moves from right to left. But, if we were to change the solenoid gap polarity >from NS to *SN*, then (you guessed it) a *N-N* flux reversal would instantly b e created. Just remember, for each and every reversal in solenoid polarity, a single flux reversal is created (commit it to memory). An encoded magstripe is therefore just a series of flux reversals (NN followed by SS followed by NN). DATA! DATA! DATA! That's what you want! How the hell are flux reversals read and interpreted as data? Another solenoid called a READ HEAD is used to detect these flux reversals. The read head operates on the principle of ELECTROMAGNETIC RECIPROCITY: current passing thru a solenoid produces a magnetic field at the gap, therefore, the presence of a magnetic field at the gap of a solenoid coil will *produce a current in the coil*! The strongest magnetic fields on a magstripe are at the points of flux reversals. These are detected as voltage peaks by the reader, with +/- voltages corresponding to NN/SS flux reversals (remember, flux reversals come in 2 flavors). See Figure 4. magstripe---> -------NN--------SS--------NN---------SS------ Figure 4: voltage-----> .......+.........-.........+...........-..... --------- ---------- ------------- peak readout--> | | | | --------| |----------| |---- The "peak readout" square waveform is critical. Notice that the voltage peak remains the same until a new flux reversal is encountered. Now, how can we encode DATA? The most common technique used is known as Aiken Biphase, or "two-frequency coherent-phase encoding" (sounds impressive, eh?). First, digest the diagrams in Figure 5. Figure 5: ---------- ---------- ---------- --------- | | | | | | <- peak a) | |--------| |--------| | readouts * 0 * 0 * 0 * 0 * 0 * ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- - | | | | | | | | | | | b) | |----| |----| |----| |----| |----| * 1 * 1 * 1 * 1 * 1 * ----- ---------- ----- ----- - | | | | | | | | | c) | |----| |--------| |----| |----| * 1 * 0 * 0 * 1 * 1 * There you have it. Data is encoded in "bit cells," the frequency of which is the frequency of '0' signals. '1' signals are exactly TWICE the frequency of '0' signals. Therefore, while the actual frequency of the data passing the read head will vary due to swipe speed, data density, etc, the '1' frequency will ALWAYS be TWICE the '0' frequency. Figure 5C shows exactly how '1' and '0' data exists side by side. We're getting closer to read DATA! Now, we're all familiar with binary and how numbers and letters can be represented in binary fashion very easily. There are obviously an *infinite* number of possible standards, but thankfully the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) have chosen 2 standards. The first is ** ANSI/ISO BCD Data format ** This is a 5-bit Binary Coded Decimal format. It uses a 16-character set, which uses 4 of the 5 available bits. The 5th bit is an ODD parity bit, which means there must be an odd number of 1's in the 5-bit character..the parity bit will "force" the total to be odd. Also, the Least Significant Bits are read FIRST on the strip. See Figure 6. The sum of the 1's in each case is odd, thanks to the parity bit. If the read system adds up the 5 bits and gets an EVEN number, it flags the read as ERROR, and you got to scan the card again (I *know* a lot of you out there *already* understand parity, but I got to cover all the bases...not everyone sleeps with their modem and can recite the entire AT command set at will, you know). See Figure 6 for details of ANSI/ISO BCD. Figure 6: ANSI/ISO BCD Data Format --------- * Remember that b1 (bit #1) is the LSB (least significant bit)! * The LSB is read FIRST! * Hexadecimal conversions of the Data Bits are given in parenthesis (xH). --Data Bits-- Parity b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 Character Function 0 0 0 0 1 0 (0H) Data 1 0 0 0 0 1 (1H) " 0 1 0 0 0 2 (2H) " 1 1 0 0 1 3 (3H) " 0 0 1 0 0 4 (4H) " 1 0 1 0 1 5 (5H) " 0 1 1 0 1 6 (6H) " 1 1 1 0 0 7 (7H) " 0 0 0 1 0 8 (8H) " 1 0 0 1 1 9 (9H) " 0 1 0 1 1 : (AH) Control 1 1 0 1 0 ; (BH) Start Sentinel 0 0 1 1 1 < (CH) Control 1 0 1 1 0 = (DH) Field Separator 0 1 1 1 0 > (EH) Control 1 1 1 1 1 ? (FH) End Sentinel ***** 16 Character 5-bit Set ***** 10 Numeric Data Characters 3 Framing/Field Characters 3 Control Characters The magstripe begins with a string of Zero bit-cells to permit the self- clocking feature of biphase to "sync" and begin decoding. A "Start Sentinel" character then tells the reformatting process where to start grouping the decoded bitstream into groups of 5 bits each. At the end of the data, an "End Sentinel" is encountered, which is followed by an "Longitudinal Redundancy Check (LRC) character. The LRC is a parity check for the sums of all b1, b2, b3, and b4 data bits of all preceding characters. The LRC character will catch the remote error that could occur if an individual character had two compensating errors in its bit pattern (which would fool the 5th-bit parity check). The START SENTINEL, END SENTINEL, and LRC are collectively called "Framing Characters", and are discarded at the end of the reformatting process. ** ANSI/ISO ALPHA Data Format ** Alphanumeric data can also be encoded on magstripes. The second ANSI/ISO data format is ALPHA (alphanumeric) and involves a 7-bit character set with 64 characters. As before, an odd parity bit is added to the required 6 data bits for each of the 64 characters. See Figure 7. Figure 7: --------- ANSI/ISO ALPHA Data Format * Remember that b1 (bit #1) is the LSB (least significant bit)! * The LSB is read FIRST! * Hexadecimal conversions of the Data Bits are given in parenthesis (xH). ------Data Bits------- Parity b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 Character Function 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 space (0H) Special 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 ! (1H) " 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 " (2H) " 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 # (3H) " 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 $ (4H) " 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 % (5H) Start Sentinel 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 & (6H) Special 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 ' (7H) " 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 ( (8H) " 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 ) (9H) " 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 * (AH) " 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 + (BH) " 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 , (CH) " 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 - (DH) " 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 . (EH) " 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 / (FH) " 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 (10H) Data (numeric) 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 (11H) " 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 2 (12H) " 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 3 (13H) " 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 4 (14H) " 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 5 (15H) " 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 6 (16H) " 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 7 (17H) " 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 8 (18H) " 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 