Not in plain sight means behind the scenes - LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT
Anyone who has read the details of this story would see that Mr West did not suddenly find this exploit =- he spent weeks looking for it - this negates the argument about random discovery and the in plain sight crap - oh ant the article in the newspaper analogy is total bullshit and a lame attempt to obfuscate the situation - no matter what page of the newspaper it is on it is considered not only in plain sight but in the public domain and is the most irrelvant argument i have ever seen - this information was found by deliberately looking for it and trying until it was found - the guys is a criminal and your attempts to defend him are misguided and franly laughable
He sought the information - he copied it - he distributed it and he boasted about it - he attempted to besmirch the name of a competitor to get business in what i consider the most pathetic attempt at blackmail that i have ever seen - in short he is a loser
In normal times the opinion of these 2 avowed members of the ultra conservative christian right would be ridiculed, but at this moment in time they will get wide support in some areas.
the terrorist actions commited on the 11th are such that many many americans will give up what they see as small freedoms in order to fight the supposed evil around them.
Enough small freedoms and you are living in a police state - and the scary thing is how easily this could be done in the US.
But in a way they are sort of right - with many modern systems and tools you dont have a hell of a lot of privacy in these areas unless you set out to make sure you have it.
Re:It all seemed so clear the first time through..
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I guess im the pointy haired sort of guy you are referring too.
To restate the obvious for those with IQ's lower than their shoe size - You have no right to have passwords and logons to any system you are not explicitly authorised to connect to. - thats simple fact. If you have said passwords then the intent is there to use thm - i dont care what bullshit defence you use to me.
These passwords were behind a secure (or thought) secure system - It apparently took mr west several weeks to get into this system so its not like they were in plain sight.
Yes im sure that this would prove that and if you got my password list i would resign from my company - thats proffeisonalism (although as i run a secured netWrk with 2 firewalls and a DMz server between the internet and all of my secured domain servers (with pin security access for remote logon and mail access only at that point - it would be a fucking good hacker (you aint he) who could manage it - and we have paid to have it tested - i would probably hire anyone who could do it in fact !)
Anyone who would break into your house would not leave a note moron, they would rob you blind.
Do you even live in the real world ? why is it not ok to break into someones house but perfectly acceptable to break into their servers ? What are you on about ?
You sir are a moron
And a troll
Get a job in the real world as a sysadmin and see how much sympathy you have for this shit then.
How easy it is to seperate the Sysadmins and suchlike on here from everyone else (excepting the trolls -- we know what they are)
The sysadmins and pros and suchlike who work in IT agree this guy committed a crime or provide rational arguments as to why he didnt - they can rationally understand it and even maybe support the FBI - they understand what they did, have read the articles and post insightfull comments and thoughtfull questions and maybe even have a laugh.
The other group include those who thing all hackers are cool and that the goverment has no right to keep them out, they throw up any argument no matter how tenuous to defend the actions of Mr West and then even resort to saying he was forced to confess under duress ! then theres the conspiracy theorists and the lame he didnt steal anything of value (which is wrong guys as they law treats theft of data like theft of anything else)
How much time will the actions of someone who is now a confessed criminal who wasnt sophisticated enough to cover his tracks going to get you all in a lather ? Hasnt he had his 15 seconds of fame yet?
What did the victim lose - ok try prestige, good will (these BTW are measured and worth money to a business)
Its still illegal
Its still theft - the minute he copied the data it was theft. (And industrial espoinage is a criminal offence under US laws and considred theft)
Nahh our opinions on theft are different beacuse i have to spend money and time keeping pieces of work like this out of my systems
Re:It all seemed so clear the first time through..
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Sysadmins who leave a company and keep their passwords and then use them to get into companies have very short careers
Sysadmins who give passwords to friends have even shorter ones
There is an implicit trust and proffesionalism involved in being in control of system security - any admin worth 10cents would never give away passwords - if he did he would never ever get a job in IT again.
And any sysadmin who replaced another and didnt delete his predessors accounts and access and change service passwords deserves the same fate - its good housekeeping and its the first thing i do
Re:Only one side of the story
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You have a good point about this but for one simple fact - and this can be found by reading the logs - this guy isn't going to trial because he hung himself out to dry by admitting he had done it, boasting to people (including the editor of the paper) keeping the stolen files and then giving passwords to a friend.
In other words the evidence alone would hang him - the fact that he tends to come across as an arrogant person in his writings and letters, and dont forget he only tried the white hat when caught.
people like this guy think the law doesnt apply to them, they think that computer crime is something no one else will understand and that makes it hard to prove etc, it isnt - trust me i have worked with Australian Federal Police investigators at a previous role (involving an attempted hacking incident at a financial instituion) these guys were very very smart and skilled and 2 of them were ex hackers (1 who had served jail time) they know what they are doing.
This guy has to have committed the most amaterish, pathetic and misguided hack in history and then thought he could use the open source movement to cover himself and the EFF to protect him - he was wrong and this should teach us a lesson.
All is not what it seems in these cases - IMHO there is no such thing as white hat or black hat ONLY hackers - any justification you can try and find wont change the fact that these guys support an ethos surrounded in getting access to things they havent been given.
He STOLE the scripts which were the LAWFUL property of the company he hacked into - His intention appears to have been to PERMANENTLY deprive the owner of their customers
And the same laws that cover industrial espionage would cover this as according to the information on hand he was a competitor to the company who he hacked thus this a direct attack on their ability to trade
This is Theft - not to mention the passwords and logons he stole which is also theft
Re:It all seemed so clear the first time through..
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this argument is no defence - they were not gifted to the individual he found a way in and stole them - thats the crime - the security of the system is not relevant and in this case the guy spent weeks looking for a way in - hardly easy then is it ?
Re:How did the FBI know?
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Answers
A: He boasted about it to the Newspaper editor and several other people (read the info on his case on the web - its in newspaper accounts)
B: they didnt have to - the guys a fool - he left the evidence on his computers and bragged to the people he hacked - who notified the local police who called the FBI
C: Naah - this is what he did wrong - he committed a crime and got caught and charged - why bother keeping definding the little shit ?
The argument over intellectual property is so much crap - they were on a secured password protected section of a server he had no legal access to and also i will point out one belonging to a competitor of his - and he stole them thus commiting theft.
The FBI has jurisdiction on this and the other reason they were called in one suspects is that the brain dead i mean defendant boasted about hacking into a local banks systems (a lie it seems but he saids it on the record in an interview with the nespaper and it was thus reported) and if that bank had Federal Investment Deposit Insurance (FIDC) then any crime committed against it becomes a federal crime and the FBI investigates.
Now are we done defending this guy ? hes a hacker - full stop.
Re:This whole thing makes me so mad.
