I Still Don't Sleep At Night

HOORAY FOR THE FBI

Never thought I'd find myself cheering for the law, but there you go. Jeffrey Lee Parson, the 18-year-old who wanted to win friends and influence people by infecting their computers with the blaster worm variant, will soon be finding there are worse things in life than not being able to log on. I hope he does the whole ten years.

Oh believe you me I left a little note posted where my hackers couldn't miss it. I told them that they are next. I told them (stop reading if you're delicate) that I hope they enjoy it up the butt because that's what they'll be getting on a daily basis. Knowing a lot about computers doesn't get you too far in jail.

I should be rejoicing because another hacker is going away, but one thing really sticks in my craw. Parsons is busted for one count of "intentionally causing or attempting to cause damage to a protected computer." What government agency had the protected computer? What about the rest of us schlubs who don't get to use our computers? Huh FBI? What about us? Don't we count? I can't believe they wouldn't help me. But maybe my incident report helped lead them to Parsons who knows?

But, hey, in reading this article, I noticed that I was right on in calling how it was done--basically, the same RPC stuff I wrote about the other day. More new flaws to get the attention of Windows' owners. And Bill Gates started the year saying this was the year of Microsoft trustworthiness. What a bunch of security bulletins and patches have gone down that chute.

On top of which MS goes and signs a $90 million deal with Homeland Security as their exclusive contractor and what do you make of that? I was just paranoid of them getting my information in their windows updates. Now what will they be doing with it?

This was a very long post and took me a pretty long time. Then I got up to get something. I'm in a public place. There was a teenage kid sitting next to me idly flipping through a shock jock's site I noticed. When I came back he was on his way out. Guess what? So was most of my post. I'll say it again: Sometimes paranoids are right. These people--these hackers--have conventions for God's sake. There not going to let me use all the articles and things I had to say. In fact I better just publish this and say so it goes.

I will be getting my computer back soon. That's a promise.

THE GOOD OLD EPLPDXO2--HOW'S YOUR'S RUNNING?

Number one in the top twenty search parade today and always I guess, at least for this blog, is the hidden driver with the exotic name, Eplpdx02. I have new information and must break into the all-hacking all the time news bulletin to give you the latest. I'll tell you though I think the hackers left it for me to find. I do think they read the blog to see what I'm doing and what I'll do next. I'm no dummy. I don't spell everything out. In fact, I have a new plan I'm very excited about, but you'll have to wait until it unfolds to hear about it. It's a winner. And you know what it will result in? Justice. I get my computer back in time to go back to school for my knowledge management certificate. They get justice.

What is justice? Check it out. Computer theft is defined as "intentionally and without authorization or claim of right accessing or causing to be accessed any computer, computer system, computer network, or any part thereof" blah blah blah "with intent to deprive the owner of use or possession of any computer". The penalties include: Imprisonment for not more than ten years or to payment of a fine of not more than $50,000 or both, ya da ya da, Imprisonment for not more than five years or to payment of a fine of not more than $10,000 or both if the loss to the owner is more than $500 but not more than $2,500 or in all other cases to imprisonment for not more than 90 days or to payment of a fine of not more than $700 or both. This is for Minnesota and Wisconsin but how different can it be for Illinois--probably just tougher. Justice will come.

Okay the promised Eplpdx02 news that they left lying on a stack of folders next to my desk. Its from Annoyances.org dated June 26, 2003, way after mine was fine and I had stopped looking for answers. Again, the problem is always the Epson C-82 printer which always worked fine for me too. But you know I did in fact uninstall the printer and then reinstall it and its drivers from the Epson disc. I felt crazy doing it since it worked fine, but once I learned that the Eplpdx02 was associated with it I had to go for it. I feel badly I didn't mention this before. I thought it was just a fluke and a dumb thing to do on my part. I was embarrassed I did it to tell you the truth--reinstall drivers in a perfectly good running printer. But that's what the man here, Pawan David, says is the answer. So good luck to all you people whose Eplpdx02's won't start.

(By the way, if you're a fan of Annoyances, you might be interested to know, as I was before my computer was hacked, that you can order a similarly themed book Windows XP Annoyances by David A. Karp. One of the exciting subjects he discusses is how to adjust hardware device drivers with skill and precision.)