9 (19H) " 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 : (1AH) Special 1 1 0 1 1 0 1 ; (1BH) " 0 0 1 1 1 0 0 < (1CH) " 1 0 1 1 1 0 1 = (1DH) " 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 > (1EH) " 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 ? (1FH) End Sentinel 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 @ (20H) Special 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 A (21H) Data (alpha) 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 B (22H) " 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 C (23H) " 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 D (24H) " 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 E (25H) " 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 F (26H) " 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 G (27H) " 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 H (28H) " 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 I (29H) " 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 J (2AH) " 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 K (2BH) " 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 L (2CH) " 1 0 1 1 0 1 1 M (2DH) " 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 N (2EH) " 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 O (2FH) " 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 P (30H) " 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 Q (31H) " 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 R (32H) " 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 S (33H) " 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 T (34H) " 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 U (35H) " 0 1 1 0 1 1 1 V (36H) " 1 1 1 0 1 1 0 W (37H) " 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 X (38H) " 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 Y (39H) " 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 Z (3AH) " 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 [ (3BH) Special 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 \ (3DH) Special 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 ] (3EH) Special 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 ^ (3FH) Field Separator 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 _ (40H) Special ***** 64 Character 7-bit Set ***** * 43 Alphanumeric Data Characters * 3 Framing/Field Characters * 18 Control/Special Characters The two ANSI/ISO formats, ALPHA and BCD, allow a great variety of data to be stored on magstripes. Most cards with magstripes use these formats, but occasionally some do not. More about those later on. ** Tracks and Encoding Protocols ** Now we know how the data is stored. But WHERE is the data stored on the magstripe? ANSI/ISO standards define *3* Tracks, each of which is used for different purposes. These Tracks are defined only by their location on the magstripe, since the magstripe as a whole is magnetically homogeneous. See Figure 8. Figure 8: --------- _________________________________________________________________ | ^ ^ ^ |------------------| 0.223"--|---------|------------------------- | | | 0.353" | ^ |..................|.........|.........| 0.493" | | Track #1 0.110" | | | |............................|.........|... | | | | |............................|.........|... | | Track #2 0.110" | | |......................................|... | | | | |......................................|... | | Track #3 0.110" | |.......................................... | | | |------------------------------------------------------------------ | | | You can see the exact distances of each track from the edge of the card, as well as the uniform width and spacing. Place a magstripe card in front of you with the magstripe visible at the bottom of the card. Data is encoded from left to right (just like reading a book). See Figure 9. Figure 9: --------- ANSI/ISO Track 1,2,3 Standards Track Name Density Format Characters Function -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 IATA 210 bpi ALPHA 79 Read Name & Account 2 ABA 75 bpi BCD 40 Read Account 3 THRIFT 210 bpi BCD 107 Read Account & *Encode* Transaction *** Track 1 Layout: *** | SS | FC | PAN | Name | FS | Additional Data | ES | LRC | SS=Start Sentinel "%" FC=Format Code PAN=Primary Acct. # (19 digits max) FS=Field Separator "^" Name=26 alphanumeric characters max. Additional Data=Expiration Date, offset, encrypted PIN, etc. ES=End Sentinel "?" LRC=Longitudinal Redundancy Check *** Track 2 Layout: *** | SS | PAN | FS | Additional Data | ES | LRC | SS=Start Sentinel ";" PAN=Primary Acct. # (19 digits max) FS=Field Separator "=" Additional Data=Expiration Date, offset, encrypted PIN, etc. ES=End Sentinel "?" LRC=Longitudinal Redundancy Check *** Track 3 Layout: ** Similar to tracks 1 and 2. Almost never used. Many different data standards used. Track 2, "American Banking Association," (ABA) is most commonly used. This is the track that is read by ATMs and credit card checkers. The ABA designed the specifications of this track and all world banks must abide by it. It contains the cardholder's account, encrypted PIN, plus other discretionary data. Track 1, named after the "International Air Transport Association," contains the cardholder's name as well as account and other discretionary data. This track is sometimes used by the airlines when securing reservations with a credit card; your name just "pops up" on their machine when they swipe your card! Since Track 1 can store MUCH more information, credit card companies are trying to urge retailers to buy card readers that read Track 1. The *problem* is that most card readers read either Track 1 or Track 2, but NOT BOTH! And the installed base of readers currently is biased towards Track 2. VISA USA is at the front of this 'exodus' to Track 1, to the point where they are offering Track 1 readers at reduced prices thru participating banks. A spokesperson for VISA commented: "We think that Track 1 represents more flexibility and the potential to deliver more information, and we intend to build new services around the increased information." What new services? We can only wait and see. Track 3 is unique. It was intended to have data read and WRITTEN on it. Cardholders would have account information UPDATED right on the magstripe. Unfortunately, Track 3 is pretty much an orphaned standard. Its *original* design was to control off-line ATM transactions, but since ATMs are now on-line ALL THE TIME, it's pretty much useless. Plus the fact that retailers and banks would have to install NEW card readers to read that track, and that costs $$. Encoding protocol specifies that each track must begin and end with a length of all Zero bits, called CLOCKING BITS. These are used to synch the self- clocking feature of biphase decoding. See Figure 10. Figure 10: end sentinel start sentinel | longitudinal redundancy check | | | 000000000000000 SS.................ES LRC 0000000000000000 leading data, data, data trailing clocking bits clocking bits (length varies) (length varies) THAT'S IT!!! There you have the ANSI/ISO STANDARDS! Completely explained. Now, the bad news. NOT EVERY CARD USES IT! Credit cards and ATM cards will follow these standards. BUT, there are many other types of cards out there. Security passes, copy machine cards, ID badges, and EACH of them may use a PROPRIETARY density/format/track-location system. ANSI/ISO