The RISKS Digest
Volume 6 Issue 93

Monday, 30th May 1988

Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems

ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Please try the URL privacy information feature enabled by clicking the flashlight icon above. This will reveal two icons after each link the body of the digest. The shield takes you to a breakdown of Terms of Service for the site - however only a small number of sites are covered at the moment. The flashlight take you to an analysis of the various trackers etc. that the linked site delivers. Please let the website maintainer know if you find this useful or not. As a RISKS reader, you will probably not be surprised by what is revealed…

Contents

Westpac disaster revisited?
Dave Horsfall
Telecommunications redundancy
Chris Maltby
Plastic cash makes for a 'safe' society
Dave Horsfall
Re: Daedalus and Cash on Nail
Rudolph R. Zung
A Thumbnail Sketch of Daedalus: David E. Jones
John Saponara
More on programmed trading
Charles H. Buchholtz
Re: Computers as a weapon ?
Amos Shapir
Re: risks of automatic test acknowledgement
Carl Gutekunst via Mark Brader
The Israeli Virus Bet Revisited
Y. Radai
Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

Westpac disaster revisited?

Dave Horsfall <munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.au!dave@uunet.UU.NET>
Thu, 26 May 88 13:46:46 est
Readers with long memories will recall the disaster of Westpac Banking
Corporation (Australia) going "live" with an essentially untested system.

The May 23rd issue of Computing Australia has a brief report on their
new system, the Accounts Opening and Customer Information (AOCI) system
about to undergo three weeks of tests in Brisbane and Sydney.  The AOCI
system is part of a $120 million program to build a national, integrated
new-generation computer system [buzz-word generated?] called Core System
90 (CS90) for Westpac.

Strangely enough, the article does not mention the aforesaid disaster,
but one would hope this system will receive a lot more testing than the
last one did...  Stay tuned for further details.

Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel-STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz
dave%stcns3.stc.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.OZ.AU!dave


Telecommunications redundancy

Chris Maltby <munnari!softway.oz.au!chris@uunet.UU.NET>
29 May 88 19:58:23 [GMT+1000] (Sun)
What no-one is talking about in the Chicago exchange fire is whether society
(i.e., the government) has a role in ensuring adequate redundancy in as
important a strategic network as the telephone system. The commercial decision
made by the telephone company to cut staff in exchange for the risk is just
that: a commercial decision. The decision to route all the trunks through the
same building is also a typical commercial decision. The result of a
concentration on getting the price down to compete in the market is a trade off
in services - and that means a much greater exposure to this sort of risk.

There is obviously a higher purpose which is being ignored in all this
commercialism, but just whose function is it to impose decent standards on the
poor old commercial phone companies. Should it be yet another government
regulatory bureaucracy, or should the phone companies be made liable for
damages caused by their failure to provide an essential service? Can we put up
with higher phone bills? Just who is benefitting out of all the phone company
cost cutting anyway?

This is all rather academic to me, as Australia has a centralised
government-owned phone company (which only last week was converted from a
statutory authority into a limited company). I think the issues are just as
important for Australia as well as the US, as we head away from the amorphous
Posts and Telegraphs Department system where the cost of a fully redundant
network was just absorbed, towards the strict focus on the bottom line.

Chris Maltby - Softway Pty Ltd    +61-2-698-2322


Plastic cash makes for a 'safe' society

Dave Horsfall <munnari!stcns3.stc.oz.au!dave@uunet.UU.NET>
Thu, 26 May 88 13:36:25 est
From "Computing Australia", 23rd May, 1988:

    "Plastic cash makes for a 'safe' society"

    A cashless society was a safer society, an expert on electronic
    funds transfer told last week's ANZAAS conference in Sydney.

    Marie Keir, from the secretariat of the Australian Science and
    Technology Council in Canberra, said EFT meant shop assistants
    were less vulnerable as they had little money in the cash register.

    "The amount of cash to be handled and transported safely has also
    been a high expense to retailers and banks," Keir said.  "EFTs
    have therefore been promoted as a form of payment to reduce
    handling costs.  The effect of these changes has been a movement
    to a society which is largely cashless; one which deals with
    electronic information instead of notes, cash and cheques.

