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Alice's NNTP Server


Well, since everyone is being so darned quiet, I thought I'd
stir things back up again.. :)

Robbie


>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 21:53:24 -0700 (PDT)
>From: Benjamin Franz <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: "And making gratuitous modifications to Net-2 sources..." (fwd)
>
>
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Alice's NNTP Server
>-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>- With apologies to Arlo Guthrie, and with great thanks to previous 
>  "Alice's Restaurant" filk authors Jon Kamens, Chris Stacy, Alan 
>  Wechsler, Noel Chiappa, and Larry Allen, who provided the inspiration.
>- No thanks or apologies to those who made the original decision which  
>  prompted this piece, but heartfelt thanks to those around me who also
>  spoke out in opposition.  This one's for you, gang.
>  -- Nil Illegitimo Carborundum, Sometime-in-1993
>
>
>This song is called "Alice's NNTP Server" and it's about Alice, and
>the NNTP server, but "Alice's NNTP Server" is not the name of the NNTP
>server, it's the name of the song, and that's why I called this song
>"Alice's NNTP Server".
>
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     Telnet over, it's a simple hack.
>     Port one-nineteen is where it's at.
>     and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>
>Now it all started two semesters ago, it's on two semesters ago when
>my about-to-graduate friend and I went up to read some news at Alice's
>server, 'cause the news didn't live on our server, it lived on Alice's
>server, with lots of forged messages and newgroups and rmgroups, and
>of course the news articles themselves.
>
>Anyways, it was a nice system, and the University's network connection
>was wide, and Alice had the bandwidth and the diskspace and they figured
>they didn't have to worry about expiring their news articles for a long
>time.
>
>We got up there, found all the articles, and we figured it'd be a
>friendly gesture for us to take the articles and distribute 'em around
>to our other friends at the University that also didn't get a full feed,
>'cause that's what Usenet was supposed to be all about in the first place,
>right?
>
>So we took about half a gig of diskspace and stuck it on a spare
>workstation which we were gonna make into our own news server, and
>we got ourselves educated on NNTP.  We took spool directories, server
>software, a compiler, an editor, and other implements of destruction and
>headed on back to our new server.  Well, we got there and there was a big
>chain across the machine room door and a mail message in our mailbox saying
>"Closed for end-of-semester".  We'd never heard of a machine room that was
>closed at the end of the semester before, and with tears in our eyes we
>drove off into the sunset, looking to find another place to stash the news.
>
>We didn't find one until we came to our own home machines, and off the
>side of the /usr/spool partition, we noticed there were some old news
>articles.  And we figured that one big pile of news is better than two
>little piles, and rather than copy that one to the free disk, we decided
>to just install our half-gig disk on the home machine and create a link
>from the new partition to /usr/spool.
>
>That's what we did, and NNTP'ed back to Alice's, had an end-of-semester
>newsfest that couldn't be beat, went to sleep and didn't get up until
>next morning, when we got a phone call from the University Director of
>Computer Security.  Said "Kid, someone found your user-id on a post to
>an unauthorized newsgroup, in the bottom of a subdirectory full of 
>messages from unauthorized sources, on a disk partition that wasn't there
>the night before, on a hard drive that wasn't there the night before, and
>I just wanted to know if you had any information 'bout it..."
>
>I said "Yes sir, Mister Director, I cannot tell a lie, I put that hard
>drive on the machine and imported those news articles".
>
>After speaking to the Director for about forty-five minutes on the
>telephone we finally came to the truth of the matter and he said that
>we had to go down and remove the drive, and also had to go down and
>speak to him at the Undergraduate Office, and bring all our spool
>directories, server software, compilers, editors, and other implements
>of destruction with us, and so we did.
