April 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Shock waves from Fallujah
by R. A. Hettinga 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 National devolution proceeds apace. Howie Carr is shocking Chris Wallace just now about partitioning Iraq into three countries, Kurdish (who will have oil), Shiite (who will have oil), and Sunni (who will not; geography's a bitch), all while putting a Sharon-Fence around the newly created Sunni-stan. Kewl. The Globe, below, doesn't know it, but they're advocating the same thing. Also cool. "The legitimate aspirations of the Kurdish and Shiite … [View More]people being irreconcilable with a unified Iraq, the assembled signatories declare..." Cheers, RAH - ------- <http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/093/editorials/Shock_waves_from_Fal lujahP.shtml> The Boston Globe THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING GLOBE EDITORIAL Shock waves from Fallujah 4/2/2004 THE SCENES of barbarism in Fallujah that have flashed around the world since Wednesday will reverberate in many quarters, not least among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority. Sunni Arabs, who predominate in Fallujah, belong to the group that ruled Iraq during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. They now face the prospect not only of losing old privileges but of being dependent upon the benevolence of Shi'ites and Kurds, whose kin were massacred by Saddam and his agents. The burning and mutilation of the contract workers' bodies will likely affect US tactics in Fallujah and the rest of the Sunni Triangle. No doubt those horrific acts will also strain the patience of the American public with the daunting challenges of nation-building and democratization in Iraq. Civilians working for companies fulfilling contracts to rebuild Iraq's power plants, oil industry, roads, and other essential infrastructure may be deterred from continuing their work and will certainly demand more security. And UN officials who have been contemplating a major role for the world body in organizing Iraqi elections for January 2005 will have to question the wisdom of exposing UN workers to the kind of violence on display in Fallujah. But the principal effect of that violence inside Iraq will be to make the situation of the Sunni Arabs in the area around Fallujah even more tenuous than it has been. If the populace of the Sunni Triangle allows itself to be carried away with the bravado of Ba'athist and Islamist armed gangs -- accepting the delusion that the Sunnis can use guns and bombs to prevent the coming of a political order based on the principle of one Iraqi, one vote -- Sunnis themselves will stand to lose the most. If they frighten away UN election organizers and no legitimate electoral process can be safeguarded, the Sunnis will have brought themselves a step closer to one of the two perils most at odds with their interests: civil war or the split-up of Iraq. Americans are understandably appalled by the lynch mob horror of the Fallujah atrocities, but over the past few months most of the bombings and ambushes have been directed against Iraqis -- particularly police, local administrators, and political figures. This violence signifies not simply hostility to the US occupying power but resistance to the advent of a democratic system that would deprive Sunnis of an inherent right to rule. But if Sunni mayhem makes it impossible to preserve the unity of the Iraqi state, Sunnis will end up the biggest losers. Should Iraq break into three countries, the Kurds in the north and the Shi'ites in the south will have oil; the Sunnis in their triangle will not. And if the bombers and assassins succeed in provoking a civil war, they will discover that losing a civil war is far worse than relying on minority rights in a constitutional democracy. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQG3M+cPxH8jf3ohaEQKw/gCfd1H/3qT0adJcF5w/LqudKX5LjB4AnAxE bCeo0KsdVeq6EAIkTgjRDt9l =984G -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' [View Less]

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Re: [IP] U.S. may need to step in, says cybersecurity report
by R. A. Hettinga 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

At 2:58 PM -0500 4/2/04, Jerrold Leichter wrote: >Ahem. Did you notice the issue date and time? Damn. My only gotcha all day... April fool, indeed. :-) Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to … [View More]

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Re: Private U.S. Guards Take Big Risks for Right Price
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

At 10:46 AM 4/2/04 -0500, R. A. Hettinga wrote: >The idea is, if transaction and price discovery costs fall enough, >private force companies that auction their services in a free market >become better than the "public" ones that rely on confiscated tax >revenue. Only if they offer comparable services. Which they won't be able to, see below. >I'd expect that sooner or later companies like Blackwater will start >training recruits in competition with the armed forces instead … [View More]

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RE: [Politech] John Gilmore on the homeless, RFID tags, and k i ttens (and lions and bears, oh my!)
by Trei, Peter 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

