CRYPT NEWSLETTER 51
September - October 1998

Editor: George Smith, Ph.D.
INTERNET: 70743.1711@compuserve.com
          crypt@sun.soci.niu.edu
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  Contents: Crypt Newsletter #51       
                                       

 THIS ISSUE

NEWS
The Next World War will be fought with hoaxes
What's new in world paranoia!
Arthur Money: The Pentagon's new misinformation warrior
The right way, the wrong way, the DoD way -- another
in a continuing series
How not to use the Internet as a propaganda tool
Own a dangerous weapon -- a book!
"Cybergypsies" slated for 1999 publication
LETTERS SECTION: Iraqi printer virus hoax spotted in France



THE NEXT WORLD WAR WILL BE FOUGHT WITH VIRUS HOAXES


Famous last words: "In this new world, the soldier will be the
young geek in uniform who can insert a virus into Teheran's electricity
supply to plunge the city into darkness." -- James Adams, "The Next
World War"
===

United Press International journalist James Adams' new book, "The
Next World War," is a priceless example of how mainstream reporters
continue to propagate old myths and hoaxes about information warfare.

Adams recirculates the hoary tale of the Gulf War printer virus
hoax in his book on the future of combat.  If true, Crypt Newsletter
supposes future combat will be mighty cheap, being fought primarily
with dueling virus hoaxes and other info-war myths.

This hoax's many permutations revolve around the central idea that
the NSA developed a computer virus for use in the Gulf War, a
virus that was used to disable the enemy's air defense system. Supposedly
secreted in a microchip in a printer destined for Iraq, the virus
was supposed to somehow emerge from the printer and bushwhack
Iraqi air defense computers hooked to the same network.

This was the result of a bald-faced April Fool's story that
appeared in Infoworld magazine, subsequently taken seriously and
presented as such by US News and World Report in "Triumph Without
Victory," the latter publication's book on the Gulf War. A quick look
to Adams' footnotes in the back of "The Next World War" reveals
the poisoned section of "Triumph Without Victory" as his
source.

The Infoworld joke told of a computer virus smuggled into Iraq
embedded in the hardware of computer printers. It was designed by the
National Security Agency and it disabled Iraqi air defense computers
by devouring the "windows" opened on computer screens.  All these
features were repeated a little too closely -- make that exactly -- for
comfort in the U.S. News and World Report book. Since then, US News and
others have reported sources, always anonymous, in the Pentagon
repeating the tale, a fairly obvious case of "officials" who have
taken their information from gossip that evolved from the original
joke.

"The Next World War" is just another in a long line of examples
sprinkled through the mainstream media and other seemingly authoritative
sources that have been taken in by this joke.  Indeed, the Gulf War
virus hoax is an almost inescapable component of computer lore -- the
operative word being _lore_.

Rob Rosenberger of Virus Myths comments, "Too bad [Adams] didn't
do more research . . . [he] gives the story an interesting twist.
The virus didn't get a chance to do its job because the U.S. Air Force
accidentally bombed the building where Iraq stored the printers!"

The 'Gulf War printer virus' story carries no credibility, no matter
how highly placed the source" or whatever mutation it appears in,"
added Rosenberger.

However, the Gulf War virus hoax isn't the only virtual Piltdown
Man to appear in "The Next World War."

Adams also bites on the chupacabras of info-war, the electromagnetic
pulse gun built from Radio Shack parts.

In 1996, Forbes ASAP magazine interviewed a crew of hackers who
insisted an electromagnetic pulse gun -- a kind of electric
ray that could be used to destroy PCs from afar -- could be
built from Radio Shack parts and car batteries.

In the story, entitled "Hack Attack," the Forbes reporter queries
the "dangerous ex-hackers" about electromagnetic pulse guns.  In
response they spin a fantastic tale of its use -- again, against
Iraq. [Part of this interview appears in Adams' "The Next World
War."]

A section of the original from Forbes ASAP is digested here:

Forbes writer: Have you ever heard of a device that directs magnetic
signals at hard disks and can scramble the data?

Dangerous ex-hackers, in unison: Yes! A HERF [high energy radio
frequency] gun.

Dangerous ex-hacker A: This is my nightmare. $300: a rucksack full
of car batteries, a microcapacitor and a directional antenna and I could
point it at Oracle . . . You could park it in a car and walk away.
It's a $300 poor man's nuke . . .

