|------------------------------------------|
|- Astalavista Group Security Newsletter  -| 
|- Issue 4 18 September  2003             -|
|- http://www.astalavista.com/            -|      
|- security@astalavista.net               -|
|------------------------------------------| 

- Table of contents -

[01] Introduction
[02] Security News
   - MS Blaster worm hits the net
   - A DDoS attack shuts down anti-spam blacklist
   - Security threats to business-technology systems keep growing
   - NSA proposes a backdoor detection center
   - Cyberterror fears missed the real threat 9-11
[03] Astalavista Recommends
   - Breaking into computer networks from the Internet
   - Analysis of remote active operation system fingerprint tools
   - Protecting against the unknown
   - Configuring Internet Explorer Security Zones
   - Echelon - the dangers of communications in the 21st century
   - Understanding information age warfare
   - Chinese information warfare - a phantom menace or emerging threat?
[04] Free Security Consultation
   - What is the best way to learn system penetration testing?
   - Should we report security breaches, or it could damage our image a lot?
   - Is there Privacy anymore?!
[05] Enterprise Security Issues
   - Security Awareness Programs - Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)
[06] Home Users Security Issues
   - E-mail Security - An Overview
[07] Meet the Security Scene
   - Interview with Jason Scott, founder of TextFiles.com
[08] Security Sites Review
   - InfosecWriters.com
   - DosHelp.com
   - Firewall.cx
[09] Contribute to Astalavista
[10] Final Words

01. Introduction
   ------------

Dear Subscriber,

The second issue of Astalavista's Security Newsletter is a fact.We are still amazed by the level of interest
you have shown in the first issue.Thanks a lot for the hundreds of e-mails we have received, for the recommendations, for
the proposals and, most importantly, for the nice words.The success of this newsletter is measured by YOU - our readers, by
the e-mails we keep receiving, by the increasing interest and willingness for contribution from your side.We are
more than even devoted to continuing the development of the newsletter! We would like to let you know that we read all of 
your e-mails, it's just that we get thousands of them, so we kindly ask you to be patient while expecting our response.

In Issue 2 of Astalavista's Security Newsletter you will read helpful articles on Security Awareness Programs, strategies
for protecting your E-mail, a very interesting interview with Jason Scott, the founder of TextFiles.com and our new section -
Security Sites Review.

We appreciate your comments/recommendations and anything else related to the newsletter.We are also looking for reliable
mirrors of our current and future issues.

Editor - Dancho Danchev
dancho@astalavista.net

Proofreader - Yordanka Ilieva
danny@astalavista.net

02. Security News
   -------------

The Security World is a complex one.Every day a new vulnerability is found,
new tools are released, new measures are made up and implemented etc.
In such a sophisticated Scene we have decided to provide you with the most
interesting and up-to-date Security News during the month, a centralized
section that will provide you with our personal comments on the issue discussed.
Your comments and suggestions about this section are welcome at
security@astalavista.net
   -------------

[ MS BLASTER WORM HITS THE NET ]

A worm exploiting last month's RPC DCOM vulnerability began crawling around
the Internet, searching for unpatched Windows 2000 and Windows XP machines.Its purpose is to
lunch a DoS ( denial of service attack) against the windowsupdate.com site.

More information can be found at:

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6689
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3143625.stm
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/08/29/worm.arrest/index.html

The Advisory released by Microsoft:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-026.asp

An analysis of the worm, provided by different organizations/vendors:

https://tms.symantec.com/members/AnalystReports/030811-Alert-DCOMworm.pdf
http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32blastera.html
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/msblast.shtml

Astalavista's Comments:

Every month a new 20-40 line malicious worm hits the net and infects thousands of companies' end users.A novice virii
coder is experimenting with his/her skills in order to become famous around his community or to achieve his/her(in most of the
cases) pointless goal.The community needs to take adequate measures in order to stop these, it is too irresponsible to be happening!

Another interesting article can be located at:

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6728

[ A DDoS ATTACK SHUTS DOWN ANTI-SPAM BLACKLIST ]

One of the largest anti-spam blacklists has been shut down by its operator because of a massive DDoS attack.The popular
service relays.osirusoft.com would be down for an undetermined period of time.

