The South African
S H A R E W A R E
M a g a z i n e
Volume 7 - Number 1
Shareware:
Your
Software Alternative
EDITOR"S FOREWORD
Dear
member,
Please
don't shoot me - this newsletter has been sitting "80% finished" on
my PC for more than two months now... And then the work pressure hit! But here
it is - and the next newsletter will definitely not take as long
- or my name isn't Janus Kursnawalski.
May we
also remind you of the fact that we can unfortunately no longer afford
permanent staff and hence the "phone" line 021-782.6329 is usually
fax only. Orders are processed twice or thrice weekly - whenever my full-time
workload allows. All mail and fax queries will be answered - the easy ones
first. Our fee structure remains as it was, but we will have to increase our
order handling fee in the near future.
Warm
regards from Fish Hoek
Jean-Paul Van Belle
REAL PROGRAMMERS
At a party, the real programmers
are the ones in the corner talking about operating systems security and how to
get around it.
At a rugby match, the real
programmer is the one comparing the plays against his simulations.
At the beach, the real programmer
is the one drawing flowcharts in the sand.
At a funeral, the real programmer
is the one saying: "Poor George. And he almost had the sort routine
working."
In a grocery store, the real
programmer is the one who insists on running the cans past the laser checkout
scanner himself, because he never could trust keypunch operators.
Real programmers arrive at work in
time for lunch.
A real programmer might or might
not know his wife's name. He does, however, know the entire ASCII (or EBCDIC)
code table.
Real programmers aren't afraid to
use GOTOs.
Real programmers can write
five-page DO loops without getting confused
Real programmers can write
self-modifying code, especially if they can save 20 nanoseconds in the middle
of a tight of a tight loop.
You honestly believe the Year 2000
isn't a leap year.
You believe crisis is good for
organisations. It brings focus to your work and builds good, strong team
spirit.
You've got lots of time, it's only
1996.
You didn't really need computers
anyway.
You're using PCs.
Your mission-critical systems
aren't.
Your doctor recommended you reduce
your stress.
You're addicted to adrenaline.
You have a meeting with management
next week, honest.
The problem doesn't affect your
applications.
You've made a very large investment
in an abacus company.
You never liked using computers in
the first place.
It's not a problem... it's a
challenge.
You're moving all your applications
to your Nintendo.
You hope at least one of these
reasons is valid.
You wrote the legacy systems
affected and are reluctant to admit the problem exists.
The excitement of watching your
systems fail is better than bungee jumping without a cord.
You believe maintenance is for
wimps, real mangers create new systems.
THE
INTERNET -
Jean-Paul Van Belle
What is the
Internet?
In one sentence: the Internet is
a network of (computer) networks i.e. various individual organizations' own
networks are linked together in one, huge international network so that any
computer can access almost any other computer. There are estimated to be
anything between 30 and 50 million users who have access to the Internet.
Although technically, the
Internet (or commonly also known as "the Net") refers
to the network infrastructure, the term is currently used almost as a synonym
with the major use or applications which are supported on this network.
The two major ones are e-mail (short for electronic mail)
and the World-Wide Web (WWW or "the
Web").
E-mail is a form of sending messages (or documents)
from one user to one (or more) other(s). These messages are usually mainly
text. In a limited way, e-mail can be seen as the electronic version of the
postal system (often referred to as snail mail) but with the appropriate
technological enhancements and, of course, much faster and more convenient. A
typical E-mail address is <jp@ems.uwc.ac.za>, always recognisable by the @
(pronounced: "at") symbol.
The World-Wide Web is
basically a standardized way of putting information on the Internet so that it
can be accessed by anyone else ("world-wide"). Much of its power is
derived from the ability of linking any part of the information with any other
document anywhere else on the Web, creating indeed a "web"-like
structure. When you are accessing ("browsing") the Web, you go
(or jump) from link to link following the thread-like links from one computer
to another computer with one easy click of the mouse (or press of a key). This
way of linking (reading) information pieces by content rather than linear
structure is called hypertext. The other critical feature of the Web
standard is that it does not only allow for textual information, but also
provides support for graphical images. In fact, it supports even sound,
animations, movies, and three-dimensional "virtual reality" scenes.
