This is From the archives, #1.
I'm reposting some of the more ancient KGB Report entries using our
current blogging software. This eliminates many of the bad link and
missing image problems, makes the material easier to read and also
easier to find.
Note that these items are over a decade old. They've been edited only to
remove dead links. Updated information and observations appear as
comments.
(Originally published January 13, 2000)
How Network Solutions, Inc.
Made Me A Child Pornographer
or
"But
Officer,
I Don't Even Have a Pornograph!"
I was going through my daily US Postal Service dump of delinquent credit
card statements and IRS notices (where's the Y2K bug when you really
need it?) when I came across an odd-looking envelope with a München,
(Munich) Germany return address.
I immediately assumed it was from a fan of my old DCL Dialogue
column, which ran for a number of years in the now-defunct DEC
Professional magazine.
Although I stopped writing for the publication five years ago, DEC Pro
was one of those rare trade journals that contained solid, unbiased
technical information. For that reason, it was rarely thrown away.
System managers frequently stashed their collection in some secret place
in their offices and rarely allowed their copies to be borrowed by
others.
To this day, clueless new hires placed in charge of VMS computer systems
frequently discover their predecessors' DEC Pro cache, read the
mags cover to cover and send me requests for the various items I offered
in my column.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I opened the envelope and read the
following:
Dear sir or madame,
you have on your webpage www.lo-li-ta.org nice pictures, so I want
to ask if I can buy pictures and videos on CD or tape from you? Please
send me a list with prices. If I can't get them from you, please tell me
another enterprice where I can get them from.
Nice pictures? www.lo-li-ta.org??
A quick trip to the address revealed a members-only porn site featuring
nude photographs of young women.
Very young women.
Very, very young women.
25-to-life at a federal institution young women.
Surely this was a mistake. I checked the domain registration records for
lo-li-ta.org and was stunned to find:
WHOIS information for lo-li-ta.org
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, INC.
Organization: KGB
Consulting, Inc.
address: 1512 Annette Avenue
Pennsylvania,
PA 15129 US
Admin contact: Barkes, Kevin
email: speedy03@MAIL.RU
phone:
412 8542550
fax: 412 8542550
tech contact: Hostmaster
email: hostmaster@easyspace.com
I did what any other liberal Democratic male 45-year-old self-employed
American businessman with a windowless basement office loaded with a
dozen networked computers and a dedicated T1 connection to the Internet
during a U.S. presidential election campaign year lousy with right wing
ultra-conservative candidates would do.
First, I changed my pants.
I also purged the temporary browser caches and history lists off all my
computers, stuck a Post-It note with the number of the local chapter of
the ACLU on my system's display and scrawled my attorney's telephone
number in indelible laundry marker on appropriate body parts. Then I sat
down and tried to review the situation rationally.
Obviously, the domain registration was bogus. The address was listed as
"Pennsylvania, PA 15129" instead of Library, PA. Indeed, that was the
address printed on my German friend's envelope. The letter somehow
managed to make its way across the Atlantic and into my mailbox.
The email address listed had the MAIL.RU domain, which is located in
Russia.
Ah... it was beginning to make sense.
I registered the kgb.com domain name in 1993, before the explosive
growth of the Internet and the invention of the World Wide Web. It's an
easy to remember name. In addition to being my initials, KGB was, of
course, the moniker of the dreaded Soviet secret police.
Even though the real KGB was disbanded in 1991, everyone still remembers
the name, and my use of it generally elicits chuckles from baby boomers
raised on cold war spy movies.
Having such a popular domain name does have its downside. Daily reviews
of my mail server's log files show scores of rejected e-missives to such
addresses as boris@kgb.com, breshnev@kgb.com, gorbachev@kgb.com... you
get the picture.
About a third of the people who visit the website are looking for
information about the KGB. We added a page with links to historical
information about the agency, as well as a link to the makers of KGB
Vodka. (They had contacted me a few years ago about buying the kgb.com
domain name from me. I declined to sell, but they were very nice about
it. You can find them on Facebook these days).
(Yeah. We were mistaken for them. A lot.)
The person who set up lo-li-ta.org was probably based in Russia, needed
someone's name to stick in the application as domain administrator, and
decided it would be funny to connect the KGB to kiddie porn.