More info at:

http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/communications/story/0,2000048620,20277794,00.htm

Astalavista's Comment:

I thought that spammers were into spamming only, not in DDoS'ing.Although the effectiveness of these blacklists is constantly
discussed, due to the high number of legitimate e-mails they are blocking, this one really pissed off somebody.There's no perfect
solution for the spam problem yet, and the number of novice spammers keeps increasing.

Interesting articles can be located at:

http://www.info-world.com/spam.diagnosis/
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=14700273
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/22073.html

[ SECURITY THREATS TO BUSINESS-TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS KEEP GROWING ]

More than 76,000 security incidents were reported in the first six months of this year, according to results of the 
2003 InformationWeek Research U.S. Information Security Survey.In spite of these, fewer businesses rank security as high
priority and fewer plan to boost security investments.

An analysis conducted by Security Pipeline can be located at:

http://www.securitypipeline.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=AQ5DRW40K4B5QQSNDBGCKH0CJUMEKJVN?articleId=12808004

Astalavista's Comment: 

Cyberattacks are getting more complicated, more devastating and harder to detect.Investing
money in the Information Security issue should be the E-company's first expenditure if it wants to survive.However,
a large number of organizations aren't as serious as they should be, as far as Security is concerned.The "this won't happen
to us" manner of thinking is what keeps them safe, their firewalls properly configured, their Information Security Office well
financially supported.

[ NSA PROPOSES A BACKDOOR DETECTION CENTER ]

The National Security Agency's cybersecurity chief is calling on a Congress to fund a new National Software Assurance Center,
dedicated to developing advanced techniques for detecting backdoors and logic bombs in large software applications.

More info can be found at:

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6671/

Astalavista's Comment:

NSA is the U.S. Intelligence most secret agency, so their move needs to be precisely examined in order to understand
their real intentions.The concept is OK, but the problem is how effective will be, whether the collected information
will be shared across the community, or it will be used for the agency's purposes only.Involving the community doesn't
mean that certain parts of the information won't be classified due to various reasons.I believe that NSA should be closely
working with the country's major ISPs in order to reduce or warn about possible malicious code dissemination on time, instead
of peeking at a company's software.

[ CYBERTERROR FEARS MISSED THE REAL THREAT - 9-11 ]

A top U.S cyber security official says that the Government was expecting imaginative terrorist hackers, 
while real terrorists were planning 9-11

More info is available at:

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/6589

Astalavista's Comment:

Indeed, the 9-11 attacks surprised and shocked the whole world, and mainly the U.S Intelligence, which is still blamed
for letting this happen.The Cyberterrorism problem should not be underestimated, because our economy and infrastructure is still
vulnerable to this sort of threat, but the job of the Intelligence is to play as many scenarios as possible, based on the 
information gathered about the potential enemy's capabilities and possible intentions.However, when you pretend to be the best, sometimes,
if not in most of the cases, you forget yourself and what your actual capabilities are.

03. Astalavista Recommends
   ----------------------

This section is unique by its idea and the information included within.Its
purpose is to provide you with direct links to various white papers covering
many aspects of Information Security.These white papers are defined as a must
read for everyone interested in deepening his/her knowledge in the Security field.The section will
keep on growing with each next issue.Your comments and suggestions about the section are welcome at 
security@astalavista.net

-----
NOTE:Though some of these white papers might be conducted by vendors or with
marketing purposes, we are in no way affiliated with any of these organizations.
We just define these papers as a must read and highly interesting ones.
-----

- General Security Papers -

" BREAKING INTO COMPUTER NETWORKS FROM THE INTERNET "

A comprehensive and extremely useful paper, summarizing and discussing the most common techniques, used
by attackers.Each of the well known and widely used ports is analyzed from the hacker's point of view.A source code and
external resources are included as well.

http://frame4.com/exchange/hackingguide3.1.pdf

" ANALYSIS OF REMOTE ACTIVE OPERATING SYSTEM FINGERPRINT TOOLS "

The paper reviews indepth various popular OS fingerprinting tools, the ways they operate, and analyses each of their
functions and various stategies to protect your systems against fingerprinting tools.

