From: starfish@stein.u.washington.edu (Sarah Skovronsky)
Subject: Re: PRODIGY New and improved STILL SUCKS, HORRIBLE as before
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 18:33:03 GMT

I found this in comp.sys.mac.misc:

lginzb@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Lionel Ginzburg) writes:

>In article <zkessin.724650697@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> zkessin@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Zach, the Lego Maniac) writes:
>>jmalloy@itsmail1.hamilton.edu (Joseph T. Malloy) writes:
>>
>>>In article <zkessin.724555976@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu> zkessin@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Zach, the Lego Maniac) writes:
>>>>
>>>>DON'T use Prodigy, well not unless you dont care that other people may
>>>>be snooping on *YOUR* files. I just read on alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk
>>>>something about Prodigy uploading stuff from peoples HD's. I think the
>>>>EFF has more info.
>>>>
>>>>just a warning.
>>>>
>>>>Zach
>>>>zkessin@cs.brandeis.edu
>>
>>>I thought this bit about Prodigy (which is awful as an on-line service,
>>>if you ask me) "snooping around one's disk" was sort of an urban myth.
>>>If I recall correctly, there is a file, STAGE.DAT, that Prodigy uses as
>>>a temporary cache-like storage area, and it's this file that gets
>>>written to (and read?), hence the time stamp changes often.  I don't
>>>recall anyone demonstrating that the evil Prodigy empire was out there
>>>looking for major industrial secrets on your hd :)  
>>
>>From what I know the Prodigy contract that you agree to when Loging on
>>does give them this right. However I dont know if they do do this. I
>>would not trust them myself, But I am paranoid in some ways. Also for
>>consumer survays this would be a VERY effective way of runing survays
>>to sell data on custemers. 
>>I advise caution.
>>I dont use prodigy and for this reason alone would not, (well the
>>censoring of online forums and e-mail annoys me too)
>>
>>--Zach
>>  Zachary Kessin  zkessin@cs.brandeis.edu
>> real.world: I don't think the news server gets that group!    

>In 2600 magazine, Autumn 1991 issue, a letter was printed in which a
>computer consultant from Brooklyn, NY claimed to have proven that
>Prodigy was using STAGE.DAT to obtain names for its mailing list.  (I
>won't reproduce the letter, as the issue may be copyrighted.) He gave
>two examples (I'll paraphrase):

>A. A user's STAGE.DAT file was found to consist of names, addresses, and
>telephone numbers that came both out of the dialing directories of other
>modem programs, and from letters written under WordStar in another
>subdirectory.

>[A note from me, not in the letter-- because of the way that MSDOS
>allocates files, it is possible that these numbers were sector filler
>left from deleted files.  I'd be interested to know if someone has
>noticed a similar phenomenon in data files from other versions  (Mac,
>Amiga, if they exist) versions of the Prodigy software.]

>B. The LAN of this consultant's company uses internal names to refer to
>specific machines on the network.  These names are not used outside the
>company. Soon after the consultant installed and began using Prodigy on
>a machine on the LAN, snail-junk-mail letters started appearing from Prodigy,
>addressed to these machine-names, which would not have been known to
>Prodigy unless it was sneaking around the LAN.

>[This one, IMHO, seems fairly damning.  The guy writing the letter seems
>to know MSDOS fairly well-- he explains the deleted file stuff I mentioned
>in my last set of brackets.  He's not just a paranoid novice user. 
>Though, I should note, like many letters to 2600, his letter is signed
>with a pseudonym. Not knowing this person, and not having seen the junk
>mail he alludes to, I can't confirm the authenticity of his remarks. 
>But I think this is where the rumor started.]

>-------------
>I'd like to note that I've never used Prodigy, not caring much for
>commercial-type systems; do not work for any competitor of Prodigy, am
>posting this message soley to stimulate discussion and/or explanation of
>this phenomenon, and am not expressing opinion that has anything to do
>with the University of Pa.  Just disseminating information.


>-- 
>Lionel Artom-Ginzburg
>EMail to: Lionel@BWH.Harvard.edu
>or, just autoreply.

[They're coming to get you!  --Sarah]

-- 
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*            Sarah Skovronsky     starfish@u.washington.edu            *
*  "Diane, I am holding in my hand a box of chocolate bunnies."  --DC  *
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