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Any volunteers to set up an central fund for collecting and distributing the donations? You could probably host it here.

It's probably true that the system, as a whole, is pretty weak. But, this isn't really news. I remember, the group L0pth, speaking at the US Congress a few years ago and they said the exact same thing. See the artical(s) here:
here and here

What could be a better gig than to infiltrate the government and then start shaving those pennies off the taxdollars. How much money do think is unaccounted for for the last year in the Federal Government? A million? Hundred million? Billion? How about around 100 billion. I'm just guessing about the mob thing, but what if it were true? Would you want the mob rewriting the constitution so it wouldn't get in their way? Would you? Does it have to be the stereotypical mob that you see on television? Does it even have to be the proper mob, or even have connections with the historical mob, if they are acting in the same ways? Do you realize that all the members of the significant corporate boards sit on each others tables? It's like a big family I guess. Enron, Global Crossing, Worldcom, etc. This is organized crime. And they've got the ear of lawmakers. Maybe they are some of the lawmakers. How long will the United States be able to maintain this level of corruption before things start to unravel? Well, since the Bush Fraud Mass-Murdering Criminal Family has taken over once again this has happened. Where is the 2.3 Trillion Dollars? By Max Emfinger
Date: May 12, 2002 http://maxemfingerrecruiting.theinsiders.com/2/475 71.html?noredir=1 Congresswoman McKinney has asked that we investigate whether the reports by numerous mainstream press that we had been warned are true and why they failed to help protect us. She has also asked why there is $2.3 trillion missing at the Pentagon as confirmed by Secretary Rumsfeld in Congressional Testimony before the Armed Services Committee of which Congresswoman McKinney is a member.
http://civic.net/civic-values.archive/200204/msg00 010.html A General Accounting Office report in April said hundreds of billions of dollars in the $1.2 trillion of Property, Plant and Equipment across the federal government were not adequately supported by financial and/or logistical records. The report also found that DoD has $5.2 billion in missing inventory. The Pentagon claims that Selected Acquisition Reports can be used to determine individual weapons costs, but Taxpayers For Common Sense said that the acquisition reports are not auditable and other records that might yield total weapons costs are completely inaccurate. http://www.infowar.com/mil_c4i/mil_c4i_060898a_j.h tml-ssi Of course, we can blame the accountants (Lockheed Martin), but that wouldn't be fair to all of the other thieves. The Bush Fraud Mass-Murdering Criminal Family has stolen TRILLIONS and America is suffering the result. If you add in the Soviet/Asian oil fields, the CIA attack on the World Trade Centers to allow the Afghan Oil Pipeline, and China getting free manufacturing tech from greedy and stupid American execs like Black & Decker and Tyco then what happens if China closed its trade with us and grabbed the untapped oil fields for themselves? Thank Wal-Mart folks. That is the gateway for China's power-leverage against America. www.almartinraw.com pretty much has everything you'd need to know about the Bush Fraud Mass-Murdering Criminal Family and then some.

-Fantastic Lad

What would china have to gain by attacking us?

They might spy on us, but we spy on them too.

Attacking us is not going to happen, they wouldnt gain anything out of it. --

1. World war - Take out the entire Internet infrastructure, same as binLaden tried to take out the world financial system.

2. Surgical strike - Take out parts of the Internet infrastructure. The Chinese already have heavy controls on their own Internet. If they're this paranoid, they'll want some control over the outside. How do I shut down cnn.com in an emergency if China does another WTC as a diversion to create panic? WTC2 is a diversion for the Chinese military strike force to invade Taiwan while the US licks it's wounds assisted by panic due to the Internet being down. Hit the edge routers, via a weakness in IOS or DoS giving the BGP tables corrupted updates at major ISPs (use an infiltrator if necessary), plus SNMP plaintext password etc.