Major Variola (ret) wrote: >At 11:38 AM 4/2/04 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: >>I haven't eaten domestic cat, but I have eaten lion. Suprisingly, >>it was a light tender meat, resembling veal more than anything >>else. Tasted good. >Just out of curiosity, how did you verify that it was in fact that >species? No direct proof. This was at a restaurant called "The New Deal" in SoHo, NYC, I think on Prince Street. Once a year they would carry a game menu for a couple weeks,… [View More]

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Re: [Politech] John Gilmore on the homeless, RFID tags, and ki ttens
by Freematt357＠aol.com 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

In a message dated 4/2/04 11:39:42 AM, ptrei(a)rsasecurity.com writes: >I haven't eaten domestic cat, but I have eaten lion. Just out of curiosity, what kind of lion was it? Because after all we do know that curiosity killed the cat. Regards, Freematt-

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RE: [Politech] John Gilmore on the homeless, RFID tags, and ki ttens
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

At 11:38 AM 4/2/04 -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: > >I haven't eaten domestic cat, but I have eaten lion. Suprisingly, >it was a light tender meat, resembling veal more than anything >else. Tasted good. Just out of curiosity, how did you verify that it was in fact that species? I mean, if you beat a monkey to death at your table, or buy a live civet, you see it before its served. I recently read about a firm selling "what's that meat" biochem assays on a chip. Useful for everyone … [View More]

