Computer underground Digest Wed Apr 9, 1997 Volume 9 : Issue 28 ISSN 1004-042X Editor: Jim Thomas (cudigest@sun.soci.niu.edu) News Editor: Gordon Meyer (gmeyer@sun.soci.niu.edu) Archivist: Brendan Kehoe Shadow Master: Stanton McCandlish Shadow-Archivists: Dan Carosone / Paul Southworth Ralph Sims / Jyrki Kuoppala Ian Dickinson Field Agent Extraordinaire: David Smith Cu Digest Homepage: http://www.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest CONTENTS, #9.28 (Wed, Apr 9, 1997) File 1--Suicide, The Net and MCI File 2--Heaven Gate - A Formal (HTML) Autopsy File 3--"Response to K. Arromdee" File 4--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION APPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 30 Mar 1997 03:05:27 -0500 (EST) From: ptownson@MASSIS.LCS.MIT.EDU(TELECOM Digest Editor) Subject: File 1--Suicide, The Net and MCI ((MODERATORS' NOTE: For those not familiar with Pat Townson's TELECOM DIGEST, it's a an exceptional resource. From the header of TcD: "TELECOM Digest is an electronic journal devoted mostly but not exclusively to telecommunications topics. It is circulated anywhere there is email, in addition to various telecom forums on a variety of public service systems and networks including Compuserve and America On Line. It is also gatewayed to Usenet where it appears as the moderated newsgroup 'comp.dcom.telecom'. Subscriptions are available to qualified organizations and individual readers. Write and tell us how you qualify: * ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu * ======" )) TELECOM Digest Sun, 30 Mar 97 03:05:00 EST Volume 17 : Issue 78 From--John Cropper Subject--Suicide, The Net and MCI Date--Fri, 28 Mar 1997 17:34:55 -0500 When the story on the "Young Web Programmers who committed suicide" broke, the world was shocked ... But morbid curiousity would turn into a nightmare for the ISP who provided domain hosting for the cult, and the netowrk providing THEIR service. Forty hours after the story broke, thousands of hits per minute are STILL being recorded at their site. Worse still, the overwhelming volume slammed the Tennessee DNS provider hosting the site to the point that MCI's links in the southeast were interrupted for forty-five minutes shortly after 5PM EST Thursday evening. I personally suffered some major problems with my provider next door in Kentucky, who himself was isolated for nearly an hour. Calls to MCI revealed that they were indeed aware of the problem, and 'taking steps to correct it'. The process repeated itself again at 8PM EST when the story hit the west coast television stations, but the outage only lasted for a few minutes. Regardless ... a moderately heavy amount of volume basically stormed a small DNS provider, and affected MCI's network service in four adjacent states, proving that the internet is now pretty close to capacity, and bandwidth upgrades at ALL points are sorely needed. Big 'boats' like Sun, Microsoft, and the like can readily handle tens of thousands of hits per minute, but other sites lack even the simple infrastructure from the communications companies *themselves* to even stay afloat should everyone rush to one side of 'their ship'. An internic search of heavensgate.com revels the following info: Chris Knight HEAVENSGATE-DOM 25801 W. PCH Malibu, CA 90265 Domain Name: HEAVENSGATE.COM Administrative Contact, Billing Contact: Knight, Chris CK1370 rep@HEAVENSGATE.COM 310/829-6333 Technical Contact, Zone Contact: craig, holly HC527 holly@DNS.CNAV.COM 615/732-4816 Record last updated on 28-Feb-97. Record created on 19-Apr-96. Domain servers in listed order: DNS.CNAV.COM 206.25.206.16 NS.VALLNET.COM 206.25.206.1 It is unknown whether any of the people shown above were among those found in the aftermath of the incident. NS.VALLNET.COM is Valley Internet services in Tennessee, apparently administrated by Holly Craig (and her husband William) in Dellrose. I was unable to reach them at their contact number for comment on the incident, and/or any background info. One thing is certain: their servers, and MCI will continue to suffer from elevated (morbid) volume until this thing dies down ... John Cropper, Webmaster voice: 888.NPA.NFO2 Legacy IS, Networking & Comm. Solutions 609.637.9434 P.O. Box 277 fax: 609.637.9430 Pennington, NJ 08534-0277 Unsolicited commercial e-mail is subject mailto:jcropper@lincs.net to a fee as outlined in the agreement at http://www.lincs.net/ http://www.lincs.net/spamoff.htm [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The news came over the television here about 8:00 PM and their reference was to 'late this afternoon in California' meaning, I would guess, about 4:00 pm, a couple hours earlier by California