Unfortunately for me, when you enter "KGB" into a search engine, my site
comes up second after something called "KGB's World of Harness Racing"
at https://www.kgb.se. The ".se" indicates the host is located in Sweden,
which, if you think about it, is probably a more appropriate place to
register a porn site. But I digress.
The problem is you can't easily register the country-specific .se domain
name. My Russian buddy knew that, moved on to the next site on the list-
kgb.com- and found what he was looking for. He accessed the online
registration information for kgb.com and was ready to go.
The host site he picked, easyspace.com, is located in the United
Kingdom. Like most hosting services, Easyspace offers automated domain
name registration and web site configuration.
Neither Easyspace nor their domain name registrar, Network Solutions,
Inc., checks to see if the information entered into the online form is
really accurate. As long as the supplied email address is valid and
responds to automated inquiries, and the credit card number entered to
pay for the services clears the bank, the whole magillah goes through
automatically.
Okay, I figured out what happened. Now I had to do something about it.
First, I sent a nasty note to speedy03@mail.ru, the email contact listed
by Network Solutions as the administrator for the lo-li-ta.org site.
Surprisingly, I did get a response:
From:"Pchelkin_Vladimir"<top200@mail.ru>
To:
<kgb@kgb.com>
Subject: Re: Legal action will be
initiated.
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 23:28:15 +0300
What's
up with www.lo-li-ta.org ????
Well, that was
productive.
An examination of the mail header attached to the message revealed his
reply came from a different email account than the one to which I had
sent my original message. I also learned it was routed through a dialup
service called wm.westcall.ru.
The dumb act was not amusing. I sent another email, and received:
From: "SPEEDY_RACER"<top200@mail.ru>
To:
<kgb@kgb.com>
Subject: Re: Legal action will be initiated.
Date:
Wed, 12 Jan 2000 00:00:14 +0300
Hey, It's not mine!!! I am from Belorussia, but not ameriCan!!! ;-))
I think some one from you friend jest you, but why my e-mail there??
He-he-he!
And watch out for moose and squirrel.
Notice the clever change in the sender's name from Pchelkin_Vladimir to
"Speedy Racer". Obviously, a wild and crazy guy.
I realized Ol' Vlad wasn't going to be much help, so I sent a nasty
email to the hosting service, Easyspace. I didn't receive a response to
my message, but within an hour the plug was pulled on www.lo-li-ta.org.
I also sent an email to Network Solutions. Well, sort of. There is no
direct email address posted anywhere on the site, so I filled out a
web-based "customer feedback" form requesting immediate action.
I got an automated response informing me my message was received. I
still haven't heard from them, and the domain information for
lo-li-ta.org remains accessible and continues to list me as the
administrative contact.
Still not comfortable, I called the Pittsburgh office of the FBI and
related my tale to a very nice lady who told me that no real crime had
been committed, so the Bureau really couldn't do anything.
She suggested I call the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon
University's Software Engineering Institute here in Pittsburgh. CERT,
primarily funded by the Department of Defense, provides technical
assistance for responding to computer security problems. I knew I didn't
have a security problem per se, but I'm not one to ignore
recommendations from a division of the United States Department of
Justice. (Would you want to tick off U.S. Attorney General Janet
Reno?)
The CERT fellow agreed with me that my problem wasn't security-related.
He also agreed that I was doing the right thing by pre-emptively
notifying the feds, who have a well-publicized zero-tolerance policy
concerning child pornography and a well-documented history of seizing
computer equipment first and asking questions later. Usually after the
press conference.
To be really safe, I decided to document my experience here inKGB
Report and distribute it as widely as possible.
Of course, my dilemma still exists. Network Solutions still lists me as
the administrator of a kiddie porn site.
Even more disturbing, I have no way of knowing if my name has been
attached to other sites featuring objectionable material. Indeed, the
only reason I learned of the present situation was because a pervert in
Germany was so anxious to obtain kiddie porn that he mailed a letter to
a complete stranger 5,000 miles away.
That's scary.
Even scarier: there's no way for me to search through the millions of
registered Internet domain names to see if anyone else is misusing my
identity. And I fear that since my name has been used once, it will
probably be used again. My nightmare: I get raided by the feds and
hauled off to the pokey for having my name attached to an illegal or
immoral Internet-based business about which I know nothing.