http://frame4.com/exchange/osdetection.pdf

" PROTECTING AGAINST THE UNKNOWN - A GUIDE FOR IMPROVING NETWORK SECURITY TO PROTECT THE INTERNET AGAINST FUTURE FORMS OF
SECURITY HAZARDS "

If you still haven't read the Packet Storm Security Competition 'Storm Chaser 2000' winner paper by Mixter, you are strongly
advised to read this quality publication.The author included topics which have never been discussed before, a very well organized
and easy to read, take your time and read it.

http://frame4.com/exchange/mixter.doc

" CONFIGURING INTERNET EXPLORER SECURITY ZONES "

A very interesting topic that would teach you a lot of useful stuff; the paper contains explanations of various browser
attacks and why they are so dangerous.

http://frame4.com/exchange/explorer-zones.pdf

- Misc Security Papers -

" ECHELON - THE DANGERS OF COMMUNICATIONS IN THE 21ST CENTURY "

Do you want to know more about Echelon - The Global Monitoring Program, do you want to know how it works, for what it is
used and various other topics related to e-espionage? Go and get this paper!

http://frame4.com/exchange/echelon.pdf

" UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION AGE WARFARE "

This is one of the best e-books I have ever come across, discussing the Information Warfare subject.You will be amazed by its
content and the topics discussed inside.High quality in 319 pages reading!

http://frame4.com/exchange/uiaw.pdf

" CHINESE INFORMATION WARFARE: A PHANTOM MENACE OR EMERGING THREAT? "

A very interesting paper conducted by the Strategic Studies Institute, U.S Army War College, discussing the China's interest
and current projects/capabilities in the Infrormation Warfare field.

http://frame4.com/exchange/chinainfo.pdf

04. Free Security Consultation
   --------------------------

Did you ever have a Security related question but you weren't sure where to 
direct it to? This is what the "Free Security Consultation" section was created for.
Due to the high number of Security concerning e-mails we keep getting on a
daily basis, we have decided to start a service free of charge, and offer
it to our subscribers.Whenever you have a Security related question, you are
advised to direct it to us, and within 48 hours you will receive a qualified
response from one of our Security experts.The questions we consider most
interesting and useful will be published at the section.
Neither your e-mail, nor your name will be mentioned anywhere.

Direct all of your Security questions to security@astalavista.net

We were pleasently surprised to see the number of this month's security related questions.
Thanks a lot for your interest in this free security service, we are doing our best to respond 
as soon as possible, and provide you with an accurate answer to your questions.

---------
Question: What is the best way to learn system penetration testing?
---------

Answer: Penetration testing can be defined as a crucial process for evaluating your system/network's current
level of Security.It is absolutely right to call penetration testing an ethical hacking, just because it 
provides you with the hacker's point of view about your system/network.

In order to conduct a successful penetration test, you need to be aware of all the tools and techniques adopted by attackers,
you need to understand how an organization works, how a network operates and to put it straight, you need to hack yourself!
If you have the legal permission and the privileges to conduct a penetration test on your network, this is great, but if you
don't, you will need to set up a system and try to hack it in order to increase your experience.You could also participate
at some WarGames contest, you will learn a lot of things.

It is highly recommended to read the Open-Source Security Testing Methodology Manual if you want to conduct a complete and
accurate penetration test.Follow the links below in order to deepen your knowledge on this process.

http://astalavista.com/newsletter/2/files/osstmm.pdf

Other interesting resources to look at are:

http://www.sans.org/rr/catindex.php?cat_id=42
http://www.cica.ca/index.cfm/ci_id/15758/la_id/1.htm
http://www.crazytrain.com/penetration.html

---------
Question: Hello.I operate a small e-business company, and I was wondering how you
would advise us on reporting security breaches? Should we do it or it could damage our image a lot? Although each of our
computers has ZoneAlarm installed on, Anti-Virus software and there's a friend of mine who's monitoring the system,
there are successful intrusions, there are no customer data stolen and no web defacement yet, but we are very worried and concerned
about how to handle these? My friend told me that attackers were trying to use our server to lunch a DoS attack on other sites...
---------

Answer: Indeed, reporting a security breach would definitely damage your image a lot, and as you are handling sensitive and
personal information over the Internet, you can imagine your customers' reaction.In case you don't have an adequate marketing strategy
or a reasonable explanation for how it happened, why it happened, what measures you took or plan to take in the next few
days, your company's image will be damaged a lot.

