Computer underground Digest Sun Aug 30, 1998 Volume 10 : Issue 47 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, #10.47 (Sun, Aug 30, 1998) File 1--Q&A Interview With Quark's Tim Gill File 2--Open Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee (R. Forno) File 3--Hacker snitches for FBI, escapes 60 year prison term File 4--Register Now for ApacheCon '98 in San Francisco File 5--Islands in the Clickstream. Life in Space. August 8, 1998 File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) CuD ADMINISTRATIVE, EDITORIAL, AND SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION ApPEARS IN THE CONCLUDING FILE AT THE END OF EACH ISSUE. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 20:07:32 -0700 From: David Batterson Subject: File 1--Q&A Interview With Quark's Tim Gill Quark Chairman Tim Gill Offers Input on Quark/Adobe Marriage Proposal by David Batterson Like Madonna fending off suitors, Adobe Systems, Inc. is not thrilled by a proposal by Quark, Inc. to buy the company (in cash). You might say Adobe considers that to be "Forbidden Love." Quark's Chairman, Tim Gill, offered his own spin on this latest proposed software-firm marriage. Q: What's the nature of your proposal, and what's it going to cost? A: I should point out that it's just a proposal not an offer. We haven't talked about a price, for example. Since we want this to be a friendly transaction, we feel we need to have open, honest, non-hostile discussions with the Adobe board before we can consider making an offer. There are regulatory issues, for example, because the FTC almost certainly would not want the same company controlling QuarkXPress and PageMaker. How that is resolved as well as many other issues would effect the price. Since Adobe's board has a fiduciary duty to maximize the value for their shareholders, they should be keenly interested to help us work out the issues. Q: Is this serious, or are you raising a flag to see if anyone salutes? A: We are utterly serious about this proposal. Recent declines in Adobe's valuation have led to us making the proposal. We think they have some good technologies and there are great synergies between our product lines. And we think a business combination could lead to a substantially more streamlined operation as well as some great possibilities for future technologies. Q: What is Adobe's official response? A: At present, Adobe is not willing to have discussions with us. As of Thursday evening [August 27], there has been no response to our letter of August 25. Q: How have you found the press coverage to be lately? A: Some of the opinions are pretty funny. The Wall Street Journal article [August 27] was interesting. However, the last paragraph implies that my husband and I snowboard together. Well, they got the 12 years together and the fact that I'm a snowboarding fanatic right, but Davol hates to snowboard. Q: We've seen antitrust policies of the Justice Dept. and FTC vary widely. On the one hand, they've been extremely aggressive against Microsoft. Meanwhile, telecommunications and bank mergers seem to sail through mostly safe waters. Is this because the computer industry is relatively new, and harder to grasp by regulators? Or does it have a higher profile, so it becomes a more visible target? A: Microsoft is, of course, a special case because of their extreme size and dominance. But even when Adobe acquired Aldus a number of years ago, they had to divest of FreeHand to pass regulatory muster. The increased scrutiny of high tech companies comes because we're in such a rapidly growing and competitive market. The concern that regulators have is to make sure that the customers get the best products and services, which can be helped by mergers, and yet maintain sufficient competition, which can be hurt by mergers. Q: Is the computer industry now basically like most other companies today, i.e., acquire or BE acquired? What other mergers/takeovers do you see as possible? Dell & Gateway? Autodesk & IMSI? Symantec & IBM? Mickey Mouse & Bugs Bunny? A: I don't think so. Certainly there is increased M&A activity in the high-tech market. But companies still live or die based on the quality of their products and their ability to market and sell. Most of them end up dying rather than being acquired. As far as specific predictions, I have an opinion only on Bugs and Mickey. Altogether, I think Bugs has a much too gay esthetic for a merger with the Mouse to be successful. When merging organizations, a cultural fit is very important. Q: Why did Adobe stumble anyway? A: Most of Adobe's products are good ones. However, they haven't really made any effective moves into new market areas. And they have a major problem in that their expenditures are much too high. For mature products, marketing expenses should be minimized because word-of-mouth is a more effective and cheaper marketing vehicle. One of the pluses from some kind of business combination would be that I believe Quark has