Dangerous ex-hacker A: There are only three or four
people who know how to build them, and they're really tight lipped . . .
We used these in the Persian Gulf. We cooked the radar
installation.

In other parts of the article the hackers comment
that there are a lot of "snake oil salesmen" in the computer security
business.

"The Next World War's" mention of the electromagnetic pulse gun
chupacabras is fairly characteristic of the literature on the subject.
Claims are made of a mysterious technology capable of doing bad deeds to
computer networks. The weapons are in the hands of hackers, criminals,
terrorists, or shadowy Russian scientists -- never sources of much
credibility or ones that can be easily located.  No examples are ever
produced. No incidents of computer damage by electromagnetic pulse gun
are ever provided that can be independently verified.

"The Next World War" is a good example of the problem faced by
the average reader with little experience in the area of
discussion. Simply, the layman has a great deal of difficulty
distinguishing between hoaxes and reality, particularly once such tales
have become embedded in sources traditionally taken to
be "authoritative."

=============
Notes: In the October issue of WIRED magazine, an editorial sleuth
writes breathlessly of James Adams' _top secret_ band of
"intelligence" agents and info-war experts enigmatically called
"The Group." One assumes "The Group" meets for discussions of
techno-myths and computer virus ghost stories.

In the past Crypt has also wryly noted WIRED magazine's penchant for
profiling an assortment of utterly fascinating kooks: assorted
Nikola Tesla freaks and one John Alexander whose devotion to crystal
ball-gazing, i.e., "remote viewing," as a means of gathering military
intelligence and fondness for the telekinetic bending of spoons is
well known to newsletter readers. But not WIRED reporters.

No truth to the rumor Lance Henrikson, aka Frank Black, was
recently spotted attending a meeting of "The Group" at Tyson's Corner
Center, Tyson's Corner, Virginia.



SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW IN WORLD COLLECTIVE PARANOIA? Arabs, Russian
"intelligence" agencies, suspect the CIA will use the Internet for
subversion.


In light of the current newsletter's comment on James Adams' "The
Next World War," this next piece is a similar headache.

The CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service yielded a short
piece entitled "Report on CIA Plan for 'Information War' Via Internet"
in August, translated from the Kuwait Al-Ra'y al-'Amm and written
by the news organization's Moscow correspondent.

"A report broadcast by the Russian intelligence agencies has revealed
that the United States is bracing itself for an information war via the
Internet with a view to changing the world political map.  According to
this report, the CIA views the Internet as an efficient
intelligence weapon and the US Congress has recommended the US
military intelligence to prepare a program for using the Internet
for special purposes," writes the Al-Ra'y al-'Amm reporter.

"According to the [Russian] report, it is expected that misleading
information, both voice and picture, will be disseminated via the
Internet through which Washington can fabricate social and political
developments in other countries when necessary and as it deems fit.

"In accordance with the intelligence theory, dazzling results can be
achieved without having to resort to political pressure or military
intervention in any area in the world where the United States thinks
its interests are in jeopardy.

"Under this plan, experts on information war will fabricate details
which will undermine the foundations of any country, and the impact
will be greater than that of a military confrontation or a political
campaign.  The country facing this information onslaught will have
to fight an invisible enemy.

"The Pentagon does not conceal that it is preparing this weapon to
fight counties hostile to the US interests, like Iraq and North Korea.
Washington can also use this weapon to execute certain operations in the
former Soviet Union and Russia, including the expansion of the NATO to
include Ukraine and the Baltic republics, or to serve its political and
economic interests in important areas, like the Caspian Sea and the
Caucasus.

"What confirms the White House's seriousness about resorting to the
information war is the fact that the US Congress allocated for the US
intelligence agencies in 1999 a special provision in the budget to cover
the expenses of using the Internet in the information war.  US intelligence
leaders are giving much attention to providing the necessary staffing to
the information battle department.  The number of people hired for this
department, which was established a year and a half ago, is more than 100
people."

============
Notes:

"The result of using the Internet or cyberspace to disseminate
misinformation is not clear and may backfire."

                        -- Ronald Elliot, former member of
                           the Military Intelligence Board, writing
                           in Federal Computer Week, August 1998


Back in October of 1996, Crypt Newsletter wrote about the military's
idea of using the Internet in such a manner. The buzz-term invented by
Air Force intelligence experts to describe it was "fictive
environment."