>
>Now friends, there was only one or two things the University Director
>of Computer Security coulda' done at the Undergraduate Office and
>the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and
>honest on the telephone, which wasn't very likely, and we didn't expect
>it, and the other thing he could have done was bawled us out and told
>us never to be seen transportin' news and installing hardware about
>the vicinity again, which is what we expected, but when we got to the
>Undergraduate Office there was a third possibility that we hadn't counted
>upon, and we was both immediately arrested and handcuffed, and I said
>"Hey, Director, I don't think I can remove the hard drive with these
>handcuffs on", and he said "Shaddap kid, and follow me".
>
>And that's what we did, walked right behind him and walked to the
>quote 'Scene-of-the-Crime' unquote.  I want to tell you about this
>here University where this is all happening here.  They got a T1 line
>here, so there's no stop signs on the network, but they got one System 
>Administrator, and of course, the Director of Computer Security, but 
>when we got to the 'Scene-of-the-Crime' there was the System 
>Administrator, 
>five Special Interest Group Representatives with five lawyers each, and 
>three TAs acting as Assistant System Administrators, this being the 
>biggest 
>crime of the last five years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper
>report on it because it had something to do with computers and politically-
>incorrect content and all the artsies knew that all the had to do was spell
>"computer" correctly in order to get a cushy job writing anti-technology 
>columns for the local paper.
>
>And they was makin' the System Administrator use up all kinds of net.cop
>equipment they had hanging around the machine rooms.  They was greppin'
>mail, tracin' Path-IDs, following FTP and telnet logs, and they eventually
>came up with twenty seven mail messages, and they printed each one of 'em
>out and put circles and arrows and highlights on 'em and a paragraph on
>the back of each printout explaining what each one was to be used as
>evidence against us.  They took archives of the approach, the getaway,
>the activity in our home directories and /tmp, and the spool directories,
>and I already mentioned the mail grepping.
>
>After the ordeal, we went back to our residences.  The Director of
>Student Security said he was going to keep us under supervision and
>said "Kid, I'm going to take away your root access, but you can have
>your regular account back if you'll give me the userid and password
>for it first".
>
>I said "Director, I can understand you wanting my root access and my
>regular userid so's you can put me in the list of users denied access
>to FTP and telnet, but why do you want my password?"
>
>And he said "Kid, we don't want you reading /etc/passwd and running
>crack on it".
>
>And I said "Director, did you think I was going to read /etc/passwd
>and run crack on it just to read Usenet News?"
>
>The Director said he was making sure, and friends, the Director was,
>'cause he changed my numeric user-ID so I couldn't chmod my old files,
>and he chmod'ed all my files and directories to 000 so's I couldn't use
>any information contained in 'em to build something with the setuid bit 
>set and put it under someone else's directory under the name "ls" and 
>use the fact that the default system environment had the user's current
>working directory appearing in the PATH before /bin, and he even changed 
>my shell to "rsh", just in case.
>
>The Director was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later
>that Alice (remember Alice?  This is a song about Alice), Alice came by
>and with a few nasty words to the Director, bailed us out of our rsh
>accounts, had another session of newsreading that couldn't be beat, and
>didn't get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to the 
>Student Disciplinary Tribunal.
>
>We walked in, sat down, and the Director of Computer Security came in
>with the twenty seven mail message printouts with the circles and arrows
>and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down.  Man came in said "all
>rise".  We stood up, and the Director stood up with the twenty seven mail
>message printouts and the judge walked in, sat down in front of a manual 
>typewriter, and he sat down, and we sat down.  The Director looked at the
>manual typewriter, and and then at the twenty seven mail messages with 
>circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked 
>at the manual typewriter.  And then at the twenty seven mail message 
>printouts with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one
>and began to cry, 'cause the Director had come to the realization that
>this was a typical case of minds from the 1950s trying to deal with the 
>technology of the 1990s, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, 
>and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven mail message 
>printouts with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each
>one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.  And
>we was given a few lines on our transcripts and had to take the hard drive
>out of the machine the next morning, but that's not what I came to tell
>you about.
>
>Came to talk about censorship.
