From: genek@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Gene Kim)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Beta testers needed for new security tool (UNIX)
Date: 5 Sep 92 15:39:18 GMT

Announcing the pending availability of

	       Tripwire: A Unix File Integrity Checker

    This message is being posted to various newsgroups and mailing
lists to gather a group of beta-testers for a new security tool called
Tripwire.  Tripwire was written by Gene Kim, currently at Purdue
University, under the direction of Professor Gene Spafford.

    Tripwire should be of significant interest to system
administrators concerned about timely detection of system file
tampering on their Unix hosts.


Goal of Tripwire:
=================

    With the advent of increasingly sophisticated and subtle
account break-ins on Unix systems, the need for tools to aid the
detection of unauthorized modification of files becomes clear.
Tripwire is a tool that aids system administrators and users in
monitoring a designated set of files for any changes.  Used with
system files on a regular basis, Tripwire can notify system
administrators of corrupted or tampered files, so damage control
measures can be taken in a timely manner.

    Tripwire is a system file integrity checker, a utility that
compares a designated set of files and directories against
information stored in a previously generated database.  Any
differences are flagged and logged, and optionally, a user is
notified through mail.  When run against system files on a
regular basis, changes in critical system files would be spotted
at the next time-interval when Tripwire is run, so damage
control measures may be implemented immediately.  With
Tripwire, system administrators can conclude with a high degree
of certainty that a given set of files remain untouched from
unauthorized modifications, provided the program and database are
appropriately protected (e.g., stored on read-only disk).

    Tripwire uses message digest algorithms (cryptographic
checksums) to detect changes in a hard-to-spoof manner.  This
should be able to detect significant changes to critical files,
including those caused by insertion of backdoors or viruses.  It
also monitors changes to file permissions, modification times,
and other significant changes to inodes as selected by the system
administrator on a per-file/directory basis.

What we need:
=============

    As of this writing, Tripwire runs successfully on both BSD
and System V variants of Unix.  Among the operating systems
Tripwire has run on are:

		SunOS 5.x (SVR4)
		SunOS 4.x (BSD 4.3)
		Dynix 3.x (BSD 4.2)

    Compiling Tripwire should be as simple as editing the config.h
file to set the appropriate #defines, and typing 'make'.

    A pool of beta-testers is needed to ensure that Tripwire 
works predictably on a wide variety of systems.  Of particular
interest are system administrators using the following operating
systems:  		

		AIX 
		AUX
		BSD4.4
		HP/UX
		Mach
		NextOS
		OSF/1
		SVR3.x
		Ultrix
		Unicos
		Xenix
		System III 
		Versions 6, 7, 8, & 9  :-)
		other versions we didn't list

    A config.h file allows you to tailor Tripwire around your
system specifics, such as the locations of system utilities (like
sort and diff), and desired lookup pathnames to your Tripwire
database files.

    Possible porting trouble-spots are generally restricted to
dirent(S5)/direct(BSD) funkiness and #defines that changed for
POSIX compliance (such as those in <sys/types.h> for stat.st_mode).

    Hopefully the process of beta-testing will highlight any
problems before any widely-released distribution.  It is also
hoped that reasonable system defaults for a wide variety of
systems can be gathered from a diverse set of beta-testers.
This would allow useful plug-and-play builds for the majority of
Tripwire users.


What you'd get as a beta-tester:
================================

    The entire source to Tripwire, manual pages, a README, and
the Tripwire design document.


What you'd need to do:
======================

    You will need to install the code on your system and run
it.  You will need to report back any bugfixes, enhancements,
optimizations or other code-diddling that you believe useful.  If
you build a configuration file for a new system, you will need
to send this back.  You will have to collect some performance
data.  You will need to provide some honest, critical feedback on
utility, clarity, documentation, etc.

    You will need to do all this by about October 21.


Are you interested?
===================

    If so, please fill out the form at the end of this message, and
send it to (genek@mentor.cc.purdue.edu).  We will only take two or
three respondents for each system type for the beta test.

    Please allow some time for processing and selection of
beta-testers.  I promise to reply to all requests as
expeditiously as possible.

    A formal release of Tripwire is planned for sometime in
November.  Watch this space for details!

Gene Kim
September 4, 1992

===============================================================================

Name:
Email address:				
System configuration:
    machine type
    operating system
    version

Site information: (completely optional)
    type of site (ie: university, corporate, military, etc...)
    comments on machine security 
	(ie: numerous break-in attempts on our dialback servers,
	     repeated intrusions through network, etc...)

===============================================================================