============================================================================ THE SYNDICATE REPORT Bell Information Transmittal No. 9 Released February 16, 1987 Featuring: 911 Charge Fee (m am 12\1) AT&T Rates Chopped (m am 12\1) TSPS Justice (n wk 12\1) Cloning Experiment Avoids Havoc For Bell Companies (n wk 12\1) Computer History Stickups (cmt usr 12\5) SONAR To Speed Up Order Process (n wk 12\7) by The Sensei ============================================================================ Exposition: The Syndicate Report now excepts outside sources. Anyone can write/provide information to the Syndicate Report. The Syndicate Report is also altering format. Rather than concentrating mainly on BELL orientated information, the Syndicate Report now has a more broad interest. Thus, TSR now handles all types of news gatherings. All articles have been presented by me unless shown at the end of the article as the information provider(s). The Syndicate Report is about 2 months late due to computer problems. The actual release date was scheduled at Dec 28 '86. Sorry for the late issue. Other matters force me to hold off on producing the report, so if you don't see the report next month...most likely I stopped publishing. ============================================================================ 911 CHARGE FEE: When the legislature passed the omnibus "garbage" bill last session, few reports noticed a measure to fund 911 telephone service in states. Starting January '86 most of all telephone customers will be assessed a monthly 911 service fee of 14 cents on each access line, trunk, or trunk equivalency. More than 80 percent of the state's population has 911 emergency calling capability but the fee will be charged on all phone lines in the state. The fee will be collected by phone companies each month and paid to the state of each state. The state will use the money to pay the companies cost of 911 telephone lines. That cost is estimated to be 3.5$ million per year. The law does not provide for reimbursement to phone companies for the cost of collecting the fee. ============================================================================ AT&T RATES CHOPPED: AT&T long distance rates are expected to drop an additional 8.1 percent January 1 if the FCC approves the company's filing of last month. The proposed reduction, the second in a year and the fourth in three years, would save customers 1.2$ billion. The 8 am - 5 am calling period rates would drop the most, benefitting daytime callers including large number of business customers. MCI and Sprint have indicated they would keep their rates competitive, but industry observers say it will be a tight squeeze. ============================================================================ TSPS JUSTICE: The Justice Department last month filed a court briefing supporting a proposal that would allow the former Bell companies to provide certain TSPS operator services for interLATA calls. The proposal has been opposed by AT&T, MCI and U S Sprint, which have sought a ruling that the Concent Decree prohibits the Bell Companies from providing such services. The services in question include providing conference call arrangements, emergency assistance, billing for operator-handled calls, and time and charges information. ============================================================================ CLONING EXPERIMENT AVOIDS HAVOC FOR BELL COMPANIES: Computers in the Network Simulation Lab at Bell Communications Research are into cloning. They create clones of voiceband networks at the Bell operating companies to find out how proposed changes and improve- ments will affect customers' data transmission through modems. By simulating network impairments such as echo, the lab can determine whether proposed changes will cause digital errors -- before the companies invest in changes. Bell Research, the nation's largest research and engineering consortium, is jointly owned by the operating companies of the seven Bell regions. ============================================================================ COMPUTER HISTORY STICKUPS: The run-of-the-mill bank robber nets 20,000$. If caught, the thief has a 90 percent chance of being prosecuted and, if convicted, will be jailed for five years. A swindler who pulls off an electronic funds transfer nets an average of 500.000$, has a 15 percent chance of persecution, and, if convicted, faces only five months behind bars. Computer Crime is relatively new -- so new that the FBI only began keeping statistics in 1974. Today, though, the FBI has developed several computer-fraud training programs, including its challenging four-weeks at the FBI Academy in Virginia. You might say computer crime began as a nickel-and-dime operation. In 1967, a New York bank employee used the institution's computer to shave fractions of pennies from interest on long-term accounts. He wrote a program to deposit these fractions to his own account. After several years, he had ammassed over 200,000$. In the 1960s and early 1970s, such crimes were isolated. in the 1980s, computer crimes are not uncommon. A 1986 study conducted by Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., revealed that 56 percent of the Forbes 500 companies reported computer crime during 1985 with a combined total loss of 12,250,000$. A survey by an American Bar Association task force in 1984 estimated that businesses lose as much as 730$ million a year to computer crime. Other sources estimate the annual loss from such crimes may be as high as 3.5$ billion. White-collar crime, which includes computer-aided theft, adds an estimated 15 percent