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9-Aug-87 18:05:26-PDT,24801;000000000000 Return-Path: <NEUMANN@f4.csl.sri.com> Received: from csl.csl.sri.com (CSL.SRI.COM) by F4.CSL.SRI.COM with TCP; Sun 9 Aug 87 17:53:19-PDT Received: from F4.CSL.SRI.COM by csl.csl.sri.com (3.2/4.16) id AA04753 for RISKS-LIST@f4.csl.sri.com; Sun, 9 Aug 87 17:53:30 PDT Message-Id: <8708100053.AA04753@csl.csl.sri.com> Date: Sun 9 Aug 87 17:50:17-PDT From: RISKS FORUM (Peter G. Neumann -- Coordinator) <RISKS@csl.sri.com> Subject: RISKS DIGEST 5.25 Sender: NEUMANN@csl.sri.com To: RISKS-LIST@csl.sri.com

RISKS-LIST: RISKS-FORUM Digest Sunday, 9 August 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 25

FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

Contents: Computer Error Opened Flood Gates of Alta Dam (Haavard Hegna) Heating up planning discussions ... (Robert Slade) Re: Faults in 911 system caused by software bug? (Paul Garnet) "It must work, the contract says so" (Henry Spencer) Separation of Duty and Computer Systems (Howard Israel) Optical Disks Raising Old Legal Issue (Leff) AAAS Colloquium Notice (Stan Rifkin) Secrecy About Risks of Secrecy Vulnerabilities and Attacks? (Peter J. Denning) Another electronic mail risk (Doug Mosher) Risks TO computer users (US Sprint) (James H. Coombs) Computer Safety and System Safety (Al Watters) Computers in nuclear power plants (Frederick Wamsley) Autoteller problems (Alex Colvin)

The RISKS Forum is moderated. Contributions should be relevant, sound, in good taste, objective, coherent, concise, nonrepetitious. Diversity is welcome. Contributions to RISKS@CSL.SRI.COM, Requests to RISKS-Request@CSL.SRI.COM. FTP back issues Vol i Issue j from F4.CSL.SRI.COM:<RISKS>RISKS-i.j. Volume summaries for each i in max j: (i,j) = (1,46),(2,57),(3,92),(4,97).

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 16:33:28 +0200 From: Haavard Hegna <hegna%vax.nr.uninett@NTA-VAX.ARPA> To: <risks@csl.sri.com> Subject: Computer Error Opened Flood Gates of Alta Dam (Norway)

This excerpt (slightly edited) is from Dagbladet, Oslo, Norway, Friday August 7. 1987:

COMPUTER ERROR OPENED ALTA (power station) FLOOD GATES. While all (Norwegian) electrical power supply directors were on visit at the very controversial and newly opened Alta Power Station (in Finnmark, northern Norway), the catastrophy happened. While trying to correct a computer error, two of the flood gates of the Alta Dam accidentally opened.

A three-meter high flood wave ran down the narrow river canyon at a speed of approx. 20 km/h. A full police rescue alarm was called, local radios gave warnings to campers etc., a helicopter was sent out to locate possible victims of the flood. The river rose about 1 meter during the twenty minutes that went by before the the dam engineers were able to close the gates manually. 2 million cubic meters (50 M cubic feet ?) of water was lost.

As far as the local police knows, no one was hurt, but 5-10 small river boats were crushed. The power station expects some claims for compensation. [The Alta river is well known for its salmon]

The Alta Power Station has been operative since May this year. "The paradox is that this very autumn we were going to install a valve that will prohibit the accidental opening of the flood gates", the dam administration says.

The Alta Dam and Power Station was much in the news a few years ago. It lies in the Norwegian part of Lappland. Long and very violent demonstrations by Lapps and others (including some very prominent Norwegians) nearly stopped the contruction work.

Haavard Hegna, Norwegian Computing Center, Oslo, Norway

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 06:27:04 PDT From: Robert_Slade%UBC.MAILNET@umix.cc.umich.edu To: NEUMANN%f4.csl.sri.com%F4.CSL.SRI.COM@um.cc.umich.edu Subject: Heating up planning discussions ...

