Lawrence D. Dietz, Managing Director, Information Security & Legal
Support Services, Tal Global Corporation

This bulletin is part of our continuing effort to provide information
and analysis to our clients and colleagues. Recently, tiny Estonia
with an estimated population of slightly over 1 million has learned
that productivity and connectivity on the Internet comes with the
vulnerability borne of dependence. Estonia began removing a bronze
statue of a World War II-era Russian soldier from a park in Tallinn.
As a result they have been engaged in what some, like the New York
Times are calling the �first war in cyberspace�. For the past several
weeks the country has been defending itself from a barrage of
apparently sophisticated and coordinated cyber attacks. Linton Wells
II, the US DOD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Networks and information integration was quoted as saying �This may
well turn out to be a watershed in terms of widespread awareness of
the vulnerability of modern society.�

Some aspects of the attacks are worth noting. First of all there were
a number of �waves� of attacks each with a specific objective in
mind. Early waves were designed to explore vulnerabilities and test
capacity and defenses. Secondly combinations of attack vectors were
employed. In particular a psychological attack was waged on the prime
minister by posting a fake letter of apology on this web site.
Thirdly resource augmentation, the probable renting of botnets
(networks of computers controlled by hostile parties and available
for temporary rental by the highest bidder) for selected periods of
time was employed to strengthen the distributed denial of service
(DDoS) attack at key points in time.

Defensively the government categorized its sites and determined
which, like the Estonian president�s sites would be designated low
priorities, they also closed off large parts of the network to
international traffic. The perpetrators were never identified nor
caught.

What does this mean to our clients? If you are a part of the national
infrastructure you may be an unwitting victim of an attack designed
as a general attack against the government or the economy. Your
systems may be victimized in several ways, taken over and used as
potential �zombies� for attacks on others, defacing of your websites
for the purpose of advancing the messages of the attacker; denial of
service victim or perhaps even designated for more malicious activity
such as deletion of key files or information.

The point is that contingency planning must constantly think �out of
the box�. A key task is inventory of critical information and
functions. Personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual
property and other sensitive data must be segregated and protected
employing a defense in depth consisting of reinforcing defensive
techniques. Alternatives for compartmentalization of networks into
discrete, clearly defendable components should be considered and
plans for alternative communications resources should be formulated
and tested regularly to insure transparent implementation.

Information security is certainly a key aspect of today�s governance
challenges; another is the protection of critical information such as
intellectual property. To get the latest in legal developments and
best practices in this area, attend our upcoming June 13th Seminar,
Demystifying Trade Secrets Protection Strategies. For more
information see: http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=133433.


- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to
serve -
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
http://all.net/       572 Leona Drive    Livermore, CA 94550
Monthly announcements: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/FCA-
announce/join

Has any one seen a factual tie-back to the Russian government?


Arbor is a very reputable academic based network analysis company.

http://asert.arbornetworks.com/2007/05/estonian-ddos-attacks-a-summary-to-date/


TERENA  a.k.a TF-CIRT
http://www.terena.org/news/fullstory.php?news_id=2103

F-Secure
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/archive-042007.html#00001183

Here's the status as we (F-Secure) saw it on Saturday at 15:00 GMT:

www.peaminister.ee (Website of the prime minister): unreachable
www.reform.ee (Party of the prime minister): reachable
www.agri.ee (Ministry of Agriculture): reachable
www.kul.ee (Ministry of Culture): reachable
www.mod.gov.ee (Ministry of Defence): reachable
www.mkm.ee (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications): unreachable
www.fin.ee (Ministry of Finance): reachable
www.sisemin.gov.ee (Ministry of Internal Affairs): unreachable
www.just.ee (Ministry of Justice): reachable
www.sm.ee (Ministry of Social Affairs): reachable
www.envir.ee (Ministry of the Environment): reachable
www.vm.ee (Ministry of Foreign Affairs): unreachable
www.pol.ee (Estonian Police): reachable
www.valitsus.ee (Estonian Government): unreachable
www.riigikogu.ee (Estonian Parliament): unreachable

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,,2081438,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6665145.stm
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/05/17/1248215.shtml

USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus Electronics Employees
Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad

     Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

     Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

     Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

     Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

     Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad


     It is gratifying that USA has announced that the indictment of top
executives of Cirrus Electronics, as well as of Indian government
officials posted at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC, for supplying
US electronic items to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics, will not affect
negotiations on the 123 Agreement. US State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack stated that he did not see any connection between the
indictments and the US-India nuclear deal, and added: “I expect that
the Indian Government will continue to negotiate the 123 Agreement in
good faith. Certainly, the United States will.”

     Following the Pokharan-I nuclear blasts in 1974, USA had placed
severe restrictions on transfer of high technologies to India,
especially those having applications in the nuclear and space sectors.
In May 1992, USA imposed sanctions on Indian Space Research
Organization due to its deal with Russia’s Glavkosmos for transfer of
cryogenic rocket engine technologies. In particular, USA had placed
ISRO on the “US Department of Commerce’s Entity List” consisting of
“organisations which present an unacceptable risk of diversion to
developing weapons of mass destruction or missiles used to deliver
those weapons”.

     On 23 March 2007, a US District Court indicted four officials of
Cirrus Electronics, with offices in Singapore, Bangalore, India, and
South Carolina, USA, of violating USA’s International Emergency
Economic Powers Act and its Arms Export Control Act. Also indicted
were an unnamed official of the Indian embassy in Washington as well
as an Indian employee of the Aeronautical Development Establishment in
Bangalore. This followed a joint investigation by the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Commerce, and US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a 15-count indictment was
returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.

     The indictment alleges that Singapore-based Cirrus Electronics
took orders for electronic components from Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre and Bharat Dynamics, both on the US Department of Commerce’s
Entity List. The Entity List is “designed to inform the public of
entities whose activities imposed a risk of diverting exported and
re-exported items into programs related to weapons of mass
destruction.” The indictment alleges that in coordination with an
official in the Indian embassy in Washington DC as well as an official
of the Aeronautical Development Establishment, the US subsidiary of
Cirrus purchased from US vendors electronic items such as Intel i960
microprocessors, capacitors, semiconductors, rectifiers, and
resistors. These purchases were allegedly made without obtaining the
licenses required by the US Bureau of Industry and Security for
exports to parties on the Entity List. Cirrus USA would ship these
items to Cirrus in Singapore which would them reship them to Vikram
Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and
Bharat Dynamics in India. The indictment alleges that when the US
vendors requested End-User Certificates for the parts being sold to
Cirrus USA, its chief executive, Parthasarathy Sudarshan, would lie to
them and claim that the parts were destined for the Naval Physical and
Oceanographic Laboratory in Kochi.

     But it is clear that USA has been having double standards in
dealing with India, China and Pakistan.

     First, USA has already lifted sanctions on Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics,
although such sanctions were in place during most of the time the
alleged exports took place. USA started relaxing sanctions on India
since 2004 following several measures taken by India. Under an updated
End-Use Verification Agreement, India agreed to allow US Department of
Commerce officials to conduct end-use spot checks at Department of
Space entities importing US dual-use items. India also agreed to the
placement of an export-control attaché in the US embassy in New Delhi
to further monitor end-use verification of US exports to India. In
addition, India took measures to ensure that indigenous, Indian-made
dual-use products and expertise are not transferred to potential
proliferators.

     Second, there are several unexplained loopholes and discrepancies
in the indictment, which alleges that Cirrus and Sudarshan obtained
and exported, without obtaining the necessary license from the US
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, items on the United States
Munitions List, such as Intel i960 microprocessors, as well as
capacitors of model numbers M39014/01-1284, M39014/01-1299,
M39014/01-1317, M39014/01-1535, and M39014/01-1553.

     The Intel i960 microprocessor was already long obsolete during the
time of the alleged exports. The i960 was manufactured and utilized
during the early 1990s. Only one variant, called the i960MX, was
specifically designed or configured for military use. However, the
indictment against Cirrus does not allege that the military grade
i960MX microprocessor was exported, and it refers only to the i960.
Moreover, even the i960MX was apparently no longer in production by
Intel during the time frame covered by the indictment. Further, the
capacitor models mentioned are Commercially-available, Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) items which are widely used in civilian applications all over
the world.

     Third, it was hypocritical of the US government to have denied
much-needed technologies to India’s peaceful space programme for three
decades, when it was simultaneously permitting transfer of identical
technologies by US corporations to China, which was transferring
nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan.

     A few months after USA placed sanctions on ISRO over the
Glavkosmos deal, Pakistan bought 34 M-11 missiles from China in
November 1992, in violation of the terms of the Missile Technology
Control Regime. These are based at Sargodha air force base, west of
Lahore, next to Pakistan’s plutonium reactor at Khushab. Pakistan’s
National Defense Complex’s missile production factory at Fatehgunj (40
kilometres west of Islamabad) imported gyroscopes, accelerometers,
on-board computers, and other equipment to manufacture M-11 missiles
from China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation in 1996.

     There have been numerous instances when advanced equipment and
technologies imported from USA by ostensibly civilian Chinese
companies have been diverted to China’s People’s Liberation Army. In
February 1997 Sun Microsystems exported an E-5000 server to ‘Automated
Systems Limited Warehouse’ in Hong Kong. This powerful computer
immediately ended up in Changsha Institute of Science and Technology,
which trains PLA officers in missile and rocket technology, where it
was used to design the Dong Feng series of nuclear missiles. In
contrast, the US government hauled up Chyron Corporation of New York
for exporting a harmless animation system to ISRO.

     While USA insinuated, without any proof, that Indian organizations
were re-exporting US technologies to Iraq, Chinese companies have done
so for years. In 1994, AT&T transferred advanced fiber-optic
communications equipment and encryption software to a Chinese company
called Galaxy New Technology, mentioning in its export license that
these were intended for commercial civilian use within China. These
were immediately incorporated by the PLA’s Electronics Design Bureau
into a secure air-defense system (NATO code-name Tiger Song), and
re-exported to Iraq. AT&T officials stated that they saw no reason to
question Galaxy New Technology’s bona fides, even though it had been
formed only a few weeks earlier and was headed by Madam Nie Lie, wife
of General Ding Henggao, who then commanded China’s Commission on
Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. Galaxy’s
President was Senior Colonel Deng Changru, head of the PLA’s
Communications Corps, and its General Manager was Senior Colonel Xie
Zhichao, director of PLA’s Electronics Design Bureau. It was later
discovered that General Ding Henggao had arranged for political
contributions to the Democratic Party (the notorious China-gate
scandal), and that the deal had been facilitated by William Perry and
Adlai Stevenson III.

