HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kennu@mits.mdata.fi (Kenneth Falck)
Subject: Need help from Mac hackers
Organization: Microdata International Telecomm Service, Helsinki, Finland
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 17:31:52 GMT

I suppose this is a proper group for this :-) ...

I want to print out a file containing raw PostScript code from
a Macintosh connected to a PostScript laser. I don't know the
system very well since I don't have a Mac at home, so perhaps
someone out here could advise me how to access the printer
directly? (The OS is an old System 6.xxx.)

(I get soooo frustrated with these macs when I can't just do a
`cat file.ps > /dev/lp1'...)

In desperation, I tried simply to read the file into MacWrite
and Print it, but of course this resulted in the actual PostScript
code being printed out instead of the contents...

-- 
kennu@mits.mdata.fi
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: vandevek@cse.unl.edu (James VandeVegt)
Subject: Test hack, ignore.
Followup-To: alt.test
Reply-To: vandevek@cse.unl.edu
Organization: UNL
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 04:23:00 GMT

My first hack!

--
| James M. VandeVegt             |  University of Nebraska           |
| vandevek@cse.unl.edu           |  Computer Science and Engineering |
----------------------------------------------------------------------
|                  Insert standard disclaimer here.                  |
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Cheapo hack.  Kinda, sorta, not.
Date: 22 Nov 92 00:19:05 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park

In article <1992Nov21.070525.3948@tamsun.tamu.edu> scm3775@tamsun.tamu.edu (Sean Malloy) writes:
>
>Ben Feen writes:
>>Anyone ever decoded the DTMF at the beginning of track 8 on _Hack_, entitled
>>"Hard Currency"?  I don't have the equipment to do it, and don't feel like
>>playing it into a telephone to find out who answers...
>
>Hmmm...  Well, the "simple" solution to decoding DTMF tones (read: 
>doesn't require me to purchase equipment) is to sample the track
>and write a program to do a discrete Fourier transform on the
>data and look at the frequency spectrum.

Simple?  Come on, use your HEAD, man-- and I mean that literally.
You've got a great fourier analysis system, working in real time and
parallel processing, built in.  Now, it doesn't return numeric output
(at least most people's don't...), but you can use an ordinary
telephone and do comparisons.

-- 
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures.  Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
From: barrett@daisy.ee.und.ac.za (Alan P Barrett)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: how to: use underlines/extended chars in posts?
Date: 21 Nov 1992 17:29:04 +0200
Organization: Dept. Elec. Eng., Univ. Natal, Durban, S. Africa
NNTP-Posting-Host: daisy.ee.und.ac.za
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/richtext

In article <lt>BxoBJI.Gw6@acsu.buffalo.edu>,
hennessy@acsu.buffalo.edu (DOG BASEBALL!!!) writes:
<excerpt>
      does anybody know if and/or how one can include extended characters
(ala underline, bold, inverse) in usenet postings?  What are the control
characters allowed by usenet? 
</excerpt>

Use <bold>MIME</bold>, with <fixed>Content-Type: text/richtext</fixed>.
See <italic>RFC 1341</italic>.

<signature>
--apb<nl>
Alan Barrett, Dept. of Electronic Eng., Univ. of Natal, Durban, South Africa<nl>
RFC822: barrett@ee.und.ac.za<nl>
</signature>
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: sfought@mcs213h.cs.umr.edu (Shane Fought)
Subject: Re: Hackin
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 13:35:18 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla

Hack:  Had too take a paperclip and use it for a jumper on a friends sound
blaster pro.  Just filed a section of the clip down, cut it to the 
appropriate length, and wrapped it around the posts.  Before I put it on the
actual posts I tested it on my ohm meter to make sure I was going to short the
posts correctly...  Not much, but hey...  Another hack:  Back when I had a 
commodore 64 I hated going and buying fuses, so I started taking tinfoil and
using it for a fuse.  It worked ok and the commodore keeps on ticking..
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: hoffberg@medusa.aps.anl.gov (Mike G. Hoffberg)
Subject: Re: stupid floppy tricks
Keywords: Apple ][ disk drives
Organization: Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago Illinois
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 17:08:41 GMT

OK, for all of you people out there with Apple ][ disk drives, why
don't 5.25" High Density disks work in the drives?  Is it because the
recording media is different, so it necessitates a different recording
bias?