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Lets get this straight - independant forces and overwhelming evidence of what he actually did are everywhere - his fingerprints are all over the server and hes too dumb to delete the passwords and files he stole BUT obviously the police and FBI made him confess under duress ?
What IS the weather like on your planet
Re:It all seemed so clear the first time through..
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As a corporate IT manager i would like to ask you one question ?
Under what circumstances does a username/password list to systems you have not been implicitly given access to come in handy ?
The only reason to have passwords to a system that you do not have rights to is to connect to it without permission - i look at this as a simple thing - it is unauthorised access and theefore illegal.
When will some people get this through their heads - if you have someone elses account and password obtained from any source which does not have authoirity (eg the Sysadmin or network admin) then you are commiting a crime - you should not have it.
It doesnt matter what you do with them or where you got them, possesion is Intent - Intent is used to prosecute.
think about this scenario - the police for some reason suspect you of hacking - they come to your house and find on your computer some information or artivles on hacking, maybe a hacking program and they find a list of passwords and logins to systems and websites.
Guess what - thats intent and you are getting charged with hacking, if they happen to be bank system passwords you are probaly going to be charged with fraud. They might not prove the charges but they have sufficient prima fascie evidence of crime of intent to commit to charge you with these things.
I cannot see ANY justification to have lists of passwords and user names to anybody elses system unless they gave them to you - the White Hat or Just Looking Around or Education arguments are so much crap its not funny and its the argument all the hackers attempt when they are caught.
Re:This whole thing makes me so mad.
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Any 5 year old can sell crack - its illegal as well.
He didnt just 'hack it' he stole data - thats a computer crime and he pled guilty - end of case.
I was one of those people who said this the last time and got flamed and moderated down for suggesting the guy might not be all he seemed.
Some slashdot readers need to read the information and think about things
If the slashdot readership is the top 1% then i can sudenly see why the country is in such deep shit - if the top 1% whine about windows and spending their time posting goatsex links instead of going to college and attempting to fix the country they whinge about other peoples browser choices and OS choices and oh hell etc etc.
Arrogance seems to be an american personality trait lately - lets hope the rest of the world doesnt pay for it
Sort of of like an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth ?
Would do you good to read your copy of the old testament as well my friend - you might find with a shock that it amd the Qumran (and the torah) are very very similar.
And this passage sounds very familiar, hhhmmmm
I see know with a bit of rewording you get...
'And today in washington President Bush Said "those people who oppose the united states will pay for their actions, we will bring them to justice, those who are terrorist and those who harbour them, this is a war against evil, May god bless america"
You first reaction as a country to this tragedy is to kill as many people you can get your hands on. You second reaction is to attempt to lockdown the whole country and thus remove and civil liberties and privacy anyone has.
For a country with a supposed history as a bright and shining beacon of democracry and freedom it doesnt sound that free or democratic does it?
How about taking out you copy of the constituion and reading the bit about free and equal again ?
I am beggining to wonder if the US govt didnt do this themselves, think about it - the economy is flattening and recession is on the horizon, what better way to forestall it than a war ? and at the same time the govt can get rid of a lot of pesky objections to things like echelon and carnivore and lock down the population even tighter ? no im only specualting but it scares me almost as much as your presidents 'im the biggest damn bully in the playground' attitude does - the solution to all the problems in the world is kill people until everyone agrees with you.
Are we truly seeing the end of the land of the free ?
I see and understand the sentiment but i fear you are missing the point a little - i posed the question how much is enough blood ? do you propose that the administration get serious and wipe out the afghanistani race ? is another 100000 deaths going to wipe clean any action ?
Blood begets blood - the more people you kill the more they will kill your people - its a fact as old as human civilization and this sort of reaction from the US comes about only because you go to war now by pushing buttons.
How many of your ground troops would die in a land war ?
Lesson of life 1. Dont fight a land war in russia
lesson 2. Dont fight a land war in asia
No one has ever succesfully fought a land war in asia without massive casualties
Now is the time for some clear and rational thought not the kneejerk 'kill em all' calls.
As sickened and saddened as i am by the whole thing, the murder of innocents i have to stand and look at the USA (im in Australia) with something of an attitude of fear and horror.
The thing is that yes 'someone' commited a horrific crime on the US, and that means someone should be punsished, but what level of punishment ?
How many people must die to assauge your grief? 2000, 10000, 50000, 100000, 1 million ? whats enough blood.
I seen people on here and in interviews in your streets who think and believe that you should use nuclear weapons to 'solve' this ? on who ? who do you blow up first ? Afghanistan will likely be the first target but whos the last - i mean there will still be arabs in palestine, do you kill them, what about the Iraqi's, The Iranians ? Hey there are muslims in India, Indonesia ?
What are we talking here - Genocide ? the Germans did that but they used ovens didnt they .
Im not criticising the need for justice but i am condemming the mindless calls for revenge. This sort of action needs to be taken in the cold light of day and soberly considered. There may be legitimate targets - Bin Laden defintely, but these can be dealt with safely and easily (otherwise what are all your vaunted Intelligence ans special forces organisations good for ?)
Would it not make sense to be humane and show the world that democracy and christianity stands for compassion and control - the massive carpet bombing, invasions and land wars wont solve the problem, innocent deaths will add to them and make a much bigger problem.
So i urge you all to think before plunging headlong into a war that could kill many many innocent people and maybe plunge the world into another world conflict. The very people you want to kill in Afghanistan have no TV, no freedom, no rights and most have no food or money or any of the things you take for granted - yet you want to kill them for something 1 fanatic did for whatever misguded reasons ?
Being a beacon of light and hope to the world does not involve the murder of innocent people, the US has set itself up to be the kingdom of hope for many - the only way that the US can be the statesman of the world is to act like it now, show the world they are civilised and intelligent people who can think without revenge and act with restraint.
if not then god help us all.
Re:Ground War in Afghanistan
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The saudis would require PROOF of aghani government involvement (as would the international courts) and that means GOVERNMENT documents linking the government to the plot
they wont find it and they wont support a full scale invasion of Afghanistan.
ALSO SHOW ME THE PROOF IT WAS ARABS - So far its speculation - and if arabs they could be egyptian, palestinian, libyan, yemeni, iranian, iraqi etc
Do we kill everyone in the world whos not an american ?
Tell me whats the weather like on your planet ?
Re:Ground War in Afghanistan
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China chooses not to invade Taiwan
Dont mistake a decision not to act with the inability to act - do a bit of research
World largest army
Worlds largest airforce
2nd largest navy
largest nuclear arsenal
all modern and highly trained
The US is not invincible
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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Israel invavded lebanon in the early 1970's - eer heard of beirut ?
They invaded the golan heights, the west bank etc all soverign territory of another nation - they started the mess they are in and they are the cause of it.
Shah of Iran - Until the revolution an ally of the US (proves that you are under the age of 25)then Iraq was an ally then and enemy and now Iran are allies (sort of) again.
