Safire's op ed piece calls to mind the Inslaw Affair, also from the Reagan era. The plaintiff in a lawsuit alleged that the Dept of Justice (DOJ) stole a software app called Promis (Prosecutors Management Information System), case mgmt software for prosecutors developed by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and later sold to a private party who improved it. The scheme allegedly worked something like this:
The DOJ would license the software and implement its use
The DOJ would renege on the contract and force the company that owned the software rights into bankruptcy
The DOJ would engineer the liquidation of the bankrupt company and steer the purchase of the software copyright to a "friend"--a sweetheart deal for someone owed a favor and who could be trusted
The "friend" would provide some shady characters--expert hackers--with a copy of the software and they would add a secret "back door" to the code so the CIA would have access to the data and records of anyone using the software
The "friend" and his company would sell the software abroad, keep a cut of the proceeds for his efforts and launder the balance into a secret CIA account in a corrupt bank or S&L
The buyers of the software would invariably copy it and use it widely
The laundered money would be used to fund other projects and the Congress would never have to know about them
Read about it here: http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/INSLAW/
Were the Inslaw Affair and the Weiss plot the tip of the iceberg, part of a massive scheme to use software to gain advantage over foreign adversaries? And, if true, how did this foray into hacking affect the attitude of the govt toward "amateur" hackers, rouge coders who may or may not be working for the other side. Is it possible that at least some of the govt reaction to hackers was really motivated by the govt knowing the plots that it had hatched and fearing that the enemy was counterattacking?
Slashdot Mirror
Safire's op ed piece calls to mind the Inslaw Affair, also from the Reagan era. The plaintiff in a lawsuit alleged that the Dept of Justice (DOJ) stole a software app called Promis (Prosecutors Management Information System), case mgmt software for prosecutors developed by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and later sold to a private party who improved it. The scheme allegedly worked something like this:
The DOJ would license the software and implement its use
The DOJ would renege on the contract and force the company that owned the software rights into bankruptcy
The DOJ would engineer the liquidation of the bankrupt company and steer the purchase of the software copyright to a "friend"--a sweetheart deal for someone owed a favor and who could be trusted
The "friend" would provide some shady characters--expert hackers--with a copy of the software and they would add a secret "back door" to the code so the CIA would have access to the data and records of anyone using the software
The "friend" and his company would sell the software abroad, keep a cut of the proceeds for his efforts and launder the balance into a secret CIA account in a corrupt bank or S&L
The buyers of the software would invariably copy it and use it widely
The laundered money would be used to fund other projects and the Congress would never have to know about them
Read about it here: http://www.eff.org/Legal/Cases/INSLAW/
Were the Inslaw Affair and the Weiss plot the tip of the iceberg, part of a massive scheme to use software to gain advantage over foreign adversaries? And, if true, how did this foray into hacking affect the attitude of the govt toward "amateur" hackers, rouge coders who may or may not be working for the other side. Is it possible that at least some of the govt reaction to hackers was really motivated by the govt knowing the plots that it had hatched and fearing that the enemy was counterattacking?