All very laudable, but I'm concerned that this is one more excuse to
plunge headlong into a system with no standards, where the customer's
rights are ill-defined, and where naturally nothing can possibly go wrong,
go wrong, go wrong, go.....

Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU), Alcatel-STC Australia, dave@stcns3.stc.oz
dave%stcns3.stc.OZ.AU@uunet.UU.NET, ...munnari!stcns3.stc.OZ.AU!dave


Re: Daedalus and Cash on Nail

"Rudolph R. Zung" <rz02+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Thu, 26 May 88 13:28:43 -0400 (EDT)
Is this for real? I would hate to have my transactions limited by the
size of my nails. In case you haven't noticed: some people have really
short nails, and others have really long nail. People involved in
manual labor may also have their nails scratched. Oh my.

Anyway, a cashless transaction system is already in place in Singapore.
Interestingly enough, the government subsidised Post Office Savings Bank
(POSB, and somehow related to the Post Office, though I have no idea why
this is so) issues their own brand of ATM cards. Under the direction of the
government, they introduced cashless transactions.  Most of the major stores
in Singapore have a terminal for this service.  The total charges for
purchases and/or services are rung up, and punched into this machine. The
cashier then hands you a keypad (which has high sides to as to prevent
people from peeking at what you're typing in) and the keypad's display shows
you how much has been rung up. It also asks you "Account?" To which you tell
it whether you want to debit from your savings, checking or whatever
account. Having done that, it asks for "PIN?" (Personal Identification
Number). This is the same number that you would use to get money out of an
ATM.  I suppose this remote terminal thingy then calls up the bank and
verifies everything (just like an ATM probably would). It may sometimes
"Transaction Denied" (insufficient balance, cannot contact back's computer,
who knows) or "Transaction Approved", in which case the money is debitted
from your account immediately (again just like and ATM, except no money
comes out physically.) You then get your little receipt and everybody is
happy. Notice that the cashier does not get to find out what account you
paid from, nor your PIN. All the cashier knows is that you're using a bank
card to pay, and how much you paid for the purchase. It's very neat and
handy, and convenient.  I haven't heard of any frauds from using that system
so far, so I would assume that it is safe. (Standard ATM safeguards should
apply.)   ...Rue


A Thumbnail Sketch of Daedalus (Eric Haines)

John Saponara <saponara@tcgould.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Thu, 26 May 88 14:53:40 EDT
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

There seems to be a little confusion about whether the Daedalus column about
recording financial transactions on the thumbnail was a joke or not.  It was.

The author is actually David E. Jones, a freelance consultant who brainstorms
for a living.  He also writes the "Daedalus" column for "New Scientist"
magazine in Great Britain.  This column is usually about some strange,
humorous concept that his friend Daedalus is working on at the bustling,
mythical Dreadco research labs (whose motto is probably "A Growing Concern").

What's interesting is that about 17% of his ideas have been seriously studied
as possibilities by various groups.  For example, a method of building
prototypes based on shining UV light into a vat of photopolymer was just
described in the May 1988 issue of "Computer Graphics World".  This idea was
presented back in 1982 through "Daedalus".  Anyway, I highly recommend David
Jones' hilarious, thought provoking book "The Inventions of Daedalus", which
is a collection of these columns.

-- Eric Haines (not John Saponara, no matter what the mail header says)


More on programmed trading

Charles H. Buchholtz <chip@eniac.seas.upenn.edu>
Thu, 26 May 88 03:48:57 edt
Since people are still talking about programmed trading, I thought I'd
pass this along.  When I first started reading about programmed
trading in RISKS, I asked a financial analyst friend of mine what she
thought.  She replied that there are (at least) two types of
programmed trading: arbitrage and portfolio insurance.  What follows
is my understanding based upon her comments; I hope that someone more
familiar with finance would correct my inevitable misconceptions.

