Oct 19 1983
From The Space Library
ESA launched Ariane 8 from Kourou, French Guiana, at 12:45 a.m. GMT from INTELSAT 5-F7 as Payload, which it deployed at 1:00 a.m., into an orbit with 36,158-kilometer apogee, 183-kilometer perigee, and 8.5 ° inclination. Representatives from ESA and France's Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) were delighted with a new success for the European space industry. (FBIS, Paris AFP, Oct 19/83)
The NY limes said that "computer enthusiasts" had invaded NASA's electronic mail system, left cartoon images and "Kilroy was here" messages for agency employees, and played pranks on others. A NASA official said that the intruders had destroyed some information but had not "significantly disrupted" the electronic mail service. NASA. first noticed the intrusions in mid-July, and they continued into mid-September. Besides reading unclassified NASA messages, the intruders had destroyed some messages and created personal passwords and new files for themselves and their computer friends. Some NASA employees who used Telemail had been inconvenienced, but the system had never been halted.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that it was investigating a number of youths in connection with the intrusions. To make Telemail easy to use, NASA had told employees to use their first initial and last names as part of an entry code; employee names were available from agency telephone directories sold by the Government Printing Office (GPO). The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told a House subcommittee that it was trying to increase security for federal computers, and an FBI official asked Congress for a law prohibiting unauthorized entry into a computer. Without such a law, federal authorities were treating the cases as wire fraud, like use of telephone lines to obtain service without paying. (NY Times, Oct 19/83, A-16)
Another report said that the FBI had seized computers and other equipment from 15 computer enthusiasts around the United States, mostly teenagers. The bureau said that there was "extensive" penetration into commercial and DOD computers and that intruders had tampered with the files of some corporations. (NY Times, Oct 17/83, A-12)
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