What does polynesia have to do with east timor ? look at a map - its about 3000km away - and you deserved to be told to butt our if the incident you are talking about is samoa
Yes you went to wat in serbia (if you call it that) 5 years AFTER the serbians started 'ethnic cleansing' moslems, croatians and anyone else they didnt quite like -hardly proactive and coming after everyone is dead is hardly a humanitarian gesture.
You would never leave the middle east alone - you cant survive without the oil.
Try this one on - Kuwait are allies after the war, Saudi are allies of convenience (invade a moslem country and see what happens (hint-why didnt the US invade iraq?) Israel have no other friends so of course they are allies - what can you say about claiming as a friend a country that lobs rockets into schools for the fun of it ?
A few more examples of US freedom and democracy in action for you BTW
Haiti - Nope didnt lift a finger except to refuse refugees landing rights
El Salvador - Behind closed doors support for a guerilla movement that was left to die when the US were caught
Chile - Maintained Diplomatic relations while Alledne was mass murdering dissidents
Argentina - See above RE pinochet
Colombia - Provides a pathetic amount of support for another country and expects them to fight the war on drugs
Somalia - Again went in after most of the fighting was over
Burma - havent made a peep abouot the wide spread human rights abuses and mass murder carried out by an 'allied' govermnet
india/pakistan - an ally and a former ally who practice active genocide against eash others citzens
Afghanistan - You support the Mujahadeen to throw out the Russians and then cut support when they try and bring democracy back by fighting the taliban.
American foreign policy is one of hypocrisy. This country needs to PROVE it is the Bastion of freedom for all from opression - the bright ans shining light of democracy and peace - ACTIONS speak louder than words.
This is a great country and we should be proud of what we have accomplished, but we also need to be aware that our actions or refusal to act cause deaths every day - this week it hit home here.
instead of bombing people this is what we do - support the palestnian resoltion to throw israel out of the Lebanese posessions - give them back the country they had stolen from them with US support - only then will the world begin to believe we are on the side of right.
PS You are obviously in middle school - i dont mean that as an insult - so i suggest a bit of history might be worth reading - if you are not in middle school god help us all - this country has a short memory for the past.
Re:Ground War in Afghanistan
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Let me get this straight
No proof of aghanistani imnovlvement at all
No proof it even was Bin Laden
No proof of any muslim complicity
Yet you suggest a ground war in a soveriegn nation ruled by an Islamic government ?
Geez thats a great idea, lets unite the muslim world against us and have a Jihad declared so they can kill as many people as they can,
and how hard would it be to win in Afghanistan - i mean the russians had so much luck didnt they !
Moron
Get pakistan onboard ? a muslim ruled country is going to support military action against a neighbour carried out by a major ally of their sworn enemy (India)
The sobiet republics count for shit anyway - have a think about the chinese reaction for a second - yeah they COULD win a world war against the us !
Move through IRAN ? Are you fucking mad ? IRan are playing nice and all but christ invade the country ? Let me see now - why DO you think Saddam Hussein is alive ? if the US wants him dead then he would be but they cannot as the power vaccum and implications of killing him would be huge.
Lets recap the likely and possible consequences of an invasion of Afganistan.
1. the muslim world declares a Jihad on the US and her allies
2. Saudi Arabis kicks all US troops out of the country
3. Ditto Jordan.
4. Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya form a coalition of forces and move in support of the US
5. Pakistan sends troops over their border
7. The chinese make VERY VERY clear that the usage of any non conventional weapons will be unacceptable (and they will)
Suddenly the US are at war with the entire muslim world whilst they are cut off from oil supplies and the already weakened economoy collapses.
You sir habe not even though beyond the kille em all basis
Re:What can be done about terrorism?
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When you post this sort of shit have the balls to use a name and email address - no im not muslim but this is the sort of simple minded and feeble crap that leads to these sort of events, this country has stodd by when Israel invaded palestine in the 70's, stood by when the friendly Shah was overthrown in, ignored Serbian mass murder, ignored Indonesian mass murder in East
Timor, etc etc
It sometimes seems like the US is the beacon of freedom and democracy but only for white christian states or those who are wealthy allies.
Maybe this is a clarion call for us to get back to reality and look at what this country does in the world and why - have any of you stopped to think a simple question---
Something for us all to note that many many families lost parents tonight - and we should not forget the firemen and police - over 300 estimated in various media outlets - attempting to rescue people - these are tru non combatants whose only thought was for the injured and dying.
There is a n NY time story here - but i have copied the text into this post to attempt to cope with the massively overloaded servers they have today
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12RES C. html
Firefighters Dash Into Towers; Many Do Not Return
By JANE FRITSCH
New York firefighters, impelled by instinct and training, rushed to the World Trade Center yesterday to evacuate victims. Then the buildings fell down. The firefighters never came out.
More than 100 were unaccounted for, possibly making this the worst disaster in the New York Fire Department's history, explosions having collapsed the two main towers onto the first wave of rescuers as they snaked through stairwells and hallways. In the tumult, the temporary command center set up on a nearby street to deal with the calamity was buried in a rolling wave of concrete chunks.
Among those who died there were Chief of Department Peter J. Ganci, and First Deputy Fire Commissioner William M. Feehan. Also killed was one of the department's Roman Catholic chaplains, Michael F. Judge, who had rushed to the scene to comfort victims.
There was no trace of three of the fire department's most elite units, Rescues 1, 2 and 4, officials said last night.
A police official said last night that some officers at the scene were also unaccounted for, but "we don't have numbers." The official denied reports of 60 missing officers from the department's Emergency Services Unit, and 18 from the Brooklyn North Task Force.
Police officials said that as the day unfolded, several officers who had been presumed lost had surfaced. "The numbers are not that extravagant," said Assistant Chief Thomas P. Fahey. As night deepened, officials were able to bring in cranes and heavy shovels to begin moving rubble in hopes of finding survivors. At the same time, they had to contend with several fires that were still burning in adjacent buildings, officials said.
But hours earlier, the notion of a rescue effort seemed remote.
"We will be lucky if we don't lose 200 or 300 guys," said Michael Carter, the vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, who was on the scene. "There are entire companies we can't find. At this point, it's less of a firefighting operation and more like a war."
Like dazed and bloodied soldiers, thousands of firefighters and police officers wandered helplessly throughout the afternoon and evening on the West Side Highway, blocked by the danger of further catastrophe from attempting to enter the scene. Officials feared the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, another high-rise burning in the complex. It finally fell in the early evening.
By 9 a.m., about 200 firefighters had already arrived at the scene, many of them racing up stairways to reach people trapped on the upper floors, fire officials said. Many of the rescuers were from six-person units that specialize in building collapses, and many are now missing, presumed to have died when the buildings collapsed.