is REQUIRED for financial transaction cards used in the international interbank network. All other cards can play their own game. The good news. MOST other cards follow the standards, because it's EASY to follow a standard instead of WORKING to make your OWN! Most magstripe cards other than credit cards and ATM cards will use the same Track specifications, and use either BCD or ALPHA formats. ** A Bit About Magstripe Equipment ** "Wow, now I know how to interpret all that data on magstripes! But.waitasec, what kind of equipment do I need to read the stripes? Where can I buy a reader? I don't see any in Radio Shack!!" Sorry, but magstripe equipment is hard to come by. For obvious reasons, card readers are not made commonly available to consumers. How to build one is the topic for another file (this file is already too long). Your best bets are to try and scope out Electronics Surplus Stores and flea markets. Do not even bother trying to buy one directly from a manufacturer, since they will immediately assume you have "criminal motives." And as for getting your hands on a magstripe ENCODER...well, good luck! Those rare beauties are worth their weight in gold. Keep your eyes open and look around, and MAYBE you'll get lucky! A bit of social engineering can go a LONG way. There are different kinds of magstripe readers/encoders. The most common ones are "swipe" machines: the type you have to physically slide the card thru. Others are "insertion" machines: like ATM machines they 'eat' your card, then regurgitate it after the transaction. Costs are in the thousands of dollars, but like I said, flea markets and surplus stores will often have GREAT deals on these things. Another problem is documentation for these machines. If you call the manufacturer and simply ask for 'em, they will probably deny you the literature. "Hey son, what are you doing with our model XYZ swipe reader? That belongs in the hands of a "qualified" merchant or retailer, not some punk kid trying to "find out how things work!" Again, some social engineering may be required. Tell 'em you're setting up a new business. Tell 'em you're working on a science project. Tell 'em anything that works! 2600 Magazine recently had a good article on how to build a machine that copies magstripe cards. Not much info on the actual data formats and encoding schemes, but the device described is a start. With some modifications, I bet you could route the output to a dumb terminal (or thru a null modem cable) in order to READ the data. Worth checking out the schematics. As for making your own cards, just paste a length of VCR, reel-to-reel, or audio cassette tape to a cut-out posterboard or plastic card. Works just as good as the real thing, and useful to experiment with if you have no expired or 'dead' ATM or calling cards lying around (SAVE them, don't TOSS them!). ** Examples of Data on Magstripes ** The real fun in experimenting with magstripe technology is READING cards to find out WHAT THE HELL is ON them! Haven't you wondered? The following cards are the result of my own 'research'. Data such as specific account numbers and names has been changed to protect the innocent. None the cards used to make this list were stolen or acquired illegally. Notice that I make careful note of "common data." This is data that I noticed was the same for all cards of a particular type. This is highlighted below the data with asterisks (*). Where I found varying data, I indicate it with "x"'s. In those cases, NUMBER of CHARACTERS was consistent (the number of "x"'s equals the number of characters...one to one relationship). I still don't know what some of the data fields are for, but hopefully I will be following this file with a sequel after I collect more data. It ISN'T easy to find lots of cards to examine. Ask your friends, family, and co-workers to help! "Hey, can I, ahh, like BORROW your MCI calling card tonight? I'm working on an, ahh, EXPERIMENT. Please?" Just...be honest! Also, do some trashing. People will often BEND expired cards in half, then throw them out. Simply bend them back into their normal shape, and they'll usually work (I've done it!). They may be expired, but they're not ERASED! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -=Mastercard=- Number on front of card -> 1111 2222 3333 4444 Expiration date -> 12/99 Track 2 (BCD,75 bpi)-> ;1111222233334444=99121010000000000000? *** Track 1 (ALPHA,210 bpi)-> %B1111222233334444^PUBLIC/JOHN? * Note that the "101" was common to all MC cards checked, as well as the "B". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -=VISA=- Number on front of card -> 1111 2222 3333 4444 Expiration date -> 12/99 Track 2 (BCD,75 bpi)-> ;1111222233334444=9912101xxxxxxxxxxxxx? *** Track 1 (ALPHA,210 bpi)-> %B1111222233334444^PUBLIC/JOHN^9912101xxxxxxxxxxxxx? * Note that the "101" was common to all VISA cards checked, as well as the "B". Also, the "xxx" indicates numeric data that varied from card to card, with no apparent pattern. I believe this is the encrypted pin for use when cardholders get 'cash advances' from ATMs. In every case, tho, I found *13* digits of the stuff. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -=Discover=- Number on front of card -> 1111 2222 3333 4444 Expiration date -> 12/99 Track 2 (BCD,75 bpi)-> ;1111222233334444=991210100000? ******** Track 1 (ALPHA,210 bpi)-> %B1111222233334444^PUBLIC/JOHN___^991210100000? ******** Note, the "10100000" and "B" were common to most DISCOVER cards checked. I found a few that had "10110000" instead. Don't know the significance. Note the underscores after the name JOHN. I found consistently that the name data field had *26* characters. Whatever was left of the field after the name was "padded" with SPACES. So...for all of you with names longer than 25 (exclude the "/") characters, PREPARE to be TRUNCATED! ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -=US Sprint FON=- Number on front of card -> 111 222 3333 4444 Track 2 (BCD,75 bpi)-> ;xxxxxx11122233339==xxx4444xxxxxxxxxx=? * Track 1 (ALPHA,210 bpi)-> %B^ /^^xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx? * Strange. None of the cards I check had names in the Track 1 fields. Track 1 looks unused, yet it was always formatted with field separators. The "xxx" stuff varied from card to card, and I didn't see a pattern. I know it isn't a PIN, so it must be account data. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -=Fleet Bank=- Number on front of card -> 111111 222 3333333 Expiration date -> 12/99 Track 2 (BCD,75 bpi)-> ;1111112223333333=9912120100000000xxxx? **** Track 1 (ALPHA,210 bpi) -> %B1111112223333333^PUBLIC/JOHN___^9912120100000000000000xxxx000000? * **** Note that the "xxx" data varied. This is the encrypted PIN offset. Always 4 digits (hmmm...). The "1201" was always the same. In fact, I tried many ATM cards from DIFFERENT BANKS...and they all had "1201". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (Can't leave *this* one out ;) -=Radio Shack=- Number on front of card -> 1111 222 333333 NO EXPIRATION data on card Track 2 (BCD,75 dpi)-> ;1111222333333=9912101? ******* Note that the "9912101" was the SAME for EVERY Radio Shack card I saw. Looks like when they don't have 'real' data to put in the expiration date field, they have to stick SOMETHING in there. