-Caveat Lector-
Jam Echelon Day" doomed to failure, say experts
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2092039,00.html
16:21 Thursday 26th July 2001
Wendy McAuliffe
Activists are planning an international day of protest. Their aim? To jam
Echelon. But privacy experts warn that "trigger words" will not outsmart the
global surveillance system
A group of Internet activists are hoping to bring attention to the US-led
communications spy network, on 21 October, with a "Jam Echelon Day", but
privacy experts are certain that the protests will have a minimal effect on
the sophisticated surveillance system.
Organisers of the cyber-event are encouraging the Internet community to send
out as many email messages as possible, containing certain "trigger words",
which the Echelon system is believed to pick up on. If the bulk of monitored
emails becomes too great, the theory is that the Echelon intelligence system
will be overworked with intercepting spurious input, and so its
effectiveness will drop.
But even though the organisers themselves concede that they are unlikely to
be able to jam the whole Echelon system, they believe it is still worth
pressing ahead. "While the goal of jamming Echelon is a lofty, and likely,
unattainable one, is it not better to signal displeasure at being monitored,
than passively allow it to happen," said the coordinator at ciperwar.com,
who prefers to be known by his nick-name, 'Scully'.
A list of 1,700 suspicious words have been listed on the Ciperwar Web site,
to be included in email, telephone or fax communications on the "Jam Echelon
Day". The trigger words include "hackers", "encryption", "espionage",
"secret service", and "Bletchley Park". But Simon Davies, director of
Privacy International, believes that sprinkling keywords within
communications will not have an impact on the high-tech spy network.
"The Echelon system works on a very sophisticated system of word
relationships, rather than strictly on keywords," said Davies. "Powerful
artificial intelligence software is used to judge the relationship between
words, and analyse strings of words."
Davies advises protestors to send a whole series of original keyword
transmissions through email, rather than relying on someone else's template.
"They will need to be imaginative and committed to take the original
approach that could feasibly slow the system down, but the most important
thing is to raise awareness about Echelon and the work of national security
agencies."
The existence of Echelon was confirmed by the European Parliament in May. A
lengthy investigation found sufficient evidence to suggest that the spy
system -- a US-led venture that has support from the UK, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand -- is used for global industrial espionage, amongst other
purposes. According to the report, Echelon has been capable of intercepting
telecommunications messages to and from a particular person, via satellite,
since 1978.
They can see you... Find out how and why in ZDNet UK's Surveillance News
Section. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,,t295,00.html
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