230 DEAR HACKER

230 DEAR HACKER

be proof of strange behavior only if data was migrating across disks, either logical or physical.

I don’t know enough about Wordstar to know how it manages tempo- rary files, but assuming that it behaves normally for a word processor, the most likely scenario for Big Al’s test goes something like: a) While creating a dummy document with a dummy name in it, Wordstar creates a temporary file, which ends up containing most or all of the document being worked on; b) Wordstar is halted, and while cleaning up, it deletes the temporary file; c) Prodigy is started and when it asks MS-DOS for disk space for STAGE.DAT, it gets that disk area that was most recently freed up (this step can vary depending on MS-DOS version and whether the hard disk has had all of its area used since it was last formatted), which naturally contains all the junk from the Wordstar session. I consider this a much more plausible scenario than Big Al’s assertion that this proves that Prodigy is reading data out of Wordstar document files.

If Big Al wants to prove anything here, he should use Norton Utilities or the equivalent to overwrite all unused disk sectors and then see if Prodigy puts anything into STAGE.DAT. Or he should check the sectors that will be allocated for the next file opened both before and after Prodigy is started, to see what Prodigy changes.

As for the names of computers such as ABLE LEGAL and BAKER LEGAL showing up on a Prodigy mailing list, is he absolutely certain, cross-his-heart-and-hope-to-die, that no one registered some of the software associated with the network using the machine names?

So while I agree that the Prodigy affair may have been glossed over mighty quick, there are limits to paranoia on the topic before it gets really silly.

If you do want a scandal, start thinking about how many computer technicians don’t realize that using Norton’s WIPEFILE on your word processor file isn’t enough unless you hunt down and wipe out all the temporary files your word processor used, too.

Jon Radel Reston, VA

T H E M A G I C O F T H E C O R P O R AT E W O R L D

It’s been our position that even if Prodigy was doing nothing wrong, unsuspecting users are opening up their personal systems to outside entities (not hackers) that could one day do quite horrible things. We hope this realization is enough to wake most people up.

Dear 2600:

I know I’m treading on thin ice voicing a corporate viewpoint in 2600. But I think it’s important to clear the air regarding Prodigy.

There have been a lot of rumors about Prodigy and STAGE.DAT, and what we’re doing—and not doing—with our members’ data and computers. Prodigy doesn’t read, upload, or interact in any way with

a member’s file on their computer. The sole exception is Prodigy files. There’s no way we could or would do the kind of things Big Al alleged in your Autumn 1991 issue, and that were discussed in the letters column in the Winter 1991-92 issue.

The confusion and false claims arose because non-Prodigy data found its way incidentally into Prodigy files. When people saw this, they incorrectly assumed Prodigy had deliberately sought this information and uploaded it. In fact, any non-Prodigy data found in Prodigy files was incorporated randomly because of two programming shortcuts that have since been eliminated. None of it was ever looked at, ma- nipulated, or uploaded by Prodigy.

The two Prodigy files in question are STAGE.DAT and CACHE.DAT. STAGE.DAT stores Prodigy programs and graphics between sessions. Without STAGE.DAT, all of this data would have to be transmitted every time the member moves from place to place within the service or “turns a page.”