CRYPT NEWSLETTER 48 May -- June 1998 Editor: George Smith, Ph.D. INTERNET: 70743.1711@compuserve.com crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt Mail to: Crypt Newsletter 1635 Wagner St. Pasadena, CA 91106 ph: 626-568-1748 Crypt Newsletter articles may not be copied or reproduced in or on other media, on CD-ROM collections of data, or offered - in part or in toto - as part of any database, data survey, information or research service without prior consent of the editor. Rates based on word count are reasonable. Queries by e-mail are welcome. 旼컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� � Contents: Crypt Newsletter #48 � 읕컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴컴� THIS ISSUE NEWS How d'ya say "Electronic Pearl Harbor" in Hindi? Inside Dr. Strangelove's Holy Temple of Phlogiston: News of the ultimate software weapon arrives in Signal The US Army's telepathic heart flutter virus 666! Unusual anti-macro virus software from Slovakia News of the Pentagon hackers rumbles on Liquor in the front, poker in the rear of the flyin' saucer: John B. Alexander on TV, Science Applications International Corp. MISCELLANY Letters page Credits/Acknowledgment ------------------------------------------------------------------------ How d'ya say "electronic Pearl Harbor" in Hindi? From the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service comes an April 1 -- and Crypt Newsletter is not foolin' -- report from the Delhi Navbharat Times entitled "Report Warns of Computer 'War,' Hackers." Inspired by the fear and loathing of potential information warfare sneak attacks now convulsing portions of the U.S. government and Dept. of Defense, India appears to be mirroring almost exactly the American processes -- even down to the same jargon and titles. Just like many recent news stories in the American mainstream media, the Delhi Times piece reports: "Indian army officials understand that when India becomes totally dependent on information technology, as are the developed countries, any terrorist outfit or any foreign government can, in principle, launch a continuous computer attack on India's information structure and reduce it to pieces. Thus, banking and financial transactions can be impeded, computer system for the stock market can be destroyed; computer networks for linking major cities by railway can be devastated; deviations in the flight paths of airplanes could be affected to cause serious accidents; and, Indian cyberspace could become an advance front. India could be thrust into such a war, in which the attacker could not even be detected, leading to the total collapse of the Indian administrative system. "An information group of Indian Army Headquarters has projected such a situation and has given many suggestions to the Government of India to save the country from such an attack and advised on formulating a security strategy by combining private sector and the government computer systems." In a move eerily similar to the U.S., a computer networking advisory arm of the Indian government (or military, it's not quite clear) has convened a group called NII-Defense, for "National Information Infrastructure - Defense." An Indian army official warned his government that in the future any nation could be simply devastated by an electronic computerized assault -- no more tanks, fighter planes, cannons or missiles needed. "American experts believe that in order to save America from an electronic 'Pearl Harbor' (the American island on which the Japanese launched their opening attack during the Second World War) it is necessary for [emergency measures] to be implemented without delay," reports the Delhi Times. The Indian army has stonily suggested "Ten Commandments" for protecting national computer networks from infowar assaults: (1) sensitive areas should be identified; (2) special arrangements should be made to protect military systems; (3) information about possible dangers should be released in advance; (4) emergency squads should be formed; (5) the possible way or ways from which this computer attack could be made should be protected; (6) the use of passwords should be encouraged; (7) work should be done for creating an order between a worldwide information structure of defense; (8) the related legal system should be strengthened; (9) instead of big information networks, small or medium sized mutually-linked information networks should be developed; and (10), special attention should be paid to certain special sectors. Again, mirroring U.S. national anti-"electronic Pearl Harbor" recommendations, the Indian military has advocated closer cooperation with the nation's corporate sector. For the Delhi Times, the Indian military official offered one nightmare scenario, involving the dreaded electronic pulse gun, in which the Asian country might be brought down in 2005 A.D.: " . . . a high-powered microwave signal could be sent from India's INSAT telecommunication satellite, thus penetrating the prevailing information system. By this means a wrong command could be sent to Mumbai's coastal mineral oil installations to cause a massive disturbance and disrupt the country's entire power supply. The same way, by destroying many information systems of other sectors of the infrastructure the country's entire economy could be blown to pieces." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dr. Strangelove's Holy Temple of Phlogiston: The ultimate software weapon arrives in a press release. "In a significant Internet breakthrough that could enhance electronic commerce and protect sensitive corporate and government data, computer scientists have developed a new virus that automatically launches a lethal counter offensive against hackers." Written in the pseudo-authoritative tone that's become the watermark of corporate exaggeration, the above blurb came in over the electronic transom via the Business Newswire on May 6. It makes the assumption that most Americans -- including magazine editors -- are certified ninnies fresh from the Roman province of Paphlagonia, where the populace gained the reputation of extreme stupidity, ready to swallow even the grossest delusion. The Business Newswire press release breathlessly continued, ". . . a growing echelon of chief technology officers are likening the stealthy, anti-hacker virus to the digital equivalent of Star Wars technology: once a computer server detects an attack on its security it launches a killer virus that knocks out the computer on the other end by destroying both software and hardware." The miraculous software is called a "Blitzkrieg server." Alert readers of Crypt Newsletter will note the conflation of two myths in the sales pitch: The computer virus that destroys hardware and . . . Star Wars, which existed only on paper. The Business Newswire release injected a good amount of phlogiston into the mix, attributing quotes to an editor named Clarence A. Robinson of Signal magazine, who stated for the hype machine, "This has profound implications for the Internet . . . [Many are] worried a hacker will someday succeed in stealing or destroying sensitive data . . . missile silo locations, that kind of stuff. But this new nonlinear algorithm means a successful penetration could be a hacker's worst nightmare." Robinson, as a former editor of Aviation Week & Space Technology, acquired a reputation for stories alleged to be from the heart of the U.S. military's black development projects, leading the magazine to gain the nickname, "Aviation Leak." So, the real gems on the anti-hacker virus server are found not in the press release, but in the cover story of the May issue of Signal magazine, the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association's (AFCEA) professional journal. In an article on the "Blitzkrieg server," Robinson, Signal's editor-in-chief, combines ferociously impenetrable techno-gobble, a loaded wheelbarrow of anonymous sources and a doomsday conspiracy of unnamed Japanese and American hackers thwarted by "Blitzkrieg." ". . . the Blitzkrieg server is a self-programmed, fault-immune, ubiquitous virus-like system," he writes. Developed by a Santa Fe, New Mexico, scientist named Larry Wood, Blitzkrieg is a product of the (and Crypt Newsletter is not making this up) Network Waffen Und Munistionsfabriken [sic] Group. Robinson quotes an unnamed (of course, it always must be this way) CIA "information security specialist" who said the Blitzkrieg server's "digital life form" was "potentially more dangerous than nuclear weapons." Another yahoo, this one a "law enforcement agent" of equally nebulous origin, is called upon to state for the record that "[Blitzkrieg]" is a computer virus with an attitude." Scientist Wood is credited with forming an "advanced machine intelligence information warfare group" used to solve "intractable" information warfare problems at DoD. For Signal, Wood claimed that Blitzkrieg had been responsible for determining "Japanese nationals," in cooperation with the "2600 international hacker group," were about to attack U.S. corporations and state government offices in California. Blitzkrieg thwarted the Japanese attack after "thousands" of Americans and "hundreds" of corporations were affected. The State Department declined to file a protest or notify the media, the Signal article indicates. And now, lest your attention be wandering, comes the really good part. Apparently, the "Blitzkrieg server" is powered by "self-programmed adaptive automatacapsids--variable length string transformation rules." "When examined on an individual basis, no automatacapsid in and of itself has any meaning," said Wood for Signal. "The automatacapsid only has value in the context of the distributed Blitzkrieg server network collective . . . the adaptive automatacapsids, like fragments of a living virus without a host cell, transform one another and data, and they spontaneously generate or regenerate new automatacapsids to meet every conceivable complex data analysis need." Hold it. Just a little further. Crypt Newsletter is not done yet. Wood goes on to say to Signal that his "automatacapsids" make the "Blitzkrieg server" invincible. And they are dependent on another Wood discovery -- the "unified general equation of motion -- or UGEM." Readers are informed the Wood Unified General Equation of Motion has something to do with the control of complexity and all organization in nature. So Blitzkrieg, the scientist claimed in Signal, is "the first true virus-like collective digital life form." All of this material is, of