time. Already the sick jokes are starting on this one. Every tragedy has to have a few sick jokes go along with it, and this one was making the rounds by fax machine on Friday evening: Name two major milestones in transportation technology which have occured in the past five hundred years. In 1492, Columbus sailed the blue ... In 1997, spaceship rides to Heaven ... In 1978 at the time of the Jim Jones affair, the jokes dealt with 'Kool Aid Communion'. The media certainly has messed up this latest story. When they broke in on the Wheel of Fortune game on ABC with the first report, it was 'in excess of thirty young men ages 18-24, all computer web site programmers ...' Later they decided the count was 39 (which is, admittedly in excess of thirty) but they kept on saying the ages were 18-24 and all of them were male and that all were 'internet programmers on the web'. Finally on Saturday here, they decided that actually 21 were female and 18 were male and that the ages were middle twenties through (in one case) 72! Well, I guess they could not have picked a better weekend for it, this being Easter. Maybe they planned it that way. My wishes for a happy holiday to those of you who celebrate it. PAT] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 18:58:24 -0500 From: RMT Subject: File 2--Heaven Gate - A Formal (HTML) Autopsy Thirty-nine lives may be a powerful statement, if their deads and deeds are clear and pure. This is the judgement of their Form and Substance. Specifically, by their works, in this case, the tangible results are 39 dead bodies and some HTML pages. With an autopsy, it is appropriate "to see" the objects of which we speak and thus, here is the complete HTML for the "Heaven's Gate - How and When It May Be Entered" page at http://www.heavensgate.com/ ---html--- The first formal comment regarding this HTML is that there is *no* convention regarding the formal distinction between the formal HTML Tags and substantive content of the document. Because content may be arbitrarily capitalized, the optimum convention for facilitating the visual distinction and recognition between HTML Tags and document content is to uniformally capitalize the HTML Tags, which are *not* case sensitive. And, at a formal level, no DOC HTML Version Tag was included. So, now we look at the Head of the page and the title is well-formed. ( From this point on, formal comment lines will begin with "***** ". ) Heaven's Gate - How and When It May Be Entered ***** Okay, these folks are aware of Meta-Tags for facilitating hits ***** and "top-of-the-pile" retreival, hence, more potential customers. ***** The first Meta Tag is for summary descriptions and gives a lot of ***** clues of where these folks are coming from. ***** Now we get into the keywords and and these folks know how to pack ***** the deck. My favorite reference for how this game of Search Engine ***** registration is at http://www.digital-cafe.com/~webmaster/set01.html ***** The pure iterative nature of the repetition forces a high score, ***** but is pure formal and represents no additional substance. ***** Cheap, but it works, here and now. ***** Okay, so much for the Head portion. ***** Clearly, these folks understand hexadecimal arithmetic, ***** as they must, in order to even be here. Okay. ***** However, there is a horrible flaw here, in that ***** an attempt to print a hardcopy with this color scheme ***** will produce a very light and bearly readable printed page. ***** This is because text colors are quite dim relative to a ***** pure white background, which is what is used in lieu of ***** printing a complete page of black background. ***** Ironic there their work is dim when transformed from ***** the medium of CyberSpace to the medium of the printed page.
***** This is a *cool* graphic, but the IMG SRC Tag is terrible. Red Alert -- ***** Failure to include the WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes force the ***** browser to wait until the image is downloaded before the ***** browser can lay out the page. With cut and paste, it is so ***** easy to carry allong all the attributes and turn one the ***** one that are appropriate. It is also a constant reminder ***** of what all the options are. For example: ------------------------------- ***** is a more complete and useful Tag.
HALE-BOPP Brings Closure to: ***** Playing with the text colors too much obsecures the hyperlinks. ***** This is slick, but not professional. Welcome
***** This is a relative complex table structure. ***** They have a high knowledge of HTML. ***** Note well that HTML is a "Mark Up" set of Tags, ***** and, that HTML is *not* a programming language ***** such as ALGOL, COBOL, PASCAL, or JAVA.