BTW, why do 5.25" DD disks have hub rings and HD disk don't?  Is it
done this way so that you can tell them apart?

ObHack: Needing to convert BCD to floating point on an 8051.  We had
an extra 20K of ROM, so we made a giant lookup table.  Then we
discovered that we didn't need to convert it on the 8051 after all.

MIKE
-- 
Michael Hoffberg               /.\ <Build APS>   ~\   /~  "Jeez, am I the
hoffberg@phebos.aps.anl.gov   // \\ Argonne        \ /     only one who paid
hoffberg@anlaps.aps.anl.gov  //_O_\\ National       |      full price?" F.F.
                            /__| |__\ Lab   Obbyn! _|_ Obbyn!
From: hassan@cs.ubc.ca (Moustafa Hassan)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: cracking login?
Date: 22 Nov 1992 12:45:26 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: dixie.cs.ubc.ca
Summary: disillusion me

I've thought of a scheme for logging in as any user in a given file system.
The only problem is that it's too easy.  I must be under some illusion.
I'd appreciate it if someone pointed out the flaw in my algorithm:

1.  Obtain the code for login.c.  I've done this.  I'm having some trouble
    compiling it, because some constants are defined differently on my 
    system.  I should be able to fix this within a month's work.
2.  Change the call to getpass to a function that reads in an arbitrary number
    of characters up to the newline.  This is trivial.
3.  Remove the encryption step where the password is encrypted.
4.  Recompile.
5.  When executing login, give it (the publically available) user id and 
    encrypted password of any user on the system, and you're in.

As I said, this scheme is too easy, and I refuse to believe that unix systems
lack security to such a degree.  Would someone take the time to disillusion
me?

ObHackInProgress:
Writing a dumb terminal unix-like shell for my Mac Plus in C, and possibly
later in scheme.

Cheers,
********************************************************************
* Moustafa Hassan          |                                       *
* hassan@cs.ubc.ca         |  Political correctness is a euphemism *  
* TEL/FAX: (604) 535-2826  |  for intellectual stagnation.         *
********************************************************************
From: secret
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: secret
Date: 22 Nov 1992 02:01:25 GMT
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
NNTP-Posting-Host: bigwpi.wpi.edu
X-Bodily-Organ: secret

this is a test
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: dsg@impmh.uucp (Dave Gordon)
Subject: Re: stupid floppy tricks
Organization: Integrated Micro Products Ltd
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 16:46:29 GMT

In <BxvHws.Fvq@cs.psu.edu> liblit@cs.psu.edu (Benjamin R. Liblit) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov17.170841.6298@mcs.anl.gov>,
>hoffberg@medusa.aps.anl.gov (Mike G. Hoffberg) writes:
>>
>> OK, for all of you people out there with Apple ][ disk drives, why
>> don't 5.25" High Density disks work in the drives?
>
>Just think about the density of information you're dealing with here.
>Even if you could produce the proper signals in the write head, you
>couldn't lay them down on the disk surface accurately enough.  It
>would be like trying to type by hitting the keys with a basketball.
>
>(Disclaimer: I don't particularly know what I'm talking about here.)

Evidently.

I think Mike meant "why can't you use a high-density disk in a
low-density drive (and get *low-density* storage on it)".  And he
was on the right track with the answer; the magnetic coating on
the HD disk has a much higher remanence (or is it coercivity?)
which means that the magnetic flux produced by the low-density
drive heads is too weak to affect it (or at least, too weak to
make a reliable recording).

The opposite also applies; trying to write a low-density floppy
on a high density drive usually doesn't work well, because the
field produced by the head is so strong that it alters several
bits at a time.

ObFloppyHack: changing the drivebelt pulleys on an old 8" floppy
drive to make it run at 300rpm (instead of the 8" rotation rate
of 360rpm), so that it appeared to be a standard 5.25" floppy drive.
Anyone else use 77-track floppies? B-}
-- 

===============================================================================
Dave | dsg@imp.co.uk | +44 753 516599 | "C^i tio ne estas .subskribo"
===============================================================================
From: duck@nuustak.csir.co.za (Paul Ducklin)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: stupid floppy tricks
Date: 19 Nov 1992 18:29:40 +0200
Organization: CSIR, South AFrica
NNTP-Posting-Host: nuustak.csir.co.za
Keywords: Apple ][ disk drives

>OK, for all of you people out there with Apple ][ disk drives, why
>don't 5.25" High Density disks work in the drives?  Is it because the
>recording media is different, so it necessitates a different recording
>bias?