     China’s PLA obtained satellite and missile technologies such as
encrypted radiation-hardened integrated circuits from Loral,
post-boost vehicle technologies from Lockheed, telemetry systems from
Motorola, and nose-cone technologies from Hughes. The US government
denied these corporations permission to transfer similar technologies
to India’s civilian space programme.

     Hughes also supplied remote-sensing data-acquisition, processing,
archival and distribution equipment to China’s remote-sensing cum
real-time secure-communications Feng Ho series of military satellites.
Other space technologies transferred by Hughes to China included
anti-jam capabilities, advanced antennas, cross-links,
baseband-processing, encryption devices, radiation-hardening
processes, and perigee kick motors, as well as the design and
manufacture of missile nose cones and electronic missile control
systems. The PLA incorporated these in its Dong Feng 31 missiles.
DF-31, with its range of 6000 miles and warhead of three 90-kiloton
nuclear bombs, poses a serious threat to all of India.

     These US corporations had made political contributions to the
Democratic Party, then headed by Ron Brown, who later became Secretary
of the Commerce Department. Sources close to the Chinese government
had also contributed to the Democratic Party - the notorious
China-gate scandal. Faced with opposition from the US Departments of
State and Defense regarding exports of satellite technologies to
China, Michael Armstrong, then chief executive of Hughes, Bernard
Schwartz, then CEO of Loral, and Daniel Tellep, then CEO of Lockheed,
co-wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton in October 1995 stating:
“We respectfully request your personal support for establishing the
Commerce Department’s jurisdiction over the export of all commercial
communications satellites...The US government does not require
Congressional approval to remove commercial satellites from the United
States Munitions List, which is under State Department jurisdiction,
and placing them on the Commerce Control List, which is under Commerce
Department jurisdiction...” President Clinton granted this request
quickly without consulting the US Congress.

     A US House of Representatives Committee charged Lockheed, Loral,
and Hughes with violating national security. Hughes pleaded ‘No
Contest’ to 123 charges of violating the “US Arms Export Control Act”
and “International Traffic in Arms Regulations”, and was fined 32
million dollars. Lockheed paid a penalty of thirteen million dollars
to settle thirty charges of violating these Acts, and Loral was
penalized twenty million dollars.

     No official from China or from Lockheed, Loral, or Hughes was
jailed. In contrast, of the four Cirrus employees indicted,
Parthasarathy Sudarshan faces a likely sentencing guideline range of
97-121 months in prison, if convicted of the charges. Mythili Gopal
faces a likely sentencing guideline range of 63-78 months. A.K.N.
Prasad and Sampath Sundar face likely sentencing guideline ranges of
78-97 months, if convicted of the charges.

     In another instance, Boeing sold transport aircraft to China
United Airlines, a front company owned by China’s People's Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF). These aircraft could be used to quickly
airlift troops to the Tibetan plateau near India’s borders. In
response to a request under USA’s Freedom of Information Act, Barbara
Fredericks, assistant general counsel of the US Commerce Department,
replied: “Information about export licenses and license applications
that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user are
protected from disclosure. Disclosure would not be in the national
interest.”

     In contrast, the US government denied permission to Boeing to
enter into a joint venture with ISRO to manufacture satellites for the
international market.

     While negotiating the 123 Agreement, India should emphasize that
it is high time that USA transferred not only space technologies, but
even much-needed defence, nuclear, and missile technologies to India.
India is in particular need of US space technologies in launch
vehicles, sensors, telemetry, communications surveillance and
decryption, real-time imagery, and data-mining.


     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.
     Title: USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus
Electronics Employees Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

     Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

     Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

     Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

     19 Maitri Apts

     A-3, Paschim Vihar

     New Delhi 110 063
     India

USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus Electronics Employees
Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Sharada Prasad

     Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

     Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

     Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

     Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

     Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad


     It is gratifying that USA has announced that the indictment of top
executives of Cirrus Electronics, as well as of Indian government
officials posted at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC, for supplying
US electronic items to Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical
Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics, will not affect
negotiations on the 123 Agreement. US State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack stated that he did not see any connection between the
indictments and the US-India nuclear deal, and added: “I expect that
the Indian Government will continue to negotiate the 123 Agreement in
good faith. Certainly, the United States will.”

     Following the Pokharan-I nuclear blasts in 1974, USA had placed
severe restrictions on transfer of high technologies to India,
especially those having applications in the nuclear and space sectors.
In May 1992, USA imposed sanctions on Indian Space Research
Organization due to its deal with Russia’s Glavkosmos for transfer of
cryogenic rocket engine technologies. In particular, USA had placed
ISRO on the “US Department of Commerce’s Entity List” consisting of
“organisations which present an unacceptable risk of diversion to
developing weapons of mass destruction or missiles used to deliver
those weapons”.

     On 23 March 2007, a US District Court indicted four officials of
Cirrus Electronics, with offices in Singapore, Bangalore, India, and
South Carolina, USA, of violating USA’s International Emergency
Economic Powers Act and its Arms Export Control Act. Also indicted
were an unnamed official of the Indian embassy in Washington as well
as an Indian employee of the Aeronautical Development Establishment in
Bangalore. This followed a joint investigation by the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the US Department of Commerce, and US
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a 15-count indictment was
returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia.

     The indictment alleges that Singapore-based Cirrus Electronics
took orders for electronic components from Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre and Bharat Dynamics, both on the US Department of Commerce’s
Entity List. The Entity List is “designed to inform the public of
entities whose activities imposed a risk of diverting exported and
re-exported items into programs related to weapons of mass
destruction.” The indictment alleges that in coordination with an
official in the Indian embassy in Washington DC as well as an official
of the Aeronautical Development Establishment, the US subsidiary of
Cirrus purchased from US vendors electronic items such as Intel i960
microprocessors, capacitors, semiconductors, rectifiers, and
resistors. These purchases were allegedly made without obtaining the
licenses required by the US Bureau of Industry and Security for
exports to parties on the Entity List. Cirrus USA would ship these
items to Cirrus in Singapore which would them reship them to Vikram
Sarabhai Space Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and
Bharat Dynamics in India. The indictment alleges that when the US
vendors requested End-User Certificates for the parts being sold to
Cirrus USA, its chief executive, Parthasarathy Sudarshan, would lie to
them and claim that the parts were destined for the Naval Physical and
Oceanographic Laboratory in Kochi.

     But it is clear that USA has been having double standards in
dealing with India, China and Pakistan.

     First, USA has already lifted sanctions on Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics,
although such sanctions were in place during most of the time the
alleged exports took place. USA started relaxing sanctions on India
since 2004 following several measures taken by India. Under an updated
End-Use Verification Agreement, India agreed to allow US Department of
Commerce officials to conduct end-use spot checks at Department of
Space entities importing US dual-use items. India also agreed to the
placement of an export-control attaché in the US embassy in New Delhi
to further monitor end-use verification of US exports to India. In
addition, India took measures to ensure that indigenous, Indian-made
dual-use products and expertise are not transferred to potential
proliferators.

     Second, there are several unexplained loopholes and discrepancies
in the indictment, which alleges that Cirrus and Sudarshan obtained
and exported, without obtaining the necessary license from the US
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, items on the United States
Munitions List, such as Intel i960 microprocessors, as well as
capacitors of model numbers M39014/01-1284, M39014/01-1299,
M39014/01-1317, M39014/01-1535, and M39014/01-1553.

     The Intel i960 microprocessor was already long obsolete during the
time of the alleged exports. The i960 was manufactured and utilized
during the early 1990s. Only one variant, called the i960MX, was
specifically designed or configured for military use. However, the
indictment against Cirrus does not allege that the military grade
i960MX microprocessor was exported, and it refers only to the i960.
Moreover, even the i960MX was apparently no longer in production by
Intel during the time frame covered by the indictment. Further, the
capacitor models mentioned are Commercially-available, Off-The-Shelf
(COTS) items which are widely used in civilian applications all over
the world.

     Third, it was hypocritical of the US government to have denied
much-needed technologies to India’s peaceful space programme for three
decades, when it was simultaneously permitting transfer of identical
technologies by US corporations to China, which was transferring
nuclear and missile technologies to Pakistan.

     A few months after USA placed sanctions on ISRO over the
Glavkosmos deal, Pakistan bought 34 M-11 missiles from China in
November 1992, in violation of the terms of the Missile Technology
Control Regime. These are based at Sargodha air force base, west of
Lahore, next to Pakistan’s plutonium reactor at Khushab. Pakistan’s
National Defense Complex’s missile production factory at Fatehgunj (40
kilometres west of Islamabad) imported gyroscopes, accelerometers,
on-board computers, and other equipment to manufacture M-11 missiles
from China Precision Machinery Import-Export Corporation in 1996.

     There have been numerous instances when advanced equipment and
technologies imported from USA by ostensibly civilian Chinese
companies have been diverted to China’s People’s Liberation Army. In
February 1997 Sun Microsystems exported an E-5000 server to ‘Automated
Systems Limited Warehouse’ in Hong Kong. This powerful computer
immediately ended up in Changsha Institute of Science and Technology,
which trains PLA officers in missile and rocket technology, where it
was used to design the Dong Feng series of nuclear missiles. In
contrast, the US government hauled up Chyron Corporation of New York
for exporting a harmless animation system to ISRO.

     While USA insinuated, without any proof, that Indian organizations
were re-exporting US technologies to Iraq, Chinese companies have done
so for years. In 1994, AT&T transferred advanced fiber-optic
communications equipment and encryption software to a Chinese company
called Galaxy New Technology, mentioning in its export license that
these were intended for commercial civilian use within China. These
were immediately incorporated by the PLA’s Electronics Design Bureau
into a secure air-defense system (NATO code-name Tiger Song), and
re-exported to Iraq. AT&T officials stated that they saw no reason to
question Galaxy New Technology’s bona fides, even though it had been
formed only a few weeks earlier and was headed by Madam Nie Lie, wife
of General Ding Henggao, who then commanded China’s Commission on
Science, Technology, and Industry for National Defense. Galaxy’s
President was Senior Colonel Deng Changru, head of the PLA’s
Communications Corps, and its General Manager was Senior Colonel Xie
Zhichao, director of PLA’s Electronics Design Bureau. It was later
discovered that General Ding Henggao had arranged for political
contributions to the Democratic Party (the notorious China-gate
scandal), and that the deal had been facilitated by William Perry and
Adlai Stevenson III.