Whether Hale-Bopp has a "companion" or not is irrelevant from our perspective. However, its arrival is joyously very significant to us at "Heaven's Gate." The joy is that our Older Member in the Evolutionary Level Above Human (the "Kingdom of Heaven") has made it clear to us that Hale-Bopp's approach is the "marker" we've been waiting for -- the time for the arrival of the spacecraft from the Level Above Human to take us home to "Their World" -- in the literal Heavens. Our 22 years of classroom here on planet Earth is finally coming to conclusion -- "graduation" from the Human Evolutionary Level. We are happily prepared to leave "this world" and go with Ti's crew.

If you study the material on this website you will hopefully understand our joy and what our purpose here on Earth has been. You may even find your "boarding pass" to leave with us during this brief "window."

We are so very thankful that we have been recipients of this opportunity to prepare for membership in Their Kingdom, and to experience Their boundless Caring and Nurturing.
***** In walking through the above Table, the td and tr are ***** not immediately visible. The table is a 1 by 2 matrix. ***** In fact, the first tr entry is unnecessary since the ***** BR can be placed either before the Table, or within ***** the second tr pair.

***** Turning the center tag off and on is unnecessary.
Keys or Bookmarks to Vital Information
on Our Website
***** Here comes the next Table, but the original HTML contains ***** no blank lines or comment dividers used here, such as ***** ***** to visually partition the internal form of the HTML document, ***** for ease of maintenance and modification in the future. ***** However, there blank lines used to visually distinguish ***** several tr rows which constitute the 1 by 8 Table. Each ***** tr row consists of a a graphic image ( great graphics, ***** a bit sophmoric, but still, dazzling ) and narrative. ***** The above comments regarding IMG SRC Tags again apply.
Do's Intro: Purpose - Belief Do's Intro: Our Purpose -- The Simple Bottom Line (an excerpt from our book HEAVEN'S GATE -- see below)
Statement by an E.T. Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate (excerpt from our book)
Overview of Present Mission
 Overview of Present Mission (excerpt from our book, a student paper)
Last Chance To Advance Beyond Human
Last Chance To Advance Beyond Human (excerpt from our book)
To Access Our Book:
To Access Our Book Online in its Entirety:
How and When HEAVEN'S GATE May Be Entered
Transcripts of 2 videos
 Transcripts of Two Recent Videos
Our Position Against Suicide
 Our Position Against Suicide
How a Member of the K.O.H. Might Appear
 How a Member of the Kingdom of Heaven Might Appear
***** This concludes the Table of links. ***** Recall that a center tag is still in effect. ***** This fanciful use of color will force the ***** surfer to test *everything* on the page as ***** being a possible link. Not real friendly.
To Order a Hard Copy of Our Book
***** This ends the center tag's effect. ***** However, there are no blanks lines anywhere near here.

The following materials are available through TELAH Services:

One of our correspondents from Germany offered to translate the following two transcripts into German. ***** Ah. The good old Unorder List structure, a workhorse. ***** Nothing original, but a good "grind it out" approach.

***** End of the Unordered List, but no blank line. ***** Another unsized image is used and a general mesh ***** of HTML goes on for a bit.


Saturn Rings If you would like to send for videotapes, there is no charge. If you would like to copy them and return the originals to us, we will make them available to someone else. If you choose to assist with deferring our expenses, those funds would be reinvested towards getting this information out.

***** The p Tag *begins* a paragraph, after spacing a line, ***** and immediately suggests and identical visual form of the same. ***** Having the p Tag at the end of a paragraph is contrary to ***** the sematics of the Tag and obsecures the Tag further. The transcripts of videotapes 1 and 2 can be viewed online, downloaded or requested through TELAH Services.

***** Again, the p Tag malformality. Hard copy editions of the book may be ordered through TELAH Services for $45 US. This includes shipping and handling, via priority mail.