course, hooked to a sales pitch by a company called The FutureVision Group. Ultimately, all the fantastic lore is aimed at getting the interested investor or potential buyer to a high tech conference sponsored by AFCEA in Washington, D.C., in June in which the "Blitzkrieg server" will be used to "simulate a computer attack that disables a defense agency by making it impossible to launch any missiles." Unsurprisingly, the nature of the Signal feature immediately generated a storm of protest, said editor Robinson in interview. Startlingly, even Crypt Newsletter received a handful of letters from AFCEA members, commenting rudely on Signal's "Waffen Und . . . " piece. AFCEA member and Computer Virus Myths webmaster, Rob Rosenberger, who is no stranger to Crypt Newsletter pages, wrote "I couldn't believe it when the May issue arrived." It was, he wrote, "absolute bullshit." Rosenberger wrote that he had joined AFCEA during an Air Force stint in the 1980s and ironically upgraded to a life membership because he likes Signal magazine. "Believe it or not, this was my very first issue as a life member," Rosenberger wrote. Robinson said some of the mail Signal received accused him of being duped although he insisted the story had been carefully checked. "It is not an April Fool's joke," he said. Robinson read one such letter over the telephone, attributed to a National Security Agency representative who had requested Signal not name him. The letter, said Robinson, called the Waffen Und Munistionsfabriken piece ". . . a travesty, a cartoon, a science fiction treatment from . . . an improbably named company." The letter said AFCEA had been made an "immediate laughingstock" and that such "nonsense" should be immediately retracted. Although originally sworn to secrecy, "now the whole story can be told," said Robinson. So, read it and weep: The corporate site hacked in the Signal article turned out to be a branch of Xyan, an on demand digital printing company. The branch, based in San Francisco and staffed by approximately fifty employees, found its security compromised about two days after a disgruntled worker, who fancied himself a member of the hacker underground, was fired, according to its resident system administrator, Steve Strickland. Strickland explained that the company's Webpage had been defaced and was replaced with a hyperlink to a porn site. Further, vulnerabilities in the branch's sendmail program were abused so the attacker, or attackers, could send nuisance mail to other sites. One of these messages read "If you want free access to an adult site, point your browser to [FutureVision Group's site] . . ." said Strickland, which is how he came in contact with Larry Wood. Wood, said Strickland, "was really nice and helped me in time of great need." Strickland had been frustrated by the response he had received from authorities. "The Feds weren't interested," he said. The Xyan branch problems eventually abated through a combination of factors: Boredom on the part of the attacker, Larry Wood's help and a name change of Strickland's domain. The FBI's Albuquerque office, originally cited anonymously in the Signal article, had little comment. FBI agent H. Douglas Beldon said of the Blitzkrieg server: "[The office] is reviewing Larry Wood's software, just as we would anyone's -- but has no position on it good or bad." Beldon said no claims were made about the Blitzkrieg server but that the office had been getting a lot of calls about it. The agent also said he was not familiar with the Signal magazine article. Robinson said that Signal would continue to cover Waffen Und Munistionsfabriken and that "we welcome you to witness the [Blitzkrieg] server" at the AFCEA TechNet conference in June. In a slight twist of irony, AFCEA Technet's kick-off speaker will be Pulitzer-winning humor writer Dave Barry. Repeat to yourself: "This is not a joke, this is not a joke . . . " ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notes: For those readers with an excessively dry sense of humor Crypt Newsletter suggests much of this particular story seems accidentally cloned from "Killswitch," an episode of The X-Files that aired earlier this television season. In "Killswitch," a group of computer scientists, one from Santa Fe, created the first digital life form -- a series of "concatenated automata viruses." Scully and Mulder, along with the bumbling editors of Lone Gunman magazine, tracked the intelligent software to a crumbling trailer filled with computer hardware parked in the woods near Fairfax, Virginia. The original Business Newswire from May 6 was datelined -- Fairfax. Even Tom Maddox, a science-fiction author who, along with William Gibson, was one of the scriptwriters for "Killswitch" was amused by Signal's unusual description of the Blitzkrieg server in a letter to Crypt Newsletter. HP E-Business: A part of Paphlagonia, too? In related news, Hewlett Packard's Website features a corporate organ called E-Business magazine. In an, uh, April article, the organ reports on Larry Wood's Unified General Equation of Motion in the same hallucinatory style as Signal magazine: "[FutureVision] is in the midst of patenting [its] breakthrough . . . it provides a mechanism to harness the quantum decoherence process for