Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?
On Sat, 19 Feb 2000, Tim May wrote:
It's also a waste of time to write FAQs, I've concluded. I suspected this
before, but now I know it for sure. Those who most need to read a FAQ are
usually the least likely to do so. Those who read widely don't _need_ a
FAQ. FAQs are thus mostly useful for providing etiquette tips to newbies,
telling them where to find archchives, pointing out books they should read,
etc. All third grade stuff.
I have to disagree with you in part here. Your points are well taken as
many (most?) people are too lazy to look stuff up or haven't yet learned
how to use search engines efficiently. One problem with a lot of FAQs is
that they are spread all over the damned place and thus it can be hard
to locate a current version of the FAQ for a given issue. I ran into
this problem the other day when attempting to set up a CDRW on my
linux box (which btw still isn't working correctly. if anyone out
there is knowledgable about such things, I'd appreciate some assistance)
The LDP (Linux Documentation Project) is a step in the right direction
for Linux related FAQs. A quick trip to http://www.linuxdoc.org/ will
allow you to find most FAQs, docs and HOWTOs that you might need, though
many are not as useful as they might be.
Perhaps those interested in furthering other subjects could band
together and institute a site at www.documentation.org that would
be a repository of information on various subjects.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.zeugma.nu/
print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0J]dsJxp"|dc`
You can patent a mouse trap. You should not be able to patent trapping mice.
Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?
John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Is that old news or new, or merely a French counterattack on Echelon-like espionage? [Note from Matthew Gaylor: Nearly every security expert I know won't use Windows on their personal machines. Everyone is aware of the security issues that arise with Microsoft and it is common knowledge that many intelligence workers have cover jobs with various corporations. But I don't place complete confidence in the French either. Kenn Cukier formally of Communications Week International and now the International Editor at Red Herring had this interesting paper on France's spy network. http://www.cfp99.org/program/papers/cukier.htm "France reportedly has developed its own "Frenchelon" -- a worldwide network of spy satellites and listening stations that systematically eavesdrop on communications in the United States and elsewhere. Monitoring stations are said to exist in French Guiana, in the city of Domme in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, in New Caledonia, and in the United Arab Emirates. The information gleaned is reportedly used for both political and commercial ends. Additionally, some speculate that the French project may mark the first step in a pan-European effort to counterbalance the U.S.'s global spying capabilities. Germany is said to partially fund France's initiative in return for access to the information it collects."] ** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per month) Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd., PMB 176, Columbus, OH 43229 Archived at http://www.egroups.com/list/fa/ **
Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?
At 12:26 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote: A French intelligence report alleges that Microsoft was set up with NSA funding and that NSA imposed MS-DOS on IBM, and also alleges that NSA agents are now working at Microsoft: http://cryptome.org/nsa-ms-spy.htm The full confidential report has not been published and these allegations are made by an intelligence newsletter which claims to have seen it. The Age, an Australian newspaper, has reported on the topic today -- that account leads the file above. The NSA MS key revelation appears in the reports, and may have prompted the intelligence investigation and speculation, along with the April 1999 report for Europarl, due to be considered by EuroParl in a week, which also warns of Microsoft's and Intel's possible cooperation with US intelligence to use Winte as a spying tool. Still, we had not before seen an allegation that NSA was in on the gitgo with Microsoft and that DOS had been forced upon IBM. Is that old news or new, or merely a French counterattack on Echelon-like espionage? It's probably a boullaibaise (sp?) of paranoid conspiracy theory, journalistic sensationalism, piling on, French nationalism, and a desire to distract attention away from French industrial espionage. (Recall the confirmed report that Air France was bugging commercial travellers.) PC-DOS was so primitive in 1980, when IBM's Boca Raton division--itself a backwater, led by Phil "Don" Estridge--that it is inconceivable that it had any "spying" hooks built in. I mean, come on! Besides which, it was written initially by Tim Patterson, of Seattle Computer, and only bought hastily by MS when it looked like they would get the IBM contract. (So the French paranoids would claim that Tim Patterson was operating his little company in Seattle with the intent of selling his spy software to MS. Get real.) PC-DOS, later MS-DOS, was also small enough in those days that nearly every function could be analyzed in detail, and the code could be dissected. Ditto for the chips. I worked for Intel during that period when this supposed NSA "Operation Wintel" was being developed, and I can assure you that the chips of the day had no particular features of interest to the NSA, save for some of the well-known bit twiddling instructions wmight otherwise have been. (But a lot less well-suited than it _could_ have been.) Most compellingly, until fairly recently the Net was primarily run off of Sun and similar computers...we all know that, of course. Sniffers on Sun networks would have been more interesting (and there's anecdotal evidence that a certain San Diegan developed precisely those tools for the NSA). Arghh..where to continue? Consider that at least several other manufacturers of Intel-compatible chips exist. AMD, obviously. But also Cyrix/National/Via, and Texas Instruments, and IBM. Did all of them design in the "special NSA sections"? Without any of them talking? (And these are only the recent deals. In the past, Matra/Harris, a French-affiliated company, was a producer. Ditto for a bunch of others, American, European, and Asian. All of them in on the conspiracy?) As a paranoid theory, it's not even interesting. --Tim May -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?