Reprinted from Crypt Newsletter 36:

Coined by infowar kooks at the Air Force College of Aerospace
Doctrine at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, a "fictive environment"
is one created when the U.S. military spams a bogus electronic press
(or a radio or TV broadcast) release on Saddam Hussein kissing a pig
into, say, the Iraqi communications network.  This used to be called
psychological operations but information warfare kooks have cleverly
renamed it "fictive environment," perhaps to avoid being downsized
when the psy-ops budget is cut.

Of course, some in . . . [the] U.S. military believe
such a stunt would discredit enemy leaders in the eyes of their troops,
causing foreign soldiers to march to our side . . . or at least be
gripped by indecision.  The U.S., say [the same intelligence "experts"],
is immune to a "fictive environment" since we have an open society and
no one ever gets taken in by bogus news stories delivered via computer
networks or television broadcast.  The skeptical reader is forgiven for
wondering what planet the intelligence experts who coined the term
"fictive environment" have been living on.


ARTHUR MONEY: DOD'S NEW MISINFORMATION WARRIOR

Department of Defense's new info-war czar, Arthur Money, embedded
yet another techno-myth in the public domain recently
when he informed a group of journalists at an AFCEA
(the Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association)
conference that "hackers" had altered information in a medical
database by changing the data on blood types of soldiers.

Several news sources subsequently reported the story.  And it
has already become an addition to the "lore" on the alleged
"capabilities" of anonymous hackers.

However, none of it was true. Money neglected to inform
his audience that the "incident" was a simulation from another
Pentagon wargame.

Recently installed as head of a new DoD agency -- the Defense
Information Assurance Program, Money has claimed that under his 
leadership the Pentagon is developing more offensive information 
warfare capability.


THE RIGHT WAY, THE WRONG WAY, THE DOD WAY (One in an occasional
series): REINVENTING THE WHEEL . . . GROUP

Readers of Crypt News 50 may remember news of the
planned sacking of the Air Force's 609th Information Warfare
Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base, SC.

A victim of publicity and professional reputation wars, the
609th's only crime was that it was good at what it did.

Information warriors from the squadron commented to Crypt
Newsletter that the entire reason the 609th was formed as
a deployable computer security squadron was
because the Air Force's Computer Emergency Response Team
couldn't be counted on to handle hacking incidents in a timely
or efficient manner.  "The Defense Information Systems Agency
(DISA) was good at dropping the ball, too," one added.

So, delightful news it must have been then that the Pentagon
has plagiarized the 609th Information Warfare Squadron (and much of the
WheelGroup) -- it's mission, tactics and ideas, anyway -- as the Joint 
Task Force for Computer Network Defense (JTFCND), a new arm of the much
loathed Defense Information Systems Agency.

DISA claims its new arm will be the "first operational" information
warfare squadron, an announcement which must surely be a knee-slapper
to 609th crewmen . . . and employees of WheelGroup/Cisco Systems
who comprised a former "deployable" cadre of info-warriors at
the Air Force's Information Warfare Center (AFIWC) in San Antonio.

If readers are confused and bemused by the apparently witless creation
and destruction of manifold information warfare DoD squadrons, all
with overlapping jurisdictions and tangled chains of command,
they are not alone.  So is Crypt News.  So are DoD info-warriors.

Among the current information warfare groups: the Air Intelligence
Agency/Air Force Information Warfare Center, Arthur Money's Defense
Information Assurance Program (DIAP), the 609th (not yet mustered out),
the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Telecommunications and
Networking Systems Operation (TNSO -- a division of Science Applications
International Corporation that seemingly acts as part of the
Pentagon), the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI, Bolling
AFB), the Naval Information Warfare Activity (NIWA) and . . . the Navy's
Secondary Heuristic Analysis for Defensive Online Warfare (SHADOW) unit
(no, Crypt News did not make this last one up) in Dahlgren, Virigina.

And to name a few on the domestic side: the Computer Emergency Response
Team (CERT -- not to be confused with AFCERT, the Air Force Computer
Emergency Response Team or NAVCIRT, the Naval Computer _Incident_
Response Team), the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (CIAO,
apparently a part of the Dept. of Commerce, and, yes, that's "goodbye"
in Italian), and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC, a
subunit of the FBI) . . .