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, that's all I'm going to put out right now. As you can see, the major types of cards (ATMs, CC) all follow the same rules more or less. I checked out a number of security passcards and timeclock entry cards..and they ALL had random stuff written to Track 2. Track 2 is by FAR the MOST utilized track on the card. And the format is pretty much always ANSI/ISO BCD. I *did* run into some hotel room access cards that, when scanned, were GARBLED. They most likely used a character set other than ASCII (if they were audio tones, my reader would have put out NOTHING...as opposed to GARBLED data). As you can see, one could write a BOOK listing different types of card data. I intended only to give you some examples. My research has been limited, but I tried to make logical conclusions based on the data I received. ** Cards of All Flavors ** People wanted to store A LOT of data on plastic cards. And they wanted that data to be 'invisible' to cardholders. Here are the different card technologies that were invented and are available today. HOLLERITH - With this system, holes are punched in a plastic or paper card and read optically. One of the earliest technologies, it is now seen as an encoded room key in hotels. The technology is not secure, but cards are cheap to make. BAR CODE - The use of bar codes is limited. They are cheap, but there is virtually no security and the bar code strip can be easily damaged. INFRARED - Not in widespread use, cards are factory encoded by creating a "shadow pattern" within the card. The card is passed thru a swipe or insertion reader that uses an infrared scanner. Infrared card pricing is moderate to expensive, and encoding is pretty secure. Infrared scanners are optical and therefore vulnerable to contamination. PROXIMITY - Hands-free operation is the primary selling point of this card. Although several different circuit designs are used, all proximity cards permit the transmission of a code simply by bringing the card near the reader (6-12"). These cards are quite thick, up to 0.15" (the ABA standard is 0.030"!). WIEGAND - Named after its inventor, this technology uses a series of small diameter wires that, when subjected to a changing magnetic field, induce a discrete voltage output in a sensing coil. Two rows of wires are embedded in a coded strip. When the wires move past the read head, a series of pulses is read and interpreted as binary code. This technology produces cards that are VERY hard to copy or alter, and cards are moderately expensive to make. Readers based on this tech are epoxy filled, making them immune to weather conditions, and neither card nor readers are affected by external magnetic fields (don't worry about leaving these cards on top of the television set...you can't hurt them!). Here's an example of the layout of the wires in a Wiegand strip: ||| || || | ||| | || || | || || | | || | | | | | | |||| || |||| || The wires are NOT visible from the outside of the card, but if your card is white, place it in front of a VERY bright light source and peer inside. Notice that the spacings between the wires is uniform. BARIUM FERRITE - The oldest magnetic encoding technology (been around for 40 yrs!) it uses small bits of magnetized barium ferrite that are placed inside a plastic card. The polarity and location of the "spots" determines the coding. These cards have a short life cycle, and are used EXTENSIVELY in parking lots (high turnover rate, minimal security). Barium Ferrite cards are ONLY used with INSERTION readers. There you have the most commonly used cards. Magstripes are common because they are CHEAP and relatively secure. ** Magstripe Coercivity ** Magstripes themselves come in different flavors. The COERCIVITY of the magnetic media must be specified. The coercivity is the magnetic field strength required to demagnetize an encoded stripe, and therefore determines the encode head field strength required to encode the stripe. A range of media coercivities are available ranging from 300 Oersteds to 4,000 Oe. That boils down to HIGH-ENERGY magstripes (4,000 Oe) and LOW-ENERGY magstripes (300 Oe). REMEMBER: since all magstripes have the same magnetic remanence regardless of their coercivity, readers CANNOT tell the difference between HIGH and LOW energy stripes. Both are read the same by the same machines. LOW-ENERGY media is most common. It is used on all financial cards, but its disadvantage is that it is subject to accidental demagnetization from contact with common magnets (refrigerator, TV magnetic fields, etc.). But these cards are kept safe in wallets and purses most of the time. HIGH-ENERGY media is used for ID Badges and access control cards, which are commonly used in 'hostile' environments (worn on uniform, used in stockrooms). Normal magnets will not affect these cards, and low-energy encoders cannot write to them. ** Not All that Fluxes is Digital ** Not all magstripe cards operate on a digital encoding method. SOME cards encode AUDIO TONES, as opposed to digital data. These cards are usually used with old, outdated, industrial-strength equipment where security is not an issue and not a great deal of data need be encoded on the card. Some subway passes are like this. They require only expiration data on the magstripe, and a short series of varying frequencies and durations are enough. Frequencies will vary with the speed of swiping, but RELATIVE frequencies will remain the same (for instance, tone 1 is twice the freq. of tone 2, and .5 the freq of tone 3, regardless of the original frequencies!). Grab an oscilloscope to visualize the tones, and listen to them on your stereo. I haven't experimented with these types of cards at all. ** Security and Smartcards ** Many security systems utilize magstripe cards, in the form of passcards and ID cards. It's interesting, but I found in a NUMBER of cases that there was a serious FLAW in the security of the system. In these cases, there was a code number PRINTED on the card. When scanned, I found this number encoded on the magstripe. Problem was, the CODE NUMBER was ALL I found on the magstripe! Meaning, by just looking at the face of the card, I immediately knew exactly what was encoded on it. Ooops! Makes it pretty damn easy to just glance at Joe's card during lunch, then go home and pop out my OWN copy of Joe's access card! Fortunately, I found this flaw only in 'smaller' companies (sometimes even universities). Bigger companies seem to know better, and DON'T print ALL of the magstripe data right on card in big, easily legible numbers. At least the big companies *I* checked. ;) Other security blunders include passcard magstripes encoded ONLY with the owner's social security number (yeah, real difficult to find out a person's SS#...GREAT idea), and having passcards with only 3 or 4 digit codes. Smartcard technology involves the use of chips embedded in plastic cards, with pinouts that temporarily contact the card reader equipment. Obviously, a GREAT deal of data could be stored in this way, and unauthorized duplication would be very difficulty. Interestingly enough, not much effort is being put into smartcards by the major credit card companies. They feel that the tech is too expensive, and that still more data can be squeezed onto magstripe cards in the future (especially Track 1). I find this somewhat analogous to the use of metallic oxide disk media. Sure, it's not the greatest (compared to erasable- writable optical disks), but