Very well, your rebuttal would be an informative addition to the file, if you don't object. To pick up on a couple of your points: There should be a sustained burst of activity from Europe on the Echelon affair as EuroParl deliberates on it, guided by the four 1999 Echelon reports prepared by its technological research department, STOA. The one most recently featured for its allegations about Wintel is, "Development of Surveillance Technology and Risk of Abuse of Economic Information (an appraisal of technologies of political control):" http://cryptome.org/stoa-r3-5.htm The Cukier CFP99 report Matthew cited presents a useful summary of Echelon-like activities by nations other than the US. Wayne Madsen is quoted today in Canada's National Post that the EU hearings are a joke. That all nations spy on each other and only a fool thinks otherwise: http://www.nationalpost.com/news.asp?s2=worlds3=observerf=000219/210021.html And Wayne Madsen wrote yesterday of Net intrusions and attacks by the USG, with the probability that it carried out the US "hacker attacks:" http://cryptome.org/madsen-hmhd.htm Which of these charges and countercharges and dismissals are conventional bread and butter propaganda and which are new revelations, that may never be known for certain. Would that San Diegian be the gent who bragged of snagging Mitnick? - Tim May wrote: It's probably a boullaibaise (sp?) of paranoid conspiracy theory, journalistic sensationalism, piling on, French nationalism, and a desire to distract attention away from French industrial espionage. (Recall the confirmed report that Air France was bugging commercial travellers.) PC-DOS was so primitive in 1980, when IBM's Boca Raton division--itself a backwater, led by Phil "Don" Estridge--that it is inconceivable that it had any "spying" hooks built in. I mean, come on! Besides which, it was written initially by Tim Patterson, of Seattle Computer, and only bought hastily by MS when it looked like they would get the IBM contract. (So the French paranoids would claim that Tim Patterson was operating his little company in Seattle with the intent of selling his spy software to MS. Get real.) PC-DOS, later MS-DOS, was also small enough in those days that nearly every function could be analyzed in detail, and the code could be dissected. Ditto for the chips. I worked for Intel during that period when this supposed NSA "Operation Wintel" was being developed, and I can assure you that the chips of the day had no particular features of interest to the NSA, save for some of the well-known bit twiddling instructions wmight otherwise have been. (But a lot less well-suited than it _could_ have been.) Most compellingly, until fairly recently the Net was primarily run off of Sun and similar computers...we all know that, of course. Sniffers on Sun networks would have been more interesting (and there's anecdotal evidence that a certain San Diegan developed precisely those tools for the NSA). Arghh..where to continue? Consider that at least several other manufacturers of Intel-compatible chips exist. AMD, obviously. But also Cyrix/National/Via, and Texas Instruments, and IBM. Did all of them design in the "special NSA sections"? Without any of them talking? (And these are only the recent deals. In the past, Matra/Harris, a French-affiliated company, was a producer. Ditto for a bunch of others, American, European, and Asian. All of them in on the conspiracy?) As a paranoid theory, it's not even interesting. --Tim May -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
Re: MS Funded/Founded by NSA?
At 5:58 PM -0800 2/19/00, John Young wrote: Very well, your rebuttal would be an informative addition to the file, if you don't object. Wayne Madsen is quoted today in Canada's National Post that the EU hearings are a joke. That all nations spy on each other and only a fool thinks otherwise: Obviously. Most of Echeleon is not even very new. I read Bamford's "The Puzzle Palace" when it first came out, around 1983. Minaret, US-USA, Alice Springs, etc. With later details filled in: Task Force 57, Nugan-Hand Bank, Banco Ambrosiano, and on and on. Some of the details are newly updated, but mostly this was all implicit in the Bamford book...the listening posts around the world, the deals with Western Union, ITT, etc. The UK-USA mutual espionage deals to skirt the letter of the law, the Canberra-Alice Springs murders and shenanigans, the role of SAIC, Kissinger Associates, and other Task Force 57 staffers, and so on. Old beer in new bottles. (I was working on a novel about NSA machinations and high tech in the period 1988-1991. Stuff about NSA commercial espionage to run investment pools. I eventually ran out of gas on this techno-thriller, but the preps and research fleshed out the bones of crypto anarchy and helped lead to our first meetings in '92. So this is why Echelon just looks like old beer in new bottles. But I understand the journalists are now in a tizzy, so I guess some here are, too.) Would that San Diegian be the gent who bragged of snagging Mitnick? Rots of ruck. BTW, there was a poorly written (or perhaps poorly translated) French techno-thriller back in the late 80s, early 90s. I forget the title. Maybe something like "Cyberwar." Or perhaps "Infowar." About a supercomputer with special instructions to leak data when a weather service report had some city's temperature at a precise value, e.g., "23.8 C." I mention this because there are a lot of flaky theories used as the basis for some flaky thriller novels. (I like to think the thesis of my 1988-91 projected novel was a helluva lot more grounded in real technology than most of these novels are.) This latest French report about "Operation Wintel" is cheesier than most. So "fromagey" that I'm inclined to think _IT_ is the NSA's plant. (Were I the NSA and hoping to subvert systems to my own end, I'd have made the guy I threatened to kill in his company's parking lot an even better deal: make your systems subtly attackable by us, both your crypto and your Verisign products, and we'll not only let you live, we'll also let you become a billionaire. Not that I'm saying this might have happened, just that this is a much more obvious point of attack. It's all Greek to me.) Putting these backdoors/snoopers into either the DOS derivatives or the x86 derivatives is just plain inefficient and too exposed. The code for both is just too visible. Any introduced flaws must be subtle. My strong hunch is that they are not there. Which is not to say Europeans, Asians, and Free Americans should not be worried about Echelon. They obviously should be. And they should be using absolutely first-rate crypto code. Gee, whatever happened to all that crypto code supposedly coming out of Europe? Big news about 3 years ago, that PGP had been gotten out in source code...I don't see NAI emphasizing this anymore. Ditto for RSA's foreign development labs. The lack of strong crypto coming out of Europe is something the Europeans can and should be talking about, not weird shit about Intel chips having special NSA access. --Tim May -:-:-:-:-:-:-: Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, "Cyphernomicon" | black markets, collapse of governments.