Your Business and the
Internet.
So far, only a few businesses
have succeeded in actually making big bugs directly on the Internet; most of
these are Internet technology-based companies. However, this may change soon as
secure ways of transferring payments across the net are being developed. On the
other hand, the Internet offers extremely exiting and very
low-cost/high-benefit opportunities for any business.
If information and the
ability to send and receive e-mail is what youre after, then you need a
direct Internet link. For most smaller businesses, the cheapest way to link up
to the Internet directly is through what is called an Internet Service
Provider (ISP) You need a PC which runs MS-Windows and a fast modem
(say 14400 baud at the least). Your ISP will provide you with the necessary
software and you will then be able to send/receive e-mail, access the Web and
the various other Internet services. Typical charges range from R30 to R90 per
month. In a way, you can compare an ISP to Telkom who provides a telephonic
(voice) communication service.
However, perhaps the easiest
and best-value-for-money opportunity is to provide information about
your business and its products on the Web. There are a number of Internet
Presence Providers (IPP) who will, for a fee of course, put up an
informational / advertisement Web Page about your business and
its products on the Internet. The great advantage is that you dont need
any technical knowledge, connection, software, not even a computer! It
is basically similar to placing an advertisement in the Yellow Pages - except
that there is only one universal World-Wide Web.
Advantages of Having a Web
Page.
The following are some of the
advantages for a business of having an Web Page
F
Your company/product information is available 24 hours a day.
F
Accessible to anyone, anywhere in the world on the Internet.
F
Most of the 30-50 million Internet users are sophisticated, high-income
earners and decision makers.
F
Combine loads of factual information with graphical pictures.
F
Low-cost, low risk advertising but almost unlimited potential.
F
Your company signals to the market that it is up-to-date with the opportunities
offered by todays technology (especially if you can beat your competitors to
it J).
F
Prospective customers dont need to know your Web Pages address: the
Internets search engines will refer them automatically to your site (assuming
your IPP has linked your pages).
F
A small business can have just as much (or even more) exposure as a large
enterprise.
F
It is an easy way to "test the water", i.e. to see whether the
Internet can really benefit your business. It is also easy to slowly build up
your Web Page from a modest to sophisticated.
F
You can update or change information any time you want to.
F
You dont need an Internet connection or even a computer but if you do, you can link directly to your e-mail for quick response.
Some Options to Consider
for Your Web Page.
F
What do you want to tell your audience? The easiest is to start
from some of your existing printed advertisements and expand on them with
company background information, detailed product information and other
information of interest such as press articles, R&D reports etc. Hard sell
is not on; try to achieve a balance between advertisement and
informational content. A good starting point is to take a look at the pages of
some of your competitors.
F
Content or appearance? It is easy to go overboard with flashy
graphics, custom programming and multi-media effects. However, ultimately your
customers are after factual information. While pictures, animation and sound make
a story come alive, they are very demanding in terms of resources, more costly
to develop and often difficult to maintain. Graphics take much more time to
load and not all Internet users will be able to see advanced multi-media pages.
For your first pages, it is advisable to go easy on the graphics; rather
concentrate on the content.
F
Dynamic or static? How often does the information which you
provide need to change?
For more info on the JSEs Web
Services, fax 021-782.6329, phone 021-782.3923 (Jean-Paul, A/H only) or e-mail:
jp@ilink.nis.za
COMPARING
THE OLD & NEW
From: Digital Free Press
<max%underg@uunet.uu.net>
There is a
lot of talk these days about how the word hacker has been redefined by
the press. The theory is that the old hackers, as portrayed in Steven Levy's
excellent book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, were
good and pure and this breed of hacker dramatized in the press is some new evil
non-hacker terrorist. This is nonsense.
In the
book, the hacker ethic (paraphrased) is as follows:
1. Access
to computers should be unlimited and total.
2. All
information should be free.
3.
Mistrust Authority - Promote Decentralization.
4. Hackers
should be judged by their hacking.
5. You can
create art and beauty on a computer.