Arbitrage involves monitoring two or more prices (usually of related
items in different markets), and responding quickly to small
fluctuations.  This acts as a stabilizing force in the market; when
price A drops relative to B, B is sold and A is bought, which acts to
raise the price of A and lower the price of B.  This is a computerized
application of the adage, "Buy low and sell high".

Portfolio insurance attempts to assure a reasonable rate of return on a
portfolio of diverse investments.  The portfolio insurance program sells
when the price drops, and buys when the price rises, in an attempt to get
out of failing markets and into rising ones.  This "Buy high and sell low"
philosophy acts to reinforce market movement.  It works as long as the
volumes traded are small enough not to effect the prices involved.  If too
much of the market is traded according to this system, chaos will result.

---Chip

Disclaimer:  U. of P. doesn't even know I'm writing this, and I'm sure
the folks at Wharton know much more about this than I do.


Re: Computers as a weapon ?

Amos Shapir <nsc!taux01!taux01.UUCP!amos@Sun.COM>
26 May 88 14:18:03 GMT
The computerized roadside ambush operation  to catch tax evaders was not
designed especially for  the occupied territories; it  started in Israel
itself a few years  ago. Its main goal is to  catch businesses without a
formal address, such as free-lance taxi drivers, etc.

All the sources of risk presented in  the article as aspects of 'life in
an occupied land' (such as  the connections among government data bases,
and the  requirement to carry an  id card), are also  imposed on Israeli
citizens. Many western democracies use similar methods.

Amos Shapir, National Semiconductor (Israel)


Re: Risks of automatic test acknowledgement

Mark Brader <msb@sq.com>
Wed, 11 May 88 17:50:32 EDT
The unmoderated nature of Usenet sometimes leads to people doing silly
and destructive things, but the following, I think, is a new one.

There is a newsgroup "misc.test" on Usenet for test postings, as well as a
variety of local-area or restricted-distribution newsgroups that are used
for the same purpose whenever such distribution will suffice for what is
being tested.  Now, many sites operate automatic acknowledging programs that
attempt to send mail to anyone posting an article in these groups, so that
the poster knows where their test message reached.

With this build-up, you can probably guess what's coming.  The following
article was posted by Carl S. Gutekunst:

>A 2300-line message was posted to misc.test (and cross posted to talk.bizarre)
>by 22116@pyr1.acs.udel.EDU that refers to itself as the "misc.test digest." It
>contains the complete text of all the misc.test messages posted within the
>past month or so, a total of 107 articles. This awesomely stupid menuever was
>topped by pst@comdesign.UUCP reposting the same message to alt.test. 
>
>The posting of two 68 Kbyte messages to test groups is trivial compared to the
>effect of all the echo reflectors out there. Every one is forwarding the damn
>postings back to the sender. Worse, at least one standard reflector script,
>Erik Fair's, echos mail to *EVERY* "Path:" line in the test article. Since the
>article contains 109 Path lines, we mailed the 68K posting to all 109 of them!
>
>We have broken the UUCP link to comdesign, and are trashing every copy of the
>test message that we can find. Unfortunately, nearly all of them already went
>out during the night, and we apologize to all of you who found this monster in
>your inbox this morning. Other sites, especially those running echo reflec-
>tors, should survey their own spool partitions and squash as many of these as
>they can. 


The Israeli Virus Bet Revisited

Y. Radai <RADAI1%HBUNOS.BITNET@CORNELLC.CCS.CORNELL.EDU>
Mon, 30 May 88 17:32:51 +0300
   This is to report on the results of the "virus bet" which was made on an
Israeli television program at the beginning of April (see RISKS 6.62).  Although
the outcome was already announced in RISKS 6.84 by Amos Shapir, the story is
much more involved than what was described there.  (In fact, it was not quite
accurate to describe the outcome as a draw.)  Since I think the details will be
of interest to some readers, I am offering the following more complete report.