As I recall, the higher the capacity of a disc, the higher the 
coercivity of the recording surface. This is so that, as the data
get more and more dense, individual flux transitions don't start
interfering with adjacent flux transitions. 

However, writing to a higher coercivity disc requires a higher write
current -- stands to reason. So, a very-low-cap drive head won't produce
enough magnetic field strength to impinge data onto discs designed
for higher capacity drives. Ever tried to format 1.2MB discs in the
old IBM PC 360KB drives? "Track 0 is bad -- diskette unusable".

ObHack: corny [car-related] hack for a friend's Mini -- replacing 
broken fan-belt with an old stocking. Yep, this is not much of a
hack at first -- but it got to be a pretty mainstream hack when he
went on to clock plenty more k's before replacing the stocking!


-- 
--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--..--
Paul Ducklin                                       duck@nuustak.csir.co.za

  CSIR Computer Virus Research Lab * Box 395 * Pretoria * 0001 S Africa
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: robm@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
Subject: Re: cracking login?
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Organization: The Castle aiiruuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrg
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 21:54:19 GMT

Moustafa Hassan (hassan@cs.ubc.ca) wrote:
: I've thought of a scheme for logging in as any user in a given file system.
: The only problem is that it's too easy.  I must be under some illusion.
: I'd appreciate it if someone pointed out the flaw in my algorithm:
: 
: 1.  Obtain the code for login.c.  I've done this.  I'm having some trouble
:     compiling it, because some constants are defined differently on my 
:     system.  I should be able to fix this within a month's work.
: 2.  Change the call to getpass to a function that reads in an arbitrary number
:     of characters up to the newline.  This is trivial.
: 3.  Remove the encryption step where the password is encrypted.
: 4.  Recompile.
: 5.  When executing login, give it (the publically available) user id and 
:     encrypted password of any user on the system, and you're in.
: 
: As I said, this scheme is too easy, and I refuse to believe that unix systems
: lack security to such a degree.  Would someone take the time to disillusion
: me?

Yeah, well, there are a couple of flaws:

1. Changing login assumes you already have broken root and are now able to
  install your trojan horse login in /bin, which is the only place it would
  be of any value, because:

2. login is suid root, meaning it has to run as root in order to switch its
  userid to another user's. If you can manage to get your executable login 
  to be suid root, you will be in. 

That's not to say that there aren't serious holes in unix security (NFS is 
  one of them), but this is certainly not one of them.


ObHack: I had a configuration file for a list server that I had as a list of
  e-mail addresses, and I needed to append some text to each line. Instead of
  doing something sensible like using a perl,sed,or awk script, I did 
  something like:

for i in `cat orig_file`; 
	echo $i "extra text" >> new_file

There may be syntatical errors in there but you get the idea.

--
Rob McCool, NCSA STG System Administrator
robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu r-mccool@uiuc.edu robm@imsa.edu
It was working ten minutes ago, I swear...
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: Need help from Mac hackers
From: don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (Don Stokes)
Date: 21 Nov 92 02:03:40 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Wolery

d9mj@crux3.cit.cornell.edu (Scott Coolness) writes:
> If you get a program called SendPS, that'll send the file as/is to the
> printer, or use msword and assign the postscript style to the whole
> document. (Postscript style == send it straight)

So, what do you do when faced with PostScript output and text-only
equipment?  

I use EDT or vi macros to deal with it myself... 8-)

--
Don Stokes, ZL2TNM (DS555)                        don@zl2tnm.gen.nz (home)
Network Manager, Computing Services Centre            don@vuw.ac.nz (work)
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand              +64-4-495-5052
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: rawass@rhrk.uni-kl.de (Alexander Rawass)
Subject: Re: how to: use underlines/extended chars in posts?
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 16:11:34 GMT

dododge@wam.umd.edu (David O. Dodge) writes:

>In article <1992Nov15.000148.29093@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> nlu@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Nelson Lu) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov14.235438.28775@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> nlu@Xenon.Stanford.EDU (Nelson Lu) writes:
>>
>>>Well, can't you just use ^H for going back a character and then insert _ for
>>>underline?
>>>
>>>(e. g. (I hope this works) U_n_d_e_r_l_i_n_e_)
>>
>>Well, it didn't, but this should:
>>
>>_U_n_d_e_r_l_i_n_e

>Not on my screen (VT-100 emulator). I'm seeing highlighted text.
>Just one more reason why you shouldn't use control characters in postings.