Regarding Burch Seymour's note in 5.20 about a CPU overheating: a certain charitable recently purchased computer equipment to assist with their operations. Bad planning contributed largely to the fact that it has not been of any help to them. One of the concerns that they failed to address was the physical placement of the machines with respect to heat.

A "Baby 36", a PC, terminals and printers for both and a printer for the new phone system were all put into an eight-by-ten-foot room. As the contractor hired to perform the initial installation of software, and training for the staff, I pointed out that this was less than desirable. However, it was not until, in an attempt to make the room habitable, I turned the thermostat off that I found out that it controlled not merely that room, but the entire back half of the building.

With the assistance of the materials manager (after failing to convince the executive director to make changes in room assignments) I completely blocked the heating duct into the computer room, and made a direct fan vent to the outside. In spite of this, through one of the coldest winters we've ever had in Vancouver the temperature *never* fell below seventy-two degrees farenheit (most often it hovered in the eighties) and the clerical staff froze their fingers off.

(After three months of complaints of heatstroke and frostbite [one typist took to wearing gloves all day!] the computer was moved ... to an area with insufficient power supply!)

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 14:52:23 edt From: pgarnet@nswc-wo.ARPA To: RISKS@csl.sri.com Subject: Re: Faults in 911 system caused by software bug?

Instead of being critical of the bug and the 30 minutes of downtime

>... it would then be interesting to learn 'who's responsible' should >the faulty system have resulted in some tragedy.

we should find it refreshing to see that someone has learned the lesson of keeping the old system on line while the new one is tested *IN THE REAL WORLD*. So many times people disconnect the old system and depend entirely on a new, incompletely tested system. Paul Garnett

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 17:20:51 EDT From: mnetor!utzoo!henry@uunet.UU.NET To: RISKS@csl.sri.com Subject: "It must work, the contract says so"

Mark Day's comments re the Eastport report bring to mind a related issue, which has some relevance to Risks: how management responds to reports of problems. I highly recommend "Illusions of Choice", by Robert F. Coulam, published (I think) by Princeton U. Press, dated late 70s (I can dig out accurate info if needed; my copy isn't handy). The ostensible subject of the book is the development and procurement of the infamous F-111 fighter- bomber, but it is also a fascinating look at bureaucratic management and the mistakes it makes.

The title of the book comes from the persistent belief of the senior DoD people that they could decide the project's fate at various milestones during development, when in fact the project was merrily proceeding on its pre-ordained path without waiting for permission to do so. This was not because the people in question lacked authority: the F-111 had so much trouble that the Secretary of Defense was personally involved.

The part of the book that specifically came to mind was Coulam's comments on the F-111's engine problems: DoD repeatedly took it for granted that the engine problems would be solved, simply because the contract with the engine manufacturer said so. The engine problems *were* eventually pretty much solved, but only at the cost of significant changes to air intakes and so forth. Those changes were incorporated only in later F-111's, because the early ones were too far down the production line by then: aircraft production had happily continued, in sublime confidence that the engine problems would go away!

This sounds a whole lot like the contractor attitudes that the Eastport group criticized. I would conjecture that the software development was going to be done by someone other than the prime contractor for the hardware. Of course the software would work on the hardware as supplied; the software contracts would insist on that!

Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry

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Date: Sat, 8 Aug 87 18:00 EDT From: Howard Israel <HIsrael@DOCKMASTER.ARPA> Subject: Separation of Duty and Computer Systems (re: Pat Farrell, RISKS-5.19) To: neumann@f4.csl.sri.com

Just as a point of fact, the COMPUSEC community has picked up on this. Any VAX/VMS system since V4.0 (I believe, V4.3 definitly) has the capability to enforce 2 passwords on a given account. This allows the system administrator to set up privileged accounts (or semi-privileged accounts, or just regular accounts) with 2 passwords, one user for each of these passwords. The capability to activate the account would require both users to be present to login. Once logged in, the user can do what he wishes (exactly analogous to the safe deposit box situation in a bank). Even the system administrator's account can be set up this way.

Of course, one does not have to necessarily use two people, just one person who knows both passwords would get you in also (I guess this is appropriate for especially paranoid people).