======
Notes: Crypt Newsletter makes the modest request DoD officials name
the next information warfare agency the Defensive Unit for
Making Mincemeat of and putting the Kibosh on Opposing Penetration
Forces (DUMMKOPF).


HOW NOT TO USE THE INTERNET AS A PROPAGANDA TOOL: Anti-virus
marketer caught manufacturing ringers.


AVP anti-virus agent Rod Fewster submitted this good example of how
_not to_ use the Internet as a corporate marketing aid.

Recently, a representative of Panda Antivirus in the United States
attempted to drum up some good publicity for his product at the expense
of competitors. He posed as an independent "ringer" in the Usenet
newsgroup alt.comp.virus in an attempt to start a discussion about
the excellence of his company's product.

Posing as a user named "Mike Reick," the Panda employee posted
this message from the Internet provider Rivalnet.

"Try Panda Antivirus for Exchange clients & Outlook 97/98
It is much more advanced than AVP, catches 100% in the wild . . .
It's worked wonders for us."

Shortly afterwards, "Mike Reick" posted another message extolling
Panda Antivirus.  Only in this case, "Mike Reick" entangled his
"ringer" Internet account with his corporate account at Panda.

"Pedro Bustamante <pbustamante@pandasoftware.com> wrote in message
prod.itd.earthlink.net...

"It says in one [anti-virus] review that you mention that Panda
[Antivirus] has 7 products certified by Checkmark [a corporate
certification.]  In comparison AVP has 5, [Dr. Solomon has 6,
[Network Associates] has 6 and [Norton Anti-virus] has 5.

[Mike Reick]

Fewster comments: "'Mike Reick' posted from dew@rivalnet.net . . .
touting Panda as being better than AVP . . . [He] then [replied] with
another shill designed to fool gullible readers into thinking Panda
is better not only than AVP, but also better than NAI, Norton and
Dr. Solomon.

"However, '[Mike's'] plan fails miserably when he gets his accounts
mixed up and inadvertently posts his message from
pbustamante@pandasoftware.com, the corporate e-mail account of his
alter ego, Panda's Pedro Bustamante.

"This . . . is a classic example of what is colloquially [referred to]
in Australia as 'stepping on your dick.'"

"Yes, this was a low-handed, bone-headed post that backfired . . .
'Mike Reick' (dew@rivalnet.net) is the e-mail account which I have to
filter spam . . ." commented Panda's Bustamente in a subsequent message
to alt.comp.virus.


OWN A DANGEROUS WEAPON FOR $29.95 CHEAP!


"Cracking DES: Secrets of how encryption research, wiretap
politics & chip design" (Electronic Frontier Foundation, O'Reilly)
came in over the transom today.  How Federal agencies subvert
privacy, it said.  How Federal agencies lie about privacy,
while more inflammatory, is more accurate.

Daringly, the book hands you the plans for the hardware, software
and methodology for cracking the Fed national standard single DES
encryption for something under $200,000 cash money -- the same plans
EFF used to build its DES-cracking machine. Good scientists
that they are, they challenge others to verify or attempt to refute
their work.  And they also cheekily exhort the reader to scan
the plans and source code into digital form so that . . . uh, and
they don't say this per se, the plans can be mounted on the Internet
offshore, maybe like on a server in St. Kitts, for example, where
it's not verboten -- "seriously illegal" is the authors' description --
like in the U.S. That is unless the National Security Agency or FBI
leadership can somehow cajole the Joint Chiefs of Staff
into unleashing the 2nd Heavy Bomb Wing from Barksdale, AFB, for
an afternoon jaunt over the Caribbean.

So you don't have that kind of loose cash or a handful of
computer scientists who know how to use it laying around?

Doesn't matter.  The real point of the book is that when the
government goes before Congress or other techno-illiterate
organizations to claim that it does not have access to the
resources needed to crack encryption used by criminals, it is
being deceptive.

"There is no brute force solution for law enforcement," said
the NSA's Deputy Director William Crowell before Congress in
1997.

Not exactly.

You see, "Cracking DES" puts in the public domain the design
specifications and board schematics, as well as the full software,
for a turnkey machine that can smash single DES encryption.