     China’s PLA obtained satellite and missile technologies such as
encrypted radiation-hardened integrated circuits from Loral,
post-boost vehicle technologies from Lockheed, telemetry systems from
Motorola, and nose-cone technologies from Hughes. The US government
denied these corporations permission to transfer similar technologies
to India’s civilian space programme.

     Hughes also supplied remote-sensing data-acquisition, processing,
archival and distribution equipment to China’s remote-sensing cum
real-time secure-communications Feng Ho series of military satellites.
Other space technologies transferred by Hughes to China included
anti-jam capabilities, advanced antennas, cross-links,
baseband-processing, encryption devices, radiation-hardening
processes, and perigee kick motors, as well as the design and
manufacture of missile nose cones and electronic missile control
systems. The PLA incorporated these in its Dong Feng 31 missiles.
DF-31, with its range of 6000 miles and warhead of three 90-kiloton
nuclear bombs, poses a serious threat to all of India.

     These US corporations had made political contributions to the
Democratic Party, then headed by Ron Brown, who later became Secretary
of the Commerce Department. Sources close to the Chinese government
had also contributed to the Democratic Party - the notorious
China-gate scandal. Faced with opposition from the US Departments of
State and Defense regarding exports of satellite technologies to
China, Michael Armstrong, then chief executive of Hughes, Bernard
Schwartz, then CEO of Loral, and Daniel Tellep, then CEO of Lockheed,
co-wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton in October 1995 stating:
“We respectfully request your personal support for establishing the
Commerce Department’s jurisdiction over the export of all commercial
communications satellites...The US government does not require
Congressional approval to remove commercial satellites from the United
States Munitions List, which is under State Department jurisdiction,
and placing them on the Commerce Control List, which is under Commerce
Department jurisdiction...” President Clinton granted this request
quickly without consulting the US Congress.

     A US House of Representatives Committee charged Lockheed, Loral,
and Hughes with violating national security. Hughes pleaded ‘No
Contest’ to 123 charges of violating the “US Arms Export Control Act”
and “International Traffic in Arms Regulations”, and was fined 32
million dollars. Lockheed paid a penalty of thirteen million dollars
to settle thirty charges of violating these Acts, and Loral was
penalized twenty million dollars.

     No official from China or from Lockheed, Loral, or Hughes was
jailed. In contrast, of the four Cirrus employees indicted,
Parthasarathy Sudarshan faces a likely sentencing guideline range of
97-121 months in prison, if convicted of the charges. Mythili Gopal
faces a likely sentencing guideline range of 63-78 months. A.K.N.
Prasad and Sampath Sundar face likely sentencing guideline ranges of
78-97 months, if convicted of the charges.

     In another instance, Boeing sold transport aircraft to China
United Airlines, a front company owned by China’s People's Liberation
Army Air Force (PLAAF). These aircraft could be used to quickly
airlift troops to the Tibetan plateau near India’s borders. In
response to a request under USA’s Freedom of Information Act, Barbara
Fredericks, assistant general counsel of the US Commerce Department,
replied: “Information about export licenses and license applications
that list China United Airlines as a consignee or end-user are
protected from disclosure. Disclosure would not be in the national
interest.”

     In contrast, the US government denied permission to Boeing to
enter into a joint venture with ISRO to manufacture satellites for the
international market.

     While negotiating the 123 Agreement, India should emphasize that
it is high time that USA transferred not only space technologies, but
even much-needed defence, nuclear, and missile technologies to India.
India is in particular need of US space technologies in launch
vehicles, sensors, telemetry, communications surveillance and
decryption, real-time imagery, and data-mining.


     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik. He also heads a group on
C4ISRT (Command, Control, Communications & Computers Intelligence,
Surveillance, Reconnaissance & Targetting) in South Asia.
     Title: USA's High Tech Exports to India & China; Cirrus
Electronics Employees Arrests for Exports to Vikram Sarabhai Space
Centre, Aeronautical Development Establishment, and Bharat Dynamics

     By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     Published in May 2007 issue of Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Copyright 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     International Publishing Rights in all Media, in all
Jurisdictions, in all Languages with Realpolitik Magazine,
http://www.realpolitik.in

     Reproduction & forwarding strictly prohibited, and will be
prosecuted without any warning

     Written on Wednesday, 25 April 2007

     by Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

     CellPhones: {91}(0) 92 12 08 86 00, 99 90 265 822

     Tel: {91}(11) 25 26 54 39, 25 26 42 75

     Fax: {91} (11) 25 26 68 68

     Email: rp at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

     19 Maitri Apts

     A-3, Paschim Vihar

     New Delhi 110 063
     India

http://all.net/
	 => Security Metrics

This new security metrics product provides a metrics framework for
measuring security programs. It is free for educational and personal
use and the sampler can be used to test the product for companies
interested in possible purchase. The free version includes modules for:

Data retention and disposition
Duty to protect and risk management
Enterprise security architecture
Security Governance Checklists

The for fee version includes standards that require that you have
licenses from the standards groups - we would be free if they were...

ISO 27001 - Information Security Management System standard
ISO 17799:2005 - the most widely used security standard
ISO 15489-1 - Data retention and disposition standard
Various NIST security standards
Various physical security standards and metrics

Please give them a try and let us know what you think.

FC

- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to
serve -
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
http://all.net/         572 Leona Drive   Livermore, CA 94550

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2053020,00.html

Not exactly you grandpa'sJV2020, but interesting none the less.

This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team
responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to
face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and
shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts &
Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as
"probability-based, rather than predictive".

The flashmob is not an entirely original construct.
(see: Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution by Howard Rheingold).

Does anyone know where the full text is located?

-Mark

Group,

I am looking for help with generating research leads - scholarly
publications, proceedings, symposia briefs, or other unclassified
testimony regarding the computer mediated espionage activities of the
German BND (Federal Intelligence Service) circa 1985 and 1993.

I am four months into the research effort.  I am finding that FOIA
requests re: these events is universally denied, and much of the
material has become classed.

Of specific research relevance:

BND Project RAHAB (Circa 1985-1993)
Titan Rain (Alleged Chinese) - for comparative analysis
Moonlight Maze (Alleged/likely KGB) - for comparative analysis


Any constructive feedback is welcomed.

Mark
myanalit@...

If the presence of actual attacks on U.S. targets helps secure
funding for protection and research from otherwise skeptical
officials, it would seem to be counterproductive.

Perhaps the attacks allow practice against real-world varied
configurations of protection in the DoD, ranging from OK to very
good.  A common base of network equipment types and defenses could
mean the ultimate targets are systems in the dependency chain for
DoD, or financial systems and systems with severe economic impact.
If DoD spare parts, transportation, and communications are largely
civilian infrastructure, those systems could be expected to retain
and use the levels and types of protection that are now being
attacked.  Practice today could be relevant within some upgrade time
period.  If this is plausible, the relevant time period could provide
a clue about timing, and mid-century isn't the right answer.

Charles Preston



On Feb 21, 2007, at 4:16 AM, Fred Cohen wrote:

  > http://www.itcinstitute.com/display.aspx?ID=3084
  >
  > US cyber defenders engaged in "Cold War" with China
  >
  > Chinese hackers attack anything and everything like digital mad dogs
  > 2.15.07 Pentagon cybersecurity workers are fully engaged in
  > defending against hacker attacks that appear to originate in China,
  >
-----------------------------------------------------
The contents of this e-mail message are confidential.
If you are not an intended recipient,
please delete immediately.

http://cisr.nps.edu/cyberciege/index.htm

FC

-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

Who's getting the most benefit out of the practice - attackers or
defenders?

Are the attackers carefully training the defenders along certain
lines of attack and minimizing others?

Doesn't a high level of attack simply encourage the defenders to
better protect systems against later "real" attacks?

Charles Preston
-----------------------------------------------------
The contents of this e-mail message are confidential.
If you are not the intended recipient,
please delete immediately.


On Feb 21, 2007, at 4:16 AM, Fred Cohen wrote:

> http://www.itcinstitute.com/display.aspx?ID=3084
>
> US cyber defenders engaged in "Cold War" with China
>
> Chinese hackers attack anything and everything like digital mad dogs
> 2.15.07 Pentagon cybersecurity workers are fully engaged in
> defending against hacker attacks that appear to originate in China,
>

I believe about 30-40 EMP bombs, with nuclear tips as icing on the
cake, would solve the situation nicely.

    Regards,

    Michael Stephen Ruiz
https://www.linkedin.com/in/TopSec

    Quoting Fred Cohen <dr.cohen@...>:

