Hi Richard:
On Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:11:11 +0200 (CEST), [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Richard Menedetter) wrote:
>>> Your second argument is also bogus in my point of view: (at least
>>> what the communications part is concerned) Terrorists will never use
>>> phones, unencrypted email, fax ....
> SH> I did not make any mention of communications security in my post.
> SH> I think you have confused my post with something somebody else wrote.
> "The only way I can see to prevent further attacks is to improve
> security and intelligence gathering."
> Under intelligence gathering I understand gathering of information by NSA
> and other intelligence agencies.
> You have already came to know that point in one of your recent posts.
No, no, no. Intelligence gathering consists of ALL activities
undertaken to collect and study and analyze information about
something or somebody or some organization. Intelligence may
be gathered covertly, as by spying and snooping, or it might be
done overtly, as by going down to a public library and reading
newspapers and magazines and books. Most people in the
intelligence community operate overtly. The greater part of all
intelligence gathering consists mainly in just doing research in
the same manner as a typical college student. Only a very few of
the intelligence people are the undercover operatives and cloak
and dagger spooks of the type romanticized in the movies and novels
and reported upon in some documentaries.
>>> A 'college' of bin laden was killed by the soviet, while he was
>>> phoning via a GSM mobile phone. They traped his communication, and
>>> launched a rocket at the position they got ...
You meant to say a "colleague".
> SH> It has always been easy to triangulate very accurately on a radio
> SH> signal, even since long before WWII. The technology required is
> SH> very simple.
> with mobile phones it can even be easier, because you can simply 'ask' the
> phone company, in which cell the suspect is.
In knowing only in which cell the subject is located might get you
within a mile of where he is. Radio direction finding triangulation
can easily pin one's location down to a 10 meter grid square. During
the Vietnam war the enemy could often drop a mortar round on anyone
who was transmitting on a radio from the same location for a period of
over 17 seconds. The enemy used very primitive RDF equipment and they
were very, very fast at getting very accurate bearings and then solving
the trigonometry for determining the grid coordinates for where the
lines would intersect on a map. The VC learned to do their math
amazingly well and very fast.
>>> And to ban cryptology is also a bad idea.
>>> to quote Phil Zimmermann:
>>> "If cryptology is outlawed, only outlaws will have cryptology"
> SH> This is true, but I have said nothing about cryptology in any
> SH> of my recent posts to the Arachne List.
> it directly relates to intelligence gathering.
So does reading a newspaper or studying some data in an almanac or
studying some maps or listening to a weather forecast.
> And the 'gathering' was allways used as a justification for NSA projects
> like echelon.
I don't know in what context you are using the term "echelon". It has
a variety of meanings.
>>> Crypto regulations will only strike innocent people.)
> SH> This is very true. I have never advocated any prohibitions against
> SH> the use of any kind of crypto technology.
> not you, but many parts of the republican party has.
That is because they are just ignorant, not because they are bad.
Some republicans are ignorant about a lot of things, and so are
a lot of democrats.
> If I go to a company and apply for a job, than they will not take me, if I
> lack some capabilities that are absolutely required.
If you were applying for a management position and if you had a good
background and a good track record in management in any types of
companies and businesses, then you would get hired, regardless of
whether you know anything about how to do the kind of work that the
company does. Companies like to hire managers from the outside
instead of promoting somebody who has come up through the ranks of the
workers. Things ought not to be that way, but that is the way things
are.
Sam Heywood