Security Awareness is what you should pay attention to, your employees need to be aware of the dangers the Internet represents,
they need to know how to react when a suspicious event occurs, when a dangerous e-mail is received etc.It will increase your level of
Security a lot.As nowadays it's not enough to have a personal firewall and an anti-virus scanner, you need to know the dangers
in order to protect against them.

Here are some resources that will be useful to you:

http://www.securityawareness.com/
http://www.sans.org/rr/catindex.php?cat_id=47
http://www.itsecurity.com/papers/trinity8.htm

---------
Question: Is there Privacy anymore?! I feel like everyone is monitoring me, my boss, the government, should I worry on
issues like these, I am not doing anything illegal but it's just my privacy that I care for, what should I do to protect
myself on the Internet, my chat sessions, my e-mails? Thanks a lot, a very nice newsletter by the way!
---------

Answer: Privacy seems to change its meaning during the years and in the era of global connectivity it's almost non-existent,
that's the nature of communications.You need to pay additional attention to everything you do, even the smallest details,
you need to start using encryption, change your usual behaviour online, and even then you will be again in the same position.
Just like there's no 100% Security, there's no 100% Privacy as well, though if you can manage to achieve 99% Privacy, you will
just make it a little harder for someone trace and monitor you.I would strongly advise you to take a look at the following
resources and make the conclusions by yourself, but encrypting your files and e-mails would do fine for you.

Take your time and visit the following resources:

http://www.epic.org/
http://www.research.att.com/resources/trs/TRs/99/99.4/99.4.3/report.htm
http://www.privacyresources.org/

---------
We are trying to respond to all of your e-mails, please be patient, and once again, thanks a lot for your interest!
security@astalavista.net is always there for all of your Security concerns.

05. Enterprise Security Issues
   --------------------------

In today's world of high speed communications, of companies completely
relying on the Internet for making business and increasing productivity, we have
decided that there should be a special section for corporate security, where
advanced and highly interesting topics will be discussed in order to provide
that audience with what they are looking for - knowledge! 

- Security Awareness Programs - Frequently Asked Questions -

Security through education has turned out to be a very successful approach to improving your current level of Security, and
the employee's knowledge critical for your business today, the information security issue.
Security Awareness Programs are very beneficial, though some companies' executives/managers don't share this opinion.The purpose
of this brief and concise article is to give adequate answers to the most frequently asked questions by a company's management.

-> Wouldn't it be better to protect the company at a server level, such as using firewalls, IDSs and content blocking/scanning
products instead of investing so much money in the education of our staff?

--> Firewalls, Content Blocking software and IDSs are a must have! But they are completely useles if your staff members behave
in an insecure way, opening dangerous e-mails which the content blocking software cannot detect, visiting destructive web
sites, whose only purpose is to try to exploit the visitor's browser in order to install a malicious program.Nowadays it's not
enough to have a firewall with a combination of anti-virus software at the server level.In order to protect yourself from the threats,
you need to understand the threats, you need to be able to prioritirize critical and less critical company assets, and most
importantly, your staff members need to be aware of the devastating effects of a possible break-in.This is where the Security
Awareness Program comes in place.

-> We have invested a significant amount of money in educating our staff members through a Security Awareness Program.How
can we evaluate its effectiveness we want to know whether the security level of our staff is improving or we should stop investing
money in this process?

--> First of all, you should realize that it takes a little longer for a person, not so educated at computer knowledge, to start thinking
from security's point of view.The Program's director should regularly conduct surveys in order to measure their current
level of awareness.When archived, these surveys will provide you with a detailed overview of their progress, so that you will
be able to see whether they are getting more security conscious or not.

-> We are a small sized E-business company, we don't proceed thousands of transactions per day, we don't have some highly
senstitive information hackers might want to take a look at, why should we invest in the education of our staff?