   As will be recalled, the bet originated when a pair of students, Yuval Rakavy
and Omri Mann, who had previously written and freely supplied software to de-
tect, prevent, and eradicate the four known viruses which had invaded IBM PCs in
Israel, had now written a program which they claimed could detect infection of a
disk by *any* virus under PC-DOS or MS-DOS.  Interviewed on television on April
4, they were unexpectedly confronted by the director of an established software
house, who challenged the students to a bet on the correctness of their claim,
for an amount equivalent to about $6200.  Since the names of the persons and
companies involved are unlikely to be of much interest to the non-Israeli read-
er, I shall refer to the authors of the program as the "defender" and to the
challenging director as the "attacker".
   In the agreement which was drawn up on April 27 between the two parties it
was stated that the defender "claims that he has a method of detecting the
propagation of any virus", where a virus is "software that reproduces within a
computer and between computers."  The attacker, on the other hand, "claims that
the method which [the defender] presented is not good against every virus."
Both parties were required to submit to the referees by May 4 flowcharts and
written descriptions of their algorithms.  The attacker had also been supplied
on April 10 with a Beta version of the defender's program (in non-disassemble-
able form).
   Unfortunately, certain key points were not spelled out in the agreement.
First, the terms 'method', 'detection', 'propagation' and 'reproduction' were
not defined, and the correctness of the claims could depend on the meanings
assigned to these terms.
   More important, it was not specified in the agreement precisely what would
have to occur in order for the referees to declare that the attacker or the
defender had won the bet.  Presumably it would be agreed that if the defender's
method failed (due to a shortcoming of the method as opposed to a mere bug in
the program) to detect the propagation of one of the attacker's viruses, it
should be concluded that the defender had lost.  On the other hand, even if the
defender's program succeeded in detecting propagation of all viruses submitted
by the attacker, this would not prove that "he has a method of detecting the
propagation of *any* virus".  Taken literally, it would seem that the defender
had no possibility of winning.  Of course, the reasonable position would be to
declare the defender victorious in such a case.
   However, the situation was complicated by the introduction of a theoretical
aspect.  The defender's insistence on the word 'method', rather than 'program'
or 'software', in the agreement was partly in order to express the fact that the
Beta version of his program might contain a bug, and partly in order to justify
submission of a theoretical proof that the method on which his program is based
guarantees detection of the propagation of any virus under certain specified
assumptions.
   Just how submission of this proof affected the criterion for victory is not
spelled out in the agreement.  Did the defender's proof have to be certified as
correct and complete in order for him to win?  Did he have to win on *both* the
empirical and theoretical fronts or on only one of them?  Was it possible that
*both* parties could be declared losers?  I think that if an effort had been
made to obtain agreement on these and all similar questions in advance, the bet
would have been much fairer, and perhaps one of the parties might even have de-
cided that there was no point in continuing with the bet.
   In any case, when the attacker's viruses were tested, their propagation was
detected by the defender's program in every case.  However, the outcome, as
decided by the two referees on May 8, was not only that the attacker had lost,
but so had the defender!  (The referees emphasize that this is *not* the same as
a draw.)  Their arguments were as follows:
   On the one hand, they admitted that under certain conditions users of the
defender's method "indeed gain a defense which makes it difficult for viruses to
penetrate the system" and that the attacker "did not succeed in proving unambi-
guously that the *method* which [the defender] presented is not good against
every virus."
   On the other hand, they contend that the defender's claim is substantiated
"at most in a work environment which is very restricted and limited by heavy
constraints" and that the viruses created by the attacker "were very effective,
and succeeded in penetrating the defense ... in situations in which not all the
(generally impractical) safety rules required for protecting the system were ob-
served."  And what are these impractical rules?  The only clue we get to this is
in the following passage: "... only immediately after booting ..., could a long
series of operations be performed without fear of infection by a virus ...."
   However, rebooting is recommended in the defender's method (in certain situa-
tions) only in order to *prevent* infection, whereas the subject of the bet was
*detection* of infection.  And even if rebooting were necessary for purposes of
detection, while this would certainly be an extremely important *practical* con-
sideration, for purposes of the *bet* it would be entirely irrelevant.  I there-