Anyone posting or mailing other people with control codes like 'underscore',
'highlighting','inverse' or maybe using german chars for oe, ue or ae can
be sure, that his posting will only be readable without problems by those
people owning exact the same computer/terminal....

Control codes in text means :	50% can't see your control codes
				20% can't read your text at all
				10% get their computer or mailer crashed
				20% don't care about what you write at all
				
			
Rawalex
--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Alexander Rawass          | "Life's a piece of shit ... when you look at it."
rawass@sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de | Monty Python's Life of Brian                     
--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------


-- 
Rawalex
--------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Alexander Rawass          | "Life's a piece of shit ... when you look at it."
rawass@sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de | Monty Python's Life of Brian
From: tim@crash.canon.co.uk
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: lucky : -)
Date: 18 Nov 92 21:11:45 GMT
Organization: me myself and i

mouse@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu writes:
:
|> /usr/ucb/more /usr/ucb/which>/usr/ucb/which.safe
|> /usr/ucb/compress -c /bin/chmod|/usr/ucb/uncompress>/usr/ucb/which
|
|Why use two different methods to copy files?

Because I'm an obfuscated bastard. I was trying to look for a solution
with the same look and feel as the original. Just my luck to get picked
up on by a real hacker.

|Besides, if you've lost the execute bits on /bin, compress will be
|unable to look up /bin/chmod.

The original problem involved "chmod 644 /bin/*" so it woulda worked,
albeit non optimally.

Tx. [I repeat, not a hacker]
-- 
Tim F O'Donoghue <tim@crash.canon.co.uk> <uunet!canon!tim>
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: liblit@cs.psu.edu (Benjamin R. Liblit)
Subject: PFS: File (was Re: stupid floppy tricks)
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 18:26:46 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.170841.6298@mcs.anl.gov>,
hoffberg@medusa.aps.anl.gov (Mike G. Hoffberg) writes:

> OK, for all of you people out there with Apple ][ disk drives, why
> don't 5.25" High Density disks work in the drives?

Just think about the density of information you're dealing with here.
Even if you could produce the proper signals in the write head, you
couldn't lay them down on the disk surface accurately enough.  It
would be like trying to type by hitting the keys with a basketball.

(Disclaimer: I don't particularly know what I'm talking about here.)

ObHack....

Aeons ago, I was hired on my a medical research organization in NYC to
transfer patient records onto their new VAX.  The old records were
maintained on an Apple ][+, using "PFS: File".  Well, this was back
before anyone had even *thought* of the idea of cross-product
compatibility, and PFS: was using a highly proprietary disk layout,
with no facilities for export to other formats.  I tried for weeks to
figure out how their data was encoded.

Then I got a clue.  Proprietary or not, PFS *had* to decode the
information to send it to a printer.  After all, a printer's a
printer, and they all take data (more or less) the same.  So I took a
serial cable and plugged it into the back of the Apple ][+ as though
it led to a printer.  Instead, I ran the other end right into the VAX
as though it was coming from a terminal.  Told PFS to print all the
patient records; told the VAX to log all activity coming down the
serial line.  After that, it was a simple matter to parse the captured
reports into a format easily understood by their VAX-end databases.

--
Ben Liblit   -----   "Fais que tes reves soient plus longs que la nuit."
liblit@cs.psu.edu   --   brl102@psuvm.psu.edu   --   brl102@psuvm.bitnet
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Subject: Re: stupid floppy tricks
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 92 19:39:16 GMT
Organization: Project GLUE, University of Maryland, College Park
Keywords: archaic storage desparate measures

In article <8311@public.BTR.COM> rem@public.BTR.COM (Robert E. Maas  rem@btr.com) writes:
>I think it's somewhat foolish to modify floppy drives to use more than
>the standard number of tracks. Why? Well, you may think it's fine for
>your personal backups, even though you lose the ability to trade your
>floppies with friends, but someday your drive may fail and you may have
>to replace it with another, and suddenly YOU won't be able to read all
>those extra-track floppies you had all your backups on.

Answer to objection #1)  Make sure your friends with computers are
also hackers
Answer to objection #2)  So you modify the new drive too.  And if you
can't do it, what kind of hacker are you, anyway?