Marite Anez, who was working in an office on the 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, said that as she and hundreds of others scrambled down stairways, she passed many firefighters climbing up.
When she reached the first floor, she said, the building collapsed. "You couldn't see anything," she said. "That's when everyone panicked. Everyone was pushing. The fire people gave us light, showed us the way out. The ones who were going up, I'm sure they died."
Edward Fahey, among the first firefighters to arrive, said he had to dodge bodies that were being propelled from windows on the upper floors.
Robert Byrne, from a fire company on Houston Street, said he was on the 30th floor when the second plane hit. "We were trying to evacuate civilians," he said. "The hallways were filled with dust and smoke. The whole building was shaking. We feared it would collapse, and the chief said to get the hell out of there."
Like many survivors, Mr. Byrne seemed oblivious to the soot and dust that covered his body. He stared blankly and spoke haltingly.
"I managed to get out of the building just a few seconds before it collapsed," he said. "I hugged the wall with a couple of people. We got very lucky. I don't know what happened to the company. Just me and the lieutenant got out."
From the beginning, the city's emergency response was hampered. Soon after the first plane hit, the command center for the Office of Emergency Management at 7 World Trade Center was evacuated.
Fire officials set up a mobile unit outside the complex, on Vesey Street, but that was destroyed when the buildings came down. After that, fire officials moved their command post to a firehouse in Greenwich Village, at Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas.
There were conflicting reports about whether people in the second building were told to evacuate after the first tower was hit. Several people said they heard an annoucement over the building's public address system saying they should stay put, and that the building was secure. Others said they did not hear any announcements.
One former Port Authority official said that according to procedures drawn up with the Fire Department, evacuations would only be conducted on the floors immediately above and below the fire. With a capacity of 50,000 workers, simultaneous evacuation could lead to chaos, the former official said.
For many, the only help had to come from colleagues and others who were fleeing.
A woman who worked for Morgan Stanley on the 64th floor of Tower 2 -- able to walk only with crutches -- was carried down by fellow employees. "It was incredibly difficult," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. "They had me over their shoulder for 5 or 10 flights and just couldn't do it."
Another co-worker she knew only as Louis came upon the struggling group, lifted the woman to his shoulder and carried her by himself, she said, adding that the temperature in the stairwell was at least 90 degrees.
At about the 15th or 20th floor, the woman recalled, a security guard said they were out of danger, and urged Louis to leave the woman and continue on his own. Louis refused.
"He carried me down all 54 flights, and then out of the building," she said, "all the way to the E.M.T. guys, and he stuck with me until we got one who said I could go in an ambulance."
After the first building collapsed, people began looking everywhere for survivors amid the rubble. Flames popped out of an ambulance; taxis slammed into buildings. One man walked around calling out, "Is anyone there? Show me an arm. Show me an arm." He got no response.
Someone asked a firefighter, "Is there anything I can do?"
"There's nothing anybody can do," the firefighter replied. "There's nothing anybody can do."
Firefighters appeared utterly dejected and dumbfounded, standing around with their hands on their hips.
Mike Fitzpatrick, 38, said he and seven other firefighters were in the lobby of the first building to collapse when one became trapped. They had begun trying to cut him out when the second building collapsed, and they couldn't get hear him anymore. Then they had to leave.
"We stayed because one of our officers was trapped," he said. "We were trying to dig him out -- we were trying to dig him out. He was alive. It collapsed on him."
By 11 a.m., hundreds of dazed firefighters were on the scene. Many were on their knees; some were crying, their heads in their hands, sitting on piles of debris.
No one raced toward the wreckage, afraid that more would fall. Some called their families on borrowed cell phones.
"I love you too," one said. "I'll come home safe -- don't worry."
A sea of firefighters and police officers slumped against building or sat dejectedly on the West Side Highway for most of the afternoon. Many refused to talk. Many were in tears.
Lines of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles sat covered with a thick coating of dust and office papers that had floated out of the sky. They had come from Passaic, N.J., Hicksville, N.Y., all over the region, but mostly they had to sit and wait.
Frank Carino, 36, a New York firefighter, said he had tried to rescue men on the seventh and eighth floors of one building but the ladder of his aerial truck did not reach high enough. "They had broken the windows and they were yelling out at us the stairways were on fire," he said. "One of the men was using a megaphone." He added that he believed the two were rescued by firefighters within the building.
Another firefighter, who declined to give his name, knelt on the asphalt, a towel over his shoulder and his eyes bloodshot.
"I saw at least 10 people jump," he said. "I heard even more than that land and crash through the glass ceiling in the atrium. We could hear them crash. We thought the roof was crashing down but then we looked up and saw that people were falling through the glass. Some people fell right onto the pavement." He stopped, unable to continue talking.
He said he entered the lobby of 2 World Trade Center with his company, but was immediately blown across the lobby. "We did our best to crawl out," he said. "My company is still missing two guys. They went back in to help people."
By early evening, hundreds of firefighters stood and watched as ladder trucks poured water onto sections of the towers still belching black smoke. The sense of shock and urgency of earlier in the day was gone. As daylight faded, a handful of firefighters, constructions workers and police officers still scrambled over the rubble with flashlights, but found the same thing as teams earlier in the day -- no sounds, no voices, little sign of life.
The three blocks of Church Street that border the World Trade Center were lined with the burnt hulks of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars left where their drivers had abandoned them.
At the corner of Liberty and Church Streets, a five-story section of the top of a building loomed over the road, causing firefighters to stare anxiously above them as they walked below. A New York State flag still flew in front of 7 World Trade Center but the building was a blackened mass. Six inches of ash and office paper covered the graves at the St. James Cathedral, across the street from the towers.
The chaplain who died, Father Judge, 68, was found by firefighters on the street along with his driver. They recognized him and took him to St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street, where they laid his body at the altar. "The church was there and they figured it was a safe place to put him," said Brother Thomas Cole of the St. Francis Friary on 31st Street, where Father Judge lived.
His body, wrapped in sheets, was later moved to the empty firehouse across the street from the friary. Later, two dozen friars and firefighters, some weeping, held an impromptu service for him there, reciting the blessing of St. Francis: "May the Lord bless you and keep you and show his face to you, and have mercy on you."
Brother Cole said that Father Judge's morning prayer had been for "peace and joy in our city."
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, also a Fire Department chaplain, recalled that Father Judge gave a sermon recently, "a homily about how you have to enjoy each day with your friends and family. He was a remarkable human being."