a very good sense of how to control expenses. Q: Was Adobe's merger with Aldus a good one? Why is Quark a better fit? A: Of the many products Adobe acquired when they purchased Aldus, I believe the only major one they are still selling is PageMaker. Perhaps this is what Adobe intended all along. However, the publishing industry, by and large, uses QuarkXPress, rather than PageMaker. Adobe's PhotoShop and Illustrator, however, are great products. We think that a company that had all three products would have a great opportunity to capitalize on those strengths and do some things are are very beneficial for the customers. In particular, there are ways that the links between those products and the web and be strengthened. Web publishing is an essential part of the strategy of most publishers, and yet it is expensive and often doesn't have a revenue generating component. So, anything we do to reduce costs in this area is important. Q: Has the "proposal" to Adobe been accompanied by virtual (or Web-ordered) flowers and a QuarkXPress-created greeting card? A: No, but you can keep up with the latest info at www.quark.com/proposal. After careful consideration we decided not to use the floral motif for that page, though. Q: Would Quark change the company logo to one with rainbow colors? A: I think Apple has the trademark on rainbow colored logos for the computer industry. However, I can assure you that should some new logo be needed, whatever we do will be tasteful. ============ Article Copyright 1998 David Batterson. All rights reserved. ============= ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 11:48:04 -0400 From: "Richard Forno" Subject: File 2--Open Letter to Senate Judiciary Committee (R. Forno) An Open Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee and Other Interested Parties: Senator Hatch, As a former House staffer I know this will most likely not be routed to you directly but be handled by your staff. Regardless, I appreciate the minute it will take to read this quick note regarding your well-needed hearings on the Microsoft issue. I would suggest that a future hearing include members of the "general computing public" -- people who are not "CEOs or Presidents" of Microsoft competitors who have a serious concern about being forced to use Microsoft products out of unfair business tactics by Microsoft. I for one am seriously contemplating the purchase of a Macintosh as a home PC to be more "flexible" and have a system "do" what I, not Microsoft, wants it to do with whatever software I choose to use, not pressured to use. Larry Ellison was right...a PC purchase these days is reminiscent of a Soviet Supermarket. I just want my machine to work the way I want it to. Heck, I just want it to be reliable! Like many others, I have serious issue with the quality of several Microsoft products. Most recently, the Navy's Aegis cruiser USS Yorktown was towed back to port because its Windows NT shipboard LAN crashed, the vessel lost propulsion, and other critical systems went dark. As a former system administrator and "power user" I have experienced similar situations with substandard, bloated (or, to use Microsoft's term, "innovative" software that is chock full of features I never use) Microsoft software. After several years of this, I see such incidents not a "bug" but a "feature" of the software. What does this say for the security of the United States where our combat forces, financial, government, and commercial organizations are using software that -- unlike its UNIX counterpart -- has never seen the "light of day" by a competent peer review? Nobody knows for sure what secrets are buried in the 25 million-plus lines of code that makes up Windows NT operating systems, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or any Microsoft Product. In fact, Microsoft threatens to sue anyone for "reverse engineering" such software for any reason! Our nation is blindly falling to the Microsoft PR machine that preaches NT as a reliable and secure operating system. There are several major holes, bugs, flaws, technical issues, and emerging vulnerabilities in an operating system that is running the mission-critical systems of this country. Look at the PGP encryption algorithm. A major reason for its worldwide acceptance was due to the source code being evaluated by people around the world and not the "good promise" that the algorithm was secure by the manufacturer who never released it. On the UNIX front, an organization can tailor the operating system to exactly fit a set of requirements, and to "trim the fat" from the system. Microsoft NT and other products, on the other hand, do not allow you to easily "trim the fat" or customize the package to fit a given set of requirements. We want our software to work the way we want it, plain and simple. Think about it -- how many commands or features does the average MS Word user regularly use? Thirty? Fifty? Why can't we install JUST what we need, not what