---Howard Israel, ATT Bell Labs

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1987 01:54 CST From: Leff (Southern Methodist University) <E1AR0002%smuvm1.bitnet@RELAY.CS.NET> Subject: Optical Disks Raising Old Legal Issue To: RISKS%CSL.SRI.COM@RELAY.CS.NET, INFO-LAW@BRL.ARPA

Summary of "Optical Disks Raising Old Legal Issue", in Digital News, 3 Aug 1987

When microfilm came out, Congress passed the Uniform Paperwork Act which covers "microfilm, microfiche, photocopies and some electronically transmitted paperowrk, such as facsimiles." There is a book out called the "Legality of Optical Storage" which was prepared with the assistance of a law firm. No specific state or federal laws cover the technology as yet. Robert S. Williams, president of Cohasset Associates in Chicago, a record management consulting form, says that the existing laws will suffice. New Jersey has a bill pending in the legislature to specifically cover optical storage. It is geared to the state government's needs rather than private industry.

The IRS has already introduced a trial program in which optical disk juke box storage is used by personnel to answer questions from customers or in preparation for audit. However, the IRS still keeps the original forms although both the IRS legal counsel and Department of Justice says that the optically stored originals are as good as the originals in court. The National Archives has given IRS the permission to destroy the originals, but the IRS is still storing the originals.

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 12:29:41 EST From: Stan Rifkin <rifkin@brillig.umd.edu> To: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: AAAS Colloquium Notice

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is holding its Second Annual Colloquium on Science, Arms Control, and National Security September 28-29 at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, jut outside of Washington DC. The reason Risks Forum readers should be interested is that this Colloquium represents one of the few occasions when policy-makers meet scientists to share concerns; both sides speak frankly. For example, at last year's Colloquium, Kenneth Edelman, Director of the US Agency for Arms Control and Disarmament, said that nuclear weapons were safer now than at any other time in history. The Colloquium provided the opportunity to ask him what made him believe that. Last year Gen. Abrahamson, Director of SDIO, made clear that the first step in SDI was to protect military targets, not civilian populations. He also provided a list of technologies that needed to be developed in order for SDI to succeed. High among those was battle management software. He said that computing power alone can tip the strategic balance between the super-powers.

Speakers at this year's Colloquium will include Robert Dean, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Programs and Technology Affairs; Lewis Branscomb, Director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard, and formerly the Chief Scientist of IBM; Robert Cliff Duncan, Director of DARPA; John Deutch, Provost of MIT; Paul Nitzer, Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for Arms Control Matters; Jonathan Dean, Arms Control Advisor, Union of Concerned Scientists; Amoretta Hoeber, Director for Planning and Development, TRW; Lt. Gen. John Wall, Commander, US Army Strategic Defense Command; Charles Zraket, President, Mitre; and Sidney Graybeal, VP of Systems Planning Corp. Registration is $160 (incl. meals) for the two days. For further information, call AAAS at (202) 326-6490.

- Stan Rifkin

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Date: Fri, 7 Aug 87 13:08:34 pdt From: Peter J. Denning <pjd@riacs.edu> To: neumann@csl.sri.com Subject: Secrecy About Risks of Secrecy Vulnerabilities and Attacks?

A recent item in RISKS called attention to Ian Witten's article in the summer 1987 issue of ABACUS. I found the article fascinating reading and filled with insight. It is crammed with detail on the weakness of systems to password attacks, Trojan horse attacks, and virus attacks, and it even elucidates the lacunae of Ken Thompson's Turing Lecture on invisible, self-replicating compiler viruses.

I would like to invite a discussion in RISKS on the question of publishing graphic detail on security weaknesses of systems. As Editor-in-Chief of the ACM Communications, I am sometimes faced with conflicting reviews on such materials -- some reviewers will say it is inappropriate to publish such lucid detail when there is no good defense against the attacks, some will say that this type of information is capable of inspiring a lot of mischief and making life unpleasant for numerous innocent people, while others will say that these things need to be discussed so that people of good will will know what they're up against. It would be helpful to me and other editors to have a better idea of where the community stands on this sort of thing. Should we encourage publication of this kind of material? Discourage it? Publish general overviews of attacks and weaknesses but not give enough detail to permit others to replicate the attacks? Should there be an ACM policy on this question? If so, what might that policy be?