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Private U.S. Guards Take Big Risks for Right Price
by R. A. Hettinga 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I see in the following article the kernel of geodesic markets for force. Actually a sort of re-emergence, I suppose, remembering letters of marque, etc., and my idea about the decline in switching costs "unwinding" the development of human-switched hierarchical social networks, with microprocessor-switched geodesic networks creating diseconomies of scale, and cash-settled auction pricing replacing "calculated" transfer pricing. The idea is, if … [View More]transaction and price discovery costs fall enough, private force companies that auction their services in a free market become better than the "public" ones that rely on confiscated tax revenue. I'd expect that sooner or later companies like Blackwater will start training recruits in competition with the armed forces instead of just hiring vets. Certainly there lots of special ops vets training civilians in combat shooting at places like Frontsite, etc, for self-defense, and local militarized police for forced-entry, etc, as part of the same cold-war spin-off process that created companies like Blackwater in the first place. The fact that the NYT, below, is falling all over themselves about Blackwater being "corporatized" is the icing on the cake, I figure. :-).. Cheers, RAH - -------- <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/02/national/02SECU.html?amp;ei=5053&en =3cdd2de47756be57&partner=NYTHEADLINES_NAT&ex=1081573200&pagewanted=pr int&position=> The New York Times April 2, 2004 SECURITY Private U.S. Guards Take Big Risks for Right Price By JAMES DAO OYOCK, N.C., April 1 - Nestled inconspicuously amid the pinelands and horse farms of northeastern North Carolina lies a small but increasingly important part of the nation's campaign to stabilize Iraq. Here, at the 6,000-acre training ground of Blackwater U.S.A., scores of former military commandos, police officers and civilians are prepared each month to join the lucrative but often deadly work of providing security for corporations and governments in the toughest corners of the globe. On Wednesday, four employees of a Blackwater unit - most of them former American military Special Operations personnel - were killed in an ambush in the central Iraqi city of Falluja, their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets by chanting crowds. The scene, captured in horrific detail by television and newspaper cameras, shocked the nation and outraged the tightly knit community of current and former Special Operations personnel. But it also shed new light on the rapidly growing and loosely regulated industry of private paramilitary companies like Blackwater that are replacing government troops in conflicts from South America to Africa to the Middle East. "This is basically a new phenomenon: corporatized private military services doing the front-line work soldiers used to do," said Peter W. Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington who has written a book on the industry, "Corporate Warriors" (Cornell University Press, 2003). "And they're not out there screening passengers at the airports," Mr. Singer said. "They're taking mortar and sniper fire." The Associated Press identified three of the victims as Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio; Mike Teague, a 38-year-old Army veteran from Clarksville, Tenn.; and Scott Helvenston, 38, a veteran of the Navy. Blackwater declined to identify the dead men, but issued a statement: "We grieve today for the loss of our colleagues and we pray for their families. The graphic images of the unprovoked attack and subsequent heinous mistreatment of our friends exhibits the extraordinary conditions under which we voluntarily work to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people." Though there have been private militaries since the dawn of war, the modern corporate version got its start in the 1990's after the collapse of the Soviet Union. At that time, many nations were sharply reducing their military forces, leaving millions of soldiers without employment. Many of them went into business doing what they knew best: providing security or training others to do the same. The proliferation of ethnic conflicts and civil wars in places like the Balkans, Haiti and Liberia provided employment for the personnel of many new companies. Business grew rapidly after the Sept. 11 attacks prompted corporate executives and government officials to bolster their security overseas. But it was the occupation of Iraq that brought explosive growth to the young industry, security experts said. There are now dozens, perhaps hundreds of private military concerns around the world. As many as two dozen companies, employing as many as 15,000 people, are working in Iraq. They are providing security details for diplomats, private contractors involved in reconstruction, nonprofit organizations and journalists, security experts said. The private guards also protect oil fields, banks, residential compounds and office buildings. Though many of the companies are American, others from Britain, South Africa and elsewhere are providing security in Iraq. Among them is Global Risks Strategies, a British company that hired Fijian troops to help protect armored shipments of the new Iraqi currency around the country. Blackwater is typical of the new breed. Founded in 1998 by former Navy Seals, the company says it has prepared tens of thousands of security personnel to work in hot spots around the world. At its complex in North Carolina, it has shooting ranges for high-powered weapons, buildings for simulating hostage rescue missions and a bunkhouse for trainees. The Blackwater installation is so modern and well-equipped that Navy Seals stationed at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, Va., routinely use it, military officials said. So do police units from around the country, who come to Blackwater for specialized training. "It's world class," said Chris Amos, a spokesman for the Norfolk Police Department. In Iraq, Blackwater personnel guard L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the civilian administration, among their other jobs. Around Baghdad, the Blackwater guards, most in their 30's and 40's, are easily identified, with their heavily muscled upper bodies, closely cropped hair or shaven heads and wrap-around sunglasses. Some even wear Blackwater T-shirts. Like Special Operations Forces, they use walkie-talkie earpieces with curled wires disappearing beneath their collars and carry light-weight automatic weapons. In the northern city of Mosul, where Mr. Bremer met with about 130 carefully vetted Iraqis on Thursday, Blackwater guards maintained a heavy presence, standing along the walls facing the Iraqi guests with their rifles cradled. More than once, Iraqis and Western reporters moving forward to take their seats in the hall were abruptly challenged by the guards, with warnings that they would be ejected if they resisted. The company also received a five-year Navy contract in 2002 worth $35.7 million to train Navy personnel in force protection, shipboard security, search-and-seizure techniques, and armed sentry duties, Pentagon officials said. The rapid growth of the private security industry has come about in part because of the shrinkage of the American military: there are simply fewer military personnel available to protect officials, diplomats and bases overseas, security experts say. To meet the rising demand, the companies are offering yearly salaries ranging from $100,000 to nearly $200,000 to entice senior military Special Operations forces to switch careers. Assignments are paying from a few hundred dollars to as much as $1,000 a day, military officials said. Gen. Wayne Downing, a retired chief of the United States Special Operations Command, said that on a recent trip to Baghdad he ran into several former Delta Force and Seal Team Six senior noncommissioned officers who were working for private security companies. "It was like a reunion," General Downing said. Sheriff Susan Johnson of Currituck County, N.C., where the entrance to Blackwater is situated, said several of her deputies had been lured away by the company to work overseas. "It's tough to keep them when they can earn as much in one month there as they can in a year here," Sheriff Johnson said. But critics say the rapid growth of the industry raises troubling concerns. There is little regulation of the quality of training or recruitment by private companies, they say. The result may be inexperienced, poorly prepared and weakly led units playing vital roles in combat situations. Even elite former commandos may not be well trained for every danger, those critics say. Representative Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, has also argued that the United States' growing use of private military companies hides the financial, personal and political costs of military operations overseas, since the concerns face little public scrutiny. In particular, Ms. Schakowsky has objected to administration plans to increase the number of private military contractors in Colombia, where three American civilians working for a Northrup Grumman subsidiary have been held hostage by Marxist rebels for more than a year. The three were on a mission to search for cocaine laboratories and drug planes when they were captured. "I continue to oppose the use of military contractors who are not subject to the same kind of scrutiny and accountability as U.S. soldiers," Ms. Schakowsky said last week. "When things go wrong for these contractors, they and their families have been shamefully forgotten by their American employers." Eric Schmitt, in Washington, and John F. Burns, in Baghdad, contributed reporting for this article. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 8.0.3 iQA/AwUBQG2KjcPxH8jf3ohaEQKs4gCeO65LBKmtmf7DhdMAbqMxOBpNsn0AmgNB bsdPBhZkDK1ce3TbN9zHVU71 =JS06 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' [View Less]

