-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 180 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send $$ to RadTimes!! --> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --Hackers: The political heroes of cyberspace --FBI Chief's Appeal to Hackers --Globalization: a unique opportunity for humanity to change course --Scientists dispute military "raygun" claims --Quebec City Prepares To Crack Down On FTAA Protests --Copter Stoppers: Protests expose defense industry's role in Columbia --NSA, Carnivore, Others Win 'Anti-Awards' =================================================================== Hackers: the political heroes of cyberspace Stuart Millar, technology correspondent Thursday March 8, 2001 The Guardian Hackers, the most maligned species of the digital age, will tonight be declared the ideological heirs to the great protest movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. Once hacking was regarded as the pastime of attention-grabbing nerds. But a meeting at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London will be told how credible an activity it has become in the era of direct action. Old-fashioned hacking, the meeting will hear, has given way to hacktivism: a highly politicised underground movement using direct action in cyberspace to attack globalisation and corporate domination of the internet. "Hacktivists have provided a new political ethic for the hacking activity of the past 'that tended to be more about narcissistic power games than any real protest against the system," said Paul Taylor, a sociology lecturer at Salford university. "Hacktivism can be seen as the latest manifestation of a long history of opposition to capitalism and its disorienting effects." Targets - mainly multinational corporations and political parties - have been hit with a range of electronic weapons, from viruses to email bombs, which crash websites by bombarding them with thousands of protest messages. Paul Mobbs of a British hacktivist group, the electrohippies collective, will tell the meeting that the internet "removes the advantages that larger or mainstream groups possess, for example money, influence and preferential access to media. No longer are small minorities restricted by lack of access. On the internet all access is roughly equal." Companies are spending increasing amounts on protecting their computer systems while governments introduce tougher legislation. Under the Terrorism Act, which came into power last month, anyone who tries to "seriously disrupt an electronic system" with the intention of threatening or influencing the government or the public, and does it to advance a "political, religious or ideological cause", can be classed as a terrorist. Another new law, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, gives police and the security services the power to collect internet information without a warrant and to demand the keys to encrypted material. =================================================================== FBI Chief's Appeal to Hackers http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42310,00.html Calling all nerds -- the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants you. by Michelle Delio Mar. 8, 2001 FBI Director Louis Freeh says the FBI badly needs the technology community's support and assistance in "one of the bureau's most challenging areas of investigation: cybercrime and computer security." During a speech to the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce in Virginia on Wednesday, Freeh said the FBI wants to work more closely with the technology industry and would like to establish relationships in order to share "codes and insight into networks and computer systems." The speech was greeted with mixed emotions by the crowd, consisting primarily of members of Virginia's technology community. Concerns were raised over how information shared with the FBI would be used, and whether the FBI would understand the difference between "cracking" and "hacking," said Mark Daniels, a consultant with Compservices. "Some of us wondered what the FBI's reaction would be to a report of a security hole that was discovered by the sort of surreptitious snooping around that some of us techies do on a regular basis," Daniels said. Daniels found confirmation for his fears -- and a touch of irony -- when the FBI was "honored" later on Wednesday with a Big Brother award from Privacy International at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. Big Brother awards are given out annually to government agencies, companies and initiatives that have invaded personal privacy. The FBI headed the list of this year's "Big Brothers" for its Carnivore e-mail surveillance system, which was judged the "Most Invasive Proposal." Carnivore can monitor all the information that moves through an Internet service provider's servers. Freeh did address privacy concerns in his speech, but only from the standpoint of law enforcement. He said that encryption is making it harder for the FBI to investigate cybercrime, and also said that criminals are hiring programmers to help protect and transmit sensitive information -- an allegation that seemed to pique the crowd's interest. "At least I know I'll have somewhere to go if all the dot-coms die," joked one person, in a note that was passed among his co-workers. The FBI is focusing strongly on using and understanding technology, Freeh said, noting that each graduate from Quantico -- the bureau's training academy -- now gets a laptop along with his or her badge. Freeh also spoke