the vendor "thinks" we need, and "trim the fat" from our systems? Not only will we save disk space but I guarantee our systems will work more smoothly that way. Why do I see the Word 97 "Help Wizard" when I first run it, if I chose not to install Help? Microsoft must think I need it, I guess. Today's hearings included testimony by Bob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks, creator, innovator, and maker of the Real Audio/Video streaming products. He claims that Real Audio is disabled by the Microsoft Windows Media Player bundled with Windows software. Others -- including myself -- claim similar issues with non-Microsoft Internet browsers and e-mail packages being "subverted" by Microsoft products. However, Microsoft claims that its products do not disable third-party software and that "users are free to chose any products they want to use" on their systems. As a systems administrator, I found this particularly frustrating, especially in the legislative environment I was working in at the time. In fact, one incident involved a Microsoft product replacing all file associations with files created by a competitor's product with its own. Imagine my surprise when I ran my product and got error messages! If this is true, then, why must I, a devout Netscape Navigator user, be forced to maintain the large Microsoft Internet Explorer application on my Win98 system? For example, Win98/NT5 has the Internet Explorer so deeply-embedded into the operating system that removing it is next to impossible. Who in their right mind needs to surf the web from within the Printer window? Does the browser HAVE to be integrated into EVERY facet of the operating system? I never use it, and would be very happy to remove it. But try to remove such products without "breaking" the system....it's next to impossible. Even if you remove it with the Uninstall program, I have yet to see a single Microsoft program COMPLETELY disappear from my system. If you doubt me, uninstall a Microsoft product and then check out the \PROGRAM FILES directory. You'll still see stuff there, and I am quite convinced that the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory only grows over time, thus becoming a "garbage disposal" for program snippets of long-ago-uninstalled software. (If this wasn't the case, why are there third-party Uninstall programs to pick up the garbage left behind on the hard drive after an alleged "uninstall" was done?) This is not making computing easier, as Microsoft says, only more complex, and another reason why I am seriously looking at the Macintosh line of products. Finally, Microsoft has always claimed to be only a "software company." Bill Gates says this time and again, even at the last Senate hearing where he was in attendance, and such claims foster an illusion of innocence by Microsoft to any wrongdoing. This claim is mentioned as often as their new mantra of product "innovation." If that is true, why did Microsoft develop Carpoint, Expedia, Investor, Home Advisor, Start, Sidewalk, Game Zone, or any of their other "non-software" offerings on the Internet or TV? Why invest in Comcast, TCI, WebTV, and create MSNBC? They aren't software products, are they? They are new ventures and mediums that Microsoft is trying to corner just as it did the current desktop market. This duplicity of Microsoft's business focus is very misleading, and deserves further investigation by the Senate and industry groups. Senator, I thank you for your time. I look forward to your future hearings on this very relevant topic that goes far beyond business and social issues, and would appreciate the opportunity to expand these remarks to your committee in the future. Please feel free to contact me with any questions at rforno@tiac.net. Best wishes, Richard Forno. CIRP Security Consultant Washington, DC ------------------------------ From: "Jim Galasyn" Subject: File 3--Hacker snitches for FBI, escapes 60 year prison term Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 19:13:17 -0700 Would you hire a hacker? By Joseph C. Panettieri August 12, 1998 Sm@rt Reseller Some of the world's largest corporations hired Justin Petersen. So did the FBI. In fact, in law-enforcement circles, he's known as Agent Steal, and he's got a long list of technical skills and references that would make most resellers drool. Consider his most recent tour of duty, which includes developing intranets and extranets for Cosmic Media, a Los Angeles-based Internet consulting firm that has deployed secure electronic commerce sites for Digital Media and other fledgling businesses. He has also launched his own 1,000 square-foot computer center, which features two server rooms, a control room and an earthquake resistant design. Now, for the twist: Petersen, 37, is also a reformed hacker. Earlier this decade he served time for breaking into several corporate networks, making bomb threats and stealing money from a bank electronically. [His run from justice.] "I