--> Being a part of today's globally connected society represents a threat to every participant, a home user, a company
or whatever.It is YOUR responsibility to secure and maintain your system/network, and you should do it before someone else
starts "maintaing" it.The size of your company doesn't matter-you are connected, sooner or later you will be attacked, either
by an automated script, searching for known vulnerabilities, or by an advanced attacker, looking for something in particular.
Educating the staff members would be a cheap, yet effective solution to the information security problem, but it doesn't end
there.Secure your systems and help the Net.

06. Home Users Security Issues
   --------------------------

Due to the high number of e-mails we keep getting from novice users, we have
decided that it would be a very good idea to provide them with their very
special section, discussing various aspects of Information Security in an 
easy to understand way, while, on the other hand, improve their current level of knowledge.
If you have questions or recommendations for the section, direct 
them to security@astalavista.net Enjoy yourself!

- E-mail Security - An Overview -

The Internet has changed the way we communicate with each other, both in costs and interactivity.The world's most popular
form of communication is the e-mail, which turns it into a commonly exploited service by malicious attackers.This article
intends to provide you with various recommendations for improving the security of your e-mail.

Web based e-mail

Millions of Internet users use the free web based e-mail providers due to obvious reasons.However, there are basic steps
that should be followed in order to reduce the possibility of having your e-mail account hacked or abused in any way.

- Whenever it is possible, always log in using the secure(SSL encrypted)mode.It will help you protect your account from
someone sniffing the network, and though this is not a perfect solution, it is strongly advisable to use it all the time.
- Do you always log out of your mailbox before you leave? Make sure you always log out, thus you will have your account
properly protected.
- Consider any unusual e-mail as a threat to your computer/network.Imagine a friend of yours sending you a file you have
no clue about, try to get in touch with him, so he/she can confirm that the file was indeed sent by him/her.
- In most cases, once your account is broken into, the attacker will change your personal details in a way that
even if you change your password, he/she would be able to recover it by confirming your personal information.Monitor this
and if you see something strange going on, consider changing both your password and your personal information.
- Your mailbox preferences might be changed too; settings like "Save each sent e-mail into the Sent folder" are activated
with the idea to monitor your correspondance.If you haven't set this ON, then someone else is probably using your e-mail
account.Monitor these and any other preference so that you will be able to detect an attacker.
- If a strange pop up ever appears, asking for personal information or your password, never give out any of these no
matter how realistic the window looks.Instead, log out and log in again, but don't give out any sensitive information in
this way.

Popular e-mail software

Outlook express, Netscape Messanger, and any other popular e-mail software is another application commonly attacked on the
user's/ computer.We will look at several highly recommended modifications that will save you from a lot of trouble.

- Disable ActiveX and Java scripts for your e-mail software, consider blocking graphics or, if possible, any HTML content.

- Make sure you always write your user/password by yourself, instead of using any "remember my password" features.

- Once you download your e-mail, it is strongly recommended that you open any of the messages while you are "Working Offline".

E-mail interception

Think for a while what kind of correspondence and personal stuff you use your e-mail for, think of all the business
issues you discuss over it, and now, imagine someone else, even a competitor, monitoring each of the e-mails you send and receive.

- Always make sure you check your e-mail from a secured location.Limit the use of a friend's computer and so on, because you
can never be sure what the computer is infected with.

- As we have already mentioned, always log in a secure(SSL encrypted)mode, and, if your mail provider allows you to, keep
in SSL mode till you log out.

- Using encryption will definitely help you protect your privacy, below we have included links to various providers that
provide encryption for their clients and, of course, PGP ( Pretty Good Privacy ) is obligatory.

External resources you might be interested in taking a look at can be located here:

http://www.hushmail.com/
http://www.pgpi.com/
http://www.windowsecurity.com/emailsecuritytest/
http://www.firewall.cx/articles-email-security.php

07. Meet the Security Scene
   -----------------------

In this section you are going to meet famous people, security experts and
all the folks who in some way contribute to the growth of the community.
We hope that you will enjoy these interviews and that you will learn a lot of
interesting information through this section.In this issue we have interviewed
Jason Scott, the founder of TextFiles.com - the world's largest ASCII files archive.
Although he has nothing to do with the security scene, his contribution to the entire
community is indisputable!

