From: 401yclee%vax9k.dnet@nchud1.nchu.edu.tw (My name is...)
Subject: Re: Beta testers needed for security tool
Organisation: National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan
Organization: NCHU, TAIWAN 
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 09:02:40 GMT


In article <Bu47uI.GnM@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, genek@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Gene Kim) writes...
> 
>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...)
> 
>===============================================================================