about how terrorists use e-mail and the Web to plot and plan attacks, but said the bureau is also concerned about the escalating numbers of computer viruses and Internet fraud cases. He said that cybercrime can be the work of individuals as well, citing a case of a person who cracked his way into a hospital's database and altered a court witness' prescriptions, in the hopes of killing the witness. But Freeh said that the biggest problem facing the Internet as a whole is the "astronomical" increase in denial-of-service attacks. The FBI plans to combat these attacks by intensifying its efforts in the FBI-hosted National Infrastructure Prevention Center. Freeh said that nine federal agencies participate in the center's work, both responding to attacks that are in progress and developing measures to stop future attacks. He did not detail what methods might be under development to prevent other denial-of-service attacks. The FBI sometimes seems a bit overwhelmed by cybercrime. At a conference held last week in Florida, FBI special agent Alan Carroll gave a speech in which he said, "We have to button up the holes in our critical infrastructure." According to some in attendance, Carroll sounded a bit weary when he told the assembled crowd, "Every time someone hacks into a government agency, organization or company, and the hacker is found and the hole patched, it seems that another hacker springs up." =================================================================== Globalization: a unique opportunity for humanity to change course by Richard K Moore In many ways there is nothing unique or new about globalization. The centralization of power, and the monopolization of markets, is now occurring on a global scale - but the process is very much the same as what occurred earlier in each major capitalist nation. In the robber barons of the 1900s (John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan, the Krupp dynasty, etc.), we can see the precursors of today's transnational corporations. The scale has changed, but the basic pattern of concentration of wealth and power remains the same. The elite-run media tries us to convince us that market forces is some kind of new invention which should be given a chance to prove itself. In truth it is the same old rotten laissez-faire wine served up in new-terminology bottles. But there are also some unique aspects to globalization, and in these can be found hope for a better future for humanity - for turning the tide against capitalist domination. One of these aspects is the very success of the neoliberal project. Everywhere, capitalism is being given free reign - and its arrogant and brutal excesses are stirring up opposition all around the world. Hundreds of thousands of activist groups and NGOs are struggling, each in its own way, against these excesses. In some cases the struggles are against symptoms, such as environmental destruction or human rights violations. In other cases - as in Chiapas and the streets of Seattle and Prague - the struggle is against the core disease itself: capitalism and elite rule. But capitalism has exhibited such excesses in the past, has withstood resistance movements, and capitalist elites have managed to stay in power nonetheless. What is particularly unique about globalization - as regards hope for change - is its abandonment of the strong, prosperous, Western nation state. For the past two hundred years capitalism has employed an unbeatable formula to maintain its stranglehold over the world. That formula has been based on the relative contentment of Western populations, particularly the middle classes. Popular support maintained Western regimes and those regimes had the military might to dominate the rest of the world. This formula reached its culmination after World War II, when Western prosperity reached unprecedented heights. With neoliberalism and globalization, this successful formula is being abandoned. Western populations are being sacrificed to market forces and WTO tyranny. Our elite rulers have bet their future on the success of their centralized new-world-order regime. The political support base for capitalism has been fatally weakened, and that creates the conditions from which a mass movement for fundamental change is likely to emerge. People in the third world (or South) have long been struggling against capitalist imperialism. Many of us in West (or North) also struggled against imperialism, but our relatively privileged position prevented most of us from taking a radical stand against the root causes: capitalism and elite rule. Now that our privileges are being taken away, it is time for us to wake up and do something about it - shoulder to shoulder with our Southern brethren. Maintaining the status quo is no longer an option for us - the nature of capitalism is forcing revolutionary changes whether we like or not. In a few years the global regime will be so thoroughly established that it will be invincible. The people of the world have a choice. On the one hand we can surrender to global tyranny so that capitalism can continue its insane and destructive growth. On the other hand, we can assert our rights as free peoples. We can oust the elites from power and reorganize our societies so that they serve the needs and wishes of people - instead of facilitating the endless accumulation of wealth by a few. ------------------------ Richard K Moore Wexford, Ireland Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: http://cyberjournal.org =================================================================== Scientists