6.
Computers can change your life for the better.
In pursuit
of the hacker ethic these heroes performed various acts that would not be
looked upon favorably in today's anti-hacker society:
Used
Equipment Without Authorization (Page 20)
[...]
Phone
Phreaked (Page 92)
"He
had programed some appropriate tones to come out of the speaker and into the
open receiver of the campus phone that sat in the Kluge room. These tones made
the phone system come to attention, so to speak, and dance."
Modified
Equipment Without Authorization (Page 96)
"Nelson
thought that adding an 'add to memory' instruction would improve the machine.
It would take _months_, perhaps, to go through channels to do it, and if he did
it himself he would learn something about the way the world worked. So one
night Stewart Nelson spontaneously convened the Midnight Computer Wiring
Society."
Circumvented
Password Systems (Page 417)
"Stallman
broke the computer's encryption code and was able to get to the protected file
which held people's passwords. He started sending people messages which would
appear on screen when they logged onto the system:
'I see you
chose the password [such and such]. I suggest that you switch to the password
"carriage return. "It's much easier to type, and also it stands up to
the principle that there should be no passwords. Eventually I got to the point
where a fifth of all the users on the machine had the Empty String password.'
RMS later boasted. Then the computer science laboratory installed a more
sophisticated password system on its other computer. This one was not so easy
for Stallman to crack. But Stallman was able to study the encryption program,
and as he later said, 'I discovered changing one word in that program would
cause it to print out your password on the system console as part of the message
that you were logging in.' Since the 'system console' was visible to anyone
walking by, and its messages could easily be accessed by any terminal, or even
printed out in hard copy, Stallman's change allowed any password to be
routinely disseminated by anyone who cared to know it. He thought the result
'amusing.'
Certainly
these hackers were not anarchists who wanted only to destroy. They had a
personal code of ethics, the hacker ethic to base their behavior on. In fact
the modern hacker has his/her ethics intact. Compare the above hacker ethic
with the hacker ethic found in Out of the Inner Circle by Bill 'The
Cracker' Landreth, a teenager arrested by the FBI:
1. Never
delete any information you can not easily restore.
2. Never
leave any names on a computer.
3. Always
try to obtain your own information.
The common
denominator to these ethics systems are the respect for technology, and the
personal growth through free access and freedom of information. Certainly the
attitude towards private property is the same. Accessing and using equipment
that you do not own is okay as long as you do not prevent those who own it from
using it, or damage anything.
With
respect to the hacker ethic the hackers mentioned in _Cyberpunk: Outlaws and
Hackers on the Computer Frontier_ by Katie Hafner and John Markoff were in fact
good hackers. If free access, and free information were the law of the land
would Kevin Mitnick have gone to jail? I do not think so. Sure he got the
source code for VMS, but is there any evidence that he used this information
for personal gain, or did he simply use the information to improve his
understanding of the VMS operating system?
Robert T.
Morris's worm program was a clever hack. Of course he 'gronked' it by
programming the replication rate much too fast, but still there is no evidence
that he had any intention of doing harm to the system. It was simply a computer
experiment. Who owns the Internet? Is it some mysterious 'them' or is it our
net? If it is out net, then we should be able to try some stuff on it, and to
heck with 'them' if they can't take a joke.
Of course
the German hackers are a different story. What they got in trouble for was
espionage, and not hacking, which is a breach of faith, and is hacking for
personal gain. However selling Minix to the KGB almost makes it forgivable...
It is my
contention that hackers did not change. Society changed, and it changed for the
worse. The environment the early hackers were working in correctly viewed these
activities as the desire to utilize technology in a personal way. By definition
hackers believe in the free access to computers and to the freedom of
information. If you do not believe in these principles you are not a hacker, no
matter how technologically capable you are. You are probable just a tool for
the greed society. Current bad mouthing of hackers is simply snobbery. Rather
than cracking down on the modern hacker, we should reinforce the hacker ethic,
a code of conduct not based upon greed and lust for the almighty dollar, but
instead for personal growth through the free access of computers and
information, and a respect for technology.
It is the
humane thing to do.