imagine if I walked into a place and tried to get a regular job, my record would be an issue," concedes Petersen, speaking from the Los Angeles apartment he has called home since his release from prison last year. "But I've known a couple of guys from Cosmic Media for a long time, and I have other friends in the industry-including a Webmaster over at CNET. Friends who are aware of my convictions support me and hire me. "Hacking was a phase I went through," continues Petersen. "I learned what I wanted to learn, and I got it out of my system. That phase of my life is over." FBI informant As if Petersen's story wasn't outrageous enough, portions of his digital crime spree actually were committed while he was working undercover for the FBI, according to court documents obtained by Sm@rt Reseller. He also has crossed paths with notorious Internet hacker Kevin Mitnick. Reformed hacker Justin Petersen is working side-by-side with Web consultants and resellers. Would you hire him? Add your comments to the bottom of this page. The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice took Petersen's offenses quite seriously. When Petersen pleaded guilty to several computer-related crimes on March 27, 1995, the DOJ promptly issued a tersely worded press release stating that he faced a "maximum sentence of 60 years in prison and $2 million in fines." Today, that very same press release begs two troubling questions: How did Petersen emerge from prison so quickly? And can he be trusted to work with computers, the Internet and channel players? To be sure, hackers increasingly are turning over new leafs as resellers and security consultants. Says John Klein, president of Rent-A-Hacker (www.rent-a-hacker.com), "I've seen my customers hire hackers. Sometimes an 18-year-old kid who lives on the Internet has more experience than a 30 year old with a Master's [Degree] in computer science." Still, hiring a young cyberpunk who knocked over a few Web sites is one thing. But recruiting the likes of Agent Steal is in another class. Says Art Brieva, chief technology officer at The PC Authority, a Plainview, N.Y.-based reseller: "There are hackers who mess around with systems for the pure challenge of it, and then there are hackers who have malicious intent. I would tend to steer clear of the latter." Quite a childhood Petersen says he started wiretapping phone systems and hacking computers when he was only 12. In his early years, he simply explored computer systems rather than damage them. For more than a decade, he read about technology and honed his hacking skills before breaking into TRW Inc.'s credit system in 1989. Later that year, he and fellow cyberpunk Kevin Poulsen rigged Pacific Bell's telecom network and seized a radio station's phone lines to win a $10,000 call-in contest. "Poulsen taught me a great deal about hacking," allows Petersen. "But I was mostly self-taught. I bought lots of books and always read a lot about computers." Petersen, working with Poulsen, found a security hole in a Pacific Bell test and maintenance system that made the radio station hack possible. Petersen claims the duo could latch onto any phone line within Pacific Bell's network, monitor it, ring it, dial out, and so on. Far from complicated, the hack required a single PC and two phone lines (one for control via computer and one to monitor). "Pacific Bell thought the system was secure, but they shut it down after they discovered the weakness we exploited," Petersen says. After parting ways with Poulsen, Petersen fled to Texas in 1991 and was arrested after being caught driving a stolen Porsche. A search of Petersen's apartment by police uncovered more than a dozen fraudulent credit cards, modems and a computer. Police suspected Petersen was using the PC to illegally access TRW's credit system to obtain credit cards under several aliases, according to court documents. Rather than face full prosecution, Petersen's legal troubles took a dramatic turn for the better in September 1991. According to court documents, a Secret Service agent visited Petersen in a Texas jail several times and they struck a stunning deal: In return for pleading guilty to various computer-related crimes, Petersen agreed to work undercover for the FBI. He was released and placed under the FBI's supervision in California. Petersen's legal case also was transferred to California, and his sentencing was delayed until his work for the FBI was completed, according to the court documents. Hunting hackers The nature of Petersen's service for the FBI remains unclear at best. Neither the FBI nor the Secret Service is willing to comment about Petersen's case. For his part, Petersen claims the FBI rented him a furnished apartment and gave him a salary, two computers, two modems and phone lines to gather information about alleged hackers who may pose a threat to the government. In particular, Petersen and several attorneys close to his case say he helped the FBI amass evidence