I suppose I could raise public awareness of the issue and my predicament
by registering "Strom's-South-Carolina-Sweeties.com" to Senator Strom
Thurmond and supplying the Network Solutions domain name information to
the liberal east coast media cabal, but anyone with a valid credit card
and email address can do that. I prefer the direct approach.
My experience is probably not unique. It highlights three serious
problems with e-commerce: verification of automated transaction systems;
the need for a uniform, secure electronic signature or identification
technology; and the lack of recourse available to humans screwed over by
Internet businesses which fail to provide voice telephone numbers or
postal addresses. It's rather pathetic when I get a prompt response from
the miscreant responsible for my situation, but silence from the
companies who actually executed the transgression.
I'll keep you posted.
[NOTE: Future "From the archives" posts will contain the follow-ups
to this story]
Told you so... In last week's issue, we said:
"Fear mongers who were exploiting Y2K paranoia, here's a hint: redirect
your marketing efforts to capitalize on the remaining media-hyped
potential catastrophe, global warming."
Apparently dismayed that there are only half as many near-earth killer
asteroids as originally thought, the Wednesday, January 12 edition of
the CBS Evening News With Dan Rather ignored that upbeat news
completely. Instead, here's Dan's lead story summary from the CBS News
website:
"Our lead story this evening focuses on the mounting concern over global
warming and the growing scientific consensus that it is real... we'll
take a look at today's National Research Council report on the subject
and we'll also have a report on how the increase of jellyfish in
American waters, especially on the Gulf Coast, could be a harbinger of
climate."
Coming this summer: When Jellyfish Attack. Just in case those
doofuses at the National Hurricane Center screw up again and disappoint
us by not destroying Miami.
---
Stan's still the man... After 17 years, Miller Freeman, Inc. has
pulled the plug on Performance Computing, meaning Stan Kelly-Bootle's
marvelous monthly Devil's Advocate column has lost its
print-based home.
Fortunately, the good folks at Aurora Software have provided an online
venue for DA's successor, SODA (Son
of Devil's Advocate.)
Please support Stan's new effort by reading his always witty prose at
https://www.sarcheck.com/skb/.
[Note: Stan is 83 now. Our last e-mail correspondence was slightly
less than two years ago. I'll let you know if he responds to a recent
ping.]
Trivia
Answer to our previous question: In an attempt to cash in on the
success of ABC's Batman, in 1967 NBC aired Captain Nice,
starring William Daniels, and CBS broadcast Mr. Terrific,
starring Stephen Strimpell. Both shows tanked.
This week's question: The cable network TVLand is now airing the
cult 80s shows Misfits of Science and Airwolf back-to-back
on Saturday and Sunday mornings beginning at 8 eastern time. One of the
stars of Misfits, Courteney Cox, went on to become a star playing
Monica Geller on Friends. Jan-Michael Vincent, who was pilot
Stringfellow Hawke on Airwolf, also appeared in an episode of
NBC's late 60s revival of a hit 50s show. Name the show and the title of
the episode. Hint: it's also currently airing on TVLand. Use your
lifelines and email your final answer to trivia@kgb.com.
[Note: In 12 years, the Internet has made questions like those above
minor search exercises. Sigh.]
UselessWeb Site of the Week
https://www.pencils.com
contains more than you could ever want to know about the ubiquitous
writing utensil, such as:
· 75% of the pencils sold annually in the US are painted yellow.
· William Monroe, a cabinetmaker in Concord, Massachusetts, made the
first American wood pencils in 1812.
· Most pencils sold in Europe have no erasers
Quotes of the Week
Douglas Dahlberg (IT manager) "You live in a democracy. You don't
work in one."
Fadel Gheit, oil industry analyst, Fahnestock & Co.: "The Y2K
bug was a bunch of computer geeks blackmailing the world."
Bill Maher: "We spent all this money for nothing. It's like a
world-wide Ken Starr investigation."
Ed Howe: "A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice."
Carl Bernstein: "[T]he weird and the stupid and the coarse are
becoming our cultural norm, even our cultural ideal."
New Yorker cartoon caption:
(via
Condé
Nast)
James Thurber: "You can fool too many of the people too much of
the time."
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