to the cost of retail goods. But what has made computer crime such an alluring profession? Three technological advances have formed the Achilles' heel of business-computer systems: o Systems are more user friendly today than ever. o The number of computers has greatly increased o Unauthorized persons can access computers through phone lines As a result, perfect crimes are committed where it is impossible to identify the perpetrator. Super-perfect crimes occur because many organizations are unaware a crime has been committed. Movies such as War Games often portray young, brilliant computers users ("hackers") as the primary threats to business and government computer systems. Not so, Mercy University reports. Mercy University's studies revealed that almost two-thirds of discovered computer crimes were perpetrated from the inside by employees. Hackers commit no more than 20 percent of all computer crimes, 5 percent by other estimates. Usually computer criminals are knowledgeable programmers or employees who have been entrusted to access critical information. Mercy University states, "You don't have to be a computer wizard to steal using computers; you just have to have suffice access." The most understood motives for people who breach systems, violate someone else's privacy or sabotage a critical computer system is: Ego, Revenge, criminal/financial gain, irrational behavior and zealous causes. The first three are the most prevalent. Most computer criminals have never broken the law before but are tempted by the technological challenge. The typical computer hacker is an intelligent and introverted person who is a luser is social environments. The hacker's sense of unimportant and lack of self-worth feed the desire to achieve something worth bragging about. For an employee, designing the perfect computer crime is little more than a mental exercise, like solving a cross word puzzle. In 1983, government computer personnel -- unhappy about mandatory layoffs -- made unauthorized changes in computer programs so that payroll checks continued to be sent to some of the terminated employees. The more ingenious revenge methods include computer viruses, which gradually alter and disrupt other computer programs and systems, and programming bombs, which will, at a predetermined time or number of runs, erase a company's data or destroy its master programs. More subtly, it may cause virtually invincible but deadly changes to data bases. An example of a sophisticated computer crime is the Rifkin case in 1978, where consultant Mark Rifkin robbed a California bank of 10.2$ million. All he required was one phone call, a code number and an assumed name. Although the crime was perfect, Rifkin was caught by the FBI because of his loose tongue, rather than by the bank's computer safeguards. In fact, Security Pacific National Bank was unaware the funds were missing until the FBI notified bank officials. Last summer, the U.S. House of Representatives toughed existing computer-crime legislation. H.R. 4718, the Computer Crime and Abuse Act of 1986, would establish three federal crimes for computer fraud, destruction and password trafficking. Three areas were strengthened: o It would make is a felony, punishable by five years in prison, to trespass into a "Federal-Interest computer" with an intent to defraud. A Federal- Interest computer is defined as any computer used exclusively by the federal government, financial institutions or one of a group of computers located in different states. o It also would make it a five-year felony to cause damage of 1000$ or more by altering information or preventing access to federal-interest computer. o It would make it a misdemeanor to display computer passwords. This provision is designed to discourage private pirate bulletin boards, in which hackers exchange secret codes to gain unauthorized access to computers. The Senate Judiciary Committee, by voice vote, approved a similar measure, S. 2281. ::::::::::::::::::::Information provided by The Mercenal:::::::::::::::::::: ============================================================================ SONAR TO SPEED UP ORDER PROCESS: When a customer of Bell calls to order service, it's been customary for a service representative, pen in hand, to jot down order information. It's passed an order typist for final entry. A new system called SONAR (Service Order Negotiation and Retrieval) is changing all that. SONAR was introduced earlier this month to service reps. all over the nation to Old Mill Account Center. Decisions were made and Business Service Centers will cut over to the new system on January 20. Project manager Rick Wilson says all Bell Service Centers will have SONAR within the next six months. At that point, 85 percent of all residence service orders will be on the system. This new technique will create a service order without having it touch human hands. And greatly reduce the chance for errors...and speed the order process. Mountain Bell began using the system in August and Pacific Bell will switch to it in the third quarter of next year, NWB Reports. ============================================================================ If there is any question to the information in this file, contact the author. Now can be found on the Private Sector 20 Meg, 3/1200 baud system at (201) 366-4431 (2600 Magazine Bulletin Board). ============================================================================ This concludes this transmittal No. 9 provided by: The Sensei of The Syndicate Report Released February 16, 1987 ============================================================================