it's CHEAP..and we just keep improving it. Magstripes will be around for a long time to come. The media will be refined, and data density increased. But for conventional applications, the vast storage capabilities of smartcards are just not needed. ** Biometrics: Throw yer cards away! ** I'd like to end with a mention of biometrics: the technology based on reading the physical attributes of an individual thru retina scanning, signature verification, voice verification, and other means. This was once limited to government use and to supersensitive installations. However, biometrics will soon acquire a larger market share in access control sales because much of its development stage has passed and costs will be within reach of more buyers. Eventually, we can expect biometrics to replace pretty much ALL cards..because all those plastic cards in your wallet are there JUST to help COMPANIES *identify* YOU. And with biometrics, they'll know you without having to read cards. I'm not paranoid, nor do I subscribe to any grand "corporate conspiracy," but I find it a bit unsettling that our physical attributes will most likely someday be sitting in the cool, vast electronic databases of the CORPORATE world. Accessible by anyone willing to pay. Imagine CBI and TRW databases with your retina image, fingerprint, and voice pattern online for instant, convenient retrieval. Today, a person can CHOOSE NOT to own a credit card or a bank card...we can cut up our plastic ID cards! Without a card, a card reader is useless and cannot identify you. Paying in cash makes you invisible! However, with biometrics, all a machine has to do is watch... listen...and record. With government/corporate America pushing all the buttons. "Are you paying in cash?..Thank you...Please look into the camera. Oh, I see your name is Mr. Smith...uh, oh...my computer tells me you haven't paid your gas bill...afraid I'm going to have to keep this money and credit your gas account with it....do you have any more cash?...or would you rather I garnish your paycheck?" heh heh ** Closing Notes (FINALLY!!!!) ** Whew...this was one MOTHER of a file. I hope it was interesting, and I hope you distribute it to all you friends. This file was a production of "Restricted Data Transmissions"...a group of techies based in the Boston area that feel that "Information is Power"...and we intend to release a number of highly technical yet entertaining files in the coming year....LOOK FOR THEM!! Tomorrow I'm on my way to Xmascon '91... we made some slick buttons commemorating the event...if you ever see one of them (green wreath.XMASCON 1991 printed on it).hang on to it!... it's a collector's item.. (hahahah) Boy, I'm sleepy... Remember.... "Truth is cheap, but information costs!" But -=RDT is gonna change all that... ;) set the info FREE! Peace. ..oooOO Count Zero OOooo.. Usual greets to Magic Man, Brian Oblivion, Omega, White Knight, and anyone else I ever bummed a cigarette off. (1/18/92 addition: Greets to everyone I met at Xmascon..including but not excluding Crimson Death, Dispater, Sterling, Mack Hammer, Erik Bloodaxe, Holistic Hacker, Pain Hertz, Swamp Ratte, G.A.Ellsworth, Phaedrus, Moebius, Lord MacDuff, Judge Dredd, and of course hats off to *Drunkfux* for organizing and taking responsibility for the whole damn thing. Hope to see all of you at SummerCon '92! Look for Cyber-striper GIFs at a BBS near you..heh heh) Comments, criticisms, and discussions about this file are welcome. I can be reached at: count0@world.std.com count0@spica.bu.edu count0@atdt.org Magic Man and I are the sysops of the BBS "ATDT"...located somewhere in Massachusetts. Great message bases, technical discussions...data made flesh...electronic underground.....our own Internet address (atdt.org)... field trips to the tunnels under MIT in Cambridge.....give it a call.. mail me for more info.. ;) <:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:>\|/<:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> >>>>>=-* Users Guide to VAX/VMS *-=<<<<< <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> Part II of III <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> Part C: Using the Utilities <:=--=:> <:=--=:> Part D: Advanced Guide to VAX/VMS <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> By Black Kat <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:> <:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:>/|\<:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:><:=--=:> Index ~~~~~ Part C contains information on the following topics: o Help Utility o Phone Utility o Backup Utility o Library Utility o Mail Utility o Sort Utility Part D contains information on the following topics: o Subprocesses o DECnet o Attaching to a Process o Proxy Access o Interrupting a Process o Task-to-Task Communication o Batch Processing o Remote Printing o Controlling Batch Jobs o VAXclusters <:=- Part C : Using the Utilities -=:> Help Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The VAX/VMS Help Utility is almost like having a DCL dictionary online. It includes an explanation of each DCL command and can optionally explain valid command parameters. Help also provides information about other VAX/VMS utilities and system services. There are two modes available for the help utility. If you know the DCL command, utility or system service you want more information about, use direct mode. If you don't know the command, use query mode. Query mode can also be used to see which other commands and other subjects are referenced by the help utility. To use query mode, just type HELP at the DCL command level. Help will display an alphabetical listing of all DCL commands and other topics for which information is available and you will be prompted with: "Topic?" You can exit Help by pressing or or or get information by typing in the command or subject name followed by . When you request information on a command, Help will display details including how the command is invoked, what it does and the default values. Most topics will have subtopics available which will be listed alphabetically followed by the prompt: "COMMAND-NAME Subtopic?" You can select subtopic help or press to return to the "Topic?" prompt. If you want to see all the information available on a command, type in "HELP command_name ..." or "HELP command_name *". To use direct mode, enter HELP topic_name . This will bypass the listing of available topic. Additionally, you can enter a valid DCL command with or without qualifiers in this mode. For example, to get information on the DCL SET command /TERMINAL qualifier, you could enter $ HELP SET TERMINAL. The help utility will provide information on the SET/TERMINAL command and prompt you for another subtopic since information on other qualifiers is available. For more information and details on the help utility, you can use: $ HELP HINTS or $ HELP HELP/INSTRUCTIONS. Backup Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The backup utility is usually used by system managers to back up system disks, insuring a recent copy of data should the system disks become unreliable. Generally, the system disks are backed up to magnetic tape or removable disk packs, which are then removed and stored in a save location offline. Users may use the backup utility on files in their own accounts to make copies for safe keeping, transferring to another system, or for offline storage. To