> http://www.fcw.com/article97658-02-13-07-Web&newsletter=yes
>
> Cyber officials: Chinese hackers attack 'anything and everything'
>
>
> BY Josh Rogin
> Published on Feb. 13, 2007
>
> Related Links
> Attack by Korean hacker prompts Defense Department cyber debate
>
> Cartwright: Cyber warfare strategy 'dysfunctional'
>
> China is suspected of hacking into Navy site
>
> China a major cyberthreat, commission warns
>
> Air Force to create Cyber Command
>
> DOD battles spear phishing
>
> The new Trojan war
>
> Find more related news in the technology section.
>
>
>
> FCW.com job search
>
> Hot Topics
> Find events presentations, source documents and other online
> resources on the Defense Hot Topic page.
>
>
> Vendor Solutions
> Find white papers, vendor presentations and other technology
> solutions in the Government IT Resource Center. Access now
> (registration required).
>
> Newsletters
> Subscribe to the Defense newsletter to receive all the latest in
> news, features and online resources.
>
>
> FCW.com Blogs
> FCW reviewers share their perspectives on the latest trends and
> gadgets in the Tech blog.
>
>
> NORFOLK, Va. -- At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber
> defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each
> day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are
> constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department
> networks, Netwarcom officials said.
>
> Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far
> outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and
> sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to
> reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of
> a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.
>
> "They will exploit anything and everything," the senior official
> said, referring to the Chinese hackers' strategy. And although it is
> impossible to confirm the involvement of China's government, the
> attacks are so deliberate, "it's hard to believe it's not government-
> driven," the official said.
>
> The motives of Chinese hackers run the gamut, including technology
> theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD
> operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD networks for
> future action, the official said.
>
> A recent Chinese military white paper states that China plans to be
> able to win an "informationized war" by the middle of this century.
> Overall, China seeks a position of power to ensure its freedom of
> action in international affairs and the ability to influence the
> global economy, the senior official said.
>
> Chinese hackers were responsible for an intrusion in November 2006
> that disabled the Naval War College's network, forcing the college to
> shut down its e-mail and computer systems for several weeks, the
> official said. Forensic analysis showed that the Chinese were seeking
> information on war games in development at NWC, the official said.
>
> NWC was vulnerable because it was not part of the Navy Marine Corps
> Intranet and did not have the latest security protections, the
> official explained. He said this was indicative of the Chinese
> strategy to focus on weak points in the network.
>
> China has also been using spear phishing, sending deceptive mass e-
> mail messages to lure DOD users into clicking on a malicious URL, the
> official said. China is also using more traditional hacking methods,
> such as Trojan horse viruses and worms, but in innovative ways.
>
> For example, a hacker will plant a virus as a distraction and then
> come in "slow and low" to hide in a system while the monitors are
> distracted. Hackers will also use coordinated, multipronged attacks,
> the official added.
>
> Chinese hackers gained notoriety in the United States when a series
> of devastating intrusions, beginning in 2003, was traced to a team of
> researchers in Guangdong Province. The program, which DOD called
> Titan Rain, was first reported by Federal Computer Week in August
> 2005. Following that incident, DOD renamed the program and then
> classified the new name.
>
> That particular set of hackers is still active, the Netwarcom
> official said. He would not confirm whether the Titan Rain group was
> linked to the NWC attack or any other recent high-profile intrusions.
>
> Other senior military officials have spoken out recently on U.S.
> cyber strategy, saying the country urgently needs to develop new
> policies and procedures for fighting in the cyber domain.
>
> Current U.S. cyber warfare strategy is dysfunctional, said Gen. James
> Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command (Stratcom), in a
> speech at the Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., last week.
> Offensive, defensive and reconnaissance efforts among U.S. cyber
> forces are incompatible and don't communicate with one another,
> resulting in a disjointed effort, Cartwright said.
>
> Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command, told reporters at
> the conference that current policies prevent the United States from
> pursuing cyberthreats based in foreign countries. Technology has
> outpaced policy in cyberspace, he said.
>
> The United States should take more aggressive measures against
> foreign hackers and Web sites that help others attack government
> systems, Keys said. It may take a cyber version of the 2001 terrorist
> attacks for the country to realize it must re-examine its approach to
> cyber warfare, he added.
>
> Netwarcom officials described their approach as an active defense, in
> which monitors build defenses around the perimeter of DOD systems,
> work to mitigate the effects of attacks and restore damaged parts of
> the network.
>
> Meanwhile, the consolidation of DOD's cyber resources is ongoing.
> Netwarcom works directly with the Joint Task Force for Global Network
> Operations, DOD's lead agency on network defense and operations, a
> component of Stratcom.
>
> Netwarcom, the Navy's lead cyber agency, is moving from monitoring
> the networks to full command-and-control capabilities. The Air Force
> announced in October 2006 that it will create a Cyber Command, based
> on the infrastructure of the 8th Air Force under Lt. Gen. Robert
> Elder, at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to coordinate its cyber
> warfare efforts.
>
> In the end, the cyberthreat is revolutionary, officials said, because
> it has no battle lines, the intelligence is intangible, and attacks
> come without warning, leaving no time to prepare defenses. Education
> and training of computer users, not enforcement, are the most
> effective defense measures, officials said.
>
>
>
> -- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
> to serve --
> Fred Cohen & Associates� � � � � � � � �tel/fax: 925-454-0171
> � � � http://all.net/� � � � � � � 572 Leona Drive� � � Livermore, CA
> 94550
>
>
>
>
> ------------------
> http://all.net/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://www.fcw.com/article97658-02-13-07-Web&newsletter=yes

Cyber officials: Chinese hackers attack 'anything and everything'


BY Josh Rogin
Published on Feb. 13, 2007

Related Links
Attack by Korean hacker prompts Defense Department cyber debate

Cartwright: Cyber warfare strategy �dysfunctional�

China is suspected of hacking into Navy site

China a major cyberthreat, commission warns

Air Force to create Cyber Command

DOD battles spear phishing

The new Trojan war

Find more related news in the technology section.



FCW.com job search

Hot Topics
Find events presentations, source documents and other online
resources on the Defense Hot Topic page.


Vendor Solutions
Find white papers, vendor presentations and other technology
solutions in the Government IT Resource Center. Access now
(registration required).

Newsletters
Subscribe to the Defense newsletter to receive all the latest in
news, features and online resources.


FCW.com Blogs
FCW reviewers share their perspectives on the latest trends and
gadgets in the Tech blog.


NORFOLK, Va. -- At the Naval Network Warfare Command here, U.S. cyber
defenders track and investigate hundreds of suspicious events each
day. But the predominant threat comes from Chinese hackers, who are
constantly waging all-out warfare against Defense Department
networks, Netwarcom officials said.

Attacks coming from China, probably with government support, far
outstrip other attackers in terms of volume, proficiency and
sophistication, said a senior Netwarcom official, who spoke to
reporters on background Feb 12. The conflict has reached the level of
a campaign-style, force-on-force engagement, he said.

�They will exploit anything and everything,� the senior official
said, referring to the Chinese hackers� strategy. And although it is
impossible to confirm the involvement of China�s government, the
attacks are so deliberate, �it�s hard to believe it�s not government-
driven,� the official said.

The motives of Chinese hackers run the gamut, including technology
theft, intelligence gathering, exfiltration, research on DOD
operations and the creation of dormant presences in DOD networks for
future action, the official said.

A recent Chinese military white paper states that China plans to be
able to win an �informationized war� by the middle of this century.
Overall, China seeks a position of power to ensure its freedom of
action in international affairs and the ability to influence the
global economy, the senior official said.

Chinese hackers were responsible for an intrusion in November 2006
that disabled the Naval War College�s network, forcing the college to
shut down its e-mail and computer systems for several weeks, the
official said. Forensic analysis showed that the Chinese were seeking
information on war games in development at NWC, the official said.

NWC was vulnerable because it was not part of the Navy Marine Corps
Intranet and did not have the latest security protections, the
official explained. He said this was indicative of the Chinese
strategy to focus on weak points in the network.

China has also been using spear phishing, sending deceptive mass e-
mail messages to lure DOD users into clicking on a malicious URL, the
official said. China is also using more traditional hacking methods,
such as Trojan horse viruses and worms, but in innovative ways.

For example, a hacker will plant a virus as a distraction and then
come in �slow and low� to hide in a system while the monitors are
distracted. Hackers will also use coordinated, multipronged attacks,
the official added.

Chinese hackers gained notoriety in the United States when a series
of devastating intrusions, beginning in 2003, was traced to a team of
researchers in Guangdong Province. The program, which DOD called
Titan Rain, was first reported by Federal Computer Week in August
2005. Following that incident, DOD renamed the program and then
classified the new name.

That particular set of hackers is still active, the Netwarcom
official said. He would not confirm whether the Titan Rain group was
linked to the NWC attack or any other recent high-profile intrusions.

Other senior military officials have spoken out recently on U.S.
cyber strategy, saying the country urgently needs to develop new
policies and procedures for fighting in the cyber domain.

Current U.S. cyber warfare strategy is dysfunctional, said Gen. James
Cartwright, commander of the Strategic Command (Stratcom), in a
speech at the Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Fla., last week.
Offensive, defensive and reconnaissance efforts among U.S. cyber
forces are incompatible and don�t communicate with one another,
resulting in a disjointed effort, Cartwright said.

Gen. Ronald Keys, commander of Air Combat Command, told reporters at
the conference that current policies prevent the United States from
pursuing cyberthreats based in foreign countries. Technology has
outpaced policy in cyberspace, he said.

The United States should take more aggressive measures against
foreign hackers and Web sites that help others attack government
systems, Keys said. It may take a cyber version of the 2001 terrorist
attacks for the country to realize it must re-examine its approach to
cyber warfare, he added.

Netwarcom officials described their approach as an active defense, in
which monitors build defenses around the perimeter of DOD systems,
work to mitigate the effects of attacks and restore damaged parts of
the network.

Meanwhile, the consolidation of DOD�s cyber resources is ongoing.
Netwarcom works directly with the Joint Task Force for Global Network
Operations, DOD�s lead agency on network defense and operations, a
component of Stratcom.

Netwarcom, the Navy�s lead cyber agency, is moving from monitoring
the networks to full command-and-control capabilities. The Air Force
announced in October 2006 that it will create a Cyber Command, based
on the infrastructure of the 8th Air Force under Lt. Gen. Robert
Elder, at Barksdale Air Force Base, La., to coordinate its cyber
warfare efforts.

In the end, the cyberthreat is revolutionary, officials said, because
it has no battle lines, the intelligence is intangible, and attacks
come without warning, leaving no time to prepare defenses. Education
and training of computer users, not enforcement, are the most
effective defense measures, officials said.



-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

http://www.itcinstitute.com/display.aspx?ID=3084

US cyber defenders engaged in "Cold War" with China

Chinese hackers attack anything and everything like digital mad dogs
2.15.07    Pentagon cybersecurity workers are fully engaged in
defending against hacker attacks that appear to originate in China,
and are assumed to have government backing there.
Chinese military documents indicate that country is planning to be
able to win an information war by mid-century, as part of an effort
to achieve diplomatic freedom of action and global economic influence.
Chinese hackers forced the Naval War College to shut down its network
for several weeks after an attack in November.
Education and training for computer users is considered the first
line of defense.


-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

Can Litvinenko-type radiation Attack occur in India.
Polonium 210 Poisoning � Can It Happen in India?

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Published in Realpolitik Magazine (http://www.realpolitik.in),
February 2007 issue

Copyright, February 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

International Publishing Rights in all media, in all jurisdictions, in
all languages with Realpolitik Magazine.

Reproduction & Forwarding Strictly Prohibited

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

R p at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

Tel: {91} 99 11 333 456, {91} 98 107 26 207

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

The death of Alexander Litvinenko by Polonium 210 poisoning and the
diagnosis that former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar was
suffering from a disease "hitherto unknown to man and probably caused
by an as-yet-unidentified poison" have created panic among the
security agencies responsible for guarding Indian VIPs.