3. How do I silence a Chinese whistleblower that just posted some Chinese secret to indeymedia.org? DDoS against inymedia.org webserver, edge routers, Kazaa login system (single point of failure), Gnutella, and Freenet networks. Harness extra CPU by hijacking SETI@home program auto-update's DNS entry (IP address) OR reverse-IPmasquerading to Chinese Govt. server with trojan SETI@home update (their routers already do fancy stuff). This trojan will gradually roll out to all Chinese SETI@home clients and perform DDoS against the above targets. While the website is down the nearest Chinese spy will kill whoever, like when the Russians assassinated Vladimir Kostov, a journalist that talked too much while he was walking down a London (England) street.

From the CNN article: If the card is stolen, officials say the data on the chip can't be easily retrieved. This is probably not true. Check out:

Tamperproofing of Chip Card(s) - abstract: There are two ways of attacking smartcards - destructive reverse engineering of the silicon circuit (including the contents of ROM), and discovering the memory contents by other means; a well equipped laboratory can do both. Persistent amateurs have often managed the latter, and may shortly be able to do the former as well.

Tamper Resistance - a Cautionary Note - abstract: An increasing number of systems, from pay-TV to electronic purses, rely on the tamper resistance of smartcards and other security processors. We describe a number of attacks on such systems - some old, some new and some that are simply little known outside the chip testing community. We conclude that trusting tamper resistance is problematic; smartcards are broken routinely, and even a device that was described by a government signals agency as `the most secure processor generally available' turns out to be vulnerable. Designers of secure systems should consider the consequences with care.

With any cryptographic system, it all comes down to one concept: time. With enough time and resources, these cards CAN be broken, overwritten, you name it. We have seen ubiquitous evidence that even the strongest cryptography can be broken in time. HK is planning on using these SmartCards as digital passports. "Smart card holders will speed through Hong Kong immigration, using self-service kiosks that match digital biometric data on the card against the cardholder's fingerprint image read by a scanner."

The scariest part, for me, is that HK is setting a precedent. And it won't take long for other countries to jump on the bandwagon.

• Jim Dunnigan's Strategy Page News clippings, military, high reliability.
• InfoWar's Cloak and Dagger Archives Good Early Warning but lesser reliability

as you can imagine. I've heard a rumor when I was working for IB? in 1994 but since I couldn't find proof of it so take it a grain of salt.

A report saying that H? has shipped to Middle East some printers which have suspicious chips hidden. It was discovered by China's agents. Due to embargo China had problems getting many advanced equipment thus must rely on their 'partners' to resell some of them, and discovered the case.

Rumor said that these chips are not merely listening devices, but for more dangerous missile-guided purpose.

Soon after this instance Microsoft shipped software that included anti-communist messages.

China has already lost much confidence in using US' technology since.

See this article which was one of the best I found in my Google search.

Yup, it was Clarke in the Rama books. It is the third of Clarke's Three Laws that makes the Indistinguishable From Magic statement.

Of course, there have been more than a few variations on that theme.

Several reports exist saying that the NSA isn't able to process what data they already have in Echelon.

I would be more concerned that Ashcroft's Army of Clones aka the FBI were knocking then the NSA

As an example, let's look at the massive NIMBY effect, as it pertains to nuclear storage in Nevada. The near-violent opposition to building Yucca Mountain is a result of how the public perceives risk. A few factors play into risk. Whether or not the individual has control over risk is an important factor - e.g., cigarettes and driving are dangerous but we can elect to do them or not, but air pollution is out of our control and therefore more scary. How well the mechanism is understood, how simple the danger is can change our perception. The toxic effects of nuclear materials are exotic and subtle, while, say, getting hit by a foul ball at a baseball game is fairly straightforward.

The problem with anything nuclear is that it is exotic and high-tech, not wholly under control, the effects are unknown, and the public must place most of its trust in officials who have been duplicitous in the past.

Now my point: nuclear storage must be accomplished. I suggest that, before you condemn the 'green freaks' for lowering the profit margins of a few energy companies, you consider what it is they were 'howling' about. Lobbyists who were salivating over the prospect of a country run on 'clean' nuclear fuel all these years never revealed the massive challenges of waste storage, and this generation must live with their legacy: hundreds of temporary storage pools dotting the countryside, each nearing the end of their design life.