use the backup utility, you have to decide what you want to back up, and how you want it done. You have the following options: Selective : Files are backed up according to a specified criteria. Qualifiers (e.g. /DATE) and file specifications (e.g. *.TXT) are used for specifying these criteria. File by File: Individual files or entire file directories are backed up. Directories are created when copying, unlike the copy command. Incremental : Saves file created since the most recent backup. Usually performed by system operators. Physical : An exact duplicate of a volume is saved. All file structures are ignored and the copy is a bit-by-bit duplicate. Image : A functionally equivalent copy of the original volume is created. Typically done on bootable volumes and system disks. To back up files to a subdirectory: $ BACKUP F1.TXT,F2.TXT,*.DAT [BY.JUNK] To copy a directory tree: $ BACKUP [dir...]file_spec [dir...]file_spec To copy disk volumes: $ MOUNT/FOREIGN DJA1: $ BACKUP/IMAGE DUA2: DUA1: To copy to tape: $ INITIALIXE MUA0: TAPE (the first time its used) $ MOUNT/FOREIGH MUA0: MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, TAPE mounted on __MUA0: $ BACKUP [.DRV]MV_DYDRV.MAR MUA0:[]MV_DYDRV.MAR A save set is a single file containing multiple files that have been backed up. To make a save set: $ MOUNT/FOREIGN MUA0: MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, TAPE mounted on __MUA0: $ BACKUP DUB1:[BY.JUNK]*.*;* MUA0:08JUN.BAK/SAVE_SET A single file can be retrieved from a save set by using the /SELECT qualifier. For example, to restore the file LOGIN.COM from the previously backed up save set: $ MOUNT/FOREIGH MUA0: MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, TAPE mounted on __MUA0: $ BACKUP __From: MUA0:08:JUN.BAK/SAVE_SET/SELECT=[BY.JUNK]LOGIN.COM __To: *.* Listing a save set: $ MOUNT/FOREIGN MUA0: MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, TAPE mounted on __MUA0: $ BACKUP/LIST MUA0:08JUN.BAK/SAVE_SET Selective backups: $ BACKUP *.*/SINCE=12-APR-1988 MUA0:08JUN.BAK/SAVE_SET $ BACKUP __From: *.*/SINCE=12-APR-1988/EXCLUDE=[*.TMP,*.LOG] __To: MUA0:08JUN.BAK/SAVE_SET The following is a list of some other qualifiers you'll find useful. Qualifier Function ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /LOG Writes log message to terminal as each backup file is written. /VERIFY Verifies the copy or save set with the original after copy. /CONFIRM Display each filename and ask for confirmation before copy. /DELETE Deletes source file after destination file written. Mail Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~ When you receive new mail, a message will be sent to your terminal unless the /NOBROATCAST qualifier has been specified with the SET TERMINAL command. Mail is an interactive utility that understands many commands in a format identical to DCL commands. The utility is invoked by typing "$ MAIL" at the DCL command level. Mail has a built in help feature which works the same way as the VAX/VMS Help Utility. Mail may be sent interactively or directly. Interactive implies the use of the mail utility in conversational mode by invoking mail at the DCL command level. After invoking the mail utility, use the SEND command, and mail will prompt you for the name of the user(s) you want to send the mail to, your name, the subject, and the message text which you will terminate with . When you press the message is sent and you are returned to the mail prompt where you can type EXIT to quit. To send mail in direct mode from the DCL command line, use the following format: $ MAIL file_spec user /SUBJECT="character string" where "file_spec" is a valid VAX/VMS file specification containing the body of your mail message and "user" is the name of a user on your local system or remote node. The /SUBJECT qualifier is optional. To send mail to multiple users (like a mailing list) create a file with a list of the account names of every user you want to receive the message. Then enter @FILENAME at the "To:" prompt and each user listed in the distribution list will receive a copy of your mail. A distribution list may also contain another distribution list by preceeding the second name with an at sign (@). Comments are included by using an exclamation point (!). The following is a sample distribution list: ! VAX.DIS ! ! Staff JONES OPER BYNON ! ! Accounting personnel @ACTLIST To read your mail, just type MAIL and you will be told how many messages you have waiting. Read is the default command, so you can just press to start reading them. To reply to a message, use the REPLY or ANSWER commands and the mail utility will fill out the header information automatically. You can store your mail in folders for later reference. The system has three default folders (MAIL, NEWMAIL, and WASTEBASKET). MAIL is the default mail folder and always exists. It is used to store mail messages after you've read them unless you file these messages in other folders you've created. The NEWMAIL folder stores mail messages before you read them, like a mailbox. They're automatically moved to the MAIL folder after you've read them unless you specify a different destination folder with the MOVE command. The WASTEBASKET folder is a temporary folder used to store messages that have been deleted. These messages remain in the WASTEBASKET folder until you exit the mail utility, at which time they're thrown out permanently. To create new folders, select a message and enter the MOVE command. If you attempt to move a message to a nonexistent folder, you'll be asked if you want to create a new folder. For example: MAIL> 11 MAIL> MOVE MEMOS Folder MEMOS does not exist. Create it (Y/N, default is N)? Y MAIL-NEWFOLDER, folder MEMOS created MAIL> The SELECT command allows you to move from one folder to another. For example, if you type SELECT JUNK at the "MAIL>" prompt, you will be moved to the JUNK folder, and mail will respond with the number of messages contained in the new folder. The DELETE command accepts a message number as a parameter or deletes the current message if a message number is not supplied. To delete a folder, just delete all the messages in that folder with the DELETE qualifier /ALL. To log a mail message to a file, use the EXTRACT qualifier. If the /NOHEADER qualifier is used, the header information will not be included. For example: EXTRACT/NOHEADER MEMO.TXT will save the currently selected message to a file named MEMO.TXT. For more information on the mail utility, use mail's HELP command. Phone Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The VAX/VMS Phone Utility allows you to talk to other users on your system. It simulates a real telephone with such features as call holding, conference calls and telephone directories. The Phone utility only works with VT100, VT200 or compatible terminals. To call someone with the phone utility, enter "$ PHONE username" where username is the person you want to talk to. Your screen will split horizontally in half and indicate that the phone utility is ringing the other person. Your half of the conversation will be displayed on the top of the screen and the other person's will appear on the lower half. The phone utility may also be used interactively by entering "$ PHONE", and you will now be given the phone prompt (%). You can enter commands directly now (e.g. "% DIRECTORY"). The phone utility has an online help facility just like