By Net4TV Voice
(May 9, 1999)
From X's Article.. I mentioned he accessed Weekly/TestDrive in early Fall 1998. WebTV then blocked access to it. Obviously Matt was not deterred as he found another way to access that area by November 1998. This shows a premeditated effort on his part to get into an unauthorized area before and after WebTV tightened its security.
Yes Matt did access TestDrive and so did many others.. But you have to remember that at that time no one knew what they got into no one new it was a restricted area and no one really knew how they got there.. Looking back it would be easy to explane how they did end up there.. A page know as BIG WILLIES had links for different upgrades depending on what one you clicked on would determine where you ended up..
But the confusing part is that after you finished downoading the upgrade you would still be on the production server and with no noticeable changes and most likely the reason no one knew how they got to TD.. Sooner or later your box would end up dialing the 1800# and thats when the transition took place.. Now Big Willie was a page inside TRICKS but you didn't have to go through Tricks to get there, once the address to big willies was passed around many went and never saw any kind of notice that they shouldn't be there, many had no idea that they were even in the tricks site.. If this was such a restricted area it should have been treated like one.. After they had fixed the problem Matt had some correspondences with the Corps. HE had told one of the corps some of his goals in webtv exploring one was that he wanted to get back to TD again to see what he had missed the first time around.. The corp simply responded, that would be a good trick now days.. If it was such a restricted area why wouldn't the corp have told him that? So after Matt had found another way in he did the right thing and reported it, and in return was thanked and given a jacket.. Obviously the corps or Bruce Leak for that matter weren't pissed.. If this is why he was tos'ed then someone from some other department must have found out and pulled the plug, an thats not right..
ThinIce69
Hi Ice. I do realize that many of those pages could be accessed directly and that one would not necessarily have to go through the tricks/password area. I also realize that many people who accessed those areas did so by clicking on links directly to those areas. I think staff at Net4TV were some of those people :-).
That said Ice it wasn't that way in the beginning. The password got leaked and passed around and people entered an area that they knew full well was unauthorized. Its only common sense to realize that anything behind a password protected portal(that also had a warning) would also be considered restricted.
Ice honest to God I don't believe he got busted for the TD/weekly stuff. I truly believe that it was Doom that got him terminated. In the article I simply showed a pattern of usage that is contrary to the TOS. My article while it may have dealt with Matt was also a "wake up call" to the general users that may be fascinated by hacking. It was only to show what the consequences of taking such actions have certain repurcussions up to and including the termination of accounts.
I do have a question for you. Were the different areas on that server able to be sent normally or did one have to use the Nosave and nosend tricks?
I hope you realize Ice that it was never a personal thing with Matt. ulTRAX in his post here questioned my reasons for speaking out. My motives in this are actually very simple...I agree with WebTV in the fact that they have the right to protect themselves from people that would act to breach their security, I take exception to people that claim to hack for reasons that include privacy issues such as ulTRAX, I take exception to people that don't take responsibility for their actions and would rather discuss the lack of fairness of the TOS or the definition of what a hacker is.
Generally Ice while its become commonplace to blame WebTV for everything and anything it still doesnt make it right. I've heard the term justice brought up yet many of the arguements I've seen would be laughed out of a court of law. WHile my definition of what a hacker is is irrelevant WNI's is not. Theirs is basically accessing areas of the network other than those subscribed to. Now while others may have a problem with that I am quite sure that a court of law would uphold it.
While Dudette may have a point in the TOS being worded in a way to keep the common user powerless thats not necessarily its purpose. Its purpose is to protect WNI. Every company or business has a form of TOS or work rules many of which might or might not hold up in a court of law but are nonetheless enforced. You have the American right of accepting them or refusing them and moving on. Businesses unlike our country are not a democracy and will not act as such. Our power is in how we buy and our opinions. I think that the IRC issue was one great example of the power of our opinions when used in unison.
The bottom line Ice is the general user base would look at the actions of the hackers and find them wrong. The only people supporting the hackers activities are the hackers themselves and even then they have subfactions that disagree such as was the case with ulTRAX reporting the ability to hack accounts. There are those that are more malicious than others but wrong is wrong regardless of intent.
X
X Wrote: I do have a question for you. Were the different areas on that server able to be sent normally or did one have to use the Nosave and nosend tricks?
The nosend trick had to be used to send any webtv page so no the pages were not sent in the normal manner.. Webtv has since then fixed the nosend override where only the address of the page will show up and will not be clickable.. The nosend/nosave trick were nothing but a webtv glitch and should not be considered hacking..
X Wrote: Ice honest to God I don't believe he got busted for the TD/weekly stuff. I truly believe that it was Doom that got him terminated. In the article I simply showed a pattern of usage that is contrary to the TOS. My article while it may have dealt with Matt was also a "wake up call" to the general users that may be fascinated by hacking. It was only to show what the consequences of taking such actions have certain repurcussions up to and including the termination of accounts.