computational purposes, allowing decoherence to flourish and difficult non-linear problems to be solved. Moreover, it resolves Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and solves any problem characterized as Continuous NP-Complete. (Question -- does an undirected graph have a single optimal Hamiltonian circuit out of 50,000+ factorial possibilities? Answer -- yes.)" Which would seem indisputable. The Hewlett Packard organ claimed FutureVision has a "contract" with the National Security Agency -- a statement Crypt Newsletter quickly checked and found to be baseless. Hewlett Packard's April treatise on "decoherent computing" and FutureVision finishes with the crusher: "Today's behemoth battles over whether the future of computing will be a Microsoft/Intel or a Java-based world will be nothing but spittle on some old man's chin a few years hence . . . the rise and fall of stock indices will ebb and flow like so much hyperbole, based on which company and technology has the more believable illusion of grandeur." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Unusual anti-virus software renders virus underground magazines obsolete. The Slovak Antivirus Center in Bratislava, Slovakia, has been distributing an intriguing word macro virus analyzer with functions that render much of the need for 'zines from the virus underground obsolete. Generally speaking, most current virus-writer e-zines are tedious reads, almost totally bereft of genuine wit. In fact, their sole reason for existence can be boiled down to a yearning for oodles of commented virus source code common in would-be virus writers, trivial saboteurs/information warriors and a variegated collection of unclassifiable computing-obsessed weirdos. The Slovak Antivirus Center's "Heuristic Macro Virus Scanner" is a sophisticated word macro virus analyzer that not only detects Microsoft Word viruses but will also reconstitute the virus writer's original commented macro virus source code in Word Basic. Since macro virus Word Basic code is one of the products of virus underground e-zines, the SAC scanner makes them completely beside the point. It will, on command, output the virus source code for just about any Word macro virus supplied which has its useful . . . as well as not-so-useful applications. This makes it a powerful tool for many among even the most techno-lost. For example, if NASA information technology experts had had a copy of the SAC software when the organization was fighting its SWLABS macro virus infection recently, anyone could have pointed the program at infected documents and read the source code for the virus. If so, they would have seen, as well as the code of the virus, the comments of the author, a virus kit user. As you can read, this part of the code doesn't exactly require a Microsoft certification or a degree in computer science to decipher: REM SkamWerks Labs Presents the Victory is ours. Created by Cheezhe Crypt Newsletter found the Heuristic Macro Virus Scanner just about flawless in use. For common purposes, it's quite capable of returning a thorough analysis of any Microsoft Word virus encountered in an infected document: WordBasic macros, funny picture files, other DOS viruses and a variety of malicious software programs rendered as debug scripts, and embedded batch files intended by the virus writer to cause terror and confusion as part of macro virus payloads; all were extracted by the SAC software in seconds. Indeed, it is a handy addition to the software armory of anyone who spends a significant amount of time fighting word macro viruses and implementing policy to eradicate them in institutions or corporations. And it's dirt cheap at $10 cash money to register. Available by anonymous ftp from ftp.elf.stuba.sk in the pub/pc/avir directory at SAC in Bratislava. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Veteran of the Psychic Wars: An Army publication warns of a telepathic computer virus. "The case of America is . . . not to be fairly understood without making due allowance for a certain prevalent unbalance and derangement of mentality . . . Perhaps the commonest and plainest evidence of this unbalanced mentality is to be seen in a certain fearsome and feverish credulity with which a large proportion of the Americans are affected." -- Thorstein Veblen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beware the computer virus that can induce heart arrhythmia! Science fiction? Yet another high concept movie script from the overheated coke fiends of Hollywood? No, none of the above. The computer virus that causes heart arrhythmia comes straight from the US Army War College's academic journal, Parameters. Writing in the spring 1998 issue, just hot off the presses, Lieutenant Colonel Timothy L. Thomas, an analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, delivers this unexpurgated phlogiston: " . . . one computer virus capable of affecting a person's psyche is Russian Virus 666. It manifests itself in every 25th frame of a visual display, where it produces a combination of colors that allegedly put computer users into a trance. The subconscious perception of the new pattern eventually results in arrhythmia of the heart." Thomas' Russian Virus 666 is framed within a larger discussion about -- and Crypt Newsletter is not making this buzz-term up -- "psycho-terrorism." With "psycho-terrorism," the reader of Thomas' unintentionally humorous treatise, entitled "The Mind Has No Firewall," learns that the computer itself is to be a tool of information warfare aimed directly at the soldier using it -- one in which the hardware is modified into a weapon in which its energy output -- pictures or sound -- is made into an invisible bullet, used to "debilitate the operator." This idea, mostly attributed to a Russian named Victor Solntsev and a National Computer Security Association Information Warfare conference held in Washington, DC, in 1996, are the sources Thomas cites for the Russian Heart Arrythmia Virus 666. Other sources for Thomas' Parameters paper include the types of material with which Crypt Newsletter readers are familiar: fringe magazines beholden to UFO conspiracy theories, one science fiction author -- Janet Morris -- who has put some effort into trying to convince the U.S. military that the Russians have developed an infra-sonic telepathic gun capable of influencing its targets, and a recent US News & World Report article on non-lethal weapons. Near the end of "The Mind Has No Firewall," Thomas writes: "According to a Russian TV broadcast, the strategic rocket forces have begun anti-ESP training to ensure that no outside force can take over command and control functions . . ." Beware the Russian Heart Arrythmia Virus 666, eh? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ News of the Pentagon hackers rumbles on. The strange and terrible saga of the Pentagon hackers staggered on under its own power through much of March and April. The psychology of it was immediately recognizable: a handful of culprits: American teenagers; pro forma gloating and posing, and mentoring of the Americans by another more accomplished Internet pest, an Israeli called The Analyzer, aka Ehud Tenenbaum. Datamation magazine made a 1995 April Fool's joke of a fiction in which a hacker claimed a conviction or arousing the ire of lawmen was his first credential in gaining entry to the computer security job market. Life often imitates lit in cyberspace, mostly because the average Net dweller can't think of anything better to do. And so it was with The Analyzer who -- in Reuters dispatches -- said he coached the Cloverdale hackers because he wanted to pass the torch, retire from annoying DoD system administrators and move into computer security work. As Crypt Newsletter suspected, the initial hysterical publicity over the story subsequently resulted in rather predictable reactions from hackers who subsequently claimed they would inflict a terrible revenge on unspecified authorities for Fed interest in the Cloverdale, California, teens and Ehud Tenenbaum. (Of course, anonymous Net teenagers often claim they will inflict a terrible revenge on someone, dependent upon exposure in the mainstream media and whomever is the flavor of the day: pedophiles, purveyors of spam, American On-Line, the Websites of unlucky corporations or the network computers of randomly unlucky system administrators.) In March, Crypt Newsletter received no less than two press releases from "computer security" experts attempting to coat-tail on Pentagon hacker publicity. And by the end of March, yet another former hacker -- posing as another gone-straight computer security consultant -- distributed a press release via the PR Newswire (that's $500 for 400 words) claiming he had magnanimously brokered an Internet peace treaty in which the angry cyber-vigilantes pledged to stop harassing Dept. of Defense system administrators and devote their time to more, uh, thoughtful pursuits, like harassing alleged pedophiles. As for The Analyzer, Reuters reported he was soon to flee Israel -- or maybe not. (Later news indicated that the master plan to enter the world of computer security and become a scourge of pedophiles had apparently fallen apart. After U.S. urging, Israeli police arrested The Analyzer and collaborating flunkies. Paradoxically, media coverage in Israel had already made him a celebrity of the moment. After his computer was seized, Tenenbaum posed for an Israeli computer magazine ad and was rewarded with a new one. In a Los Angeles city jail, Kevin Mitnick, still awaiting trial years after being put on the front page of the New York Times for feats similar to Tenenbaum's must be scratching his head and laughing bitterly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hyperbole watch: "I would come in in the morning and see a machine in smoking ruins," cried the administrator of Netdex, an Internet provider suborned by the Pentagon hackers during their activities. "The public has to stop seeing these kids as geniuses and seeing this as a prank. Neither is true." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Late additions: April 17, 1998 : In wire news from the Associated Press, the Pentagon announced a secret two-week operation named Eligible Receiver staged by our hacking boys in blue. Our hackers -- the military spooks, not the teenage high school pests -- "successfully [penetrated] U.S. military and civilian computer networks using software found on the Internet . . . " How exciting. A Pentagon mouthpiece said "we have a lot of work to do," which is true. But not very novel. Tiger teams have been conducting such exercises for as long as Crypt Newsletter can remember. The Pentagon claimed part of its secret team of military hackers posed as North Koreans. Readers are invited to pick their own explanations for this idea, taken from the following list: (1) North Korea is a trademarked pariah state and some leader thought everyone easily grasps that North Koreans are supposed to be bad guys who will stop at nothing, including the misuse of network computers, to subvert the American way of life; or (2) Air Force officials thought North Koreans had hacked into Rome Labs at Griffiss AFB in 1994 even though it was really Brit teenagers connecting to the military network through a computer in South Korea. The Pentagon also claimed our military hackers had penetrated the networks controlling a portion of the U.S. power grid and that "they could have sabotaged to plunge the nation into darkness." To put this in perspective, keep in mind the U.S. military never publicly discusses its real vulnerabilities but is not averse to stretching the truth in search of a point or alarming assessment. The hazard in the approach is that while it does indeed impress those who have an interest in supporting the received wisdom of the day, it does quite the opposite for those who don't. But other news stories in the mainstream media attributed similar quotes from Pentagon anonymous sources. One example: "The attack was actually run in a two-week period and the results were frightening." In academic Deborah Johnson's book "Computer Ethics" (Prentice Hall) there is a lengthy discussion devoted to the rationales behind hacking for a good purpose. "Such an exercise can, of course, be set up . . . by first obtaining the permission of those who own and run a computer system, so that no rights are violated and no harm is done," Johnson writes. She then goes on to say that she is not favorably inclined toward such ideas. Absent from news media coverage of Eligible Receiver were any questions about whether or not permission to penetrate the power grid allegedly compromised was secured by our hacking boys in blue, or whether it was even sought from power owners, as part of a secret mission. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Liquor in the Front, Poker in the Rear of the Flyin' Saucer (An infrequent series): John B. Alexander touches down in Encinitas to speak of the U.S. military's work in the world of the paranormal. Crypt Newsletter received a flyer announcing a May seminar at the New Age-y California Institute for Human Science in Encinitas, California, on "Military Applications of Psi Research." The speaker scheduled was none other than John B. Alexander, a former guru of non-lethal weapons development at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and now billed as a consultant to the Encinitas institution. Although Crypt Newsletter did not attend, Alexander was slated to speak about "studies on [UFOs]," "how psychokinetic ability [the bending of the spoons] was taught to senior Government officials," and "the story behind America's psychic spies." Alexander, said the school flyer, "serves as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense" and is director for "scientific liaison" for the National Institute of Discovery Science in Las Vegas, which, the last time we checked was analyzing alien nasopharyngeal implants in UFO abductees. Shortly after Alexander's Encinitas lecture, Southern California's UPN News affiliate ran a series of "investigative reports" on the "science" of remote viewing, or crystal ball gazing (it should be noted that advocates of remote viewing always become very irritated when compared to crystal ball readers), as a tool of military intelligence. Alexander and colleagues went before the cameras to explain how the U.S. Army "developed" the technique of remote viewing. A UPN reporter insisted the Army's remote viewers pinpointed the positions of Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis. UPN's broadcast also served as an extended commercial for PSI-TECH, a Beverly Hills-based organization that advertises its psychic spies for corporate use. No comment was provided from the U.S. military which, perhaps, wishes others to forget taxpayer money was once invested in military crystal ball gazing through proxies like SRI and Science Applications International Corporation. [1] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Notes: 1. What's Science Applications International Corporation? Well, besides once having been involved in a real "Outer Limits" segment of military paranormal applications, a reader should also consider SAIC as one of the "Manpowers" of the Department of Defense. Although this is only one aspect of the secretive company's business, anywhere you find the U.S. military, you almost always find SAIC employees, acting as proxies for functions the military doesn't have its soldier and civil servants performing or for functions SAIC has been able to convince the military it needs. In this manner, DoD civil servants and ex-officers often go to work for Science Applications International Corporation doing the same work they did for the military, except as hirelings of