>
>We got a place up here, which I won't name publically, and among other
>things, one of the things they do is take a big newsfeed from the wide 
>world of the Internet and select it, inspect it, detect it, infect it,
>neglect it, and then inject it into the news directories.  I went down
>and got my job application papers, and I walked in wearing a suit-and-tie
>so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning.
>
>'Cause I wanted to look like the all-politically-correct kid from 
>university, man I wanted to feel like the all-politically-correct kid 
>from university, man I wanted to *BE* the all-politically-correct kid 
>from university, and I walked in and I was hung down, brung down, hung 
>up, and all kinds of mean nasty ugly things.  And I walked in and sat 
>down and they gave me a piece of paper, said "Kid, do the oral 
>personality 
>profile test with the shrink in Room 101".
>
>I went up there and said "Shrink, I want to be a productive employee.
>I wanna, I wanna, I wanna PRODUCE.  PRO-DEWCE!  I wanna work harder than
>the lowest grunt at Microsoft, I wanna be an efficient user of the NSFnet
>backbone for our corporate agenda, I wanna PRODUCE!  I don't never wanna
>read any newsgroups other than those concerning the quarterly reports and
>company product announcements!  Sure this is a Unix site, but I don't mind
>the castrated newsfeed and the mail greppers, 'cause it'll all help me to
>PRODUCE!  I wanna see the stock of this company split ten times over the
>next year, I wanna make the Board of Directors so filthy rich, man, I tell
>you I wanna PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and I started jumpin' up and down,
>yellin' "PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and the shrink started jumpin' up
>and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling "PRODUCE,
>PRODUCE, PRODUCE!", and the manager came over, pinned a medal on me, sent
>me down the hall, said "you're our boy".
>
>Didn't feel too good about it.
>
>Proceeded on down the hall gettin' all sorts of political injections,
>inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they
>was doin' to me at the thing there, and I was interviewed two hours,
>three hours, four hours.  I was there for a long time going through
>all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time
>there and they was inspecting and injecting every single part of my
>political mindset, and they was leaving no part untouched.  Proceeded
>through.  And when I finally came to see the last man, the Commissar
>of Information Access, I walked in, walked in, sat down after a whole
>big thing there, looked at the big framed print he had behind him,
>(a signed original by Richard E. Depew!) and said "what do you want?"
>
>"Kid, we only got one question.  Have you ever read anything in the
>alt.* hierarchy from anywhere other than your local news spool?"
>
>And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's NNTP Server
>Censorship, with full orchestration and five-part harmony and stuff
>like that and suddenly he stopped me right there and said "Kid, did
>you ever have that written up on your transcript?"
>
>I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven archived mail
>messages with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back
>of each one, and he stopped me right there and said "Kid, I want you
>to go and sit down on that bench that says group H ... NOW, KID!"
>
>And I walked over to the bench there, and there's group H, which
>is where they put you if you may not be *moral* enough to join the
>company after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds
>of mean nasty ugly-looking people on the bench there.
>
>News forgers.  Porno FTP site admins.  Anon-server users!  Promiscuous
>NNTP site admins.  News administrators running promiscuous NNTP sites, 
>with full feeds no less!  Sitting right there on the bench next to me!  
>And there was other mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys
>sitting on the bench next to me.  And the meanest, nastiest, ugliest one 
>of the bunch, he had probably offended more people through his postings
>than the world's top ten sickest, most twisted fucks combined, he was 
>coming over to me and he was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' nasty
>'n' ugly 'n' horrible and all kinds of things and he sat down next to me 
>and said "Kid, what'd ya get?"