---------------------------------------------------
Interview with Jason Scott, Founder of TextFiles.com
http://www.TextFiles.com/

Astalavista: How was the idea of TextFiles.com born?

Jason: TEXTFILES.COM was born because one day in 1998 I wondered what had
ever happened to an old BBS I used to call (it was called Sherwood Forest
II). Since the WWW had been around for a good 5 years, I figured out there
would be a page up with information about it, and I could even download a
few of the old textfiles I used to read back in those days (the BBS was up
from about 1983 to 1985). To my shock, there was nothing about Sherwood
Forest II anywhere, and nothing about ANY of the BBSes of my youth. So
then I went off and registered the most easy-to-remember name I could
find, textfiles.com, and started putting up my old collection from
Floppies. This gave me about 3,000 files, which I used to attract other
peoples' collections and find more on my own, until the curren number,
which is well past 60,000.

Astalavista: There's a huge amount of illegal and destructive information(bomb
howto guides, drugs howtos) spreading around the Internet these
days.Some of these files can be found at TextFiles.com as well, don't you
think that accessing such information is rather dangerous and could
endanger someone?

Jason: Well, the question makes it sound like this is a recent event, the
availability of information that, if implemented, could cause damage or
other sorts of trouble. This has always been the case; if you want, we can
go back to the days of the TAP newsletter (and the later 2600 magazine)
where all sorts of "dangerous" information was being printed. We can go
back many years before that.

This may sound like a copout, but I don't really buy into the concept of
"dangerous information". At a fundamental level, it is someone saying "I
am looking at this, and I have decided you should not see it. So don't
look. I've made my decision." And I find that loathesome in that it gives
someone enormous arbitrary power. This argument applies for
the concepts of Obscenity and Governmentally-Classified information, as
well.

Sometimes people bring up the concept of children into the argument and my
immediate reaction is not very pleasant. Parents protect; be a parent.

If somebody wants to hurt somebody else, then information files are not
the big limiting factor to them doing it; they'll just pick up a match and
set your house on fire, or buy a gun and shoot you or someone you really
like. Censorship, as you might imagine, is not big on my list of things
that improve the quality of life.

Astalavista: Nowadays Information could be considered the most expensive
"good", what's your attitude towards the opinion that the access to
certain Information would have to be a paid one?

Information is a very funny thing. It can be quantified to some extent,
and some amount of control can be issued on its transfer and storage. But
the fact is that we, as a race, have been spending a lot of time making
information easier and easier to spread. Printing press, book, flyer,
radio, records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, internet, Peer to Peer... faster and
faster. It is possible to know on the other side of the world what a child
looked like at the moment it was born, a mere few seconds later. When
Americans elected the president in the 1800s, they might not know who had won
for weeks. Many people might have never seen a photograph of the man who ran
their country. They would almost certainly never hear him speak.

Charging for information is everyone's right. More power to them if they can
make a buck. But that's not what I'm talking about. I've seen kids with a hundred
textfiles trying to sell access to them for $5. If they're able to lure in
suckers to pay that, then they have a talent. When you're in the
cinema, the same soda that cost something like fifty cents or a
quarter, at the local store it will cost you two or three dollars. Are you
paying for the soda or for the ability to have a soda in that location?
Similarly, I don't think you're paying for the information on a site that
charges, you're paying a fee because you didn't know any other way to get
this information.

There will always be a market for people with the ability to take a large
amount of information and distill it for others (we called them
"gatekeepers" when I took Mass Communications in college). The only
difference is that now anyone can be a gatekeeper, and people can choose
to forget them and get the information themselves. So now it's an option,
which is a great situation indeed.

I've always been insistent about not charging for access to textfiles.com
and not putting advertisements up on the site. I'm going to continue to do
that as long as I can, which I expect will be for the rest of my life.

Astalavista: Share your thoughts about the Dmitry Skylarov case.

Jason: While this is not the first time that something like the Skylarov fiasco
has occurred, I am glad that in this particular instance, a lot of press
and a lot of attention was landed on what was being done here. Adobe
realized within a short time that they'd made a serious mistake, and I
hope they will continue to be reminded of how rotten and self-serving they were
in the whole event. I certainly hope the company name 'Adobe' will stays in the
minds of everyone with it for a long time to come.