against former buddy Poulsen, as well as Mitnick and Lewis DePayne. Poulsen is now free after serving time for rigging the 1989 radio contest and facing a much more serious charge of international espionage. Mitnick and DePayne await a Jan. 19, 1999, trial date for an alleged Internet crime spree that Miramax, a major Hollywood movie studio, is transforming into a motion picture. As for Petersen, his work for the FBI continued until Oct. 22, 1993. On that day, government officials met with Petersen and asked him if he had committed additional computer-related crimes while working for the FBI. According to court documents, Petersen panicked and fled the meeting. Like Mitnick at the time, he was now a fugitive. Petersen remained at large for more than a year. He surfaced again on Aug. 17, 1994, when he hacked Heller Financial Inc., a commercial financial service provider in Glendale, Calif. Once inside Heller's network, Petersen identified a line between two network switches that was accidentally left unencrypted. Petersen used the weak link, which has since been corrected, to transfer $150,000 from Heller's electronic vaults to an account at Union Bank in Bellflower, Calif. Petersen made two bomb threats to Heller in an effort to distract employees so they would not notice the transfer of funds, according to court documents. This is only a test Petersen considered the first transfer a "test," and planned to return for more cash a few weeks after the first transaction. But the FBI was searching for him, and he was tracked down and arrested three weeks after hacking Heller's network. In early 1995 he pleaded guilty to committing computer wire fraud while a fugitive and didn't emerge from prison until April, 1997. Petersen's time behind bars fell far short of the potential 60-year sentence he faced. Some lawyers, including Mitnick's attorney, Donald Randolph, consider Petersen's short sentence rather curious. Others are surprised that Petersen is free to work with computers and the Internet. By contrast, Mitnick is only allowed to use a non-networked PC when researching documents related to his criminal case. Petersen faces no such restrictions. Says alleged hacker DePayne, the co-defendant in Mitnick's case: "Petersen hacked for profit then cooperated with the government. Poulsen didn't cooperate with the Feds. I'd say that's why Justin [Petersen], rather than Kevin [Poulsen], can now work with computers without any limitations." Asst. U.S. Attorney David Schindler says Petersen is subject to a "supervised release" and must "get approval" from a parole officer before accepting high-technology jobs or any other work that may tempt fate. Still, one question remains: How did Petersen circumvent the possible 60-year prison sentence mentioned in the 1995 DOJ press release? "That's a question I'd love the government to answer," says attorney Richard Sherman, who has defended Mitnick and currently represents DePayne. Schindler says Petersen got time off for good behavior, and adds that the DOJ's press release was a bit misleading. Enjoying freedom Petersen has certainly made the most of his early release. In recent months, he has devoured technical manuals, and quickly gotten up to speed on numerous technologies that gained popularity during his prison stay, including Windows 95, Windows NT, Java and Internet development tools. "I haven't been in any trouble since my release," he says (and attorney Schindler confirms). "I'm concentrating on Web development and my NT skills, and hope to launch an adult Web site down the road." Petersen, by all accounts, is no longer using his hacker skills, but he certainly doesn't hide his past. His personal Web site features legal documents from his court case, interviews published in hacker publications, as well as a few booby traps that could send some Web users running for cover. (Because of the latter issue, Sm@rt Reseller has elected not to publish Petersen's URL.) Until very recently, the Web site manipulated a visitor's computer by launching nefarious Java applets. And his current e-mail address pokes fun at one of his former victims, Pacific Bell. It's unclear how long Petersen will continue working side-by-side with channel players. Aside from launching his adult Web site, Petersen also is promoting Los Angeles night clubs. But despite such demands on his time, he's willing to continue lending local Web consultants a hand if the price is right. And there are certainly resellers interested in the likes of Petersen. "Hackers are the best consultants out there," says Kevin Johnson, owner of security consultancy and reseller Johnson & Associates. "I've got a guy working for me who was a hacker, and he's very good at what he does." Even one of Petersen's staunchest critics, attorney Sherman, defends Petersen's right to work within the computer industry. Quips Sherman: "I don't think anyone's right to use a computer should be taken away. But if Justin hacks me, I'll kill him." ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 13:34:37 -0700 From: Brian Behlendorf Subject: File 4--Register Now for ApacheCon '98 in San Francisco The Apache Group is proud to present ApacheCon, the first-ever industry and technical conference for users and developers of the Apache family of web server software. This conference takes place at the Hilton Hotel and Towers in San Francisco, October 14th through the 16th, 1998. http://www.apache.org/Conference1998/ We are very excited about this conference. This will be the first time that the developer and user community will meet face to face on a large scale, sharing information on topics ranging from configuration, security, dynamic content engines, and more. We have a full track of case studies, showing how Apache is being used on a wide range of web sites. We also have invited various vendors of Apache-related software to present their wares and hold birds-of-a-feather sessions for their users, in addition to being on-hand in our exhibition hall to answer your questions throughout the conference. Why should you participate in ApacheCon? We will have keynote presentations from John Gilmore of the EFF and Cygnus, author Bruce Sterling, John Patrick from IBM, and David Filo from Yahoo. We'll have technical sessions led by several members of the Apache Group, as well as special presentations by other industry experts. The full conference agenda can be found on the ApacheCon site at . We also have an *excellent* party planned at the Exploratorium the night of the 15th. All profits from the conference are going into a separate, independent fund to be administered by the Apache Group core members for the protection and evolution of the Apache family of server software. We will need YOUR participation in the conference to help make this fund a reality. Register soon! ApacheCon registration is $995 until September 15th, at which point it goes to $1295. There are also special deals on hotel accomodations and airfare, which will no doubt run out quickly! I hope to see you there. Brian Behlendorf Apache Group Member http://www.apache.org/Conference1998/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 13:18:46 -0500 From: Richard Thieme Subject: File 5--Islands in the Clickstream. Life in Space. August 8, 1998 Islands in the Clickstream: Life in Space There was so much hullabaloo at Def Con VI! (the recent convention for computer hackers, journalists, screen writers, producers, computer security and insecurity experts, programmers, federal agents, local police and sheriff's deputies, advertisers and marketers, hotel security guards, undercover agents, refugees from raves, groupies, and endlessly curious mind-hungry men and women of all sorts and conditions) - hullabaloo, that is, about how hackers have morphed from evil geniuses into respectable men and women operating at the highest levels of industry and commerce, the military, and the intelligence community. The basis for comparison, of course, is an image of hackers as whacked-out loners hunched over glowing monitors late into the night, cackling like Beavis or Butthead as they break into our bank accounts - an image created and sustained by the media. Well let's be real. Some do, some are. That's part of the scene, the digital equivalent of growing up in Hell's Kitchen and living down these mean digital streets. That, however, is not the essence of hacking. Hacking is curiosity, playfulness, problem-solving, motivated by the pleasure of browsing, following one's nose where others say it doesn't belong, looking for a constellation in the seemingly random stars. Following the luminous bread crumbs deep into the twilight forest. Building an elusive, always-hypothetical whole that forms and dissolves and forms again at every level of the fractal puzzle of life. Hacking has its roots in Renaissance men like da Vinci and Machiavelli who saw clearly and said what they saw. But something else is happening too. As I looked out at the audience of the Black Hat Briefings, I saw that the roles of journalists, specialists in competitive intelligence, spies, even professional speakers like myself, were converging, that roles in a digital world are as fluid as identities. The skills of hackers and intelligence agents are the skills needed in the virtualized worlds we are learning to inhabit. We hear endlessly of convergence of form and structure in the wired world. Every digital interface is an arbitrary distinction. Because we can reconstitute bits in whatever form we like, deciding to call an interface a PC, TV, or PDA is a job for marketing, not engineers. But I'm talking about the convergence of roles. The digital world is back-engineering us in its image. Because that world is interactive, modular, and fluid, our lives are too. We don't even notice anymore that to choose to present ourselves to the world is a choice. At one extreme, identity hacking - stealing identifiers like numbers and