the mail utility. Library Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sometimes its easier to maintain a single file instead of a group of related files. The VAX/VMS Library Utility lets you create and maintain a specially formatted file called a library in which you can store groups of single files called modules. Predefined libraries include text, help, object, sharable image and macro. Many VAX/VMS utilities such as HELP and LINK are capable of processing library files. Unless you're a programmer or system manager, you'll probably only use text and help libraries. To create a library use the LIBRARY command's /type qualifier and the /CREATE qualifier. The /type qualifiers are: /TEXT, /SHARE, /HELP, /OBJECT, /MACRO. For example to create a text library named BOOK.TLB: $ LIBRARY/TEXT/CREATE BOOK. You may optionally specify a list of files to be included in a library when it is created. For example: $ LIBRARY/TEXT/CREATE BOOK TOC,C1,C2,INDEX To list the names of modules in a library, use the /LIST qualifier: $ LIBRARY/TEXT/LIST BOOK Directory of TEXT library BOOK.TLB;1 on 12-JUN-1989 14:12:07 TOC C1 C2 INDEX You can also display a history of updates made to the library by using the /HISTORY qualifier with the /LIST qualifier. To add modules to an existing library, use the /INSERT qualifier: $ LIBRARY/TEXT/INSERT BOOK CH3 To update a module in a library, do the following: o Extract the module to be updated with the /EXTRACT qualifier. o Make the necessary changes. o Write over the old module with the /REPLACE qualifier. For example: $ LIBRARY/TEXT/EXTRACT BOOK CH2 $ EDIT CHAP2.TXT . . (edit the file) . $ LIBRARY/TEXT/REPLACE BOOK CH2 Sort Utility ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The VAX/VMS Sort Utility will reorganize records within a file. The simplest form of the sort command will organize records in ascending alphabetical order. For example, to sort BOOK.TXT, you could issue the command: $ SORT BOOK.TXT SORTED.TXT The Sort utility sorts on the first character of the field in each record in the input file. If there is more than one field or column in a record, the entire record is ordered, not just the first field. Here's an example of sorting in descending order numerically with multiple fields. The sample data file JUNK.TXT contains two fields of data. The first field contains a name, and the second field, starting in column 9 contains the two-digit number we're sorting by: PAT 47 PAT 47 JIM 09 TOM 23 RICH 43 GARY 02 KURT 13 KEVIN 27 Sort the file: $ SORT/KEY=(POSITION=9,SIZE=2,DESCENDING) JUNK.TXT SORTED.TXT The sorted file (SORTED.TXT) will now look like this: PAT 47 RICH 43 KEVIN 27 TOM 23 KURT 13 JIM 09 GARY 02 <:=- Part D : Advanced Guide to VAX/VMS -=:> Subprocesses ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A major benefit of the VAX/VMS operating system is its support of multi- processing. This is not restricted to multiple users logged into different terminals however. VAX/VMS users may create multiple processes known as subprocesses from within their main processes. The DCL SPAWN command is used to create a subprocess. The SPAWN command will create a subprocess with the attributes (default directory, privileges, memory, etc.) of its parent process unless otherwise specified. For example: $ SPAWN % DCL-S-SPAWNED, process BYNON_1 spawned % DCL-S-ATTACHED, terminal now attached to process BYNON_1 In this case, the parent process is put into hibernation, the subprocess is given control of the keyboard, and we are left at the DCL prompt. You can now enter any DCL commands, utilities, or other programs. To return to the parent process, just $ LOGOUT of the subprocess: $ LOGOUT Process BYNON_1 logged out at 12-JUL-1981 13:04:17.10 $ DCL-S-RETURNED, control returned to process BYNON The SPAWN qualifier /NOLOG can be used to suppress the informational messages generated when a subprocess is created or logged out. DCL Commands, procedures and VAX/VMS images (utilities and programs) may be executed directly with SPAWN by entering the correct syntax for the command or procedure after the SPAWN command. For example: $ SPAWN/NOLOG MAIL If you have a task that can execute without user intervention (e.g. a program compiler), you can spawn a task to run as a background process to your current process. For example: $ SPAWN/NOWAIT FORTRAN VAXBBS The SPAWN qualifier /NOWAIT spawns the task to run concurrently (parallel) to the parent process. Both processes will share the terminal and any messages >from the background task will be displayed at the terminal. To avoid possible conflicts, use the /OUTPUT qualifier: $ SPAWN/NOWAIT/OUTPUT=COMPILE.LOG FORTRAN.VAXBBS When the job in the subprocess is complete it will terminate and be removed >from the system. ATTACHing to a Process ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can use the DCL ATTACH command to connect your keyboard to any process or subprocess you've created. To exit from BYNON_1 back to BYNON with the ATTACH command, enter "$ ATTACH BYNON" and the subprocess hibernates while you are returned to the parent process. Interrupting a Process ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can interrupt a process at anytime to create a subprocess by pressing and then using the SPAWN command. When you're done working with the subprocess and have returned to the interrupted process, type CONTINUE to start processing again where you left off. Some VAX/VMS utilities, such as MAIL, support SPAWN intrinsically, so you can spawn a process within these utilities by entering the SPAWN command without pressing first. Batch Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The SUBMIT command was briefly discussed in Part II: Programming the VAX. A batch job is one or more DCL command procedures that execute from a detached process with your privileges and quotas. The controller of the process is the batch queue which accepts jobs via the SUBMIT command. Batch jobs execute without user interaction, permitting you to use your terminal for interactive work while the system executes the batch job (command procedure). Batch jobs are used to execute tasks that take a long time to run, use many system resources, or need to be scheduled to execute at a specific time. The SUBMIT command will enter a command procedure to the default batch queue (SYS$BATCH) if a specific queue is not provided. A command procedure submitted for batch execution is given a job name which defaults to the command procedure name unless otherwise specified. The entry number given to the job is used to control it (delete, rename, etc.) Controlling Batch Jobs ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can specify a name for a batch job with the /NAME qualifier: $ SUBMIT BACKUP /NAME=DAILY_BACK You may also execute more than one command procedure by separating the procedure names with a comma: $ SUMBIT SORT_DATA,REPORT /NAME=WEEKLY_REPORT To schedule a batch job to execute after a specific time: $ SUMBIT CLEANUP /AFTER=11:40 Job CLEANUP (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 39) holding until 1-JUN-1989 11:40 To hold a job in the queue to be released later: $ SUMBIT REMINDER /HOLD Job REMINDER (queue SYS$BATCH, entry 12) holding $ $ SET QUEUE/ENTRY=32/RELEASE SYS$BATCH To submit a job to a different queue: $ SUBMIT TESTJOB /QUEUE=SLOW To lower the priority (e.g. if it's CPU intensive): $ SUBMIT CRUNCH /PRIORITY=2 To pass parameters: $ SUBMIT COMPILE / PARAMETERS=(WINDOWS,MISC,DISP_IO) To disable the automatic printing of the batch job's log (file instead): $ SUBMIT GOJOB /NOPRINT /LOG_FILE=DUA2:[BYNON] This will create a file DUA2:[BYNON]GOJOB.LOG. If the /NOPRINT qualifier is not specified, the log file will be printed and deleted. To print and keep the log file, use the /KEEP qualifier with the /LOG_FILE qualifier. After you submit a procedure to a batch queue, you can monitor its status and job characteristics by using the SHOW QUEUE command. This will display the name, entry number and status of all the jobs you have in queue. The /ALL qualifier will display all jobs you have enough privilege to see, and the /FULL qualifier provides more information about jobs, such as operating characteristics and submission time. You can use the SET QUEUE/ENTRY command to modify a job's priority (/PRIORITY), name (/NAME), or status (/RELEASE or /AFTER). For example: $ SET QUEUE /ENTRY=217 /PRIORITY=2 SYS$BATCH Use the DELETE /ENTRY command to delete jobs: $ DELETE /ENTRY=18 SYS$BATCH Using DECnet ~~~~~~~~~~~~ DECnet uses the standard VAX/VMS file specifications for remote file access. In addition to a node specification, you may also include access control information (username and password) in quotes. For example: BURG"JONES MYPW"::DUA2:JUNK.TXT | | | | | | | | | +---- Filename.Extension | | | | | | | +---------- Device name | | | | | +------------------ Password | | | +----------------------- Username | +----------------------------- Node name Unless a specific DECnet account exists on the host node, or proxy exists, you must supply access control information to execute a command on a remote system. (e.g. $ TYPE BURG""JONES MYPW"::DUA2:JUNK.TXT) Proxy Access ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Because including access control information in a command string is a security risk, Digital provides proxy access, which works by keeping a database of users and hosts who may gain access to the system via DECnet. The format of the database is: SYSTEM::REMOTE_USERNAME LOCAL_USERNAME. Task-to-Task Communication ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is a feature of DECnet which allows programs on one system to communicate with programs on another (e.g. the DCL TYPE command) To execute a procedure on a remote system, use the TYPE command with the TASK=xxx parameter. For example: $ TYPE VAX1::"TASK=SHOW_USERS" To show the users on a remote system you would write a command procedure something like this: $! Show_Users.Com $! $ IF FMODE() .EQS. "NETWORK" THEN GOTO NETWORK $ SHOW USERS $ EXIT $ NETWORK: $ DEFINE/USER_MODE SYS$OUTPUT SYS$NET $ SHOW USERS $ EXIT Since SYS$OUTPUT is redirected to SYS$NET, the output is redirected to your terminal over DECnet. Task-to-Task communication can be simple (like Show_Users) or complicated (like programs passing data back and forth). Remote Printing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If your DECnet network contains a LAN such as Ethernet, you'll probably have to share printers with other nodes on the network. The easiest way to print a file is to copy it directly to the print device. This works fine as long as the device is spooled and set up with world write privileges. For example: $ COPY JUNK.TXT BURG::LCA0: will copy the file JUNK.TXT to the device LCA0: on node BURG. Another way to print is to use the DCL PRINT/REMOTE command. However, the file must be located on the remote system to use this, which is inconvenient if the file you're printing is on the local system. You can still do it though: $ COPY JUNK.TXT BURG::[BYNON] $ PRINT /REMOTE BURG::[BYNON]JUNK.TXT Job JUNK (queue SYS$PRINT, entry 512) started on LCA0 $ DELETE BURG::[BYNON]JUNK.TXT VAXclusters ~~~~~~~~~~~ The main purpose of a VAXcluster is high processor ability, shared resources, and a single security and management area. There are two basic type of VAXclusters, heterogeneous and homogeneous, but a mix of the two is possible. The main difference between these types is how they share resources, specifically the VAX/VMS OS environment. The VAX/VMS OS environment is identical on each cluster in a homogeneous VAXcluster. This is done by using a common system disk for all the nodes. User accounts, system files, queues and storage devices are shared, and all of the computers behave the same way. In a heterogeneous VAXcluster, the environment on each system is different. Each VAX has its own system disk, user accounts and system files. Queues and storage devices may or may not be shared. Users can work in different operating environments, depending on the system they're using. Usually a VAXcluster is accessed by an Ethernet-based terminal server. Using a terminal server, a user can establish a session with any VAXcluster member, and the connection is identical to that of a directly connected terminal. However, terminal sessions can support multiple simultaneous sessions to different nodes. In the unlikely event that a VAXcluster is set up with directly connected terminals and you need to access a different system, you can DECnet via the SET HOST facility. All VAXcluster systems support DECnet within the cluster. VAXcluster members (nodes) often share processing resources through the use of print and batch queues known as cluster-wide queues, which are used the same as a normal queue. The only extra information you need is the queue name. A list of all the queues in a cluster can be called up with the DCL SHOW QUEUE command. If you submit a job to a cluster-wide queue, you must insure that the node on which it resides has access to the file you want to print or the command procedure you want processed. Volume Four, Issue Thirty-Seven, File 8 of 14 ############################## #*# Basic Commands #*# #*# for the VOS #*# #*# System #*# ############################## Written by Dr. No-Good [Echo] Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ok, well this is a simple text file that explains the basic commands used by a VOS system. VOS stands for Virtual Operating System and it is mainly used by businesses but other groups have used it too. If you have any questions, you can reach me at this fine system: Legion (202)337=2844 or if you have any questions you can e-mail the me at: Internet: ukelele!kclahan@UUNET.UU.NET Special Thanks to: Nat X, Beta Raider, Tomellicus and the anonymous site of my humble work. $Note$ All material in this t-file is for informational purposes only. Any abuse of this information is probably against the law and the authors of this text file are not responsible for the reader's actions. (*****************************************************************************) Ok, well VOS systems can be found in various systems around the world and on many of the nets such as TELENET. You can recognize a VOS system at its prompt. Which looks like this: Prompt-> (Name of System) System ???, VOS Release v.(version), Module ??? (Or it just says something about a Release ver# and Module#) After getting the log-on message you come to the hard part, getting a valid user/password combination. To log-in, you type: Login or Login 'User_name:' 'Password?' (by the way, means enter and it comes after something you have to type and words in '' mean that the computer is displaying that) When you get a valid name and password, it will say: logged in on at -- at