SAIC. As professional insiders, this is a good thing for SAIC business development. But a bad thing for the taxpayer. Why? That's because the arrangement conflicts decision-making within the Department of Defense. It works like this: If a Pentagon leader is called upon regularly to review Science Applications International Corporation bids to DoD, it is unlikely he or she will unsparingly judge on such bids knowing full well that a fruitful career after the Pentagon often leads only to SAIC, companies that are partners of SAIC, or companies about to be taken over by SAIC. It comes as no surprise then that SAIC is heavily into the agenting of high-tech temping services, too. For example, SAIC supplies high-tech temporary workers to Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin gets tired of them after a year and leases them to NASA. And so on. Another property of this high tech employment revolving door is to consider a model currently practiced by Jet Propulsion Lab in LaCanada/Flintridge, California. Over the past couple of years JPL has been down-sizing -- others call it out-sourcing -- employees. JPL makes arrangements with a firm known as OAO (a partner of Science Applications) to supply temporary workers to do the same jobs it just down-sized. OAO runs ads in the local newspapers and the down-sized JPL workers wind up going back to work for their old company doing the same jobs they did before except with less security and benefits. The reader is left to mull over the complex security ramifications of a U.S. aerospace and military institution that relies upon a significant number of glorified temporary workers who are essentially employed as high-tech mercenaries controlled by a very private corporation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LETTERS "X-Files" scriptwriter delighted by Blitzkrieg software Dear Crypt: As the co-author of "Killswitch," I am delighted by the Blitzkrieg server and its attendant commentary. As a civilian in the world of cryptography, I cannot comment on the validity of these folks' claims, but as a writer I recognize the rhetorical elements of megalomania, wishful thinking, and hucksterism. If anyone had the time, interest, and expertise to disentangle these elements, I believe the resulting commentary would be both enlightening and amusing. Given the obvious world-conquering brilliance of this intellectual team, I imagine we can expect to see further developments, likely including but not limited to the following: cold fusion in the home refrigerator, inexpensive perpetual motion drives for family vehicles, unlimited vacuum field energy (acquired through anti-Heisenbergian transducers) for the home, simple human spare parts cloning in the bathroom, and human immortality through stabilization of sub-atomic particle uncertainties. Yours, Tom Maddox ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More on the Blitzkrieg server Crypt: Just wanted to point this particular sidenote out, in case you weren't aware of it . . . The X-Files episode you're pointing to was cowritten by William Gibson, author of "Neuromancer," one of the landmark works in the whole cyberpunk stream of science fiction. As someone who has been following the flurry of reactions to the Blitzkrieg announcement with interest, I found that your observations made my day. Catherine, R&D Coodinator, Intrusion Detection Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On EPH Crypt: If an electronic Pearl Harbor is such a threat, why hasn't it been attempted yet? You would think that it would have been attempted effectively in the early stages of the Internet. Are terrorists not aware of this avenue, or is it just to difficult to get access and find the people with the technical knowledge to help a terrorist take down various systems? I realize we need to be aware of all possibilities, but with the way the media treats anything technical, it would be scary if something even remotely dangerous happened. There are too many people talking to all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. I have worked as a network administrator and am now working in Information Systems Management and enjoy your comments and articles. jamie ------------------------------------------------------------------------ On the Army's heart flutter telepathic virus: Crypt: Once again, your letter comes close to predicting a self-fufilling prophesy. Reading this, I was choking and blacked-out from the laughter. Robin R. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ More tickets from the Info-Highway Patrol : Crypt: I was recently directed towards your quality rant "Pulled Over by the Info Highway Patrol." Frankly, I wouldn't have given the web filter issue a second thought, until someone pointed out that my site was branded by WebSense, another cybernannie, as unsavory. Or something like that. I've really got only the vaguest notion why I'm on that particular hit list. Seems that I've make the mistake of expressing opinions on my site, Boycott Microsoft. This, I believe in the fuzzy cognition of WebSense, makes me an "activist." Anyone promoting a "cause" can be blocked by WebSense. Not that everyone is, mind you. Evidently, a site needs to be turned in by a stool pigeon before the "committee" at