codes with which to gain access to the social and economic world or creating a new identity from whole digital cloth in order to disappear and surface in a new body - is a growing industry. But choices we take for granted - changing jobs, religions, marital status, changing our names, changing careers, changing who we essentially think we are - have become part of consensus reality. Not so long ago, people who did that were thought to be just plain nuts. Once upon a time, the roles we were expected to fulfill were our destinies. Unless external crises intervened, people were expected to stay in one place, get a job and keep it, get married and stay married, be whatever religion they were told they were (as if something else were even thinkable), and live inside a single identity that was so much a fish in water that it wasn't questioned. Identity is a social construction of reality that's noticed only when the external factors that shape it have changed. The new consensus reality is reinforced by information sources from talk shows to the Wall Street Journal. We can choose careers, another marriage, another religion, another way of being ourselves, and we are everywhere surrounded by helpful advice about how to do it. In the digital world, sanity means having the resources and capacity to know how to morph, changing presentations that are bridges between constantly shifting external factors and our own developmental stages. This is true for organizations as well as individuals. The protean self, back-engineered from the structures of our information technologies, thinks of life as a creative act. The ability to distinguish who we are from our presentations, knowing how to use those presentations to exercise power, build feedback loops of energy and information to sustain us, that's a skill that used to belong to spies alone. Now it's asked of everyone who wants to remain viable. Hackers call it social engineering, learning how to look and sound a particular way to elicit the information needed to build the Big Picture. In business, it is often called competitive intelligence. Some just call it "the way it is." Every time I say, "the edge is the new center," I notice that the edge I had in mind is no longer the edge. A new edge is emerging. Turn-around time is about six months, not only for computers, but for viable constructions of reality. We work and live in space stations, docking in modular fashion, then we're off again into space. That space is sheer possibility in which we create literally from nothing. The pull of the future creates the irresistible shapes of present possibilities with which we must comply. Every time we break through to a new way of seeing things it feels momentous, but breakthroughs are momentous for only a moment. Then they become commonplace, the background noise of the next stage of our lives. Evil genius hackers? Give me a break. The hackers who have their hands on the throttles of power in the digital world were "kids" three years ago. That's about as long as a current generation lasts. And civilization too is ramping up toward a single point of convergence where identities are arbitrary. What we call "our species" will soon be a wistful memory in the molecular clusters of the progeny we design, an arbitrary distinction that served us for a while before we morphed. A noun turned into a transitory verb. Ice turned into a flowing river. ********************************************************************** Islands in the Clickstream is a weekly column written by Richard Thieme exploring social and cultural dimensions of computer technology. Comments are welcome. Feel free to pass along columns for personal use, retaining this signature file. If interested in (1) publishing columns online or in print, (2) giving a free subscription as a gift, or (3) distributing Islands to employees or over a network, email for details. To subscribe to Islands in the Clickstream, send email to rthieme@thiemeworks.com with the words "subscribe islands" in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, email with "unsubscribe islands" in the body of the message. Richard Thieme is a professional speaker, consultant, and writer focused on the impact of computer technology on individuals and organizations. Islands in the Clickstream (c) Richard Thieme, 1998. All rights reserved. ThiemeWorks on the Web: http://www.thiemeworks.com ThiemeWorks P. O. Box 17737 Milwaukee WI 53217-0737 414.351.2321 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1998 22:51:01 CST From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 6--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 25 Apr, 1998) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send post with this in the "Subject:: line: SUBSCRIBE CU-DIGEST Send the message to: cu-digest-request@weber.ucsd.edu DO NOT SEND SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE MODERATORS. 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