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U.S. Government Contractor Injects Malicious Software into Critical Military Computers

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

This is just a frightening story. Basically, a contractor with a top secret security clearance was able to inject malicious code and sabotage computers used to track Navy submarines.

Yeah, it was annoying to find and fix the problem, but hang on. How is it possible for a single disgruntled idiot to damage a multi-billion-dollar weapons system? Why aren’t there any security systems in place to prevent this? I’ll bet anything that there was absolutely no control or review over who put what code in where. I’ll bet that if this guy had been just a little bit cleverer, he could have done a whole lot more damage without ever getting caught.

One of the ways to deal with the problem of trusted individuals is by making sure they’re trustworthy. The clearance process is supposed to handle that. But given the enormous damage that a single person can do here, it makes a lot of sense to add a second security mechanism: limiting the degree to which each individual must be trusted. A decent system of code reviews, or change auditing, would go a long way to reduce the risk of this sort of thing.

I’ll also bet you anything that Microsoft has more security around its critical code than the U.S. military does.

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Britain’s fight against drugs ‘a total failure’

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

Devastating report reveals soaring use among the young

Denis Campbell and Anushka Asthana
The Observer

Government attempts to persuade thousands of young people to stay away from drugs have failed and done nothing to curb the soaring popularity of illegal substances, a devastating report will warn this week.

The number of young people using cocaine and cannabis has increased rapidly over the past 20 years despite high-profile campaigns, such as the £9m ‘Frank’ initiative aimed at 11 to 15-year-olds, according to an in-depth examination of official efforts to tackle Britain’s chronic drug problem. It is also expected to claim that Britain’s ‘unusually severe drug problem compared with that of our European neighbours’ is linked to social and economic deprivation, that punitive laws have had little effect and that police efforts to disrupt the drugs trade have also failed.

The report will be launched on Wednesday by the new UK Drugs Policy Commission, whose members include distinguished figures from the worlds of health, policing, drugs research and academia. They include David Blakey, a former president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, Annette Dale-Perera of the NHS-funded National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse and Professor Colin Blakemore, who leads the Medical Research Council.

The study, ‘An Analysis of UK Drugs Policy’, has been written by two internationally respected experts, Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University in the US and Alex Stevens, senior researcher at the European Institute of Social Services at Kent University.

Their findings are a scathing indictment of decades of education, prevention and awareness-raising campaigns intended to warn youngsters about the perils of narcotics. The three main strategies into which successive governments have ploughed tens of millions of pounds - mass media campaigns such as ‘heroin screws you up’ in the 1980s, initiatives in schools aimed at pupils as young as seven and targeting of vulnerable groups - have made little or no difference, it says.

‘Prevention is cited as the main policy area aiming to reduce drug initiation and continued use. The policy is predicated on the assumption that prevention efforts reduce drug use, but there is as yet no clear evidence showing that prevention has had this effect in the UK,’ the authors conclude.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence recently drew similar conclusions about the usefulness of drugs prevention campaigns.

‘It now seems that what might be termed “recreational” drug use has become firmly established as an experience that many young people will go through’ because consumption of illicit substances is now so common in their age group, the document says. The failure to deter growing levels of drug use has contributed to Britain developing the most chronic drug problem in Western Europe, according to the report.

The report cites an array of official statistics charting the steady growth in Britain’s drugs culture. For example, according to the 2005 British Crime Survey, 40.4 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds have used drugs at some point in their lifetime, as have 49 per cent of 20 to 24-year-olds, 51.6 per cent of 25 to 29-year-olds and 45.8 per cent of 30 to 34-year-olds.

While cannabis use by young people has fallen recently, it remains around 50 per cent and consumption of cocaine has increased. The Home Office last night rejected the new body’s findings. A spokesman said research showed that giving young people information about drugs, rather than adopting a ‘just say no’ approach, was a more effective way of warning them about the dangers.

‘The British Crime Survey shows that drug use has fallen by 16 per cent since 1998 and drug use among adults has fallen by 21 per cent. We are determined to build on this progress by continuing to take more drugs off our streets, put more dealers behind bars and make sure young people are informed about the harms drugs cause’, he said.

But Peter Walker, a former secondary school head teacher who pioneered random drug testing at his school and is now a Whitehall adviser on drugs, last night agreed that government policy on drugs had not had enough of an impact.

‘What has been done has not been as effective as the public or the government would like it to be,’ he said. But while he accepted that ‘methods of prevention are not good enough,’ he dismissed the notion that prevention could not work.