There is a strong possibility that copycat attacks could be carried
out in India as well, especially since radioactive isotopes are
readily available from numerous nuclear installations in Pakistan,
India, Iran, and North Korea, as well as from medical and scientific
research institutions all over the Indian subcontinent.

Moreover, the SAARC region has witnessed ingeniously executed
political assassinations using extremely sophisticated poisons.
Several intelligence experts are of the opinion that the air crash in
which General Zia-ul-Haq and the US ambassador to Pakistan were killed
in 1988 was caused not by explosives but by a neurotoxin which had
been sprayed onto the instrument panels in the cockpit. Both the pilot
and copilot are thought to have absorbed this neurotoxin through their
fingertips and become totally disoriented. Another school of thought
in intelligence circles is that Zia's pilots were made disoriented or
unconscious by a toxic gas which was released into the cockpit, as had
been tried in an unsuccessful attempt on Fidel Castro while he made a
speech. In the Castro incident, the microphone was rigged to release a
toxic gas while Castro spoke into it. There has been much speculation
about the specific neurotoxins or gases which may have been used in
the Zia-Raphael air crash.

While the Litvinenko case is the first reported instance of an
assassination using radioactivity, this scenario had been described in
great detail by an eminent nuclear physicist at the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre in the 1970s. He enjoyed unfettered access to Indira
Gandhi during the days of Pokharan I. He demonstrated to the then
chief of VIP security how easily he could assassinate Mrs Gandhi
without being suspected at all. He would announce that BARC had made a
major scientific breakthrough in synthesizing an embargoed substance
denied to India, and present a memento commemorating this achievement
to her. This memento would contain a few milligrams of any of a long
list of radioactive isotopes which BARC was manufacturing then -
Cadmium 109, Barium 133, Cobalt 57, Manganese 54, Sodium 22, Zinc 65,
Polonium 210, Strontium 90, Thallium 204, Cesium 137, and Cobalt 60.
Exposure to this memento for even a few minutes would cause Mrs Gandhi
to develop cancer or radiation poisoning within a few days.

If this memento were placed in an appropriate spot in her office, then
many of Mrs Gandhi's cabinet colleagues would also be poisoned. This
nuclear scientist urged Indira Gandhi's security detail to have her
office and residence swept periodically by Geiger M�eller counters.
However, in those laid-back pre-terrorism days, it is not known if
such screening for radioactivity was ever carried out.

According to this nuclear scientist, India would be put to far greater
harm if Indira Gandhi were made seriously ill rather than if she were
killed outright. In the latter instance, a new prime minister would be
sworn in who would be immediately briefed by the Cabinet Secretary
about the nuclear command. But if Mrs Gandhi were made too ill to
attend to her duties diligently but not so ill that a new prime
minister would need to be sworn in, then the working of the Indian
government would be paralyzed for months, and political, economic and
social chaos could be generated by inimical parties.

This poisoning-below-the-fatal-dose strategy was followed during the
presidential elections in Ukraine in 2004 when President Viktor
Yushchenko was poisoned with less than one thousandth of a gram of
dioxin. This was well below the fatal limit so that Yushchenko's
opponents would not be accused of murder. But the severe damage that
was caused to all of Yushchenko's internal organs prevented him from
campaigning. Yushchenko's opponents were apprehensive that his movie
star good looks influenced the electorate. The dioxin poison
disfigured his face and caused lesions all over his skin. A precedent
for this was when the CIA, knowing of Fidel Castro's pastime of scuba
diving, tried to infect his diving suit with a fungus which would
cause a chronically debilitating skin disease.

However, radioactivity detectors are unlikely to have saved Litvinenko
since polonium 210 is not a gamma ray source, but is instead an alpha
ray source, which is almost impossible to detect. In fact polonium 210
can be described as a perfect poison � it is fatal in quantities as
small as one thousandth of a gram; it can be administered either as a
powder or as a liquid into the target's food or drink; it is difficult
to detect prior to being administered, the only practical method of
detecting it being in a post-mortem; it does not harm the poisoner or
bystanders since it does not penetrate skin; it can be easily carried
around wrapped in paper or foil without setting off radiation
detectors or harming the people handling it; and its short half-life
of 138 days makes it difficult to investigate the crime after a
relatively short period.

Litvinenko was earlier thought to be suffering from poisoning by
thallium. Thallium 204, a beta ray source, is more readily available
in several nuclear research institutions in Pakistan, India and Iran
than Polonium 210 is.

Leading international newspapers like the London Times, New York
Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle made much of the fact that
needles containing radioactive Polonium 210 could be purchased over
the internet from vendors such as United Nuclear Scientific Supplies
of New Mexico for US$ 69. But United Nuclear countered that it would
require 15,000 of its needles to accumulate a lethal dose, at a cost
of US$ 1 million. Since it typically sold just one or two Polonium 210
sources per month, an order of 15,000 would be highly suspicious.
United Nuclear also pointed out that easily synthesizable chemicals
such as Ricin or Abrin would be far more effective poisons than
Polonium 210 for carrying out assassinations.

Ricin or Abrin can be manufactured easily. Ricin is found in castor
beans and is easily purified from castor-oil manufacturing waste. One
five thousandth of a gram constitutes a lethal dose, and no antidote
has been discovered as yet. The seed-pulp left over from pressing for
castor oil contains 5% by weight of ricin.

While the use of ricin was considered during World Wars I and II, its
best-known use was the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi
Markov on a London street in 1978. Markov was shot with a modified
umbrella using compressed gas to fire a tiny pellet contaminated with
ricin into his leg.

Indian intelligence agencies have been warning about the possible use
of ricin for the last few years, especially since more than one
million tonnes of castor beans are processed each year in South Asia.
Even though ricin is listed as a "Schedule One Controlled Substance"
under both the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997
Chemical Weapons Convention, several chemistry handbooks describe the
methods of extracting and purifying ricin toxin from the 5 per cent
level found in castor seed waste.

Fortunately, none of the major terrorist groups targeting India � the
Lashkar-ė-Taiba, Jaish-ė-Muhammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkat ul Ansar
etc. � are known to have any expertise in poisons or chemical warfare.
But such capability is very easy to acquire.

It is imperative that the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and
Analysis Wing coordinate with each other and develop a comprehensive
strategy to deal with threats of poisoning and radioactivity.

Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon and IIT
Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik Magazine, New Delhi, India
(http://www.realpolitik.in)

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Published in Realpolitik Magazine (http://www.realpolitik.in),
February 2007 issue

Copyright, February 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

International Publishing Rights in all media, in all jurisdictions, in
all languages with Realpolitik Magazine.

Reproduction & Forwarding Strictly Prohibited

By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad

Emails: R p at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com

Tel: {91} 99 11 333 456, {91} 98 107 26 207

19 Maitri Apts, A � 3 Paschim Vihar, New Delhi, 110 063, India

Can Litvinenko-type radiation Attack occur
in India.


Polonium 210 Poisoning – Can It Happen in India?





By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





Published in Realpolitik Magazine (http://www.realpolitik.in), February 2007
issue





Copyright, February 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





International Publishing Rights in all media, in all
jurisdictions, in all languages with Realpolitik Magazine.





Reproduction & Forwarding Strictly Prohibited





By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





R p at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g dot com





Tel: {91} 99 11 333 456, {91} 98 107 26 207





By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





The death of Alexander Litvinenko by Polonium 210
poisoning and the diagnosis that former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar was
suffering from a disease “hitherto unknown to man and probably caused by an
as-yet-unidentified poison” have created panic among the security agencies
responsible for guarding Indian VIPs.





There is a strong possibility that copycat attacks
could be carried out in India as well, especially since radioactive isotopes
are readily available from numerous nuclear installations in Pakistan, India,
Iran, and North Korea, as well as from medical and scientific research
institutions all over the Indian subcontinent.





Moreover, the SAARC region has witnessed ingeniously
executed political assassinations using extremely sophisticated poisons.
Several intelligence experts are of the opinion that the air crash in which
General Zia-ul-Haq and the US ambassador to Pakistan were killed in 1988 was
caused not by explosives but by a neurotoxin which had been sprayed onto the
instrument panels in the cockpit. Both the pilot and copilot are thought to
have absorbed this neurotoxin through their fingertips and become totally
disoriented.
Another school of thought in intelligence circles is that Zia’s pilots were
made disoriented or unconscious by a toxic gas which was released into the
cockpit, as had been tried in an unsuccessful attempt on Fidel Castro while he
made a speech. In the Castro incident, the microphone was rigged to release a
toxic gas while Castro spoke into it. There has been much speculation about the
specific neurotoxins or gases which may have been used in the Zia-Raphael air
crash.





While the Litvinenko case is the first reported
instance of an assassination using radioactivity, this scenario had been
described in great detail by an eminent nuclear physicist at the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre in the 1970s. He enjoyed unfettered access to Indira Gandhi
during the days of Pokharan I. He demonstrated to the then chief of VIP
security how easily he could assassinate Mrs Gandhi without being suspected at
all. He would announce that BARC had made a major scientific breakthrough in
synthesizing an embargoed substance denied to India, and present a memento
commemorating this achievement to her. This memento would contain a few
milligrams of any of a long list of radioactive isotopes which BARC was
manufacturing then - Cadmium 109, Barium 133, Cobalt 57, Manganese 54, Sodium
22, Zinc 65, Polonium 210, Strontium 90, Thallium 204, Cesium 137, and Cobalt
60. Exposure to this memento for even a few minutes would cause Mrs Gandhi to
develop cancer or radiation poisoning within a few days.





If this memento were placed in an appropriate spot in
her office, then many of Mrs Gandhi’s cabinet colleagues would also be
poisoned. This nuclear scientist urged Indira Gandhi’s security detail to have
her office and residence swept periodically by Geiger Müeller counters.
However, in those laid-back
pre-terrorism days, it is not known if such screening for radioactivity was
ever carried out.





According to this nuclear scientist, India would be put
to far greater harm if Indira Gandhi were made seriously ill rather than if she
were killed outright. In the latter instance, a new prime minister would be
sworn in who would be immediately briefed by the Cabinet Secretary about the
nuclear command. But if Mrs Gandhi were made too ill to attend to her duties
diligently but not so ill that a new prime minister would need to be sworn in,
then the working of the Indian government would be paralyzed for months, and
political, economic and social chaos could be generated by inimical parties.