Many thanks to all. Peter Denning

[This topic has arisen regularly in RISKS. The last time we took a crack at it we still seemed to believe that vulnerability lists were somewhat sensitive, but the pretense that nobody knew what they might contain was likely to get you into much greater trouble than if you assumed that the vulnerabilities were widely known and likely to be exploited. If a system is fundamentally flawed, it should not be used in critical applications where those flaws could result in serious compromise. Publishing the security weaknesses can only improve things in the long run -- although it may lead to some frantic moments in the short run. The real problem is the tendency to put all of one's eggs in a single ostrich basket -- and then stick your head in the sand. Passwords are a fine example. If there is ONLY ONE PROTECTION WALL, then anyone who penetrates it has everything. The obvious strategy is to use multiple controls -- with passwords (or perhaps better authenticators) as a first line of defense, sound oerating systems and applications as a second, and careful auditing in real-time or after-the-fact as the last resort... PGN]

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From: Doug Mosher <SPGDCM%cmsa.Berkeley.EDU@Berkeley.EDU> Date: 07 Aug 87 17:55:16 PDT To: <comp-risks@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Subject: Another electronic mail risk

I want to point out a hazard in electronic mail systems that can easily be overlooked until one gets caught by it.

The risks normally discussed include: the mail gets seen by unauthorized readers; is lost; is sent but the archive copy is later lost; the ID or contents are changed; or the recent and humorous example of "archive saved after all" when it wasn't wanted, in Reagan's NSA using PROFS.

The additional hazard I want to point out is: the problem of yourself inadvertently sending a note or a copy to the wrong person(s).

I have used various forms of e-mail at several universities over a 13 year period, and perhaps the most embarrassing incidents in such use have been when I mis-sent notes.

Typical sensitive contents are things relating to criticism, of employees or peers or managers. Or possibly semi-secrets, usually related to early discussions of hirings, firings, reorganizations, office moves, management shifts. All of these matters can be written about to specific individuals, where the mis-sending of the note can be very hurtful; in some cases if mis-sent to specific persons, in other cases if mis-sent to almost anyone.

Here's a brief list of ways such mis-sending can occur:

1. similar names or nicknames or userid's.

2. absentmindedness, along with interruptions; returning from a telephone interruption and sending a note to the proper recipients of the previous topic or the next topic.

3. the manual or automatic inclusion of others on a cc list for something to which you are replying.

4. mistakes or misunderstandings or similar names/nicknames/userids in group or system nickname files.

5. Actual failure of an electronic mail system (I have found this rarer than the above risks, though when I was developing some of my own tools once, I had this type of failure; the form of it was to mail the current note to the recipients of the last note I sent).

Electronic mail is riskier in this regard than manual mail, for several reasons, including:

Brief, cryptic, and/or indirectly indexed names for addressees; unusually fast and simple actions to prepare and send the notes, which avoid the normal delays with real mail (but those delays added extra chances for review by oneself and others, or chances to intercept and cancel); plus the normal risks of new or unfamiliar systems and the risks of computerized systems.

One defense is a broad defense against the dangers of many new systems: use the new facility for the least critical matters in the early stages of either the system's development or your learning of the system.

Doug Mosher, MVS/Tandem Systems Manager (415)642-5823, Evans 257, Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA 94720

[Ironically, one solution here is related to a solution to Peter Denning's query: assume that everything might as well be public anyway (since the privacy and integrity in most mail systems and the networks they use are minimal anyway) -- and don't use a computer system to say anything that you would not say publically.

There are also some "features" of mail systems under which the current pointer does not get moved as you might think it would. You can easily wind up answering the wrong message. The solution there is always to review a message -- including its recipients' addresses -- before you commit to sending it off. PGN]

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Date: Sat, 08 Aug 87 15:32:16 EDT From: "James H. Coombs" <JAZBO%BROWNVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu> Subject: Risks TO computer users (US Sprint) To: RISKS@csl.sri.com

Well, in addition to the risks to the innocent public from the use and misuse of computers, I now see that we computer users suffer because of the ignorance of those who apparently do not use computers or, at least, those who use them mindlessly. US Sprint has just dumped two different kinds of cards on me, neither of which works with my software.