And now I've got research to do. Nancy Drew lives. She's a lot older, a little beat up, and she smokes now. There's no Ned in a coupe to drive her around. She relies on her bicycle for her stake outs. Dad's gone and so's the cash, but you watch. Nancy is going to solve this caper.

I KNOW... LET'S TALK ABOUT COMPUTER CRIME

Here's the latest: I've been turned down by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. States Attorney's Office. I disabled all the network's operations equipment that said network or remote. As a consequence I no longer get a start menu so now I don't have a control panel. I did manage to get to the event viewer through safe mode, but the properties which tell the story are sealed shut again. My burgundy bra and my beaded ashtray are missing. They've made the picture logo for the welcome screen a chess board for the administrator who I assume is still me, although I administrate nothing. Sure it's like chess. They have the king and all their pieces are queens. I have a king and all my pieces are drunken pawns.

Yeah, I went out to the sidewalk to see Mars last night in my big t-shirt that I wear to bed. I left my pile of clothes I'd worn that day in the bathroom. This morning I couldn't find my bra. The cat wasn't wearing it. No one else had been there THAT I KNOW OF. Nice trophy for an immature boys I suppose. And my damn little made-in-India ashtray that had been on my desk that I'd had forever was now missing. It was the only ashtray I used. It had to have been sitting precariously near the ballpoint pen wreckage from the other day, but I can't remember if it was still there or not when I found the broken pen. I think not.

I continue to research hackers, Windows XP vulnerabilities, security, worms, viruses, as though if I just read enough they'll be gone. Microsoft sent me their answer today from the Technet Security Response Team. I filed a report with them after reading on their site that they wanted to know where their products had failed in terms of security. I wrote and wrote and wrote. Tonight I read the terse reply. Had I heard of blaster worm? I wrote and wrote and wrote some more. Remind me to do the piece about how they are tied in with Homeland Security and plan to cash in on our privacy through windows updates, will you? Maybe tomorrow if not tonight.

I did read something interesting along those lines though. If it's not hackers per se, and not a virus or worm, then I have "rats" I can buy the definition of the remote code driven control on my computer. I just said to someone the other day how they "bite through firewalls like rats through cheese." They just bit through the second Zone.alarm. Rest in peace. It's last message was so sad. It said something like don't trust it's integrity because it had been interfered with by outside agents. It gave it's all till the end. Didn't get to live too long.

The U.S. States Attorney's Office told me to try my local police department. Been there done that. The police officer not only told me to call Dell, he dialed the phone and listened to the menu. Then he said, "See they're talking about that worm. You probably have that worm." That was that. Meanwhile my worm writes me letters and circles my files with little notes "Maryellen this article was in a journal put out by Linux." Personal attention worm all the way. Today I read an article where the Director of the Computer Crime Security Survey, Patrice Rapalus said, significantly, "There is much more illegal and unauthorized activity going on in cyberspace than corporations admit to their clients, stockholders and business partners or report to law enforcement." No wonder I saw considering the brick wall, disbelief and apathy I have found. (This article offers a free copy of the Computer Intrusion Squad's Computer Crime Security Survey. You may want to check it out. It was made with the San Francisco Office of the FBI.)

Here's another thing I continue to read about: The mind of the hacker. I keep reading that some wear white hats. Some actually do work for security firms and do it to test security. Maybe mine really do work for Microsoft and want to see who finally helps me. Help me now I say. Here's some more interesting factoids about hackers.

And while we're on the subject, which sad to say I guess I always am, here's an Intruder Detection Checklist to see if your system has been compromised. You could read all the articles at http://www.cert.org. There's a lot more to security than having a firewall. I read one article that just came out and said that if you have Windows XP and a fast internet connection with AOL you might as well forget depending on your firewall. End-users connected to AOL (like me) over DSL or cable modem may be assigned an IP address from an AOL network block in addition to the IP address obtained as a result of the DSL or cable modem connection. Traffic to the AOL-assigned address may be routed to the end-user system in a way that may bypass the personal firewall enabling intruders. And so they get you.

I hate it when people think I'm so stupid I didn't even have a firewall up.