This poisoning-below-the-fatal-dose strategy was
followed during the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2004 when President
Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with less than one thousandth of a gram of
dioxin. This was well below the fatal limit so that Yushchenko’s opponents
would not be accused of murder. But the severe damage that was caused to all of
Yushchenko’s internal organs prevented him from campaigning. Yushchenko’s
opponents were apprehensive that his movie star good looks influenced the
electorate. The dioxin poison disfigured his face and caused lesions all over
his skin. A precedent for this was when the CIA, knowing of Fidel Castro’s
pastime of scuba diving, tried to infect his diving suit with a fungus which
would cause a chronically debilitating skin disease.





However, radioactivity detectors are unlikely to have
saved Litvinenko since polonium 210 is not a gamma ray source, but is instead
an alpha ray source, which is almost impossible to detect. In fact polonium 210
can be described as a perfect poison – it is fatal in quantities as small as
one thousandth of a gram; it can be administered either as a powder or as a
liquid into the target’s food or drink; it is difficult to detect prior to
being administered, the only practical method of detecting it being in a
post-mortem; it does not harm the poisoner or bystanders since it does not
penetrate skin; it can be easily carried around wrapped in paper or foil
without setting off radiation detectors or harming the people handling it; and
its short half-life of 138 days makes it difficult to investigate the crime
after a relatively short period.





Litvinenko was earlier thought to be suffering from
poisoning by thallium. Thallium 204, a beta ray source, is more readily
available in several nuclear research institutions in Pakistan, India and Iran
than Polonium 210 is.





Leading international newspapers like the London Times,
New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle made much of the fact that
needles containing radioactive Polonium 210 could be purchased over the
internet from vendors such as United Nuclear Scientific Supplies of New Mexico
for US$ 69. But United Nuclear countered that it would require 15,000 of its
needles to accumulate a lethal dose, at a cost of US$ 1 million. Since it
typically sold just one or two Polonium 210 sources per month, an order of
15,000 would be highly suspicious. United Nuclear also pointed out that easily
synthesizable chemicals such as Ricin or Abrin would be far more effective
poisons than Polonium 210 for carrying out assassinations.





Ricin or Abrin can be manufactured easily. Ricin is
found in castor beans and is easily purified from castor-oil manufacturing
waste. One five thousandth of a gram constitutes a lethal dose, and no antidote
has been discovered as yet. The seed-pulp left over from pressing for castor
oil contains 5% by weight of ricin.





While the use of ricin was considered during World Wars
I and II, its best-known use was the assassination of the Bulgarian dissident
Georgi Markov on a London street in 1978. Markov was shot with a modified
umbrella using compressed gas to fire a tiny pellet contaminated with ricin
into his leg.





Indian intelligence agencies have been warning about
the possible use of ricin for the last few years, especially since more than
one million tonnes of castor beans are processed each year in South Asia. Even
though ricin is listed as a “Schedule One Controlled Substance” under both
the
1972 Biological Weapons Convention and the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention,
several chemistry handbooks describe the methods of extracting and purifying
ricin toxin from the 5 per cent level found in castor seed waste.





Fortunately, none of the major terrorist groups
targeting India – the Lashkar-ė-Taiba,
Jaish-ė-Muhammed,
Hizbul Mujahideen, Harkat ul Ansar etc. – are known to have any expertise in
poisons or chemical warfare. But such capability is very easy to acquire.





It is imperative that the Intelligence Bureau and the
Research and Analysis Wing coordinate with each other and develop a
comprehensive strategy to deal with threats of poisoning and radioactivity.





Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon
and IIT Kanpur, is Consulting Editor of Realpolitik Magazine, New Delhi, India
(http://www.realpolitik.in)





By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





Published in Realpolitik Magazine (http://www.realpolitik.in), February 2007
issue





Copyright, February 2007, Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





International Publishing Rights in all media, in all
jurisdictions, in all languages with Realpolitik Magazine.





Reproduction & Forwarding Strictly Prohibited





By Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad





Emails: R p at k dot st, p at r 6 7 dot net, r at 50g
dot com





Tel: {91} 99 11 333 456, {91} 98 107 26 207





19 Maitri Apts, A – 3 Paschim Vihar, New Delhi, 110
063, India






________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Food fight? Enjoy some healthy debate
in the Yahoo! Answers Food & Drink Q&A.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545367

IMO - It is unclear if the act was "unauthorized remote computer
access using a computer and compromised login credentials(A hack)" or
not. Press sensationalization is going on here.

Ironically, the conventional belief (right or wrong) is that the
government (the state intelligence service - e.g. MI5, former-KGB,
CIA, BDN, DGSE, etc.) hacks into the data assets of constituents, not
the police hacking into government computers to gather evidence
against seated majority party members.

All confunding issues aside, the new is still interesting.

Mark


Honours probe police hacked No10 computers
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/21/npeers21.xml

By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter and Patrick Hennessy, Political
Editor, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:36am GMT 22/01/2007

Legal experts say that high-level authorisation � similar to the
granting of a search warrant � is needed for remote accessing of
computers. Neither Scotland Yard nor the Home Office would confirm
that such permission had been given in the cash-for-honours case, but
there is no suggestion that any officer acted illegally or improperly.

The investigators did not have to notify No 10 if they were "hacking"
into its system. One legal expert said: "In some cases, a senior
officer can give permission. In other cases, you might need the
authorisation of an independent commissioner, who is usually a retired
judge appointed by the Home Office."

I recently pushed out the newest version of Influence and I thought
the members of the group might be interested in it. Here is the
current blurb:

Influence is a software program that applies psychological research
results to the practical challenges of influencing others. It takes
information from you about your situations, analyzes them, and tells
you the risks and rewards for different influence strategies you
might try. It's kind of like an all seeing eye into the future...

More details at http://all.net/ - push on the Influence graphic.

I would love to hear about other software that looks into perception
management - anybody out there know of any?

FC
-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

When are we going to learn that The "Media" cannot be trusted. They have become
subversive.


To: iwar@...: infosec@...: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 20:43:43
-0500Subject: RE: [iwar] It's time for the Press in the US to hold up their part
of the bargain (originally from 2




Fred, You made an fatal error, you used "media" and "responsible" in the same
sentence. Randy Lantz, CISM, CISA, CISSP --- On Tue 11/28, Fred Cohen
dr.cohen@... wrote: From: Fred Cohen [mailto: dr.cohen@...] To:
iwar@yahoogroups.com Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:03:27 -0800 Subject: [iwar] It's
time for the Press in the US to hold up their part of the bargain (originally
from 2006-11-08) The long national nightmare of the US may be over - or it may
not be. The leaders of the Democrats have started talking like they are going to
be responsible about the power they have been given by the people. One of the
truly amazing things about a democracy in action is the ability of the losers to
take their licks and accept their losses, and while some republicans are not
doing this very well, most are being reasonable. Some of the far right in the
media are now stating that they are glad the Right wing lost because they no
longer have to lie to hold up the party line, and many of the most recent lies
are being instantly revealed as such by instant policy reversals. All fine and
good as far as the American people are concerned. But what about the media? The
US media loves controversy - if it bleeds it leads goes the saying. But with the
Democrats starting to say they will try to be centrist, the media is starting to
push them very hard with claims that they will not be. And if they get pushed
too hard, they may be unable to withstand their own party members who are
radical in their own way and go too far left just as the Republicans went too
far right. It is the media that makes and breaks these things and for the US
media it is now the time to act responsibly and reward and encourage centrist
behavior in the new ruling party. When Democrats with a reputation for being
left wing talk as centrists, the media should support that or risk another
destructive round of political shoving and pushing. When they put right wing
extremists on the air to claim the same lies they claimed before the election
and the left wing extremists to claim the rhetoric on the other side, the media
creates the new information war that feeds their own pockets. Sure - the
companies have been stealing the country blind by bribing the politicians
legally and illegally. Sure - the democrats and republicans have been taking
money for favors for years. But when we have a real chance for a nation at peace
with itself and the world - a short period of possible respite from eternal
internal strife - the media can either amplify it back into conflict - or act to
reduce the inflammation and turn from high intensity destructive information
conflict into low intensity and healthy competition. Unless the media can learn
to stop padding their own pockets at the cost of national destruction, the short
respite we might have had and parlayed into years of peace and prosperity will
be turned into yet the next war of words that turn into wars costing the lives
and liberty not only of the people in the US directly involved in our wars, but
also the lives of the people dying in Darfur, the people of North Korea under
slavery and oppression, the people of the Middle East whose lives have been sunk
into despair year after year for more than 50 years now, and the list goes on.
Unless and until the US media comes to a responsible position, and unless they
do it quickly, the nightmare will return sooner than we all think and the fall
of the North American Empire will go faster than Rome ever did. It is time for
the US media to take its responsibility for civil discourse seriously and to
start to learn about and teach about the world we live in. It is time for the US
media to forgo the extra profit brought to them by eternal internal strife in
favor of words of peace and attention to the real needs of the people of the
world to be informed in their consent to be governed. At least that's how I see
it. -- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended to serve
-- Fred Cohen Associates tel/fax: 925-454-0171 http://all.net/ 572 Leona Drive
Livermore, CA 94550 _______________________________________________No banners.
No pop-ups. No kidding.Make My Way your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com


_________________________________________________________________
Search from any Web page with powerful protection. Get the FREE Windows Live
Toolbar Today!
http://get.live.com/toolbar/overview

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I'm hopeful that we will not see armed conflict in the streets of the
U.S. in the near future.  Or at least no more or different armed
conflict than the current gang/drug warfare, which has spread to some
rural areas.

But a question having to do with information warfare is:
Does the U.S. military, in training for urban warfare, use a
questionnaire including the subject of whether, or under what
circumstances, individual soldiers would fire on the civilian
population of the U.S.?

There have been reports that there is selection of military personnel
based on this criterion.  But is this an example of information
warfare used by enemies of the U.S. government?  Radical militia
groups in the U.S.?

Charles Preston

-------------------------------
On Nov 29, 2006, at 6:25 AM, msr1@... wrote:

>
>
> Drew,
>
>  There is a line where the
> public will say enough is enough to the leadership.  And, when it
> happens, it's not going to be pleasant.
>
>
>
>

Drew,

    I cannot throw in the towel just yet.� My Dad and Dad inlaw were
Air Force and fought for this country.� I, and they, would consider me
a coward for running.� I'm not running from whoever, or whatever is
doing this to our nation.� All I know is I am awake, and there are
many others out there who are begining to.� There is a line where the
public will say enough is enough to the leadership.� And, when it
happens, it's not going to be pleasant.