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Lets not forget those people who help us when we need them - these guys are truly heroes
I would think that if Afgahnistan were stupid enought to be involved in this lunacy then they will reap the whirlwind. - the bombings are being carried out by the Afghani opposition and the mujahadeen rebels against the governemtn BUT the loss of a few civilians of a country that funds and supports terrorism and murders women whilst stamping all over and freedom society has is nothing weighed against a possible 50,000+ dead in the US
Slashdot Mirror
Not in plain sight means behind the scenes - LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT
Anyone who has read the details of this story would see that Mr West did not suddenly find this exploit =- he spent weeks looking for it - this negates the argument about random discovery and the in plain sight crap - oh ant the article in the newspaper analogy is total bullshit and a lame attempt to obfuscate the situation - no matter what page of the newspaper it is on it is considered not only in plain sight but in the public domain and is the most irrelvant argument i have ever seen - this information was found by deliberately looking for it and trying until it was found - the guys is a criminal and your attempts to defend him are misguided and franly laughable
He sought the information - he copied it - he distributed it and he boasted about it - he attempted to besmirch the name of a competitor to get business in what i consider the most pathetic attempt at blackmail that i have ever seen - in short he is a loser
End of story
In normal times the opinion of these 2 avowed members of the ultra conservative christian right would be ridiculed, but at this moment in time they will get wide support in some areas.
the terrorist actions commited on the 11th are such that many many americans will give up what they see as small freedoms in order to fight the supposed evil around them.
Enough small freedoms and you are living in a police state - and the scary thing is how easily this could be done in the US.
But in a way they are sort of right - with many modern systems and tools you dont have a hell of a lot of privacy in these areas unless you set out to make sure you have it.
I guess im the pointy haired sort of guy you are referring too.
To restate the obvious for those with IQ's lower than their shoe size - You have no right to have passwords and logons to any system you are not explicitly authorised to connect to. - thats simple fact. If you have said passwords then the intent is there to use thm - i dont care what bullshit defence you use to me.
These passwords were behind a secure (or thought) secure system - It apparently took mr west several weeks to get into this system so its not like they were in plain sight.
Yes im sure that this would prove that and if you got my password list i would resign from my company - thats proffeisonalism (although as i run a secured netWrk with 2 firewalls and a DMz server between the internet and all of my secured domain servers (with pin security access for remote logon and mail access only at that point - it would be a fucking good hacker (you aint he) who could manage it - and we have paid to have it tested - i would probably hire anyone who could do it in fact !)
Anyone who would break into your house would not leave a note moron, they would rob you blind.
Do you even live in the real world ? why is it not ok to break into someones house but perfectly acceptable to break into their servers ? What are you on about ?
You sir are a moron
And a troll
Get a job in the real world as a sysadmin and see how much sympathy you have for this shit then.
How easy it is to seperate the Sysadmins and suchlike on here from everyone else (excepting the trolls -- we know what they are)
The sysadmins and pros and suchlike who work in IT agree this guy committed a crime or provide rational arguments as to why he didnt - they can rationally understand it and even maybe support the FBI - they understand what they did, have read the articles and post insightfull comments and thoughtfull questions and maybe even have a laugh.
The other group include those who thing all hackers are cool and that the goverment has no right to keep them out, they throw up any argument no matter how tenuous to defend the actions of Mr West and then even resort to saying he was forced to confess under duress ! then theres the conspiracy theorists and the lame he didnt steal anything of value (which is wrong guys as they law treats theft of data like theft of anything else)
How much time will the actions of someone who is now a confessed criminal who wasnt sophisticated enough to cover his tracks going to get you all in a lather ? Hasnt he had his 15 seconds of fame yet?
Nope
Not legally
What did the victim lose - ok try prestige, good will (these BTW are measured and worth money to a business)
Its still illegal
Its still theft - the minute he copied the data it was theft. (And industrial espoinage is a criminal offence under US laws and considred theft)
Nahh our opinions on theft are different beacuse i have to spend money and time keeping pieces of work like this out of my systems
Sysadmins who leave a company and keep their passwords and then use them to get into companies have very short careers
Sysadmins who give passwords to friends have even shorter ones
There is an implicit trust and proffesionalism involved in being in control of system security - any admin worth 10cents would never give away passwords - if he did he would never ever get a job in IT again.
And any sysadmin who replaced another and didnt delete his predessors accounts and access and change service passwords deserves the same fate - its good housekeeping and its the first thing i do
You have a good point about this but for one simple fact - and this can be found by reading the logs - this guy isn't going to trial because he hung himself out to dry by admitting he had done it, boasting to people (including the editor of the paper) keeping the stolen files and then giving passwords to a friend.
In other words the evidence alone would hang him - the fact that he tends to come across as an arrogant person in his writings and letters, and dont forget he only tried the white hat when caught.
people like this guy think the law doesnt apply to them, they think that computer crime is something no one else will understand and that makes it hard to prove etc, it isnt - trust me i have worked with Australian Federal Police investigators at a previous role (involving an attempted hacking incident at a financial instituion) these guys were very very smart and skilled and 2 of them were ex hackers (1 who had served jail time) they know what they are doing.
This guy has to have committed the most amaterish, pathetic and misguided hack in history and then thought he could use the open source movement to cover himself and the EFF to protect him - he was wrong and this should teach us a lesson.
All is not what it seems in these cases - IMHO there is no such thing as white hat or black hat ONLY hackers - any justification you can try and find wont change the fact that these guys support an ethos surrounded in getting access to things they havent been given.
Hacking is wrong. FULL STOP
He STOLE the scripts which were the LAWFUL property of the company he hacked into - His intention appears to have been to PERMANENTLY deprive the owner of their customers
And the same laws that cover industrial espionage would cover this as according to the information on hand he was a competitor to the company who he hacked thus this a direct attack on their ability to trade
This is Theft - not to mention the passwords and logons he stole which is also theft
this argument is no defence - they were not gifted to the individual he found a way in and stole them - thats the crime - the security of the system is not relevant and in this case the guy spent weeks looking for a way in - hardly easy then is it ?
Answers
A: He boasted about it to the Newspaper editor and several other people (read the info on his case on the web - its in newspaper accounts)
B: they didnt have to - the guys a fool - he left the evidence on his computers and bragged to the people he hacked - who notified the local police who called the FBI
C: Naah - this is what he did wrong - he committed a crime and got caught and charged - why bother keeping definding the little shit ?
The argument over intellectual property is so much crap - they were on a secured password protected section of a server he had no legal access to and also i will point out one belonging to a competitor of his - and he stole them thus commiting theft.
The FBI has jurisdiction on this and the other reason they were called in one suspects is that the brain dead i mean defendant boasted about hacking into a local banks systems (a lie it seems but he saids it on the record in an interview with the nespaper and it was thus reported) and if that bank had Federal Investment Deposit Insurance (FIDC) then any crime committed against it becomes a federal crime and the FBI investigates.
Now are we done defending this guy ? hes a hacker - full stop.
