Re: "Internetpol"

[Censored Girls Anonymous <carolb@barton.spring.com>]

Netcops 
By Hank, reprinted with permission
<hank@vm.tau.ac.il>

I eased the unmarked cruiser onto the highway, its 424 cubic cc, VJ 
engine purring. Traffic was heavy that day, as convoys of Usenet 
semi-trailers barrelled their way down the Information Super Highway. 
Biker gangs using Crack steered clear of our sedan searching instead for 
Internet tourists in Bermuda shorts and Nikon cameras around their necks.

"Unit 7, Unit 7. Woman reporting a 426, over," came the printout on the
Netcops  IRC channel.

Friday turned to me and gave me that look. The look that he gets when he 
wants to tear somone's head off. Friday is 6'6" and 230 pounds. he enjoys 
inflicting pain when necessary. "It's guys like this who give the 
Internet a bad name. Let's go see what we can do to help," said Friday, 
as he placed the flashing blue Kojak on top of the sedan as I popped the 
car into 5th and slashed by the Usenet truckers hauling their load of 
pornographic magazines and political soapboxes.

We arrived at the Holiday Inn where the lady was staying. Her eyes were 
red and she looked like a Mac had hit her. Under the hurt she was 
actually quite pleasant to look at., kind of like the girl next door. Her 
name was Mary and in between sobs we sat her down and ordered espresso 
from the lounge bar. "It was terrible. I feel so violated. I'd like to
kill the bastard," spat Mary with a vehemence that only Friday could 
understand.

"Just the facts, mam," said Friday.

"I'm here overseas for 9 weeks on assignment for my company. My husband 
is back home with our daughter and we decided to stay in contact via the 
Internet. I carry my subnotebook with me everytime I travel. My husband 
and I get along great but 9 weeks away from each other is just too long 
so we engage in cyber-sex. You know, private IRC channel, getting 
undressed behind locked doors and describing in intimate detail what wee 
are doing to each other. We've been doing it almost daily for 3 weeks,".

"But this last time was different. My husband asked me to do all sorts of 
weird and kinky things and I agreed, but it just seemed wrong. After our 
three hour session, my husband called later that day saying that his 
Internet system was under ICMP redirect attack and that he hasn't been 
able to get Internet access for the past 24 hours,".

Friday cut her off, "Do you use any protection?".

"I normally would have used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), but I forgot to 
install it before I left home. Listen, this guy at the other end must 
have been listening in on my previous sessions with my husband because
he knew all the right things to say as to not arouse my suspicions,".
Her lip trembled as she tried to hold back her tears but both Friday and 
myself knew time may heal all wounds but the scars remain.

It was now my turn to bring down the hard facts, "Mary it looks like you 
are the victim of a 426 --net-rape. There are no laws on the Internet, no 
police, no government to turn to. Friday and myself act as volunteers in 
this neck of the woods, along with thousands of others throughout the 
world who mete out our form of frontier justice. What would you like done 
once we catch the perp?".

She didn't hesitate for a moment, "I want nine of his fingers broken,".

"Why nine," I asked.

"There's no greater torture than using the Internet with one finger,".

Friday smiled. Mary had made herself a lifetime fan.

EPILOGUE

We were able to track down the perp via the historical data sampling we 
collect daily via our RMON probe. We just correllated the packets with 
Mary's known IP address and the time of day that the incident happened.
Once we had the perps IP address we contacted our fellow "cowboys" in 
that area who worked with the sysadmin who backtracked through the Unix 
logs and found the guy.

Needless to say, he will never type fast again.

------
The story you have read is true (giggle) the names ahve been changed
to protect the guilty.
------

This article appeared in Vol3 No2 Internet Society Magazine, 1994.

Registered<BETSI>BEllcore Trusted Software Integrity system programmer
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Carol Anne Braddock   "Give me your Tired, your Poor, your old PC's..."
The TS NET                                  REVOKED PGP KEY NO.0C91594D     
carolb@spring.com                                       carolann@mm.com
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