dispute military "raygun" claims http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=165654 By KELLY HEARN, UPI Technology Writer Tuesday, 6 March 2001 WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- Claims by U.S. military officials that a new skin-heating weapon causes no permanent health problems are exaggerated and highly suspect, experts told United Press International on Tuesday. Possible long-term side-effects could include cancer and cataracts, they said. "Their claims are a bunch of crap," said Professor W. Ross Adey, professor of physiology at Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, Calif. "We've known that many forms of microwaves at levels below heating can cause significant health effects in the long term." Military officials hope the technology, known as active denial technology, will lead to a new class of non-lethal weapons that use millimeter waves, which are near microwaves on the electromagnetic spectrum, to heat but not permanently burn human skin. Pentagon officials and Congressional leaders will examine the device in the coming weeks before deciding whether to approve its use as a weapons system. The weapons are designed to help soldiers control civilian crowds and guard sensitive areas without using deadly force. Military officials say the device sends brief pulses of electromagnetic energy 1/64 inch deep into skin, agitating water molecules in the skin and causing thermal agitation, or a feeling of heat. The pain is similar to touching a hot light bulb but stops once the waves stop. The idea is to generate enough heat on the skin that the individual retreats from the beam. The officials claim to have exposed 72 human civilian and military volunteers to 6,500 exposures from the weapon in laboratory conditions. "Other than minor skin tenderness due to repeated exposure to the beam, there are no lasting effects," stated a military document. Medical experts, however, said that while it is possible to test for effects such as acute eye damage and skin burns, it is impossible, given that some repercussions could take years to surface, to definitively exclude long-term effects such as cancer. Adey, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a distinguished visiting professor of the Royal Society of Medicine, said Russian studies conducted some thirty years ago show that microwaves can effect white blood cells before the subject feels heat. "The question is whether this weapon could include a bundle of non-thermal effects that are not related to heating," he said. Years ago, Soviet researchers used millimeter waves in experiments designed to treat diseases including skin disorders, heart disease and cancer. Experts said the fact that the waves could have therapeutic benefits raises the specter of potential hazards if a human is overexposed. Adey said his own research, in parallel with similar studies in Russia in the early 1980s, showed that radio frequency and the lower microwave range effected enzyme systems that regulate growth and division of white blood cells. He said that while the weapon does not use those specific wavelengths, no scientific evidence exists to prove that millimeter waves could not cause similar damage. Military officials have said the weapon does not harm human eyes because their intense sensitivity to heat cause victims to immediately close their eyes or turn away, supposedly avoiding damaging levels of exposure. But Adey said that while brief exposure to millimeter waves may not cause acute damage, studies suggest that even short exposures may cause cataracts over time. Officials have also said the weapon does not mutate human cells. But Adey said research suggests that millimeter waves can serve as a kind of catalyst or promoter that causes any of the millions of mutated cells that occur naturally in healthy humans to become cancerous over time. "The principles set forth in international law say that you can't use weapons that cause irreparable damage or irreversible injury and we think there just hasn't been enough testing here," said Joost Hiltermann, arms division director for Human Rights Watch in Washington. "They've tested on volunteers who are probably healthy, but what happens when they aim it at pregnant women or children or people who already have a disease that could be worsened by exposure?" "The literature on the biological impact of millimeter waves effects is murky," Kenneth R. Foster, professor at the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, told UPI. "You can't truthfully claim that there is scientific proof of no adverse long-term effects from these kinds of exposures. On the other hand, I don't know of any good reason to expect such effects." Foster said most of the Soviet experiments using millimeter waves were scientifically suspect. American studies on the biological effects of millimeter waves are rare because few commercial devices have used them, experts said. No military officials or civilian contractors working on the active denial project would comment for this story. =================================================================== Blame Canada <http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2509/leroux2509.html> Quebec City Prepares To Crack Down On FTAA Protests by Darryl Leroux 04/02/01 Since the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle, police forces around the world increasingly have demonstrated their willingness to crack down on anti-globalization protests. Canadian officials are keeping such lessons in mind as they plan their own response to the upcoming Summit of the Americas <http://www.americascanada.org/> in Quebec City, where tens of thousands of protesters are expected. From April 20 to 22, Quebec City will host 34 heads of state for the summit, who will focus on finalizing the controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) agreement <http://www.ftaa-alca.org/>. The FTAA would extend NAFTA to every country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba. The trade pact has been the subject of secretive negotiations since the first summit was held in Miami in 1994, and negotiators have set 2005 as the deadline for implementation. The security measures planned for the summit are sweeping, it will be the largest police deployment in Canadian history. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) estimates that the overall budget for the police operation will be $30 million. More than 5,000 officers are slated to work the summit, and the Canadian army is presently training 800 riot police just outside Quebec City. Authorities have established a "security perimeter," a no-protest zone that will cover four square miles of downtown. In early spring, police plan to erect a fence along the streets that line the perimeter to block protesters from the meetings. What's more, the 25,000 people who reside or work in the security perimeter will have to show a pass to enter the area, as will the 5,000 official delegates and 3,000 accredited journalists. A plan to run criminal-record checks on all Quebec residents receiving the pass was quickly shelved due to widespread public outrage. At a November press conference, Serge Menard, Quebec's minister for public security, surprised many when he announced that Orsainville provincial prison will be emptied of its 600 inmates during the summit to make room for arrested protesters. Quebec officials plan to transfer all prisoners to other facilities across the province. Menard justified the need for such drastic police measures by saying, "If you want peace, you must prepare for war." In December, the RCMP announced that it had rented all vacant apartments and houses within the security perimeter, and reserved all hotel accommodations within 55 miles to avoid leaving anything vacant for protesters. The RCMP even forced out several NGOs that had reserved hotel and conference rooms a year in advance. They also plan to seal all sewer entrances within the security perimeter for fear of protesters finding their way through the underground maze and onto the laps of government officials and business executives. Canadian officials recently extended their oppressive policies to U.S. citizens. In a late January border incident, 10 New Yorkers en route to a meeting organized by the Summit of the Americas Welcoming Committee were denied entry into the country. Canadian border police searched their van, collecting and copying all documents pertaining to the mobilization against the summit. More recently, former black panther Lorenzo Komboa Ervin of Kalamazoo, Michigan was denied entry into Canada after speaking about police brutality, racism and the FTAA at February events in Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City. Canadian immigration officials told Ervin that before he can re-enter Canada, he must provide evidence that he is no longer a "clear and present danger" to state security, even though he has been to Canada nearly 20 times in the past five years. In Quebec City, the paranoia surrounding the summit is reaching a fever pitch. On February 4, two plainclothes police officers arrested three youths for handing out pamphlets denouncing the summit security's violation of civil rights. Mayor Jean-Paul L'Allier quickly apologized for the officers' actions once the story became public. In response, the Rights and Liberties League of Quebec, one of the province's largest civil rights organizations, is forming a surveillance committee made up of lawyers and community members who will report on security measures, provide legal representation to arrested protesters and help those who encounter problems at the Canadian border. Meanwhile, the RCMP continues to portray the summit as a "crisis situation," thereby justifying all police actions. When asked about the security measures infringing on civil rights, Julie Brongel, RCMP's spokeswoman for the summit said: "If they want to put this in a negative light, they're entitled to do so. But it's not going to change our methods." --------- For more information on the anti-FTAA organizing, visit: <http://www.inthesetimes.com/links.html#globalization> =================================================================== Copter Stoppers <http://www.inthesetimes.com/web2509/hoffman2509.html> Protests expose defense industry's role in Columbia by Hank Hoffman Stratford, CT - Just before dawn on February 12, two dozen people lined up at the main gate of Sikorsky Aircraft, a defense contractor based here, and blocked the main entrance to the plant. Across the street, 75 people held banners proclaiming "Sikorsky kills Colombians." The action marked the first major display of civil disobedience at Sikorsky over the sale of Black Hawk helicopters to the Colombian military. The protest, called by Colombia Action Connecticut, included members of the Catholic Workers, a faith-based pacifist group, drug-law reformers and the Connecticut Global Action Network. At a previous protest in December, six people were arrested when they tried to deliver a letter to CEO Dean Borgman protesting Sikorsky's