From: naddy@mips.rhein-neckar.de (Christian Weisgerber)
>A few years back, when I read about American phreaks
>re-programming the switches of the telephone company, I was awed.
>What incredible abilities must these people have to do something
>that should by all rights be impossible? Well, my respect
>collapsed when I read _The Hacker Crackdown_. The telcos had left
>maintenance modem ports on-line, without password protection, and
>anybody who stumbled over the number could dial in and--after
>figuring out the system from the online help or manuals found in
>the trash dumpster at the telco's building--take control. No
>extraordinary abilities required. How could anybody in his right
>mind be so incredibly stupid to set such a system up?
Yep, security was lax, that's because nobody had interfered with operations before.
A little over ten years ago when I took my present job, guarding against crackers was a new art. Within a few months I was (under alias) on the top cracker boards in the world. It came in handy (still does) as far as computer security is concerned. I remember my first meeting with the security people. The head honcho said: " I hear you're pretty good with computer virii, well I've got a dozen or so in my collection." I had thousands, including many not seen till a year or so later in the wild. The people who write them send them to me to be checked out. heh heh... and added to my anti-virus software.
>So, maybe you only need to send a carrier on certain ("secret")
>frequencies to control the satellite or some such thing? Something
>that should be well in the ability of a radio amateur.
They design most of the gear used on satelites, taking one over would be easy for them, so I would assume there are others capable of the same trick. I suspect members of the former soviet union/east germany.
Brian
Member, Extropy Institute
www.extropy.org