***** It is not easy to follow what is Tags are in effect. Requests For Materials Can Be Emailed To:   rep@heavensgate.com

Or Sent Via Postal Service To:

TELAH Services
4757 E. Greenway Rd. Ste. 103-178
Phoenix, AZ 85032
***** Okay. This the end of the real substance. ***** Now the "Navigation Bar" links are given.

| To Access Our Online Book How and When HEAVEN'S GATE May Be Entered |
| Do's Intro: Purpose - Belief | Statement by an E.T. Presently Incarnate |
| Last Chance To Evacuate Earth | Planet About To Be Recycled |
| Overview of Present Mission | Last Chance To Advance Beyond Human |
| Our Position Against Suicide | How a Member of the Kingdom of Heaven Might Appear |
| Connecting Links | Privacy Concerns |
| Back to Bookmarks | Top of this Homepage |

***** And this is why there is a great deal of blank space at the ***** bottom of the external form ( browser view ) of the HTML web page. ***** By setting the font size to zero, the text will not appear ***** on the web page, but will occupy lines. Again, the idea here ***** is to choke the serach engines so they will stop on this page. Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate Heaven's Gate ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo ufo space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien space alien extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial extraterrestrial misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation misinformation freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming second coming angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels angels end end times times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times end times Key Words: (for search engines) 144,000, Abductees, Agnostic, Alien, Allah, Alternative, Angels, Antichrist, Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ascension, Atheist, Awakening, Away Team, Beyond Human, Blasphemy, Boddhisattva, Book of Revelation, Buddha, Channeling, Children of God, Christ, Christ's Teachings, Consciousness, Contactees, Corruption, Creation, Death, Discarnate, Discarnates, Disciple, Disciples, Disinformation, Dying, Ecumenical, End of the Age, End of the World, Eternal Life, Eunuch, Evolution, Evolutionary, Extraterrestrial, Freedom, Fulfilling Prophecy, Genderless, Glorified Body, God, God's Children, God's Chosen, God's Heaven, God's Laws, God's Son, Guru, Harvest Time, He's Back, Heaven, Heaven's Gate, Heavenly Kingdom, Higher Consciousness, His Church, Human Metamorphosis, Human Spirit, Implant, Incarnation, Interfaith, Jesus, Jesus' Return, Jesus' Teaching, Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, Krishna Consciousness, Lamb of God, Last Days, Level Above Human, Life After Death, Luciferian, Luciferians, Meditation, Members of the Next Level, Messiah, Metamorphosis, Metaphysical, Millennium, Misinformation, Mothership, Mystic, Next Level, Non Perishable, Non Temporal, Older Member, Our Lords Return, Out of Body Experience, Overcomers, Overcoming, Past Lives, Prophecy, Prophecy Fulfillment, Rapture, Reactive Mind, Recycling the Planet, Reincarnation, Religion, Resurrection, Revelations, Saved, Second Coming, Soul, Space Alien, Spacecraft, Spirit, Spirit Filled, Spirit Guide, Spiritual, Spiritual Awakening, Star People, Super Natural, Telepathy, The Remnant, The Two, Theosophy, Ti and Do, Truth, Two Witnesses, UFO, Virginity, Walk-ins, Yahweh, Yeshua, Yoda, Yoga, ***** ***** ***** End of the Heaven's Gate HTML Source code. ***** ***** It is difficult to be impressed with this work. It is that of an apprentice, not The Work of a Master. Formally yours, Robert Tufty ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 03 Apr 1997 23:29:39 -0500 From: Paul Kneisel Subject: File 3--"Response to K. Arromdee" Ken Arromdee's defense of the 200+ news groups in centered on one generic and one specific psychiatric point, specifically that I (as the leading critic) am "paranoid" and that I somehow believe that the creation of the groups is a "sinister government conspiracy" directed against me personally.[1] Surely the supporters of the 200+ new groups can do better than this! I believe that Arromdee's personal attack is consistent with the past approach of the Old Boys Club on Usenet, which is increasingly becoming irrelevant as the Internet expands. John C. Dvorak of _PC Magazine_ has described these long-time net residents as the "Newsgroup Charlies" who are increasingly damaging meaningful discourse on the net with their unsubstantial charges and off-topic claims. "There is a certain air to these messages," Dvorak wrote, "as though they'd been written by someone knowledgable. Unfortunately, it's really the air of authority without any experience necessarily behind it. And guys like Newsgroup Charlies are quick to flame others."