Lets get this straight - independant forces and overwhelming evidence of what he actually did are everywhere - his fingerprints are all over the server and hes too dumb to delete the passwords and files he stole BUT obviously the police and FBI made him confess under duress ?
What IS the weather like on your planet
As a corporate IT manager i would like to ask you one question ?
Under what circumstances does a username/password list to systems you have not been implicitly given access to come in handy ?
The only reason to have passwords to a system that you do not have rights to is to connect to it without permission - i look at this as a simple thing - it is unauthorised access and theefore illegal.
When will some people get this through their heads - if you have someone elses account and password obtained from any source which does not have authoirity (eg the Sysadmin or network admin) then you are commiting a crime - you should not have it.
It doesnt matter what you do with them or where you got them, possesion is Intent - Intent is used to prosecute.
think about this scenario - the police for some reason suspect you of hacking - they come to your house and find on your computer some information or artivles on hacking, maybe a hacking program and they find a list of passwords and logins to systems and websites.
Guess what - thats intent and you are getting charged with hacking, if they happen to be bank system passwords you are probaly going to be charged with fraud. They might not prove the charges but they have sufficient prima fascie evidence of crime of intent to commit to charge you with these things.
I cannot see ANY justification to have lists of passwords and user names to anybody elses system unless they gave them to you - the White Hat or Just Looking Around or Education arguments are so much crap its not funny and its the argument all the hackers attempt when they are caught.
Any 5 year old can sell crack - its illegal as well.
He didnt just 'hack it' he stole data - thats a computer crime and he pled guilty - end of case.
I was one of those people who said this the last time and got flamed and moderated down for suggesting the guy might not be all he seemed.
Some slashdot readers need to read the information and think about things
If the slashdot readership is the top 1% then i can sudenly see why the country is in such deep shit - if the top 1% whine about windows and spending their time posting goatsex links instead of going to college and attempting to fix the country they whinge about other peoples browser choices and OS choices and oh hell etc etc.
Arrogance seems to be an american personality trait lately - lets hope the rest of the world doesnt pay for it
Sort of of like an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth ?
Would do you good to read your copy of the old testament as well my friend - you might find with a shock that it amd the Qumran (and the torah) are very very similar.
And this passage sounds very familiar, hhhmmmm
I see know with a bit of rewording you get...
'And today in washington President Bush Said "those people who oppose the united states will pay for their actions, we will bring them to justice, those who are terrorist and those who harbour them, this is a war against evil, May god bless america"
Its all how you look at it, isnt it ?
You first reaction as a country to this tragedy is to kill as many people you can get your hands on. You second reaction is to attempt to lockdown the whole country and thus remove and civil liberties and privacy anyone has.
For a country with a supposed history as a bright and shining beacon of democracry and freedom it doesnt sound that free or democratic does it?
How about taking out you copy of the constituion and reading the bit about free and equal again ?
I am beggining to wonder if the US govt didnt do this themselves, think about it - the economy is flattening and recession is on the horizon, what better way to forestall it than a war ? and at the same time the govt can get rid of a lot of pesky objections to things like echelon and carnivore and lock down the population even tighter ? no im only specualting but it scares me almost as much as your presidents 'im the biggest damn bully in the playground' attitude does - the solution to all the problems in the world is kill people until everyone agrees with you.
Are we truly seeing the end of the land of the free ?
I see and understand the sentiment but i fear you are missing the point a little - i posed the question how much is enough blood ? do you propose that the administration get serious and wipe out the afghanistani race ? is another 100000 deaths going to wipe clean any action ?
Blood begets blood - the more people you kill the more they will kill your people - its a fact as old as human civilization and this sort of reaction from the US comes about only because you go to war now by pushing buttons.
How many of your ground troops would die in a land war ?
Lesson of life 1. Dont fight a land war in russia
lesson 2. Dont fight a land war in asia
No one has ever succesfully fought a land war in asia without massive casualties
Now is the time for some clear and rational thought not the kneejerk 'kill em all' calls.
As sickened and saddened as i am by the whole thing, the murder of innocents i have to stand and look at the USA (im in Australia) with something of an attitude of fear and horror.
The thing is that yes 'someone' commited a horrific crime on the US, and that means someone should be punsished, but what level of punishment ?
How many people must die to assauge your grief? 2000, 10000, 50000, 100000, 1 million ? whats enough blood.
I seen people on here and in interviews in your streets who think and believe that you should use nuclear weapons to 'solve' this ? on who ? who do you blow up first ? Afghanistan will likely be the first target but whos the last - i mean there will still be arabs in palestine, do you kill them, what about the Iraqi's, The Iranians ? Hey there are muslims in India, Indonesia ?
What are we talking here - Genocide ? the Germans did that but they used ovens didnt they .
Im not criticising the need for justice but i am condemming the mindless calls for revenge. This sort of action needs to be taken in the cold light of day and soberly considered. There may be legitimate targets - Bin Laden defintely, but these can be dealt with safely and easily (otherwise what are all your vaunted Intelligence ans special forces organisations good for ?)
Would it not make sense to be humane and show the world that democracy and christianity stands for compassion and control - the massive carpet bombing, invasions and land wars wont solve the problem, innocent deaths will add to them and make a much bigger problem.
So i urge you all to think before plunging headlong into a war that could kill many many innocent people and maybe plunge the world into another world conflict. The very people you want to kill in Afghanistan have no TV, no freedom, no rights and most have no food or money or any of the things you take for granted - yet you want to kill them for something 1 fanatic did for whatever misguded reasons ?
Being a beacon of light and hope to the world does not involve the murder of innocent people, the US has set itself up to be the kingdom of hope for many - the only way that the US can be the statesman of the world is to act like it now, show the world they are civilised and intelligent people who can think without revenge and act with restraint.
if not then god help us all.
The saudis would require PROOF of aghani government involvement (as would the international courts) and that means GOVERNMENT documents linking the government to the plot
they wont find it and they wont support a full scale invasion of Afghanistan.
ALSO SHOW ME THE PROOF IT WAS ARABS - So far its speculation - and if arabs they could be egyptian, palestinian, libyan, yemeni, iranian, iraqi etc
Do we kill everyone in the world whos not an american ?
Tell me whats the weather like on your planet ?
China chooses not to invade Taiwan
Dont mistake a decision not to act with the inability to act - do a bit of research
World largest army
Worlds largest airforce
2nd largest navy
largest nuclear arsenal
all modern and highly trained
The US is not invincible
Israel invavded lebanon in the early 1970's - eer heard of beirut ?
They invaded the golan heights, the west bank etc all soverign territory of another nation - they started the mess they are in and they are the cause of it.
Shah of Iran - Until the revolution an ally of the US (proves that you are under the age of 25)then Iraq was an ally then and enemy and now Iran are allies (sort of) again.