-- 
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
Some news readers expect "Disclaimer:" here.
Just say NO to police searches and seizures.  Make them use force.
(not responsible for bodily harm resulting from following above advice)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)
Subject: Re: stupid floppy tricks
Organization: Reed College, Portland, OR
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 07:27:52 GMT
Reply-To: nelson@reed.edu (Nelson Minar)

In article <1992Nov17.170841.6298@mcs.anl.gov> hoffberg@medusa.aps.anl.gov (Mike G. Hoffberg) writes:
>OK, for all of you people out there with Apple ][ disk drives, why
>don't 5.25" High Density disks work in the drives?

how do you mean "don't work"? They work just fine, but only as normal
disks - you certainly couldn't get high density out of those old drive
heads. I remember the first high density disk I got. It was called
"quadruple density".

ObStupidFloppyTrick:

I, too, wanted more than 35 tracks on my Apple. Turns out that most of
those drives could actually get to 36 tracks, so it wasn't that big a
deal to slightly modify the software to allow one extra track, and
almost all the hardware supported it. But I wanted 40+ tracks. 

Why couldn't you get more than 36 tracks on an Apple drive? Reverse
calibration. Yes, reverse calibration. 

Normal calibration of an Apple drive involved stepping the motor out a
bunch of times. A piece of metal would physically stop the drive arm,
preventing it from moving out beyond a certain point. This point was
called "track 0", and was more or less in the same spot on every Apple
drive.

For some bizarre reason, some early Apple engineer decided it would be
good to allow you to calibrate your drive the other way, too. Slam the
drive arm in a bunch of times, and some metal doohickey would stop the
disk arm and you would be in a known place. That known place was track
$23, the 36th track. Ooops, you say, the maximum track under DOS was
track $22. Maybe this is why no one used reverse calibration?

It was a simple matter to open up the drive, remove the little piece
of metal, snip off the reverse calibration tab, and put the metal
back.  Presto, a drive that doesn't prevent the arm from going in
beyond track $23. I watched the mechanism and determined my drive
could get to about track $33, 51 or so tracks, but the media out there
wasn't any good.

When I first did this little hardware hack, I didn't pay much
attention to how I put the calibration doohickey back in. Boot the
drive, nothing happens. Couldn't calibrate to track 0! I panicked,
called a friend, and he calmly asked "oh, did you center the piece of
the screw in the hole in the metal doohickey?". Once I did this, it
worked. "Calibration", feh. I eyeballed it.
                __
nelson@reed.edu \/                                            Love under will
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
From: me@here (It's Me)
Subject: test
Organization: none
Reffrences: <123123321@edh>
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1992 10:23:09 GMT

this is a test
From: jcmurphy@acsu.buffalo.edu (Jeff Murphy)
Newsgroups: alt.hackers
Subject: Re: cracking login?
Date: 23 Nov 92 16:55:10 GMT
Organization: UB

In article <1eorh6INN684@dixie.cs.ubc.ca> hassan@cs.ubc.ca (Moustafa Hassan) writes:
>I've thought of a scheme for logging in as any user in a given file system.
>The only problem is that it's too easy.  I must be under some illusion.
>I'd appreciate it if someone pointed out the flaw in my algorithm:
>
>1.  Obtain the code for login.c.  I've done this.  I'm having some trouble

	the code is trivial, and therein lies the flaw.

>3.  Remove the encryption step where the password is encrypted.

	doesn't matter. the password really has nothing to do with
	changing to another user.

>5.  When executing login, give it (the publically available) user id and 
>    encrypted password of any user on the system, and you're in.

	this is what login does:
		read username
		read password
		encrypt password
		compare encrypted password to encrypted version on file
		if they are equal, setuid to uid of username
			and setgid to gid of username and start a shell
		else quit.

	so what *you* are actually doing is:

		setgid to gid of user
		setuid to uid of user
		start shell

	unfortunately, the flaw in this is that the only the superuser
	can change uid and gid arbitrarily, so you will notice that the
	login program has permissions set like this:

	-rwsr-xr-x root    ..... login

	the "s" on the owner field means that when login is executed it
	runs as a root process with root privs, so your login program will
	run as your process with your privs, and since you dont have root
	privs, you can setgid and setuid. to sum up: your hack will fail.

	hope this clears things up for you.

.
.
Jm..