I have Sprint's local basic service, but the quality is not good enough for telecommunications. Their "dial a local number and input a code" connection has always been better than AT&T or anything else that I have had locally. Now, however, they have numbers that are too long for ProComm. In addition, they have reversed the sequence, so that one now inputs the telephone number before the travel code. That means that none of the popular communications software will work properly with Sprint's new system. Finally, to demonstrate their complete ignorance of the needs of telecommunicators, they ask us to "listen for the recording" before inputing the "14 digit FONCARD number." It will probably take the ProComm authors a little while to come out with a speech recognition module!

This change is going to cost Sprint a lot of revenue in the next few months. It's also going to cost many of us a lot of aggravation. The software developers will have to rework their programs and negotiate with Sprint (or we will find different carriers). And, at least in the meantime, there will probably be a lot of people hacking together interim solutions. How could Sprint be so naive? --Jim

P.S. If they are trying to solve problems with illegal access, they are on the wrong track. The thieves will revise their programs very quickly; the legitimate customers will be the ones who are locked out.

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Date: 9 Aug 1987 10:57-CDT Subject: Computer Safety and System Safety (Re: RISKS 5.22) From: SAC.96BMW-SE@E.ISI.EDU To: RISKS@csl.sri.com

REF. YOUR CONTRIBUTORS WHO TALK ABOUT THE "SAFETY" OF THE COMPUTER. AS ONE WHO WORKS IN THE "SAFETY" CAREER FIELD I REALIZE THAT THERE ARE MANY FORMS OF "SAFETY", AND THERE IS A DEFINITE NEED TO MAKE COMPUTERS "SAFE" FOR USE. I FIND HOWEVER THAT IN READING THE PAGES OVER THE PAST YEAR AND A HALF THAT MANY OF YOUR CONTRIBUTORS ARE CONFUSING "SAFETY" FOR "SECURITY" AND SHOULD INSTEAD BE TALKING ABOUT COMPUTER SYSTEM SECURITY RATHER THAN COMPUTER SYSTEM SAFETY. (THERE IS AN ENTIRE SUB-GROUP OF THE SAFETY FIELD THAT DEALS STRICTLY WITH SYSTEMS SAFETY.)

AL WATTERS, SAC - Safety, Always Caring

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Date: Sat, 8 Aug 87 23:20:11 pdt From: well!alcmist@cogsci.berkeley.edu (Frederick Wamsley) To: risks@csl.sri.com Subject: Computers in nuclear power plants

Much has been said about the risks of trusting computers too much. It can also be a problem to trust them too little. This was a problem at Three Mile Island, where the human operators turned off a cooling system that the automation had turned on.

Good user interfaces can help. It should be clear to a human supervising an automated system *why* it's doing whatever it's doing. Observers on the presidential convention which investigated TMI said nasty things about the design of the plant's control panel.

By the way, anyone interested in the political aspects of nuclear power should check out Peter Beckman's book, "The Health Hazards of Not Going Nuclear".

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Date: 7 Aug 87 18:21:54 GMT To: moss!cbosgd!comp-risks@rutgers.EDU From: mac@uvacs.CS.VIRGINIA.EDU (Alex Colvin) Subject: Autoteller problems (Re: RISKS 5.22)

I've had a problem with my PIN on an autoteller before. In this case it was clear that the problem lay in the PIN keypad. Some keys wouldn't register, others bounced. After several attempts at typing very carefully, the machine kept my card.

Customer Service had noticed an unusual number of cards taken over the weekend, but were dubious of my explanation until several people in the customer service line behind me made the same complaint. They had me talk to the service people, because I was able to explain the problem in technical terms ("keys", "bounce").

It's possible the BofA problem was also a simple mechanical failure, but bank staff tend to treat the machines with reverence not accorded ordinary household appliances. They don't expect them to get stuck and break.

[Several other ATM submissions are not included here. This one is borderline, illustrating again the deification of technology. PGN]

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