>From [log in to unmask] Tue Aug 27 14:17:37 1996 Date: Tue, 27 Aug 96 11:11:31 PDT From: Tom Perrine <[log in to unmask]> Cc: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Trouble at your Site Thanks for your message concerning suspicious usage of your FTP site. I am responsible for security at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. You may verify my identity and position via the PGP signature and CERT, or by calling the switchboard of SDSC at the number below. There is no cause for alarm. This is the result of a project of one of our researchers, which involves extracting information from numerous FTP archives throughout the Internet. It is similar to the web "crawlers" and "spiders" and "indexers" that we have all encountered. You mentioned "massive". Is this a reference to the amount of data transferred, or to the bandwidth or CPU or other resources required to service the requests? The scan is *supposed* to be throttled to be "low overhead" and "unobtrusive" on the archive being examined. If this was not the case, please DO let me know. I will be contacting the researchers later today. Congratulations: Many sites have been examined since this project started a few weeks ago, and you are the first to even notice anything unusual. It looks like you do security like we do :-) Feel free to contact me if you need further information, or would like to discuss this situation. - -- Tom E. Perrine ([log in to unmask]) | San Diego Supercomputer Center http://www.sdsc.edu/~tep/ | Voice: +1.619.534.5000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBMiM6RBTSxpWcaAFRAQHi6QP/XIAxTmR7AHL+/N0OOIsRnkLzKov+ozqk WLHjMgIow2uhPggcqeAgaSevGEwk76A5sL/9IA4BbujVQ/TUvUl7gHFb2KtENuI3 mCE3ill8B2L4DjwKBLJvvoNpyGQOTaeti7Y5WVL4g1aU5JNqLVGuP/560PxsSdcN swHVhs7bxj4= =Gdvu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- There you have it. BTW, this person's address was found by browsing http://www.sdsc.edu and picking off the person responsible for research in computer security. Matt - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Matthew J. Malone University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies SF4003, 978-3130/667-7731, e-mail: [log in to unmask]