sale of the helicopters. Concern over Colombia has grown since President Clinton signed a $1.3 billion aid package last July. Defense contractors were the primary lobbyists for Plan Colombia, which includes 30 Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopters due to be delivered there by the end of this year. The protesters tied up traffic for almost four miles. Many workers were visibly angry. "We're in favor of selling these Black Hawks," says Jeff Cederbaum, head of the Teamsters local that represents most Sikorsky employees. "We've actually been pushing our congressional delegation to make sure these go through. Our concern is making sure our members are working." But at least a dozen passing motorists honked their horns in support. And after an hour and a half, protesters ended their blockade, without arrests. "We stopped business as usual," says Mark Colville, a resident of the New Haven Catholic Worker house. "I think we touched the consciences of people who work here. What they do with that is up to them." The coalition plans to organize more blockades at Sikorsky. "I dread getting arrested and going to jail," adds Colville, who was arrested for the first time at the December action. "But I think it's necessary. There needs to be a dramatization of the fact that we're killing people daily in Colombia." ------------ A version of this story originally appeared in the New Haven Advocate. =================================================================== NSA, Carnivore, Others Win 'Anti-Awards' By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes March 9, 2001 CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A. The National Security Agency, the FBI's Carnivore Internet surveillance system, ChoicePoint and the city of Tampa today all received the dubious "Big Brother" awards from Privacy International for their Internet missteps in the eyes of online privacy advocates. The National Security Agency took top "honors" for the "lifetime menace award," despite Privacy International's David Banisar's assertion that in the past five years "they've gotten happy and friendly." He noted that this latest trend of NSA user-friendliness has amounted to a general attempt not to stop invading citizen's privacy, but to focus attention away from it. The once-known-as-Carnivore Internet snooping project run by the FBI won the award for "most heinous project," according to Banisar, for, as he said, "Bringing Echelon to the ISP level." The city of Tampa, Fla., meanwhile, took the honors for "worst government official/agency" for the by now notorious Super Bowl Sunday surveillance project in which video cameras taped the faces of fans, and then matched them up against a criminal recognition program. ChoicePoint, a company that sold consumer data in Transportation Department records, and also supplied Texas-based felon lists to the state of Florida so it could invalidate certain potential voters then living in that state during the 2001 presidential election, took the prize for "greatest corporate invader." Other contenders for the lifetime menace award included IBM for, among other things, its continuing lobbying push on Capitol Hill against privacy laws, and the Direct Marketing Association for "making sure junk mail is officially delivered," Banisar said. Nortel Networks and VeriSign's Network Solutions were runners-up for "greatest corporate invader," with Network Solutions receiving a special raspberry for selling its WHOIS database to direct marketers. The Justice Department and three Pennsylvania school districts - Tussey Mountain, Penn Cambria and Lower Merion - took honors for the Cybercrime.gov project and a local school district initiative to link a biometrics program for individual students to their school lunch programs. The Clinton administration's medical privacy regulations, under the Department of Health & Human Services, took flak from Privacy International for its pretense of protecting personal patient data, but in reality, PI said, for allowing the selling of that data on a widespread basis. =================================================================== "Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control." -Jim Dodge ====================================================== "Communications without intelligence is noise; intelligence without communications is irrelevant." -Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC ====================================================== "It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society." -J. Krishnamurti ====================================================== "The world is my country, all mankind my brethren, and to do good is my religion." -Thomas Paine ====================================================== " . . . it does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds . . . " -Samuel Adams ====================================================== "You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." -Gandhi ______________________________________________________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe or for a sample copy or a list of back issues, send appropriate email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ______________________________________________________________ **How to assist RadTimes: An account is available at <www.paypal.com> which enables direct donations. If you are a current PayPal user, use this email address: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, to contribute. 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