[2] In this sense then, I invite him to further develop the analysis he wants the world to believe. I think it involves three points: 1) He should explain to everyone the education and training that qualifies him to psychiatrically label those with whom he disagrees politically; 2) He should present the facts observable to the classical "reasonable man [and woman]" that I am "paranoid" and that justify his conclusion that I believe that is a "sinister government conspiracy" against me personally, and; 3) He should explain what possible relevance such psychiatric material--even if true--has on the real political issues in this case. In other words, let us imagine that I posted to CuDigest from a hacked computer inside Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital where I imagine I am the Queen of England and Napoleon rolled into one. Would this change a single thing about the nature of or the issues involved in its creation and functioning? I think that we will soon discover an additional three points: that Arromdee has no qualifications behind his claims, that he has no data of any sort to back his claim that I believe that was aimed at me personally, and that his whole approach is nothing more than the classic "Good Ol' Boy" flamefest aimed at critics of the Old Boys (Inter) Network to suppress rather than expand the political debate. The issue of "info-warfare" and its economic consequences and purposes is not new. It existed long before the Internet. The only two basic changes are that with the demise of the former Soviet Union it is done far more openly and now--via developments like --it can use the net as a form of transmission. The first of these developments is advocated by such conservative thinkers as Walter Laqueur who wrote in his article "Postmodern Terrorism" that "America should pursue a vision of benevolent hegemony as bold as Reagan's in the 1970s and wield its authority unabashedly."[3] Elsewhere, Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and Admiral WIlliam Owens wrote how the Internet could be incorporated into this process as part of an international "soft power" strategy.[4] One need not be paranoid to note this. The _New York Times_ printed the early pre-net history of such federal info-interventions on its 31 March front page.[5] "Congress routinely appropriates tens of millions of dollars in covert and overt money to use in influencing domestic politics abroad," Broder wrote. "The National Endowment for Democracy, created 15 years ago to do in the open what the C.I.A. has done surreptitiously for decades, spends $30 million a year to support things like political parties, labor unions, dissident movements and the news media in dozens of countries, including China." Later in the story, Broder provided a figure of "countless billions [not millions]" on such acts as "secret support for political parties of close allies like Japan, fomenting coups, spreading false rumors, and swaying public opinion." Why shouldn't the net be used for such things, especially with so many academics and Pentagon-thinkers advocating exactly this. So, paranoid? Perhaps so, but then so are the editors of the _Times_. In one sense, the editors are even more paranoid than I. I only posted my material to and CuDigest. They posted theirs to the front page of the _The New York Times_. FOOTNOTES [1] "Re: Coup-d-etat on the Internet (CuD 9.24)," CuDigest, 28 Mar 1997, #9. 25. [2] "Rude Newsgroups Run Rampant," _PC Magazine_, 5 Nov 1996, Vol. 15, No. 19, p. 85. [3] _Foreign Affairs Envoy_, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/Envoy/jrl_fa96. html, in "Foreign Affairs_, Sep/Oct 1996, p. 24ff. [4] _Foreign Affairs_, Mar/Apr 1996, pp. 20-36. Nye was a past Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and an Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs. At present, he is the Dean of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Admiral Owen is a former Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Nye had earlier defined "soft power" in his book _Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of Power in America_ as: "the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion. It works by convincing others to follow, or getting them to agree to, norms and institutions that produce the desired behavior. Soft power can rest on the appeal of one's ideas or the ability to set the agenda in ways that shape the preferences of others. If a state can make its power legitimate in the perception of others and establish international institutions that encourage them to channel or limit their activities, it may not need to expend as many of its costly traditional economic or military resources." [5] John M. Broder, "Political Meddling by Outsiders: Not New for U.S.," _The New York Times_, 31 Mar 1997, p. A1. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1996 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 4--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 13 Dec, 1996) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. 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It is assumed that non-personal mail to the moderators may be reprinted unless otherwise specified. Readers are encouraged to submit reasoned articles relating to computer culture and communication. Articles are preferred to short responses. Please avoid quoting previous posts unless absolutely necessary. DISCLAIMER: The views represented herein do not necessarily represent the views of the moderators. Digest contributors assume all responsibility for ensuring that articles submitted do not violate copyright protections. ------------------------------ End of Computer Underground Digest #9.28 ************************************