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How The CIA Duped The Soviets' Line X Network
sundling writes "There are interesting articles here(1) and here(2)
on software espionage against the Soviets.
In the Ronald Reagan era, a Soviet spy network (Line X Network) was looking to steal software to run oil pipelines. The CIA found out what they were trying to steal and fed them bogus versions. This is of course not the only time the CIA has done this.
... An article on the ethics of programming mentions this very topic and the moral implications." Update: 03/02 09:22 GMT by T : Oops -- this is a dupe.
I'm in the US submarine force and I'll just suggest that the US is pretty good at getting a job done when (1) they want it done and when (2) the doors are closed to the public.
Separately, learn some of the facts surrounding JFK's assassination (and the likes who go to no end to increase their power) and you'll get a feel for what goes on behind closed doors. It's very depressing.
G-Force music visualization
What would the CIA have done if the Soviets sought out OSS software instead of the typical closed-source software to run those pipelines ?
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Free your mind - Flush your toilet
programming is not telling a computer how to do something, but telling a person how they would instruct a computer to do something. -- J. Bartlett
if one accepts this definition he/she should definitly think that programming is highly ethical activity.
Aure entuluva!
If this doesn't prove the case for open source software, I don't know what will.
... at the very least.
Those Russkies should've broken out their debuggers on these binaries before putting them into operation
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As someone coming from behind the Iron Curtain, I can assure you that the -3/ is actually correct. The soviet engineers cloned processors down to the microscopic scale. There have even been clones of Intel processors with the (c) Intel part right on the silicon! You can bet that the pipeline system was cloned down to the single valve.
;)
;)
In the late Eighties the former GDR (East Germany) cloned the VAX processors and an 1Mbit memory chip to build VAX clones. If you can get hold of an official report of the '89 Leipzig spring trade fair (Leipziger Fruehjahrsmesse), you will note all that bragging about the 32bit processor and the 1Mbit RAM. In some not so tech savvy newspapers they even messed it up and talked about the 32bit memory chip
As a pupil at an GDR public school I was working on a small scientific project, and I was typing my report on an A7100 computer, which was basicly a CP/M clone featuring an U880 CPU (Z80 clone). Some series of the A7100 had even original Z80s built in, if the GDR could get hold of them. I used the textprocessor (command: tp), and WordStar came up. There was the REDABAS relational Database system (dBaseII), and TurboPascal 3.0 as development environment. One of the first actions Borland made after the fall of the Berlin wall was to legalize all the TurboPascal 3.0 clones installed in schools and offices throughout the GDR.
In the Rossendorf Nuclear Research facility the two main process computers were actual Commodore AMIGA 2000 computers, bought for an insane amount of money (about 120,000 east german Mark, about 10 times a year's net salary for the average East german) from the east german tax authorities, which probably confiscated them at the inner german border as contrabande.
Most cars built behind the Iron courtain had west european roots. The russian Lada cars were licensed FIAT 123, modified in later series. The russian Moskvich, Volga and Pobeda brands were derived from GM Opel Kapitaen or GM Opel Rekord projects. In Poland the FIAT 125 and FIAT 126 were built as Polski FIAT, and the Pobeda was still produced as Warszawa. The romanian Dacia cars were in fact licensed Renault 12, and the Olcit compact was a Citroen Visa. The FIAT 128 was built in Yugoslavia as Zastava (in the plant which later created the Yugo!), and the east german Wartburg came from a Renault built assembly line (even though the construction based on the pre-WWII DKW Meisterklasse).
(Interestingly though the czech brands Skoda and Tatra were genuine czech products...)
If someone tells you that something behind the Iron Curtain was cloned from a western product, better believe it was cloned down to the last screw. Don't expect any incompatibilities
I think the parent wanted to point out that declarations of war seem to be a thing of the past. AFAIK none of the superpowers declared war on anyone since WWII. There was no declaration of war by the US in Vietnam, nor the Russians in Afghanistan, nor in either gulf war...
There is still a difference between an undeclared war and an act of terrorism mind you. Much as i disagree with the US role in some of the conflicts mentioned, i will never accept terrorism as an acceptable means of furthering ones goals.
The US attacks on Afghanistan or Iraq were obviously undeclared wars rather than terrorism as they target strategic and military installations, though with something like the "decapitation attempts" on Hussein it's getting a bit shady legally, but still a very different kettle of fish from terrorism.
Even the frequently cited israeli raids into palestinian territory don't pass muster for terrorism, though bulldozing or attacking the families of palestinian terrorist comes uncomfortably close to revenge terrorist attacks. (ie the people targetted are not the perpetrators and the aim is to terrorise families to the point that no-one would dare commit an attack for fear of his family meeting the same fate, which is a similar strategy to what terrorists use)
I think the reason the US or Israel (or the UK, France, etc.) get so much grief for their role is that a much higher standard is expected of a modern democracy compared to some shady underworld groups (Ie if your three year old hits another child you tell him off/send him to his room/... , but if it's an adult he goes to jail because you have much higher expectations of an adult responsible party...
excuse the unnecessarily long ramblings...