    We have to be aware of the tactics and strategy used in warfare
could possibly be utilized within our borders.� The adage that it
couldn't happen is insane.� We must approach this with the appropriate
countermeasures as there always are in war.

    As for utopia............. That's in the works, believe it or not.

    Michael

    Quoting Drew Schaefer <drew@...>:

> Hi all,
>
> Fred, you are perhaps the last person I would classify (in a friendly
> way) as 'utopian'...
>
> :-0
>
> My interests have always been in media-focus-distortions, and I was
> invited to meet Danny Schechter here, in Geneva, CH, after he
> presented his movie 'Weapons of Mass DECEPTION', about a year ago
> (after the US Pres election 2004).
>
> My complicated question (for which he invited me to cocktails after),
> reduced drastically, was:
>
> "If any Dem or Rep runs for national office, based on a platform of
> 'reforming FCC control of media outlets (umm - like FOXNews?)', given
> what evidence we've seen in the 'Swiftboating' of J Kerry: isn't it
> overwhelmingly obvious that the media in toto would destroy that
> candidate's viability out of self-preservation interests?"
>
> :-?� Fred I am curious how you (or others) might tackle this issue,
> for I feel the US is lost, to two masters: the CIA-beast that will
> never give up their expanded, off-budget powers, and a political
> system that feeds SO MUCH MONEY into the networks (what share of
> 'campaign funds' are banked by networks? An oodle of boodle), that
> their shared necro-symbiosis creates the flatulence out of our TV sets...
>
> ************************
> Here's a link for a different subject:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6187486.stm
>
> QUOTE:
>
> Web censorship 'bypass' unveiled
>
> There is growing concern about web censorship
> A tool has been created capable of circumventing
> government censorship of the web, according to researchers.
>
> The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries
> with restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere.
>
> The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will
> be released on 1 December. [.....]
>
> Bonne soir�e,
> drew
>
> http://crystelZENmud.blogspot.com
>
>
>
> --- In iwar@yahoogroups.com, "infosec"<infosec@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Fred,
>>
>> You made an fatal error, you used "media" and "responsible" in the
> same sentence.
>>
>>
>> Randy Lantz, CISM, CISA, CISSP
>
>




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Nov 29, 2006, at 6:49 AM, Drew Schaefer wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Fred, you are perhaps the last person I would classify (in a
> friendly way) as 'utopian'...

I would certainly like to live in such a place - for a while - but
boredom might cause it to no longer be utopian to me. In a friendly
way...

> :-0
>
> My interests have always been in media-focus-distortions, and I was
> invited to meet Danny Schechter here, in Geneva, CH, after he
> presented his movie 'Weapons of Mass DECEPTION', about a year ago
> (after the US Pres election 2004).

A good one for sure.

> My complicated question (for which he invited me to cocktails
> after), reduced drastically, was:
>
> "If any Dem or Rep runs for national office, based on a platform of
> 'reforming FCC control of media outlets (umm - like FOXNews?)',
> given what evidence we've seen in the 'Swiftboating' of J Kerry:
> isn't it overwhelmingly obvious that the media in toto would
> destroy that candidate's viability out of self-preservation
> interests?"

I think this has everything to do with how it is presented and by
whom. Fox might try (and has tried) to destroy candidates, but in the
end, it was not Fox news that determined the outcomes of elections
any more than it is NBC news or CNN. The fact of competition offers
hope, and the presence of personalities willing to take risks to
cream from the highest mountain tops even in the face of the coming
storm offer hope as well. They may get shot down, but we all live in
hope that society can overcome the base instincts of individuals.

> :-?  Fred I am curious how you (or others) might tackle this issue,
> for I feel the US is lost, to two masters:

The US may well be in its decline and fall - as every other
civilization that was successful in the past has fallen. There are
inherent instabilities in peaceful and cooperative societies and it
is to be expected that those who take marginal advantage of others
will succeed for a time. The question ultimately seems to me to be
whether the rest of society sees the truth and reacts to it in time
and with enough force to counter the attempts to turn democracy into
autocracy (and bureaucracy) and eventually dictatorship. This all
depends on an educated public and a vigorous oppositional process.
The lack of the latter in the US recently has led to a reduction in
the former and thus I cry out for education as the key hope in my
recent book on information warfare. (see http://asp-press.com)

> the CIA-beast that will never give up their expanded, off-budget
> powers,

I disagree with you here. From my experience the CIA is relatively
benign in terms of domestic tranquility. They are for more serious
when applied to foreign issues of course - and that is their role.
The joining of the intelligence agencies is clearly problematic for
the very reasons it was restricted by law after abuses.

> and a political system that feeds SO MUCH MONEY into the networks
> (what share of 'campaign funds' are banked by networks? An oodle of
> boodle), that their shared necro-symbiosis creates the flatulence
> out of our TV sets...

Yes - money and politics leads to money controls power supports money
- power and money for their own sake. A human frailty and the human
strength all in one. Greed is good but has to be reasonably
controlled for the well being of the rest of us. Hence antitrust laws
and their recent reduction or near collapse followed by things like
Sarbanes Oxley and the ultra-wealthy making back room deals. But the
people of the US still have a voice. The question is a whether they
will lose it because of the power of the propaganda machine or
whether the owners of the media will choose their own long-term
future over short-term gains and decide controlling power is in all
of our best interests. That was the question I was posing.

So the short answer to your question is "No." But in reality, many
good people don't run for many of the underlying reasons associated
with your view. The question for you is whether you will stand up to
it and influence others to do the same. Who ends up treasonous
depends on the judicial system that remains. We see through the lens
of history, but we live through our visions of tomorrow.

FC
-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

Hi all,

Fred, you are perhaps the last person I would classify (in a friendly
way) as 'utopian'...

:-0

My interests have always been in media-focus-distortions, and I was
invited to meet Danny Schechter here, in Geneva, CH, after he
presented his movie 'Weapons of Mass DECEPTION', about a year ago
(after the US Pres election 2004).

My complicated question (for which he invited me to cocktails after),
reduced drastically, was:

"If any Dem or Rep runs for national office, based on a platform of
'reforming FCC control of media outlets (umm - like FOXNews?)', given
what evidence we've seen in the 'Swiftboating' of J Kerry: isn't it
overwhelmingly obvious that the media in toto would destroy that
candidate's viability out of self-preservation interests?"

:-?  Fred I am curious how you (or others) might tackle this issue,
for I feel the US is lost, to two masters: the CIA-beast that will
never give up their expanded, off-budget powers, and a political
system that feeds SO MUCH MONEY into the networks (what share of
'campaign funds' are banked by networks? An oodle of boodle), that
their shared necro-symbiosis creates the flatulence out of our TV sets...

************************
Here's a link for a different subject:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6187486.stm

QUOTE:

Web censorship 'bypass' unveiled

There is growing concern about web censorship
A tool has been created capable of circumventing
government censorship of the web, according to researchers.

The free program has been constructed to let citizens of countries
with restricted web access retrieve and display web pages from anywhere.

The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab software, called psiphon, will
be released on 1 December. [.....]

Bonne soir�e,
drew

http://crystelZENmud.blogspot.com



--- In iwar@yahoogroups.com, "infosec"<infosec@...> wrote:
>
>
> Fred,
>
> You made an fatal error, you used "media" and "responsible" in the
same sentence.
>
>
> Randy Lantz, CISM, CISA, CISSP

Fred,

You made an fatal error, you used "media" and "responsible" in the same
sentence.


Randy Lantz, CISM, CISA, CISSP



  --- On Tue 11/28, Fred Cohen  dr.cohen@...  wrote:
From: Fred Cohen [mailto: dr.cohen@...]
To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 04:03:27 -0800
Subject: [iwar] It's time for the Press in the US to hold up their part of the
bargain (originally from 2006-11-08)


















             The long national nightmare of the US may be over - or it may not
be.
The leaders of the Democrats have started talking like they are going
to be responsible about the power they have been given by the people.
One of the truly amazing things about a democracy in action is the
ability of the losers to take their licks and accept their losses,
and while some republicans are not doing this very well, most are
being reasonable. Some of the far right in the media are now stating
that they are glad the Right wing lost because they no longer have to
lie to hold up the party line, and many of the most recent lies are
being instantly revealed as such by instant policy reversals. All
fine and good as far as the American people are concerned. But what
about the media?

The US media loves controversy - if it bleeds it leads goes the
saying. But with the Democrats starting to say they will try to be
centrist, the media is starting to push them very hard with claims
that they will not be. And if they get pushed too hard, they may be
unable to withstand their own party members who are radical in their
own way and go too far left just as the Republicans went too far right.

It is the media that makes and breaks these things and for the US
media it is now the time to act responsibly and reward and encourage
centrist behavior in the new ruling party. When Democrats with a
reputation for being left wing talk as centrists, the media should
support that or risk another destructive round of political shoving
and pushing. When they put right wing extremists on the air to claim
the same lies they claimed before the election and the left wing
extremists to claim the rhetoric on the other side, the media creates
the new information war that feeds their own pockets.

Sure - the companies have been stealing the country blind by bribing
the politicians legally and illegally. Sure - the democrats and
republicans have been taking money for favors for years. But when we
have a real chance for a nation at peace with itself and the world -
a short period of possible respite from eternal internal strife - the
media can either amplify it back into conflict - or act to reduce the
inflammation and turn from high intensity destructive information
conflict into low intensity and healthy competition.

Unless the media can learn to stop padding their own pockets at the
cost of national destruction, the short respite we might have had and
parlayed into years of peace and prosperity will be turned into yet
the next war of words that turn into wars costing the lives and
liberty not only of the people in the US directly involved in our
wars, but also the lives of the people dying in Darfur, the people of
North Korea under slavery and oppression, the people of the Middle
East whose lives have been sunk into despair year after year for more
than 50 years now, and the list goes on. Unless and until the US
media comes to a responsible position, and unless they do it quickly,
the nightmare will return sooner than we all think and the fall of
the North American Empire will go faster than Rome ever did. It is
time for the US media to take its responsibility for civil discourse
seriously and to start to learn about and teach about the world we
live in. It is time for the US media to forgo the extra profit
brought to them by eternal internal strife in favor of words of peace
and attention to the real needs of the people of the world to be
informed in their consent to be governed.

