Not long after "l'affaire Mitnick," in which a hacker was discovered to have
secreted pirated files into other people's Internet accounts, I was checking
through my holdings to be sure that there had been no tampering with my
files. I found that indeed, some other files had been added to my home
directory, apparently without the system administrators noticing. There was
an unfamilar directory title: "SCRWDSK", and a collection of files in that
directory with filenames of the form "SCRDSK01.TXT".
I opened the files, and discovered text that had been heavily encrypted by a method that I had not seen before. The initial portion of each file, on examination, proved to be less heavily encrypted than the rest, and after merely a few hours' worth of CPU time, yielded what appeared to be a block of headers. These headers seemed to be variants on standard IP headers-- indeed, one header referred, not to IP, but to something called IMP--an Infernet Messaging Procedure. Yes, it said "Infernet," not "Internet"; this text appeared consistently in each file, and a vague sense of unease began to form in my heart as I examined the headers more closely. Instead of mailer daemons, the headers mentioned mailer demons, with names like Asphodel and Scabpicker. The subject lines that emerged bore topics like "Re: Using Politics as a Distraction from Spiritual Matters," or "Good Techniques for Inflaming Imagined Injustices."
And the "From:" line said:
The bodies of the messages were, as I have stated, harder to crack. Indeed, I am continuing to work on them. As I piece completed texts together, I will post them to this site...
****The Screwdisk E-Mail (cl) © 1995, 1996 by WS Mendler. Unlimited permission to
replicate this material electronically is granted, provided this paragraph
is included and the text unedited. For permission to reproduce in print,
please contact the author, smendler@well.com. Thank you.