WebSense considers adding the site to the database. So naturally, since not everyone appreciates the facts and opinions represented on the site, I've been turned in. Retaliation has been made as simple and as antiseptic as that. Mitch Stone, Editor, Boycott Microsoft ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FRANGIBLE BULLET: Threat or menace? Crypt: Post April Fools' Day greetings from the Lehigh Valley! Loved the "Frangible Bullet." I've gotta ask, though . . . does lampooning yourself and Crypt represent the ultimate extension of the concept "too much time on your hands"? Don't spend too much time on this; it's a rhetorical question. I do have two random thoughts of my own, though, just to show I can waste time with the best of them: On your Virus Hoax Creation Lab's "Toaster virus -- ejects diskette at lethal velocity" . . ." It seems highly likely Kenneth Starr will launch yet another "me, too" probe into the death of Vince Foster, but this time, with the sure and certain knowledge that the "toaster virus" was a stone left unturned by his predecessors. Also, is it possible that Kenneth Starr, who has more staying power than old bubble gum on your Reeboks, could himself be the so-called "millenium bug?" It certainly seems as though he could still be around in 2000. And you wrote: "With Virus Hoax Creation Labs I have furnished even the most technically challenged Internet user with powerful software designed to make him or her a full-fledged information warrior. Depending on eye/hand coordination, it is possible for a user to create as many as 30 hoaxes an hour with VHCL." This seems redundant to me. Aren't we already paying good tax dollars for an entire division of the U.S. Air Force to do the same thing? Mark A. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chupacabras ripped my flesh Crypt: I want to thank you for your articles debunking electromagnetic pulse weapons and HERF guns. It is refreshing to see logical, well-researched, reasoned discussions of information warfare-related topics. It's encouraging to read Crypt News and your other writings about the doomsday predictions coming out of the Pentagon, infosec vendors, and assorted "experts." Your articles on HERF guns were especially interesting for me because I have been trying to verify or debunk the stories since the hype-o-gram about the British banks in the summer of 1996. I posted a few messages asking for solid evidence and received a notable reply, which unfortunately got lost in a computer crash. The writer started with a reasonable scientific explanation of the physics behind HERF guns and discussions of power vs. frequency vs. range. He then started telling me he knew all this because he learned it from someone who was abducted by aliens whose spaceship was then shot down by a HERF gun operating from a secret CIA-Air Force facility in Florida. I really wish I had a copy of the e-mail, it was fantastic. Anyway, thanks again for casting a critical eye on information warfare topics. It is sorely needed among the legion of doomsayers. Mark ------------------------------------------------------------------------ United Kingdom reader not fond of phlogiston Crypt: I have just finished watching a program here in the UK all about Information--Cyber warfare on the Discovery Channel. I feel I just had to inform you -- as I think . . . maybe other readers of the newsletter will understand -- what a load of bollocks it was. I have never seen and heard so many reporters and so-called computer experts talk so much [phlogiston] in my entire life. In fact, at times I was laughing so-o-o-o-o much my ribs hurt. I lost count how many times I said to my wife: "False Authority Syndrome." (Rob Rosenberger, take a bow. -- Editor) And, yes, she did look at me with puzzlement . . . I was going to e-mail the Discovery Channel myself and try and find out who the "Experts" were so I could forward my views on what a crap program this was but I don't really want it to be intercepted by comms satellites and my bank account, medical records, and other such "computer held data" to be erased and my ID vanished from this planet, forever. In fact, after you have read this mail please erase it forever so I won't be caught hiring out "Driving Miss Daisy" from my local BlockBuster video store. MattX Homepage: MattX's Mega Site -- an Internet Experience. Wav Files, Star Trek Humour, SCI-FI Links and more. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS =============== Alan Dunkin for useful press releases and reprinted media phlogiston. ------------------------------------------------------------- George Smith, Ph.D., edits the Crypt Newsletter from Pasadena, CA. copyright 1998 Crypt Newsletter. All rights reserved. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Relevant links: * Don't take Crypt's word for it! Read the originals on the Waffen Und Munistionsfabriken [sic] server in Signal, at the FutureVision Group and Hewlett Packard's April 1998 E-Business organ yourself. * Hey! Read phlogiston about milspec ESP and the heart flutter virus in Parameters. * Dirty deeds done dirt cheap: Real news about computer viruses from "The Virus Creation Labs." * Back to Crypt Newsletter * About Crypt News. Send a comment: George Smith, Editor