Now, even though NASA has much more credibility (even though it's eroding) with the public, the public is not about to take the risk of launching nuclear payloads and/or stages.

Besides, even if the probability of nuclear debris being scattered over the Eastern seaboard is e-6, isn't that sufficient to not embark on such a foolhardy venture, which in fact it would be under that statistical estimate, due to the fact that the dangers are so great?

Ya know, it kind of irks me when people trash environmentally-sensitive citizens. We are not all Druids, but we expect to be able to put our trust in our leaders that such matters will be managed with some of the same concerns for the country and our health that we have. We generally have no position of advocacy (i.e., we don't profit directly from these projects), and I doubt that the threat of rolling blackouts is enough to make us roll over and cry 'Uncle'. It's just more important than that. I would rather freeze in the dark than glow in it (both analogies are extreme, heh).

Likewise (to stay On-Topic), taking the risk of sending nuclear materials on a trajectory whose Instantaneous Impact Point (IPP) crosses the entire right coast, or even anywhere on this planet does not seem to weigh in enough to tip the scales. Now if we needed nuclear rockets to save some of the inhabitants of the planet due to the fact that this planet is so crapped up that it can no longer sustain life, then sure, do whatever it takes to send the telephone sanitizers skyward.

The higher-ups in the military are in love with Powerpoint - seriously in love with it. If you take it away from them, who knows what might happen - there might be a revolution, maybe even a coup :)

Unless StartOffice does things that Powerpoint can only dream about, I wouldn't hold my breath over MS' demise.

The Indian government is beginning to realize the importance of monitoring cyber crimes just now. They recently set up a Cyber Crime Research and Development Unit (CCRDU). The Information Technology Act still is in infancy. There are many grey areas and much left to be desired. The complete text of the act can be found here. IT law persons can read it and have a good laugh at some sections. The frivolousness of the whole thing can be gauged from the fact that the first arrests under the cyber-crime laws were made only on February 9th, 2001.

While this might work for organisations, can't see spammers adopting it though :)

fff

With CCTV, allegations of brutality can be more easily verified and rascist / thuggish cops thrown in jail, where they belong.

You'd certainly think that, but US precedent seem to say otherwise. Much as I hate Black Helicopter paranoia, it does seem as though we're now at the stage where riot cops are habitually wearing masks and anonymising ponchos and administering punishment beatings and gassings seemingly without fear of consequence. But then, that's always been the case - all they have to do is to marginalise the victims. Terrorists, eco freaks, militant gays, commie beatnick puppets, and Rodney King spring to mind.

When the US marines start mass marketing their nice clean invisible media safe maser scorchers, protesting is going to become a very painful business indeed.

The solution chosen was quite a simple one, and I'm amazed that more people have never noticed it. It is thus: The second digit of all area codes is either a zero or a one. Thus, if the second digit dialed in is a zero or a one, the phone switch will wait for 10 digits as opposed to just seven.

Of course, this transition provided its share of fodder for comp.risks. See here and here, for example. A comment here (search for "Re: Upcoming telephone number problems") points out that one advantage of the current scheme is that if you dial a number that doesn't begin with 1, then it's free.[*]

[*] Footnote for non-Americans: residential customers in the US usually don't pay by the minute for local calls, which is why we can afford to spend obscenely long times with our modems running, exchanging email, surfing the Web, posting badly-written rants to Usenet, and otherwise extending American cultural hegemony.

PS: I'm reminded of Bjarne Stroustroup's remark (quoting from memory): "People used to say that the computer would become as easy to use as the telephone. That prediction has come true, because I can no longer use my telephone."
--

See Risks for details, search on exocet.

Check out this link on how to harden your computers or computer room. I don't know the quality of the research or solution.

Hardening your computer assets

The above article is excellent.
It can be summed up like this: "If we used Unix we wouldnt have this problem."
hehehehhe

peas,
-Kabloona

NT Cripples Navy Cruiser

While it dosen't seem like the makers of this 'armed robot guard' intend to mass produce the thing (it seems more of an intellectual exercise) the US has worked quite seriously on puting computers at the help of some pretty powerful weapons.