In the improve group i posted why i felt Matt shouldn't have been tos'ed for doom. I would like to bring that point up here also.
My post at improve:
X Wrote: "The leaking of the Doom information is huge. Not only was he again in an unauthorized area of the WebTV network, but it completely disregarded any possible licensing agreements WebTV had or has with idSoftware. In other words he cost the network a lot of money and aided in the violation of the TOS by anyone that downloaded it."
How can you say the games were in a unauthorized area when they were in fact on the production server? All one had to do to get them was access the downloading screen witch had no warings stating that we couldn't download games or anything else or that matter.. As for it costing the network a lot of money, maybe it did but if webtv didn't want the masses downloading them they should have took them off the server a long time ago.. Personally I don't think the games were a big deal to webtv and I don't think thats what got Matt Tos'ed and I don't think it cost webtv a lot of money.. Just my opinion..
I would like to also add to this that back in Aug. when Matt first got the games that the corps were very aware that Matt had them.. I believe ulTRAX might still have a letter where one of the corps discuss nucking the game off his HD, but never did.. My question is if they did terminate him for this why didn't they do it back then?? Why did they wait until he shared the code with the rest of the users?? Since when is sharing a violation of the TOS?? If downloading games was a violation of the TOS they should have taken action when it first accured not 7 months later..
ThinIce69
Ice wrote: "How can you say the games were in a unauthorized area when they were in fact on the production server? All one had to do to get them was access the downloading screen witch had no warings stating that we couldn't download games or anything else or that matter.." As for it costing the network a lot of money, maybe it did but if webtv didn't want the masses downloading them they should have took them off the server a long time ago.. Personally I don't think the games were a big deal to webtv and I don't think thats what got Matt Tos'ed and I don't think it cost webtv a lot of money.. Just my opinion.."
The problem with what you wrote is twofold. Those that entered those areas originally got there by using the tricks password. Those people also knew that everything beyond the tricks portal would be considered unauthorized. Now I could see your point if it was someone that had innocently clicked on a link in someones mail or on someones homepage but at least as it pertains to the issue of Matt he knew going into it that anything he accessed past the tricks portal was a TOS punishable offense.
The other problem to this would pertain to the use of the NoSave/NoSend tricks. Its obvious that WebTV does not want certain things saved or sent by the user base. The NoSave/NoSend tricks circumvent their security once again. I don't have a problem with the tricks themselves but when used in the way they were it could almost be considered theft from the network.
Ice wrote: "I would like to also add to this that back in Aug. when Matt first got the games that the corps were very aware that Matt had them.. I believe ulTRAX might still have a letter where one of the corps discuss nucking the game off his HD, but never did.. My question is if they did terminate him for this why didn't they do it back then?? Why did they wait until he shared the code with the rest of the users?? Since when is sharing a violation of the TOS?? If downloading games was a violation of the TOS they should have taken action when it first accured not 7 months later..
I remember the post you are talking about. I believe ulTRAX had posted a series of email correspondence between he and a corpie and that was one of the issues discussed. For the record I have no idea why WebTV has a haphazard way of enforcing the TOS. Again I don't think its the issue in this case. That doesn't that issue is without value, I think it is something that should be discussed. That said in answer to your question there is a huge difference between one user having access and that same user giving access to possibly tens of thousands.
I don't really care for the arguement that if WebTV didn't want it downloaded they should've taken it off the server. Those people shouldn't have been on the server in the first place. Again those people that used the tricks password HAD to know that what was behind the "portal" was unauthorized.
Now I know that you don't believe Matts actions cost WNI money. Maybe, maybe not. The thing is many many game companies that license their products do so with an agreement of a flat fee per sale or download.
Another issue thats concerned me about this discussion since the beginning has been the reasoning used in the arguements, not necessarily yours. Consider the popup arguement. Some say that since there were no warnings given in the areas past the tricks portal that they felt it was fair game. Or how about the arguement that if they dont want people in unauthorized areas they should tighten security. My point is the tricks warning stopped no one so that blows their arguement about giving fair warning. They gave it and people disregarded it. When they did plug certain holes people still weren't disuaded and continued to try and breach security.
All that said its obvious that many involved in these discussions feel they have done nothing wrong or are doing nothing wrong. Even had some of these people gotten written warnings it would not have stopped their activities. Even recently there has been postings in the hacking group talking about "save what you can now" because the most recent upgrade has taken yet another trick away. What will it take for people to understand that accessing areas outside of the areas we subscribe to is considered hacking? Is it going to take WebTV TOS'ing everyone in a.d.w.h for them to get the point?
X