Danny Kushlick, director of the pro-legalisation Transform Drugs Policy Foundation, said the new study backed his view that attempts to discourage drug use were pointless. ‘We know from evidence that misuse of drugs is related significantly to social ill-being and social deprivation. You cannot deal with that stuff with education and prevention or through teaching younger and younger children. You deal with it by redistributing wealth and improving wellbeing.’

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EV-1 : Who Killed The Electric Car ? OPEC ? US Govt ?

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

The question that is playing on all our minds, who killed the electric car in the US ? A proven technology that weens us off fossil fuels and in some ways performs better than over complex reciprocating petroleum engines and transmissions. Did OPEC apply it’s influence on car makers in the US ? What do you think =, after watching this report about the most famous electric car of all, GM’s EV-1.

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Chavez calls 9/11 gift for Bush

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

Venezuelan President has labeled 9/11 attacks on US as “a gift for Bush,” saying it enabled the US government to wage wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Hugo Chavez made the statement during a news conference to mark the fifth anniversary of his return to power two days after a 2002 US-backed coup against his rule, AP reported.

“If there were another aggression against us, there wouldn’t be another drop of oil for the United States … We’re prepared for it,” he said outright.

Venezuelan leader noted the insatiable US thirst for oil resources led the imperialist regime to attack Iraq and also stage an abortive coup attempt against his leadership.

In April 2002 Pedro Carmona Estanga, a Venezuelan trade organization leader, who was in secret league with some army commanders, staged a US-backed coup against Chavez, but failed in the face of mass public support for President Chavez.

Afterwards, Carmona, wanted by the authorities for illegal takeover of office, escaped house arrest, fled to Colombia and later surfaced in Miami.

“There are witnesses that say Pedro Carmona Estanga issued an order from the presidential palace to kill me … but to make it look like an accident, and he had just received a call from Washington,” Chavez said, adding, “The order to get rid of me came from Washington.”

“There is no possibility of understanding for our revolution with the government of the United States, with US imperialism,” Chavez said.

MRJ/AVA

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Bush asks Congress to alter 1978 eavesdropping law

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

David Morgan

The Bush administration asked Congress on Friday to expand the number of people it can subject to electronic surveillance in the United States.

The request was contained in a proposed bill authored by intelligence and Justice Department officials that also protects companies that cooperate with spy operations.

Legislation submitted a week ahead of a Senate hearing on government surveillance practices calls for the 1978 law that governs eavesdropping operations to be updated to combat the threat from Islamist militants who use computer and wireless technology that did not exist in the 1970s.

It was not clear what kind of reception the proposal would receive in Congress, where Democrats took over in January for the first time since 1994.

But the move was likely to reinvigorate a congressional debate over the effectiveness of the generation-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Several efforts to update the law, designed to oversee electronic eavesdropping against foreign agents operating inside the United States, failed in Congress last year.

“The Justice Department is selling this new bill as a better way to protect our privacy and civil liberties. Lawmakers should reject such false advertising,” said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

FISA, which requires the government to get court warrants for surveillance, was at the center of political controversy over President George W. Bush’s domestic spying program, which allowed the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens without warrants.

The program was suspended for a review by a secret federal court that grants FISA warrants.

TWO NEW CATEGORIES

Senior administration officials, who spoke to reporters only on condition of anonymity, said they proposed to add two new categories of non-U.S. persons to FISA’s definition for foreign agents who can be targeted for surveillance.

Under current law, a U.S. person is either a U.S. citizen or a foreign national with permanent residence status.

“It adds a new category of individuals to the non-U.S. person-agent-of-a-foreign-power definition to include people who we believe have significant foreign intelligence information but where the relationship between that person and the foreign power is unclear,” said one official.

Foreign powers can include the governments of other countries as well as militant groups including al Qaeda.

A second new category of foreign agents would be non-U.S. persons involved in a deliberate attempt to proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

The bill extends the life of court warrants that authorize eavesdropping on non-U.S. persons from 120 days to one year.

It also shields companies against legal liabilities if they participate in “lawful” eavesdropping activities.

Major telecommunications companies accused of participating in the NSA spying program have faced federal lawsuits charging involvement in illegal espionage.

Another main thrust of the bill is to drop FISA provisions by dropping references to older technology and refocusing the instead law on categories of persons who can be targeted.

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Brain Chips for You and Your Entire Family

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

[By the year 2025:] “The civilian populace will likely accept an implanted microscopic chips that allow military members to defend vital national interests.”
–from Chapter 4 of “Information Operations: A New War-Fighting Capability,” contained in Volume 3 of Air Force 2025: Final Report by the U.S. Department of Defense (August 1996)

Air Force 2025 is the final report on a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense presented on June 17, 1996 which seeks to identify the technologies and practices that will need to be implemented by the year 2025 in order for the United States government to “remain the dominant air and space force in the 21st century.”