Ponxx
We need to go to war against Canada or England so we can make better use of our human capital.
:-)
Uh huh. Even there you'll have some difficulties, because you won't be able to talk about the loss of the Jets, Nordiques and Stubbies. Or discuss the greatness of Gretzky, Lafleur, Rick Mercer, Peter Gzowski (may he rest in peace), the NFB, and the Tragically Hip.
All most Americans know about Canada is Shania Twain and Celine Dion. And we have snow. And live in Igloos.
And even after two years living in England, I only know a fraction of British culture. I can talk about Blackadder and The Office, but know almost nothing about the Ealing comedies or Tommy Cooper for example. And my accent is a dead giveaway; even if I did pick up a proper UK accent, there's class and regionalization to factor in as well. After all, how much success did the Abwehr have against the UK in the war?
My point is that a proper human intelligence organization takes a very long time to build up, unless people jump to your side for ideological reasons, you'll have years of ingrained history to deal with.
Yes and now. My father worked for an east german audio company, and I got a Commodore 64 in the mid 80ies as a present. Unluckily no datasette tape recorder, so I couldn't store my programs or load programs from somewhere else. My father then took a 2.5mm connector, cut out the one pin that may have short circuited the socket (after 12 pins a 2.5mm connector is halfway off an 0.1" connector: 12*2.5mm = 30mm, and 12*0.1" = 1,2" = 30,48mm) and build a home made clone of the Commodore datasette out of a stock tape recorder.
;) )
At the office my father's colleagues were doing all the same for their children, moulding connector clones out of Silicon, building joysticks from raw plastic and microswitches (I had a "joy plate", basicly a plastic plate sitting on a spring with four microswitches, each at one side, and you operated it by putting the whole hand on it. Unbeatable at sport games
The same improvisation was at work nearly everywhere in the Eastern Block. What didn't fit was made fitting without too much consideration about security issues or similar.
The problem with humint and the US is that it is too moralistic to successfully run a HUMINT campaign. It would be easier to get information if you are allowed to torture people, or if you can threaten noncompliance with summary execution of one's family. ("You will be a spy or we will kill your family.") Secret agents would also have to be allowed to commit crimes to gain entry into the criminal society. In WWII, the Double Cross double-agent system tested German counterespionage capabilities by *intentionally runnings some double-agents haphazardly*!! Imagine doing that now. The US cannot do such things on a regular basis, because someone will reveal the truth and there will be an uproar. Thus the US relies on satellites and radio intercepts. If we get tough on terrorism, it would involve getting tough on terrorists. Until the US gets this, it will not be very successful in penetrating terrorist groups.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Basically, your observations about cars are correct. I was going to point out the Czech exception, but you noted that.
Motorcycles are another story. Russian bikes are not much to speak of, and the Dneper and Ural owe a lot to older BMW designs. However the East German MZ was an innovative and scrappy marque, enjoying racing success well into the 1960s. In fact, it was the defection of MZ rider Ernst Degner to Suzuki in 1961 that gave the Japanese rotary valve technology, making their own two-strokes competitive for the first time. By the seventies, GP development budgets had far exceeded MZ's limited recources and they faded from the racing scene. But they continued to make staid inexpensive bikes. Lately they have enjoyed a bit of a renaissance, even in the US.
Not surprisingly, the Czechs also made excellent motorcycles. CZ dominated GP Motocross in the 1960s, winning more titles than any other manufacturer. Likewise, Jawa/ESO completely dominated Speedway and ice racing right through the 1980s. They also made some fine motocross, and IIRC, trials bikes.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Probably fake. The text is cyrillic but grammar is horrible.
A little bit about cloning from another person who used to live on other side Iron Curtain.
Yes, most of computers were cloned. It was a decision made by leaders of Communist Party rather then by enginners. There were plenty of promising native designs. Unfortunately it was pretty easy for KGB to steal designs and software so it made little sense to waste resources on creating something that can be easily copied and that killed the native designs.
The copying applied to many areas not just computers. Even some american bombers were cloned. The constuctors were prohibited to make any improvements,even such obvious like change screws to metric.
There were a lot of cloned IBM-360 (known as ES series),VAXes and PDP-11 (known as SM series) but not always it was exact copying. Sometimes there were some modifications that made them incompatible with original boxes.
Tyson Gill talking about the design process of Applications. Give me a break I used to work with him. He was the worst designer and one of the crappiest programmers I have ever seen. His books are horrible. When I did work with him he was really big on his Ethics though. Ethics abotu everyone in life politics current events. But his favorites was teh ethics of MMPORGS. He was addicted to Everquest. He loved to talk about it. I read his little article and laughed. Remembering all teh times I was stuck late at work or on a weekend testing his code while one of his staff programmers had to fix his crappy code. I would go on but I find I might get really nasty.