At least that's how I see it.

-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen  Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550



















_______________________________________________
No banners. No pop-ups. No kidding.
Make My Way  your home on the Web - http://www.myway.com

The long national nightmare of the US may be over - or it may not be.
The leaders of the Democrats have started talking like they are going
to be responsible about the power they have been given by the people.
One of the truly amazing things about a democracy in action is the
ability of the losers to take their licks and accept their losses,
and while some republicans are not doing this very well, most are
being reasonable. Some of the far right in the media are now stating
that they are glad the Right wing lost because they no longer have to
lie to hold up the party line, and many of the most recent lies are
being instantly revealed as such by instant policy reversals. All
fine and good as far as the American people are concerned. But what
about the media?

The US media loves controversy - if it bleeds it leads goes the
saying. But with the Democrats starting to say they will try to be
centrist, the media is starting to push them very hard with claims
that they will not be. And if they get pushed too hard, they may be
unable to withstand their own party members who are radical in their
own way and go too far left just as the Republicans went too far right.

It is the media that makes and breaks these things and for the US
media it is now the time to act responsibly and reward and encourage
centrist behavior in the new ruling party. When Democrats with a
reputation for being left wing talk as centrists, the media should
support that or risk another destructive round of political shoving
and pushing. When they put right wing extremists on the air to claim
the same lies they claimed before the election and the left wing
extremists to claim the rhetoric on the other side, the media creates
the new information war that feeds their own pockets.

Sure - the companies have been stealing the country blind by bribing
the politicians legally and illegally. Sure - the democrats and
republicans have been taking money for favors for years. But when we
have a real chance for a nation at peace with itself and the world -
a short period of possible respite from eternal internal strife - the
media can either amplify it back into conflict - or act to reduce the
inflammation and turn from high intensity destructive information
conflict into low intensity and healthy competition.

Unless the media can learn to stop padding their own pockets at the
cost of national destruction, the short respite we might have had and
parlayed into years of peace and prosperity will be turned into yet
the next war of words that turn into wars costing the lives and
liberty not only of the people in the US directly involved in our
wars, but also the lives of the people dying in Darfur, the people of
North Korea under slavery and oppression, the people of the Middle
East whose lives have been sunk into despair year after year for more
than 50 years now, and the list goes on. Unless and until the US
media comes to a responsible position, and unless they do it quickly,
the nightmare will return sooner than we all think and the fall of
the North American Empire will go faster than Rome ever did. It is
time for the US media to take its responsibility for civil discourse
seriously and to start to learn about and teach about the world we
live in. It is time for the US media to forgo the extra profit
brought to them by eternal internal strife in favor of words of peace
and attention to the real needs of the people of the world to be
informed in their consent to be governed.

At least that's how I see it.

-- This communication is confidential to the parties it is intended
to serve --
Fred Cohen & Associates                 tel/fax: 925-454-0171
      http://all.net/              572 Leona Drive      Livermore, CA
94550

Use of information technology with communications for real time tasks.

Loopt cell phone/gps service is enabling groups to have some of the
advantages of a netcentric U.S. military at low cost.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/54244.html
https://www.loopt.com/

The extra Loopt advantages are available for a group of 10 people for
$30/month, to provide additional situational awareness.

Here is the technology available to an urban guerilla group:
1. Tracking other participants by GPS position on a map via cell
phone display
2. Cell phone voice communication coupled with caller id for good
identity verification
3. Phone to phone (keyboard to keyboard) spectrum-conserving text
messaging
4. One to many messaging for hierarchical command and control -
selected group messaging is available
5. Transmit photos from each cell phone, allowing simultaneous views
of a location of interest from different vantage points
6. Transmit arbitrary text messages that are relatively secure from
automated interception by using .....
7. Asynchronous delivery of voice or text messages.  Cell phones can
be left unpowered to avoid detection, and turned on briefly to
receive recorded messages.
8. Real time tracking services for a subject of interest with a Loopt-
activated phone by using a quick-attach method on the roof of a
vehicle or a backpack or other carried object.

-----------------------------------------------------
The contents of this e-mail message are confidential.
If you are not the intended recipient,
please delete immediately.

Kohlenberg, Toby wrote:
>
> All opinions are my own and in no way reflect the views of my employer.
> ------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -
> It seems to me that publicly stating opinions on this topic
> could be a dangerous thing to do.
>
> toby
>
Then the Information War is already lost.

When people believe Speaking is a Crime, then Thinking will be next, and
soon we will be a nation of sheep.  (or was that pigs?)

_-_
gar

Hello Fred, Gary and others,

List Lurkers?  :-)  on a list for which I receive a Digest once every
two weeks to two months??  (smiling)

Here's what my law-glazed eye spotted on a quick read-through:

Section 2:
"The authority to establish military commissions under chapter 47A of
title 10, United States Code, as added by section 3(a), may not be
construed to alter or limit the authority of the President under the
Constitution of the United States and laws of the United States to
establish military commissions for areas declared to be under martial
law or in occupied territories should circumstances so require."

COMMENT:
On the very first page, this Act grants an exceptional power for the
President to establish "other military commissions" even further
beyond this Act's paradigm, if in a period of declared Martial Law.

NB:  the word 'area' is is not defined as external: this shines a new
light on the 'FEMA camps' phenomenon; juxtiposing the word 'or' to
divide from 'occupied territories' may add something sinister to this.
[I think that second paragraph screws the American pooch; better cross
over the border soon...]

Moving into Chapter 47 (which in effect this Military Commission Act
modifies):

Section �948b(e):
"(e) TREATMENT OF RULINGS AND PRECEDENTS.�The findings,
holdings, interpretations, and other precedents of military
commissions under this chapter may not be introduced or
considered in any hearing, trial, or other proceeding of a
court-martial convened under chapter 47 of this title. The
findings, holdings, interpretations, and other precedents
of military commissions under this chapter may not form
the basis of any holding, decision, or other determination
of a court-martial convened under that chapter.

COMMENT:
Any record of a commission proceeding here, cannot be used as
evidence, NOR as basis for a legal determination, against any US
military held for a court-martial or trial. Thus if *Habibi* was
tortured by "Sargeant Spike*, and such treatment is noted in the
authorized trial transcript, Amnesty International cannot use those
documents as evidence, established in the Habibi case, when Spike
faces trial for war crimes.


�948(g)
``(g) GENEVA CONVENTIONS NOT ESTABLISHING SOURCE OF
RIGHTS.�No alien unlawful enemy combatant subject to trial by
military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva
Conventions as a source of rights.

COMMENT:
States that, within these commission proceedings, a treaty to which
the United States was one of the prime drafters, and signatory States,
will not allow such US law (via Constitutional mandate for the  Senate
to review and ratify the treaty, to then have effect as US law: 6 UST
3217 (which itself encompasses the First and Second Geneva
Conventions); 6 UST 3316 (the Third GC); 6 UST 3516 (the Fourth GC))
to be considered.

It also seems circular, that this Act defines illegal torture, and yet
denies the protections of the GVA Conventions.

The effect of this is unknown, as one surely hopes that the Supreme
Court would overturn that contention (that 'a US law is not a US law
if applied to...')  on first review.

Any comments?

Drew



--- In iwar@yahoogroups.com, Gary Warner <gar@...> wrote:
>
> Fred,
>
> I neglected to include something very important in my previous email.
> The ability to wield definitions is a powerful tool in information
> warfare, and I agree that discussing such should be our primary
focus on
> this mailing list with regard to the current law.  Being able to
declare
> someone a new status, and a newly defined status, is certainly a
form of
> information warfare.
>
>
> Fred Cohen wrote:
>
> GW> I'd also like to see from you examples of what things you are
saying:
> GW>
> GW> FC> The new law allows the very things the
> GW> FC> US prosecuted others for as war crimes after WW2
>
>
> FC> Torturing prisoners of war - or anyone else for that matter - war
> FC> crimes in WW2 - specifically allowed under this law.
>
> I'm still missing this part . . .
> please show me where this law "specifically allows" torturing of
prisoners of war?
>
> Not only is the Military Commission forbidden from using any
statement compelled by torture, they are also clear to forbid torture
in Sec.6.(c) "Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment", choosing to make clear their intent by
citing the 1984 "United States Reservations, Declarations and
Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and
Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment"
>
> Yet somehow you choose to declare that "torturing prisoners of war"
is "specifically allowed under this law".
>
> Please jump in and join the discussion List Lurkers.
>
> _-_
> gar
>

Unfortunately our laws have reached a state where it takes a lawyer
to tell a layman what they mean, and a judge may still find another
interpretation. I would refer you to a study at

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1741-
5705.00006/abs/

with the abstract as follows:

Presidential Studies Quarterly
Volume 33 Page 547  - September 2003
doi:10.1111/1741-5705.00006
Volume 33 Issue 3


National Security versus Civil Liberties
Nancy V. Baker1
Political, media, and academic observers have consistently noted the
adverse impact of post-9/11 antiterrorism measures on civil
liberties, yet Attorney General John Ashcroft and others in the
administration insist that the measures are consistent with
constitutional values. The national security versus civil liberties
debate has special saliency during wartime, particularly an open-
ended war against terrorism. Responding to the attacks as a war�
instead of a crime against humanity�has led to two domestic
developments for the presidency: first, the centralization of
authority in the White House, and second, the securitization of the
domestic sphere, specifically the administration's view of civil
liberties as a weakness in the system that can be exploited by
terrorists. This study focuses on the second of these developments.
It examines how the conception of liberties as points of
vulnerability compels the administration to restrict individual
rights while, at the same time, to deny that it is doing so.



--- In iwar@yahoogroups.com, "Ross A. Leo" <rleo@...> wrote:
>
> I have been on extensive travel of late, and am not acquainted
with this
> piece of legislation.  Please point me to it, or provide a copy.
After
> reading it, I will respond.
>
>
>
> Ross A. Leo
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

The text of the "Military Commissions Act of 2006" is located at
http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/MC_Act-2006.html

--- In iwar@yahoogroups.com, "Ross A. Leo" <rleo@...> wrote:
>
> I have been on extensive travel of late, and am not acquainted
with this
> piece of legislation.  Please point me to it, or provide a copy.
After
> reading it, I will respond.
>
>
>
> Ross A. Leo
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>