What does polynesia have to do with east timor ? look at a map - its about 3000km away - and you deserved to be told to butt our if the incident you are talking about is samoa
Yes you went to wat in serbia (if you call it that) 5 years AFTER the serbians started 'ethnic cleansing' moslems, croatians and anyone else they didnt quite like -hardly proactive and coming after everyone is dead is hardly a humanitarian gesture.
You would never leave the middle east alone - you cant survive without the oil.
Try this one on - Kuwait are allies after the war, Saudi are allies of convenience (invade a moslem country and see what happens (hint-why didnt the US invade iraq?) Israel have no other friends so of course they are allies - what can you say about claiming as a friend a country that lobs rockets into schools for the fun of it ?
A few more examples of US freedom and democracy in action for you BTW
Haiti - Nope didnt lift a finger except to refuse refugees landing rights
El Salvador - Behind closed doors support for a guerilla movement that was left to die when the US were caught
Chile - Maintained Diplomatic relations while Alledne was mass murdering dissidents
Argentina - See above RE pinochet
Colombia - Provides a pathetic amount of support for another country and expects them to fight the war on drugs
Somalia - Again went in after most of the fighting was over
Burma - havent made a peep abouot the wide spread human rights abuses and mass murder carried out by an 'allied' govermnet
india/pakistan - an ally and a former ally who practice active genocide against eash others citzens
Afghanistan - You support the Mujahadeen to throw out the Russians and then cut support when they try and bring democracy back by fighting the taliban.
American foreign policy is one of hypocrisy. This country needs to PROVE it is the Bastion of freedom for all from opression - the bright ans shining light of democracy and peace - ACTIONS speak louder than words.
This is a great country and we should be proud of what we have accomplished, but we also need to be aware that our actions or refusal to act cause deaths every day - this week it hit home here.
instead of bombing people this is what we do - support the palestnian resoltion to throw israel out of the Lebanese posessions - give them back the country they had stolen from them with US support - only then will the world begin to believe we are on the side of right.
PS You are obviously in middle school - i dont mean that as an insult - so i suggest a bit of history might be worth reading - if you are not in middle school god help us all - this country has a short memory for the past.
Let me get this straight
No proof of aghanistani imnovlvement at all
No proof it even was Bin Laden
No proof of any muslim complicity
Yet you suggest a ground war in a soveriegn nation ruled by an Islamic government ?
Geez thats a great idea, lets unite the muslim world against us and have a Jihad declared so they can kill as many people as they can,
and how hard would it be to win in Afghanistan - i mean the russians had so much luck didnt they !
Moron
Get pakistan onboard ? a muslim ruled country is going to support military action against a neighbour carried out by a major ally of their sworn enemy (India)
The sobiet republics count for shit anyway - have a think about the chinese reaction for a second - yeah they COULD win a world war against the us !
Move through IRAN ? Are you fucking mad ? IRan are playing nice and all but christ invade the country ? Let me see now - why DO you think Saddam Hussein is alive ? if the US wants him dead then he would be but they cannot as the power vaccum and implications of killing him would be huge.
Lets recap the likely and possible consequences of an invasion of Afganistan.
1. the muslim world declares a Jihad on the US and her allies
2. Saudi Arabis kicks all US troops out of the country
3. Ditto Jordan.
4. Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Libya form a coalition of forces and move in support of the US
5. Pakistan sends troops over their border
7. The chinese make VERY VERY clear that the usage of any non conventional weapons will be unacceptable (and they will)
Suddenly the US are at war with the entire muslim world whilst they are cut off from oil supplies and the already weakened economoy collapses.
You sir habe not even though beyond the kille em all basis
When you post this sort of shit have the balls to use a name and email address - no im not muslim but this is the sort of simple minded and feeble crap that leads to these sort of events, this country has stodd by when Israel invaded palestine in the 70's, stood by when the friendly Shah was overthrown in, ignored Serbian mass murder, ignored Indonesian mass murder in East
Timor, etc etc
It sometimes seems like the US is the beacon of freedom and democracy but only for white christian states or those who are wealthy allies.
Maybe this is a clarion call for us to get back to reality and look at what this country does in the world and why - have any of you stopped to think a simple question---
Why do these people hate us so much ??
Something for us all to note that many many families lost parents tonight - and we should not forget the firemen and police - over 300 estimated in various media outlets - attempting to rescue people - these are tru non combatants whose only thought was for the injured and dying.
S C. html
There is a n NY time story here - but i have copied the text into this post to attempt to cope with the massively overloaded servers they have today
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12RE
Firefighters Dash Into Towers; Many Do Not Return
By JANE FRITSCH
New York firefighters, impelled by instinct and training, rushed to the World Trade Center yesterday to evacuate victims. Then the buildings fell down. The firefighters never came out.
More than 100 were unaccounted for, possibly making this the worst disaster in the New York Fire Department's history, explosions having collapsed the two main towers onto the first wave of rescuers as they snaked through stairwells and hallways. In the tumult, the temporary command center set up on a nearby street to deal with the calamity was buried in a rolling wave of concrete chunks.
Among those who died there were Chief of Department Peter J. Ganci, and First Deputy Fire Commissioner William M. Feehan. Also killed was one of the department's Roman Catholic chaplains, Michael F. Judge, who had rushed to the scene to comfort victims.
There was no trace of three of the fire department's most elite units, Rescues 1, 2 and 4, officials said last night.
A police official said last night that some officers at the scene were also unaccounted for, but "we don't have numbers." The official denied reports of 60 missing officers from the department's Emergency Services Unit, and 18 from the Brooklyn North Task Force.
Police officials said that as the day unfolded, several officers who had been presumed lost had surfaced. "The numbers are not that extravagant," said Assistant Chief Thomas P. Fahey. As night deepened, officials were able to bring in cranes and heavy shovels to begin moving rubble in hopes of finding survivors. At the same time, they had to contend with several fires that were still burning in adjacent buildings, officials said.
But hours earlier, the notion of a rescue effort seemed remote.
"We will be lucky if we don't lose 200 or 300 guys," said Michael Carter, the vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, who was on the scene. "There are entire companies we can't find. At this point, it's less of a firefighting operation and more like a war."
Like dazed and bloodied soldiers, thousands of firefighters and police officers wandered helplessly throughout the afternoon and evening on the West Side Highway, blocked by the danger of further catastrophe from attempting to enter the scene. Officials feared the collapse of 7 World Trade Center, another high-rise burning in the complex. It finally fell in the early evening.
By 9 a.m., about 200 firefighters had already arrived at the scene, many of them racing up stairways to reach people trapped on the upper floors, fire officials said. Many of the rescuers were from six-person units that specialize in building collapses, and many are now missing, presumed to have died when the buildings collapsed.
Marite Anez, who was working in an office on the 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, said that as she and hundreds of others scrambled down stairways, she passed many firefighters climbing up.