Recently, a program to test using windows NT to replace a number of crew members left the ship dead in the water

The trial was considered a success, of course, and the US has moved to install the system on all its other cruisers. Cruisers, btw, are armed with nuclear weapons.

Similarly, the US army is working with producing a 'smart soldier' armed with everything from radio hookup to a gun with bullets which can explode at a set distance, so as to shoot around corners, plus a variety of other systems totaling over 70 lbs.

The navy justified the move saying that their system will help respond to cutbacks by allowing a skeleton crew to man a ship. Of course, the failure to use an open source operating system is widely regarded as a political rather than a 'smart' decision.

Nuclear missle [not responding]

lovely.

I think that this stuff and stuff like it will eventually become a reality because of the advantages in efficency it offers.

Of course, once you have comptuers armed with nuclear weapons, hacking can be considered treason...

Scam idea: Charge $100+ for a "modification" which "reduces radiation exposure by 99%"... and just swap out the speaker. Use the above mentioned "monitor shake" test as your proof

It's amazing to me how much power people give away because they don't understand science. I think Arthur C. Clark was right when he said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". It's not magic... but I could certainly treat it as such, and get quite a few people to believe me. (In this case, at least)

--Mike--

Statistical patterns in data have been used for a while in computer forensics.

It's called "ASCII Profiling" and was used against the Black Baron (Story here) about a third of the way down, "Shadow Copies".

Curiously enough, I'm working on something related to this...

Viviana was an author on the paper, part of a research group from Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. The other authors were quite senior (one was a professor, the other at least a post-doc, from this story.

Weren't soldiers of Desert Storm exposed to certain kinds of biological weapons and warfare. I'm sure whether or not the government will admit to it, their soldiers were, and I'm also sure they've been doing the benchmarking on vaccines for certain types of situations.

The author can get into some conspiracy about the cold war being over and smallpox being available, hell you could probably get this on ebay if you tried hard enough, but I think this book may be trying to be a scare tactic into purchasing that same book being you could get the same information, if not better, more detailed information online. (just bribe India's new h4x0r kiddies for info.)

I'd like to see more on technological warfare posted, such as HERF, EMP, and get views on those states, vaccines can illnessess can be cured and with the mapping of DNA I'm sure things will level out on the playing field, but tell me about the vaccine to cure NASDAQ from a HERF attack which would cripple the economy over than you'll catch my attention.

Removing the dot in dot.com

However, I refer you to the respected 'Risks' archive: volume 20 issue 46. 'Y2K test sends sewage flowing in Los Angeles'.

We all know there is a lot of hype out there, and probably only one in a hundred Y2K stories are true. However, that's an awful lot of genuine problems amongst the chaff.

Do a Google search on Adam Penenburg; find his email address and write to him to congratulate him on this article, before going on to read some of his other stuff, including an enlightenting mea culpa on being taken in by bogus hackers himself, echoing Mike@ABC's comments: writing accurate hacker stories is hard. Sadly, staying credulous makes your stories sound better ("hackers hold up banks with crypto") and no-one seems to notice the difference. Thanks for trying to stay honest.
--

http://www.infowar.com/class_ 3/class3_122898a_j.shtml

...are able to put out of action contemporary guard systems, equipment, and communication networks. Such methods have already been used, for instance, to rob shops and banks.


--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?

The first contest I saw along these lines took place some time ago - I'm thinking as far back as '96, IIRC. However, every once in a while, you'll see one pop up. (Although, I have to admit I haven't seen one for Macs recently.)

In the end, this comes down to the classic bugaboo of functionality vs. security. Any system that provides for remote administration is going to be subject to attacks. Moreso if it's an unencrypted channel. And the more services you run that listen to ports, the liklier it is that one of them will be exploitable.

By the way - in one instance, the web server was cracked due to a configuration mistake. Only goes to show - it doesn't matter how good the system is if you don't take the time to configure it correctly.