Subject: having trouble with break-ins

From: Thomas McHugh <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 20:54:02 -0500 (EST)

To whom it may concern,

     I have recently been having trouble with other users breaking into my
e-mail and erasing, coping and even forwarding my private messeges to other
persons in the form of written text. I am almost certain this has to be
illegal. As a result of these occurences I have numerous unnecessary
conflicts with both family and friends. I am curious to find out if there
is any way in which to trace these break-in's. I know exactly which
messeges were broken in to and the time periods on which they occured. I
have tried to change my pass word on several occasions and don't feel that
I should be kept from using my e-mail because of this illegal activity. I
would appriciate and assistance you could provide and I am willing to
cooperate with you one-hundred percent. Thank you for your time.
                          Sincerly,
                               Thomas C. McHugh

---

From: Drachen <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 05:40:48 -0800 (PST)

Short of talking to your system administrator so s/he can look at the logs
and compare them to when people had access to the machines (and this would
only work in a few, not-so-common-anymore-senarios, where one can only log
on from a physical terminal, and cannot dial in, and there are few enough
people that this would make sense) or checking the caller ID of the person
logged into your account at the times that these things happened (again,
needs a specific set of hardware/access events, though the latter is now
more common than the former) and tracing that back to someone who might be
likely, you may not be able to find out who is doing this to you. Even
your system administrator may not be able to help. But they'd be the first
person to talk to.

I imagine that if you are in the U.S., you can prosecute for something, or
at least start a civil suit..but I don't know how successful you'd be. I'm
not a lawyer.

The most important thing you can do is change your password to something
that is ridiculously hard to crack (There's plenty of advice out there on
that, the basics are longer than six characters and no dictionary words.
numbers and special characters are musts... if you have to write it down
and put it in your wallet, that's better than if you choose something
simple but crackable so you remember it. just don't let anyone have your
wallet) and don't tell a soul.

Also, I'd think about whether I'd pissed off anyone that had priveleged
access to the computer, or your mail server (again, depending on set up),
because they might have access to the plain text files that are your email
box. I can see it being done by some other student who is unhappy at you
(for good reasons or not..It really doesn't matter). 

Just a thought or three.

Vinnie

--
[email-masked] System Administrator Epoch Internet
"Connecting The World, One Business At A Time......
By Caring About A Customers Success"
[email-masked] Spam Patrol