fore find the referees' mention of this point in their decision to be extremely
peculiar.
   Another passage in the referees' decision which is quite peculiar is as
follows:  "There is, in our humble opinion, at least one method which can breach
the defense ... and due to lack of time and lack of will to create a virus, we
have declined to implement it."  Just what this method is they categorically
refuse to state, not only in their public decision but even privately to the
defender.  (Imagine a trial in which a judge admitted that the prosecution had
produced no valid evidence, but nevertheless found the defendant guilty on the
grounds that the judge claimed to possess evidence of his own which he refused
to reveal!)  Under the circumstances the referees' declaration remains complete-
ly unsubstantiated and can hardly serve as a legitimate basis for a judgment
against the defender.
   A point which apparently influenced the referees strongly was the fact that
after the agreement was signed, the defender modified his program, not only to
fix what were clearly bugs, but also (in the referees' words) to make a change
"in the region between correction of a programming error and updating of the de-
fense method" in order to detect a certain type of virus (one which depends on a
certain peculiarity of DOS which I shall not reveal here); as a result the pro-
gram detected propagation of one of the attacker's viruses that would otherwise
have gone undetected.  The referees state that "this process [of improving the
program each time a new virus goes undetected] is, in our opinion, infinite".
On the other hand, the defender states that he thought of this improvement him-
self and not as a result of the attacker's virus, and he claims that it does not
constitute a change in his *method*.  Whether this is correct or not depends on
what is meant by a 'method'.  In any case, the defender replaced his software on
May 4, the day on which the two parties were required to present their flow-
charts and algorithms and the attacker to present his viruses.  Given this fact,
it seems to me that even if this is construed as a change in method, this should
not have counted against the defender.
   The referees conclude:  "The declaration that it is possible to detect *any*
virus is irresponsible, borders on misleading the public, and stems perhaps from
a naivety according to which the mechanisms of action of a virus must fulfill a
set of assumptions which [the defender] makes, assumptions which were not always
found to be justified."
   Here there is much to comment on.  This is the only place where the referees
(apparently) refer to the defender's proof.  However, they do not point to any
error in any step of that proof.  I would understand if they expressed skepti-
cism concerning the defender's claim that he supplied an airtight proof covering
all possible cases.  However, their complaint is with the assumptions.  But
*which* particular assumptions are "not always justified"?  *Why* are they un-
justified?  On these questions the referees remain as silent as on their myster-
ious method for breaching the defense.  Moreover, it is not at all clear on what
basis it could be decided that a given assumption is not justified, considering
that many of the assumptions are simply part of the defender's method.
   Secondly, the charges of irresponsibility and misleading the public (the
phrase sounds as if such action was deliberate and malicious, and was played up
by the press) are extremely harsh under the circumstances; not only has it not
been demonstrated that the defender's claim is false, but even if this is as-
sumed for sake of argument, the referees themselves admit that the defender's
claim may stem from mere naivety.  Taken together with the previously mentioned
peculiarities, these charges raise a certain suspicion that the referees were
not entirely objective in their decision.  It must be added that they tried to
dissuade the defender from accepting the bet in the first place.  Given their
approach, this was certainly fair on their part.  However, there is reason to
suspect that once the defender declined their advice, the negative verdict was
practically determined in advance.
   Incidentally, I attempted to interview one of the referees, both in order to
obtain an explication of what precisely would have had to occur in order to
decide that the defender had won (if indeed there was any such possibility!) and
also in order to obtain their reactions to the peculiarities mentioned above.
However, he was very uncooperative, refusing to elaborate on anything beyond
what was printed in the official decision.
   In conclusion, I think that there was much injustice in the decision, and
yet much was learned from the challenge, not only in perfecting the defense
against less obvious types of viruses, but also in revealing the RISKS involved
should anyone else feel inclined to take on a challenge of this sort (cf.
Dennis Director's invitation in RISKS 6.79).

Y. Radai, Computation Center, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem, RADAI1@HBUNOS.BITNET

P.S. The opinions expressed above on the referees' decision are based on the
evidence available to me at the time of writing.  Moreover, they do not
necessarily reflect those of the Hebrew University or of anyone other than
myself.

Please report problems with the web pages to the maintainer

x
Top