>
>I said "I didn't get nothing, they put a line on my transcript and
>made me remove the hard drive".  He said "What were you busted for?",
>and I said "unauthorized hardware modifications".  And they all moved 
>away from me on the bench there, and a hairy eyeball and all kinds of
>mean nasty things, 'till I said "to set up an NNTP server which could 
>bring potentially-offensive newsgroups censored at my local site and 
>grant full news access to my friends".  They all came back, shook my
>hand, talkin' 'bout crime, underground FTP sites, promiscuous NNTP 
>servers, what to do about Barney the Dinosaur, all kinds of groovy 
>things that we was talking about on the bench.  And everything was 
>fine, we was trading wares and all kinds of things, until the Commissar 
>of Information Access came over, had some paper in his hand, and said...
>
>"Kids, this-online-survey's-got-47-words-37-sentences-58-lines-we-
>wanna-know-details-of-the-crime-time-of-the-crime-all-the-things-
>you-gotta-say-things-about-the-crime-what-newsgroups-you-was-reading-
>at-the-time-the-contents-of-your-current-.newsrc-file-and-all-the-
>things-you-gotta-say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody
>understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the form
>and making cool sounds with the relay keyswitches on the IBM 3101
>terminals on the bench there, and I filled out the details of the
>Alice's NNTP Server Censorship and the hard drive with the four part 
>harmony, wrote it down there, just like it was, and I pressed ENTER, 
>and the screen cleared, and I saw the rest of the form.
>
>In the middle of the screen.
>
>Away from everything else on the screen.
>
>In parentheses.
>
>Capital letters.
>
>Quotated.
>
>Read the following words:  "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"
>
>I went over to the Commissar, said "Commissar, you got a lotta damn
>gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I'm just
>sittin' here, sittin' on the group H bench 'cause you want to know if
>I'm *moral* enough to join a Company to grep mail, burn electronic books,
>and censor feeds after bein' an NNTP hacker."  He looked at me, said 
>"Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send your .newsrc down 
>to California..."
>
>And friends, somewhere in California, enshrined in some little directory,
>is a study in ones and zeroes of my .newsrc.  And the only reason I'm
>singin' you this song is 'cause you may know somebody in a similar
>situation, or *YOU* may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a
>situation like that, there's only one thing you can do and that's post
>a message to your company's internal newsgroup, saying "Commissar, you
>can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP server."
>
>And log off.
>
>You know, if one person, just one person does it, they may think he's
>really sick and won't fire him just yet, just send him down to a Training
>Session until his brains are jellied up.  And if two people, two people
>do it, in harmony, they may think they're starting a cascade and will only
>fire one of 'em to establish a precedent and put the fear-o-God in the rest
>of their workers.  And three people, three, can you imagine, three people
>logging on, posting a message containing a bar of Alice's NNTP Server and
>walking out, they may think it's an organization.  And can you imagine
>fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day logging on, postin' a bar
>of "Alice's NNTP Server" and logging off.  And friends, they may think 
>it's a movement.
>
>And that's what it is, the Alice's NNTP Server Anti-Censorship Movement,
>and all you got to do to join is quote it the next time it comes around
>on the screen.
>
>With feeling.
>
>So we'll wait for it to come around on the screen here, and follow-up
>with a quotation when it does.
>
>Here it comes...
>
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     Telnet over, it's a simple hack.
>     Port one-nineteen is where it's at.
>     and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>
>That was horrible.  If you want to end censorship and stuff you got
>to post loud...
>
>I've been writin' this song now for twenty-five minutes and over three
>hundred and twenty lines of text.  I could write it for another twenty-
>five minutes and another three hundred and twenty lines -- I'm not proud...
>
>...or tired.
>
>So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part
>harmony and feeling.  We're just waitin' for it to come around is what
>we're doing.
>
>All right now...
>
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     (even .GIFs of Alice!)
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     Telnet over, it's a simple hack.
>     Port one-nineteen is where it's at.
>     and you can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     You can get anything you want on Alice's NNTP.
>     Telnet over, it's a simple hack,
>     And they can have the shirts right off our backs,
>     but we'll still read anything we want on Alice's NNTP...
>
>
>
>
>

--
Robbie Honerkamp
[email protected]
http://www.shorty.com/~robbie/