by: Rick Johnson 
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
RikJohnson@juno.com
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There is NO security on the Internet.
That said, I will explain why.
The Interent was designed to allow the military to survive the EMP from a nuclear
air-burst. The original idea was to quickly download the military computer to a dozen
different locations, turn their machines off, wait until the bomb had exploded, re-boot
their computers and retrieve the data so they could continue to fight.
To do this, they designed/bought a system that would send a dozen copies of the
data to each location by different phone lines. A good system and it even worked. But
then the Cold War ended and the military decided that, like the Freeway system, they
didn't need it and they gave the Interent to the Univesities and look at it now!
Well, it is the very method that the Internet uses to survive a nuclear war that makes it so
vulnerable to hacking. With a dozen copies of the same message being passed along a
dozen different phone paths, anyone with a decent program or who works for an
internet ISP can intercept the message, copy or change it and then simply send their
own original messages out.
So, how does this relate to the Craft?
Simple! Because of the way the Internet is designed, it is impossible to have any security
in any message you send.
If I read your snail-mail or tap your phone line, it is a federal offense. If I tap your e-
mail, the law can't touch me.
So, to prove my point, I will give you a personal example.
When I was married to Brenda, she swore fidelity to the Gods in a Circle witnessed by a
number of covens.
Months later I was forced to leave our house so she could move him in on my birthday and I noticed that
people were complaining about nasty e-mails that they had been getting from my aol
account. (both of them worked for aol)
Last year someone was kicked off a few e-mail lists for causing too much trouble. He
eventually wrote me asking how he could get back in peoples good graces so I gave him
some advice that he chose to not follow (it WAS good advice and consisted of:
A few months ago a couple of my 'friends' received nasty e-mails that had been "signed
by me." One of them who I had supported through her divorce and abusive relationships
and had kept being friends to despite the misgivings of other friends came by angry
because her ex had received a nasty letter "signed by me" but not from my e-mail and she
was ending our friendship over it.
And just last night, the rik(dot)johnson-at-juno.com posted a file attachment on a mail-list
from which I had un-subbed some months ago. Fortunatly, the list-owner recognised the
address from my prior warning and forwarded it to me. But who knows how much
damage he had done pretending to be me?
So now I have proof.
So whenever you get anything from anyone that just doesn't sound quite right, confirm it
with the 'sender' but do NOT hit the 'reply' button, manually type in the address you know
to be true and ask what the **** is going on here.
The computers don't know how many were sent out and if one copy gets lost, it
assumes a downed phone line.
Send your BOS to someone and it can be intercepted and copied.
Send a naked photo of youself to your lover and it can be intercepted and put on any
and all porn sites.
Say anything personal or threatening or in anger and it can be intercepted and sent
anywhere.
And there are no laws to protect internet confidentiality.
A year later she was pregnant by some married asshole who had made the same
vows in another Circle.
I walked in on them one day playing on my computer. I asked what they were
doing (I didn't know they were sleeping together at the time) and Brenda told me that they
had hacked the BBS account of one of his ex-girlfriends and were on-line pretending to
be her to mess with her and her rep.
I told her that this was wrong and a violation of the Rede but she replied "But it's
fun!" and refused to stop.
I, of course, reported them.
With no legal recourse or proof (hey, I had a breakdown, who knows what I did?) I
cancelled my account with aol and started one with Juno which I have used since.
But these e-mails continued to go out from an aol account that I had cancelled.
Curious but who believed me?
Well, shortly after he wrote to tell me that he wasn't taking my advice and would do it his own way.
Then I got a forwarded e-mail from rik.johnson@juno.com essentially stating that this
person was pretending to be me to cause me trouble. Note that he had put a 'dot' between
rik and johnson which is a small and easily overlooked difference.
I put out warnings and forgot about it.
She refused to discuss it or even to send me a copy of the e-mail. I believe I know
who actually sent it but cannot prove it.
I may be crazy and paranoid but there ARE people out there trying to screw me
over and they are succeeding.
And be careful of what you send out over the internet.
To contact me or to request topics to be covered, send to RikJohnson@juno.com
by: Rick Johnson
PO Box 40451
Tucson, Az.
85717
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