------------------------------ From: Moderators Subject: EXHIBIT E from Riggs' Sentencing Memorandum Date: 15 May, 1991 ******************************************************************** *** CuD #3.17: File 5 of 5: EXHIBIT E from Memorandum *** ******************************************************************** EXHIBIT E: Exhibit E comes from The Phoenix Project, a BBS in Texas. The proseuctions' logic seems to claim that the six posts, five from 1990 and one from 1988, show how carefully the CU followed the Morris case and and that the comments demonstrate that fear of harsh sentences would be a deterrent. In fact, the logs show no such thing. (The following were reproduced from the original Phoenix Project logs made available to us with the exception of the post of the December 8, 1988, post, which was typed in from the sentencing memorandum). ++++++++++++ BEGIN EXHIBIT E 58/64: morris Name: The Mentor #1 Date: Tue Jan 23 21:57:27 1990 Robert Morris was found guilty. If he's sentenced to do time, it'll be a *very* bad precedent. Mentor Read:(1-64,^58),? : 59/64: BLackmail? Name: Erik Bloodaxe #2 Date: Tue Jan 23 22:51:58 1990 Geez...I'd like to think myself above things like that... In anycase, not everyone has GOOD sensitive information...(not all of us who ARE in this country have the balls to dig where that type of crap is...god I want to move to Australia!) Maybe they'll kick me out of the country! Right...I'm not that important, although I would like to think that I am...hehe hell, maybe it IS time to start doing all the terrible things I always had the capabilities to do on the internet...need to get some "Insurance" maybe...who knows... ->ME 60/64: well Name: Phoenix #17 Date: Wed Jan 24 01:29:23 1990 like i said... im open to better ideas.. coz i we do have sensitive ino... then no matter what we do with it... it will be termed blackmail.. Phoenix4 Read:(1-64,^61),? : 62/64: i understand... Name: Ravage #19 Date: Wed Jan 24 14:34:03 1990 that the prosecution had a hard time showing malitous (sp!) intent. does anyone know if that is true? if it is true then i doubt he will get any time. probably a fine, community service, a probated time. what is the latest on the ccc guys? have they taken them out and shot them yet? in my previous post i was refering to the publication, through tv, radio,and paper, of sensitive information held by organizations. it would not have to be identified as to sender. therer are plenty of underground, small town, press services (hey how about the gossip rags?) that would be ideal to send that kind of stuff to. not only that but what about the up wire? you could put it in que and it would go all over. grey owl The Urvile #9 11:46 am Thu Dec 08, 1988 christ, i don't know c that well, now c++? fucking a. wheter you realize it or not, the virus will hurt us a tremendous amount in the future. somebody go kill morrison. even if the courts are lax on him, (which is the only silver lining ican think of), then security on all systems is going to increase. we don't need that. not one bit. think about the hacker of tomorrow. how the fuck are they gong to learn? fuck, how are we going to get in a system that we've just dug up (no tricks, no, the brute force method). fuck life. +++++++++++++ END EXHIBIT E The government reproduced sequential messages #58-62 from January 23-24, 1990, but excluded message #61. We obtained it from the original logs. It reads: ++++ Start Post #61 61/64: Morris Convicted Name: Phiber Cut #34 Date: Wed Jan 24 04:43:24 1990 If RTM get's jail time we should all be suprised. What he did was morrally and ethically wrong, and he fucked upt and will now have to pay the piper. However, hej is a very bright person and should not be put in a jail cell with a bunch of hardended ass f**king criminals! Hopefully he'll get some sort of community service and a fine, and this will be enough to kkeep him from fucking up the network in the future. +++++ End Post #61 Exhibit E is used as evidence that "hackers" would be deterred by a substantial sentence, and the Morris case is used as evidence that hackers followed it closely. But, several fallacies underlie this assumption: 1) It is not unusual for computer hobbyists to follow news about their interests. Morris's worm affected many on the nets, and most were aware of his action. Contrary to the claim that "Computer bulletin board services (BBS's) around the country were buzzing about the Morris case" (Sentencing Memorandum, p. 20), there was surprisingly little discussion on most boards other than a simple mention and some brief discussion. On The Phoenix Project, from which the logs for the exhibits were taken, the discussion was intermittent over a several day period, and the exhibit lists only 5 following the conviction. One post was actually taken from December, 1988, over a year before the Morris conviction. Such a dubious selection of posts to try to magnify a the prosecutors' interpretation of them is disingenuous at best. 2) The exhibits totally distort the context of the discussions. We are curious about the omission of post #61 of January 24, 1990. Perhaps it was omitted because the poster explicitly condemns Morris's action as unethical, and this post contradicts the point the prosecution is trying to make. In fact, the general tenor of posts about the Morris incident reflected strong condemnation. But, prosecutors, to the contrary, ignore this and their distortion borders on blatant fabrication. While this may be "good lawyering," it does little to instill respect for the integrity of or confidence in those who fabricate. The CU did not consider Morris a "hacker," and he was never held up as hero or role model. "Hackers," like most others, are as hostile (if not more so) to those who create or spread viruses as law enforcement. Viruses, as Cliff Stoll once suggested (in a quote taken out of context by the media) are like razor blades in the sand. Because "hackers" spend considerable time on the beaches of the cyberworld, they have little sympathy for those cyber-vandals who trash systems. If the prosecutors had been intellectually honest, they would have explained that the meaning of the posts was couched in a hostility for Morris's actions tempered by their understanding that prison was not an appropriate sentence. In fact, even the selective quotes from Exhibit E indicate that the fear that viruses might tighten up security is based on the value that one must *never* trash a system. 3) The prosecution claims that "Clearly, the (Morris) sentence had little effect on defendants Grant, Riggs, and Darden" (Sentencing Memorandum, p. 20). This is outrageously irresponsible. The memorandum states that their activities occured from September, 1987, through July 21, 1989. The Morris incident first made the news in November, 1988, when the virus was released. The verdict occured in January, 1990. MORRIS'S SENTENCE was handed down in MAY of 1990. The prosecution seems to have discovered a revolutionary new approach to causality and chronological sequencing: Riggs, et. al, are expected to have learned in 1987-1989 from events that wouldn't occur until 1990! Mike Godwin (CuD 2.17) and others have raised serious criticisms about the sentence of Riggs especially. The Exhibits were not available at the time of those criticisms. However, now that they are public, the sentences appear even more unjust. Worse, the logic by which they were justified by the prosecution's exhibits strike us as gross hyperbole. More simply, drawing from the definition of police lying by Hunt and Manning (Symbolic Interaction, "The Social Context of Police Lying," 14(1): 51), a strong case might be made that the prosecution LIED! ******************************************************************** ------------------------------ **END OF CuD #3.17** ********************************************************************