One of these days we can talk about all the different ways to attack a computer. If you think e-mail attachments or instant messages are all you need to worry about, try on some of these styles: What I have is denial of service attack launched by remote network. It might have been carried out through rate limiting, packet filtering, packet flooding, TCP floods, ICMP echo request/reply (e.g. ping floods) UDP packet floods, a flaw in RPC endpoint mapper, or, as I said before, an exploitation of the vulnerability of the RPC interface. I know they're working codes on me because I find them. They still leave some files out. Just today I found a file dated Monday titled "Security" with a long list of privileges I have lost. I tried to copy it but don't know if I got it or not. This computer won't open it.

So that's today's phreaking hacking news. Tonight I'll probably do what I do most nights. I get a Diet Coke and sit at my desk and pretend I still have a computer. I enter by safe mode and find my way to folders in local C. Then click and click on a bunch of files I can't open. They got too smart for me. They have suddenly switched to putting a lot of their files in open with AOL files. I guess they don't plan to ever let me online. So I flip through the files and see what there is in notepad that I can open. They offered me CompuServe to install but I figure it's just more of their meanness since they won't let me online. They put it on my desktop a couple of times just to taunt me.

Do you think these guys really are Republicans? Really do work for Microsoft? Really are fans of John Ashcroft? I'm screwed, that's all I know. Who can I call tomorrow on my bugged phone?

Night.

WISH I'D BOUGHT A LINUX

It's way too weird now. I guess I can't expect anyone to believe how everything is all "synched" up as we used to say in the Sixties. And I have to say it's a good thing I did take a lot of hallucinogens because this is one trippy reality. Living the psychedelic life teaches you to maintain regardless. I'm maintaining so far. I get up in the morning, go to work, research the vulnerabilities of Windows XP. The reality of this is too much to bear at times--most of the time. I suppose it also helps that I've already been crazy. No big fear about being driven there when I know what a short walk it is to get there. I might be there already. Who knows.

Okay, I had lots to blow my mind with about the "Network" before I just now went to Blogpatrol. Now it's worse. I mentioned the network's logon access and their signing in under different names, and on August 16th I quoted from the security event viewer about the "advapi" logon process. Briefly. Just wrote down the word because it was there. I don't even know what it means. Well, today I learned from Blogpatrol that it is now one of my top 20 search terms. Google has requests for "logon process advapi," "advapi logon," "advapi logon process," "logon process name chap," "logon process %3A advapi," and the worst one of all, "My Network Web Client Network," which is one of the three names listed under networks in my network places. Are all these searches from other hacker victims? Or are all these searches from my captors playing more mind games with me, despite the different IP addresses? They're certainly clever enough to pull that off somehow.

So Microsoft was my last hope. They told me to physically move the computer to another location (and to use a phone that's not bugged), and a technician would help me. They even offered me an 800 number. The problem was finding someone willing to let me bring the thing to their house. Turns out it's like asking if you can bring your cousin with the plague over. My mother got so upset she had to get off the phone. I never should have asked her. My dear friend Ellen and I had a terrible fight because she told me to leave the computer alone, that it was just an addiction. ( I hate it when people tell you that because you love to do something it's an addiction. I wanted to tell her that going to France twice this year is an addiction.) Then she said she didn't want to get involved. I found this unforgivable and hung up on her. We made up the next day. She found me a friend of hers who works on computers who was supposed to be really good. For some desperate reason, against my better instincts, I paid him to finish what I had started to do: re-format and re-install. I had stopped the re-install process about six times because the computer kept trying to add the network. I shut it off everytime. Why did I think he could do it when I couldn't? I told the man not to let the computer add it. He told me he did a clean install and re-did everything including drivers. Did he listen to me about the network? He says to me, "Well you have to have a network for the internet." Not like that you don't. Don't men think they know best?


He brought the computer out to me. I didn't see it working. I took it home and it is more flagrant than ever. Now when I turn it off it actually says, "The network is shutting down." The event viewer immediately began to list all the different log ons that shouldn't have been there. (The event viewer only goes on when I log on.) They let me go online for about an hour and then began to play password games and connection games with me. Same old same old. I know I shouldn't go online, even with my three firewalls but it's an addiction. I just cancelled the DSL connection that they're using because it's in my name. It turns out they signed me up for another account without my knowledge. Honestly! But I can't use it. Get this: I don't know the password. If I call AOL and get it, they'll be another problem. I re-installed the zone.alarm firewall which they had dismantled prior to the re-install and it held at least for the night. There were some blocked attempts where they attempted entry 74, 123, 57, and 64 times before trying a different program to see if I'd fall for that. They do not quit. The firewall log is set to record up to 300 incidents but I may have to lengthen it.