Since EFF could do it, the computer scientists who wrote the
book reason the NSA is well into fourth and fifth generation
systems based on similar designs and that it "probably" has
machines that can be carried in a suitcase capable of cracking
DES-encrypted files in a day and central units under Ft. Meade
with the power to do thousands of such files in seconds.

Last, EFF has put the plans for its DES Cracker into book
form because, books, unlike electronic text, are a legal form
of dissemination of this information _in this country_.
The reasoning here is that while judges don't seem to understand
that censoring electronic text is the same as censoring hardcopy,
they do vaguely understand that the banning of books means the
government is involving itself in "something fishy."  If that
sounds nonsensical to you, of course, be assured it is.  But
such are the interesting times we live in. This book is an effort
to make the times a little less interesting and a little more
rational.

Although the average Joe will never see them, Crypt Newsletter
reckons the ripples caused by the publication of "Cracking DES"
in the opaque lake of secrecy that is the National Security Agency
are running deep these days.


NEW AUTHOR LOOKS FOR COLOSTOMY BAGBOY

Indra Jamrach, the author of a book called "The Cybergypsies" set
to be published by Viking/Penguin in July of next year, contacted
Crypt News to discuss Colostomy Bagboy, the system operator of
the old "Oklahoma Institute of Virus Research," sometimes
mentioned in past issues.

It seems Jamrach's book will also feature Bagboy, aka Paskell
"Geno" Paris.

In 1993 Paris ran a virus exchange bulletin board system
and edited two issues of the underground publication, Vortex.  Vortex
was a profane, hideously violent e-zine that mixed extreme bad taste
and off-color humor with exhortations to join the author in the
"stylish destruction" of the data of others found in the silicon
vortex -- Paris' euphemism for the world computer network.

Like many electronic magazines from the underground it was
exaggerated for effect, talking the talk and walking the walk of
countless such publications.

Federal and local lawmen indicted and arrested Paris the same year.
He was subsequently convicted on charges apparently unrelated to his
underground persona. A fraud charge stemming from the creation or
usurpation of a false identity and a forgery charge resulting from
attempts to counterfeit treasury bills landed him in prison.  Paris also
maintained computer tampering was also part of the conviction, coming down
from what he _claimed_ was an unsuccessful attempt to access and meddle
with the FBI's National Crime Information Center computer database.

After serving two years in the hands of authorities, Paris was
released.

Jamrach said that he was an old user of Paris' "Oklahoma Institute
of Virus Research" and "Cybergypsies" would contain tales of his
trips to it.

"In case you are wondering," Jamrach says, "my book isn't primarily
about the virus scene, but about the people who roam cyberspace. The
virus world forms a relatively small part of it and is mostly just
Geno with some stuff about a couple of [people from the NuKE
virus-writing gang] I knew.

"I've also written about a group of people, mostly English, who
played a role playing game which broke out of cyberspace and caused
havoc in their 'real' lives, resulting eventually in the death of the
network on which it was hosted . . . This whole is wrapped up in a
personal story of modem addiction that nearly wrecked my
marriage and is told as a series of interweaving anecdotes related to my
wife while on a real life trip through Ireland. I think it's what's
called a 'non-fiction novel.'"

Jamrach hails from England and publication of "Cybergypsies" will
be from Simon & Schuster there and precede the American release
by two months.



LETTERS
=======

Gulf War printer virus spotted in France
========================================

Crypt:

Got a call from a "lUser" the other day.  She was worried about (I
quote) "bad vibrations" from her laser printer.  Did she mean physical
vibrations causing her desk to shake?  Or maybe microwave-frequency
radiation frying her remaining few brain cells?  Nope.  The printer was
sending out "bad vibes" as in "bad vibes, man."  We sent a
technician to pretend to change the main board and she's happy now.

Incidentally, I show the introductory chapter of VCL to anyone who
thinks that our office network is too complex.  They're right of course,
it's ten times too complex for normal people who just want to do their
work and go home -- but, hey, the guys who sign the cheques read in
PC-Porno magazine that their genitals would get bigger if they
bought Microsoft Office, so who am I to complain?

Nick Brown
France
---------------
----------------------------------------------
Acknowledgments: Electronic clipping service courtesy of
David Isenberg.
-------------------------------------------------------------
George Smith, Ph.D., edits the Crypt Newsletter from Pasadena,
CA.

copyright 1998 Crypt Newsletter. All rights reserved.

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