That said, I'm glad everything worked out OK for him. Nobody deserves to
be held up in a country away from their family because some software
publisher has decided they're evil.

America has occasionally taken poor shortcuts through very evil laws
trying to fix problems and make them worse. The "Separate but Equal"
rulings in regard to Segregation and the indictment of anti-war protesters
during World War I for something akin to Treason now have a modern cousin
the DMCA and its equivalent laws, the Mini-DMCAs being passed by
states. I think we will look back at this time with embarassment and
whitewashing what went on.

Astalavista: How do you see the future of Internet, having in mind the Government's
invasion in the user's privacy, and on the other hand, the commercialization of the Net?

Jason: Mankind has been driven from probably day one to make things better,
cheaper, and quicker because that's what will bring them success and
fortune. People talk about television being this vast wasteland of
uselessness, yet using something like my TiVO I can now bounce among my
thousands of daily television programs and listen to events and people
that just 10 or 20 years ago, there would be no room on television for.
For all the Internet's abutments with the law, the fact is that it's still
being adopted as fast as it can, the technology driving it is cheaper and
cheaper (I have a connection to my house that costs me $200 that would
have cost upwards of $10,000 in 1993) and nobody is really able to say
"This Internet Thing Needs to Go" and not get laughed at.

It took me years and years to collect the textfiles on textfiles.com. If
people go to torrent.textfiles.com, they can download the entire
collection in as little as a few hours. People are now trading
half-gigabyte to multi-gigabyte files like they used to trade
multi-megabyte MP3 files just a few years ago.

I really don't have any fear about it being crushed. Too many people know
the secret of how wonderful this all is. It's a great time to be alive.

08. Security Sites Review
   ---------------------

The idea of this section is to provide you with reviews of various, highly interesting
and useful security related web sites.Before we recommend a site, we make sure that it provides
its visitors with quality and an unique content.

http://www.InfosecWriters.com/

InfosecWriters is a site dedicated to provide the community with qualified white papers, discussing the latest
Security issues.They participate and invite users to contribute to their personal projects.A lot of interesting
reading, it's worth being visited!

http://www.DosHelp.com/

A huge resource regarding everything related to DoS and DDoS attacks, firewalls and intrustion detection systems!

http://www.firewall.cx/

The ultimate resource for network professionals! Firewalls, networking, downloads, articles and anything else you can imagine
as far as network security is concerned.

09. Contribute to Astalavista
   ---------------------

Astalavista needs YOU! We are looking for authors that would be interested in writing security related
articles for our newsletter, for people's ideas that we will turn into reality with their help and for anyone who
thinks he/she could contribute to Astalavista in any way.Below we have summarized various issues that might 
concern you.

- Write for Astalavista -

What topics can I write about?

You are encouraged to write on anything related to Security:

General Security
Security Basics
Windows Security
Linux Security
IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems)
Malicious Code
Enterprise Security
Penetration Testing
Wireless Security
Secure programming

Astalavista.com gets more than 200 000 unique visits every day, our Newsletter has more than 22,000 subscribers, so you
can imagine what the exposure of your article and you will be, it would be impressive!We will make your work and you popular
among the community!

What are your rules?

Your article has to be UNIQUE and written especially for Astalavista, we are not interested in republishing articles that
have already been distributed among the community.

Where and how should I send my article?

Direct your articles to dancho@astalavista.net and include a link to your article; once we take a look at it and decide 
whether is it qualified enough to be published, we will contact you within several days, please be patient.

Thanks a lot all of you, our future contributors!

10. Final Words
   -----------

The increased interest in Astalavista Group's Security Newsletter has turned it into something more than just a newsletter.
It's a new way of communication between our visitors, between our members and a way to educate everyone interested in Informaton Security.
We are proud of and very happy about what we have created, and you will be more than amazed to see Issue 3 which is already in progress.
Thank you, once again, for all of your e-mails, the kind words and recommendations; as some of you may have noticed, we pay
attention to them, and we keep and will keep improving the newsletter!We're looking forward to your comments and recommendations!

Editor - Dancho Danchev
dancho@astalavista.net

Proofreader - Yordanka Ilieva
danny@astalavista.net