There are more files that I'm not allowed to see, even ones with my name on it. There are properties of files that I'm not allowed to see. It will say "access denied." When they won't let me online I get even by calling up the task manager and ending processes that they are running. I love deleting their windows explorer which usually is using about 20K memory. They retaliate by removing the start menu with control panel which leaves me no choice but to log off.

There's more but I don't want to bore you. No one can help. No one knows what to do. I called more computer repair places today. Their solutions were all the same: Re-format, re-install and put on windows updates. I tried to put on security patches, windows updates and additional security programs last night. Everytime I get close to a download or page it will say something like "forbidden" or "internet connection lost" or "must enable cookies and active x" which no matter how I configure them is never right. When I have downloaded patches at another computer to a floppy and then tried to open them to my computer they turn into something else while still in drive A. I'm not kidding. The computer tells me that it's not the security patch I think it is. It is a cabinet extractor or some kind of thing. My computer reminds me of the possessed girl in The Exorcist. I expect pea soup to spit from its tower at any moment and my cat to go flying through the window. That reminds me, once as an evil joke, they flashed a sign on the screen to load a disc in drive A. I did so. All my missing documents that they had removed magically loaded. Before I could remove the disc for safekeeping, they were gone. That's the kind of mean-spirited folks I'm dealing with.

Here's the worst so far: They told me in their manifesto that if my computer were to become disabled, as I imagine it was when I kept it in limbo because I didn't want the re-install to add the network, or when I moved it to another site for another re-format and re-install, and all those bad things would happen because other computers would fail to start, about the only thing that I read that would happen to my computer was that it would not be able to record music and the sound would fail. When I came home with the computer tower last night there was something very odd on my desk. One of my speakers was covered in black stuff. I rubbed paper towel on it and it appears to be ink. The inside of a broken ball-point pen was sitting in front of my keyboard. The body of the pen was nowhere around. I am the only one who was in the house. At least that's the way it's supposed to be. I didn't put ink on my speaker. I didn't break a pen. I don't use ball-point pens and doubt that there's one in the house. My speakers don't work anymore. I don't have the heart to find out if I can record music. P.S. It's not the first time I've suspected someone has been in my place. And the other day I came home from work to find the back door wide open. Just a little test of my nerves.

I want out of this nightmare. I want the good old days when I could get my adrenaline going by simply making fun of George Bush or worrying about the FCC. I am numb and living on ongoing shocked senseless, walking wounded, what's next in this house of horrors trauma. And I don't tell you the worst because I don't want to get locked up or to have you think I'm crazy. But my phone is tapped. When I called the Chicago office of the FBI this morning, I was just talking to the hackers. They hack the three computers where I go to blog and do research. And the other night at the library I copied a bunch of articles about how to block some holes in my vulnerability. I discarded all the doubles. I was very careful about this. I'm cheap and I didn't want to pay for the ones the printer just felt like making two of. When I got home I did not have the articles I needed to help me with my problem. I had four copies of an introductory article. Yes, it's impossible. But true. I left my backpack alone a few times, but...

They hack the nearby pay phones. I've learned to tell from the menus if it's the fake menu or the real place. I swear the last two Dell calls were fake. Fake Indian accents too. I'm not all the way around the bend though. I didn't let myself think that the computer repair guy was one of them just because he let the network back in. I did think it for a little while, but rational thinking took over. Ellen has known this guy for years. It's not like he volunteered to work on my computer.

I started reading a book today about what makes hackers tick and their whole underground way of life. Many of them do hold respectable jobs by day. Could be they're computer programmers. Could be they actually do work for Microsoft. I'm telling you I shouldn't have said what I said about MS. Or maybe I shouldn't have said what I said about George Bush, America, the Flag, Republicans, Patriot Act, the Attorney General, the Vice President, the online chats at the White House... who knows? Maybe all my paranoid fears are finally here and come to get me.

I don't know if I can take much more. What would you do? I know this much. If I can get Dell to return my money the way they ought to, I am definitely getting a Linux.


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