The report actually uses the term “brain chip” for the implantable microchips which can perform a number of functions such as satelite tracking at all times, personal information storage and retrieval, and behavior modification, among other things. You can actually find the above quote at the below Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama website (archived by Archive.org):

http://web.archive.org/web/20021209115213/http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap02/v3c2-4.htm

Or in PDF format:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030410111306/http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap02/vol3ch02.pdf

http://stateterror.web1000.com/vol3ch02.pdf (Backup copy.)

Below is this document from the Air University Center for Strategy and Technology at the Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama website:

http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch02.pdf

The Federation of American Scientists has this report mirrored on their website as well:

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/v3c2/v3c2-4.htm

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U.S. Holds 18,000 Detainees in Iraq

Sunday, April 15th, 2007

Recent Security Crackdown in Baghdad Nets Another 1,000

Walter Pincus

In the past month, as a new security crackdown in Baghdad began, U.S. forces arrested another 1,000 Iraqis, bringing to 18,000 the number of detainees jailed in two U.S.-run facilities in that country.

The average stay in these detention centers is about a year, but about 8,000 of the detainees have been jailed longer, including 1,300 who have been in custody for two years, said a statement provided by Capt. Phillip J. Valenti, spokesman for Task Force 134, the U.S. Military Police group handling detainee operations.

“The intent is to detain individuals determined to be true threats to coalition forces, Iraqi Security Forces and stability in Iraq,” Valenti said. “Unlike situations in the past, these detainees are not conventional prisoners of war.”

Instead, he said, they are “diverse civilian internees from widely divergent political, religious and ethnic backgrounds who are detained on the basis of intelligence available at the time of capture and gathered during subsequent questioning.” Valenti said 250 of those in custody are third-country nationals, including some high-value detainees.

Last month, military spokesmen in Iraq told The Washington Post that the United States held 17,000 detainees — 13,800 in Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and 3,300 at Camp Cropper, outside Baghdad. One year ago, less than 10,000 Iraqis were in U.S. facilities in Iraq, but that figure has grown and could reach 20,000 by the end of this year, according to military contracting documents. As of last month, the Iraqi detention system contained about 34,000 detainees.

The initial decision to detain or release those arrested is made by a U.S. unit commander with the assistance of an Army lawyer, Valenti said. A file is made for each detainee that includes intelligence reports and any sworn statements and other evidence that supports the determination that the person is a threat.

At the U.S. detention facility, each case is reviewed by a Magistrate Cell. The decision of the Magistrate Cell is given to each prisoner in writing. Each case is reviewed after 18 months by the Joint Detention Review Committee, an Iraqi-U.S. panel. “Approval for continued detention beyond the initial 18-month timeframe requires joint approval from the MNF-1 commander [Multinational Force commander Gen. David H. Petraeus] and the prime minister of Iraq,” Valenti said.

Noah Feldman, a New York University law professor who helped draft the Iraqi constitution, asked, “Pursuant to what law are we holding people who are not turned over to Iraqi courts?” Because they are not considered prisoners of war, he said, the United States must consider them in the “enemy combatant” category used to justify holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Feldman also expressed concern about whether family members are informed about the detainees’ identities and where they are held. If there is no notification, “disappearing people is a bad, bad practice,” Feldman said.

On Feb. 13, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued a martial-law decree supporting the Baghdad security crackdown. The decree gave military commanders authority to conduct warrantless searches and arrests, monitor private communications and restrict public gatherings.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said that under Maliki’s declared martial law, it is up to the Iraqi government to deal with the detainees. “We don’t see any legal authority for the U.S. to detain Iraqis or judge them under some tribunal system,” she said. “If the U.S. exercises that power it’s another symbol of occupation and not an obligation many in the military want to assume.”

One nongovernmental organization expert who has studied the U.S. detentions in Iraq said, “There are a lot of differing opinions within Washington and Baghdad over how to handle these detainees, and the unspoken question is: What will happen if they are turned over to the Iraqis?” The expert spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear that a public statement could undermine the group’s activities in Iraq.

Of the about 2,000 Iraqi detainees once held by the United States and turned over to the Iraqi Central Criminal Court, 1,747 have been convicted, Valenti said, with 80 percent of them receiving sentences of five years or greater, including the death penalty. Noting that U.S. forces have uncovered mistreatment of prisoners in Iraqi jails, the expert warned that “turning our detainees over to the Iraqis might lead to their torture and even death, so they are better off with us for the time being.”

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Science & Technology News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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