When she reached the first floor, she said, the building collapsed. "You couldn't see anything," she said. "That's when everyone panicked. Everyone was pushing. The fire people gave us light, showed us the way out. The ones who were going up, I'm sure they died."
Edward Fahey, among the first firefighters to arrive, said he had to dodge bodies that were being propelled from windows on the upper floors.
Robert Byrne, from a fire company on Houston Street, said he was on the 30th floor when the second plane hit. "We were trying to evacuate civilians," he said. "The hallways were filled with dust and smoke. The whole building was shaking. We feared it would collapse, and the chief said to get the hell out of there."
Like many survivors, Mr. Byrne seemed oblivious to the soot and dust that covered his body. He stared blankly and spoke haltingly.
"I managed to get out of the building just a few seconds before it collapsed," he said. "I hugged the wall with a couple of people. We got very lucky. I don't know what happened to the company. Just me and the lieutenant got out."
From the beginning, the city's emergency response was hampered. Soon after the first plane hit, the command center for the Office of Emergency Management at 7 World Trade Center was evacuated.
Fire officials set up a mobile unit outside the complex, on Vesey Street, but that was destroyed when the buildings came down. After that, fire officials moved their command post to a firehouse in Greenwich Village, at Houston Street and Avenue of the Americas.
There were conflicting reports about whether people in the second building were told to evacuate after the first tower was hit. Several people said they heard an annoucement over the building's public address system saying they should stay put, and that the building was secure. Others said they did not hear any announcements.
One former Port Authority official said that according to procedures drawn up with the Fire Department, evacuations would only be conducted on the floors immediately above and below the fire. With a capacity of 50,000 workers, simultaneous evacuation could lead to chaos, the former official said.
For many, the only help had to come from colleagues and others who were fleeing.
A woman who worked for Morgan Stanley on the 64th floor of Tower 2 -- able to walk only with crutches -- was carried down by fellow employees. "It was incredibly difficult," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. "They had me over their shoulder for 5 or 10 flights and just couldn't do it."
Another co-worker she knew only as Louis came upon the struggling group, lifted the woman to his shoulder and carried her by himself, she said, adding that the temperature in the stairwell was at least 90 degrees.
At about the 15th or 20th floor, the woman recalled, a security guard said they were out of danger, and urged Louis to leave the woman and continue on his own. Louis refused.
"He carried me down all 54 flights, and then out of the building," she said, "all the way to the E.M.T. guys, and he stuck with me until we got one who said I could go in an ambulance."
After the first building collapsed, people began looking everywhere for survivors amid the rubble. Flames popped out of an ambulance; taxis slammed into buildings. One man walked around calling out, "Is anyone there? Show me an arm. Show me an arm." He got no response.
Someone asked a firefighter, "Is there anything I can do?"
"There's nothing anybody can do," the firefighter replied. "There's nothing anybody can do."
Firefighters appeared utterly dejected and dumbfounded, standing around with their hands on their hips.
Mike Fitzpatrick, 38, said he and seven other firefighters were in the lobby of the first building to collapse when one became trapped. They had begun trying to cut him out when the second building collapsed, and they couldn't get hear him anymore. Then they had to leave.
"We stayed because one of our officers was trapped," he said. "We were trying to dig him out -- we were trying to dig him out. He was alive. It collapsed on him."
By 11 a.m., hundreds of dazed firefighters were on the scene. Many were on their knees; some were crying, their heads in their hands, sitting on piles of debris.
No one raced toward the wreckage, afraid that more would fall. Some called their families on borrowed cell phones.
"I love you too," one said. "I'll come home safe -- don't worry."
A sea of firefighters and police officers slumped against building or sat dejectedly on the West Side Highway for most of the afternoon. Many refused to talk. Many were in tears.
Lines of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles sat covered with a thick coating of dust and office papers that had floated out of the sky. They had come from Passaic, N.J., Hicksville, N.Y., all over the region, but mostly they had to sit and wait.
Frank Carino, 36, a New York firefighter, said he had tried to rescue men on the seventh and eighth floors of one building but the ladder of his aerial truck did not reach high enough. "They had broken the windows and they were yelling out at us the stairways were on fire," he said. "One of the men was using a megaphone." He added that he believed the two were rescued by firefighters within the building.
Another firefighter, who declined to give his name, knelt on the asphalt, a towel over his shoulder and his eyes bloodshot.
"I saw at least 10 people jump," he said. "I heard even more than that land and crash through the glass ceiling in the atrium. We could hear them crash. We thought the roof was crashing down but then we looked up and saw that people were falling through the glass. Some people fell right onto the pavement." He stopped, unable to continue talking.
He said he entered the lobby of 2 World Trade Center with his company, but was immediately blown across the lobby. "We did our best to crawl out," he said. "My company is still missing two guys. They went back in to help people."
By early evening, hundreds of firefighters stood and watched as ladder trucks poured water onto sections of the towers still belching black smoke. The sense of shock and urgency of earlier in the day was gone. As daylight faded, a handful of firefighters, constructions workers and police officers still scrambled over the rubble with flashlights, but found the same thing as teams earlier in the day -- no sounds, no voices, little sign of life.
The three blocks of Church Street that border the World Trade Center were lined with the burnt hulks of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars left where their drivers had abandoned them.
At the corner of Liberty and Church Streets, a five-story section of the top of a building loomed over the road, causing firefighters to stare anxiously above them as they walked below. A New York State flag still flew in front of 7 World Trade Center but the building was a blackened mass. Six inches of ash and office paper covered the graves at the St. James Cathedral, across the street from the towers.
The chaplain who died, Father Judge, 68, was found by firefighters on the street along with his driver. They recognized him and took him to St. Peter's Church on Barclay Street, where they laid his body at the altar. "The church was there and they figured it was a safe place to put him," said Brother Thomas Cole of the St. Francis Friary on 31st Street, where Father Judge lived.
His body, wrapped in sheets, was later moved to the empty firehouse across the street from the friary. Later, two dozen friars and firefighters, some weeping, held an impromptu service for him there, reciting the blessing of St. Francis: "May the Lord bless you and keep you and show his face to you, and have mercy on you."
Brother Cole said that Father Judge's morning prayer had been for "peace and joy in our city."
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, also a Fire Department chaplain, recalled that Father Judge gave a sermon recently, "a homily about how you have to enjoy each day with your friends and family. He was a remarkable human being."
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Lets not forget those people who help us when we need them - these guys are truly heroes
I would think that if Afgahnistan were stupid enought to be involved in this lunacy then they will reap the whirlwind. - the bombings are being carried out by the Afghani opposition and the mujahadeen rebels against the governemtn BUT the loss of a few civilians of a country that funds and supports terrorism and murders women whilst stamping all over and freedom society has is nothing weighed against a possible 50,000+ dead in the US