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[IP] U.S. may need to step in, says cybersecurity report
by Dave Farber 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

Thursday, April 01, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. U.S. may need to step in, says cybersecurity report By Ted Bridis The Associated Press WASHINGTON - In a surprise shift, leading software companies acknowledge in a report to the Bush administration that the government might need to force the U.S. technology industry to improve the security of America's computer networks. The companies, including Microsoft and Computer Associates International, said the Homeland Security Department "… [View More]should examine whether tailored government action is necessary" to compel improvements in the design of computer software. The 250-page report containing that recommendation and dozens more is being released today. It cautions that government should require security improvements only when market forces fail. It also says businesses already are demanding software that is safer and more resilient to attacks. But the report says the most sensitive computer networks - such as those operating banks, telephone networks or water pipelines - "may require a greater level of security than the market will provide." In those cases, the software companies recommend "appropriate and tailored government action that interferes with market innovation on security as little as possible." It urged the government to work with companies to produce a formal study during the 2005 fiscal year, which begins in October. The public acknowledgment that any level of new government regulation might be needed to improve software security represents an important shift by the technology industry. It has vigorously contested mandates from Washington during the past decade, even in the face of increasingly devastating attacks by new generations of hackers and viruses. "That's a big lean in the right direction," said Alan Paller of the SANS Institute in Bethesda, Md., a computer-security organization. "It's a nod to reality; they're nodding but they've got their heels dug in." The industry recommendations were solicited by the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity division in December. Other recommendations include: * Spending at least $12 million, including $6 million in government money, during the next 19 months for a dozen new academic fellowships nationwide to teach future computer engineers to design safer software. * Providing unspecified incentives to companies for reducing software defects. * Offering bounties for information leading to the conviction of hackers and virus writers. * Establishing a cybersecurity report card for operators of the most important computer networks. * Setting up a government laboratory to keep track of software repairing patches and test how effectively they work. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as rah(a)shipwright.com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' [View Less]

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[IP] U.S. may need to step in, says cybersecurity report
by Dave Farber 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

Thursday, April 01, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M. U.S. may need to step in, says cybersecurity report By Ted Bridis The Associated Press WASHINGTON - In a surprise shift, leading software companies acknowledge in a report to the Bush administration that the government might need to force the U.S. technology industry to improve the security of America's computer networks. The companies, including Microsoft and Computer Associates International, said the Homeland Security Department "… [View More]should examine whether tailored government action is necessary" to compel improvements in the design of computer software. The 250-page report containing that recommendation and dozens more is being released today. It cautions that government should require security improvements only when market forces fail. It also says businesses already are demanding software that is safer and more resilient to attacks. But the report says the most sensitive computer networks - such as those operating banks, telephone networks or water pipelines - "may require a greater level of security than the market will provide." In those cases, the software companies recommend "appropriate and tailored government action that interferes with market innovation on security as little as possible." It urged the government to work with companies to produce a formal study during the 2005 fiscal year, which begins in October. The public acknowledgment that any level of new government regulation might be needed to improve software security represents an important shift by the technology industry. It has vigorously contested mandates from Washington during the past decade, even in the face of increasingly devastating attacks by new generations of hackers and viruses. "That's a big lean in the right direction," said Alan Paller of the SANS Institute in Bethesda, Md., a computer-security organization. "It's a nod to reality; they're nodding but they've got their heels dug in." The industry recommendations were solicited by the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity division in December. Other recommendations include: * Spending at least $12 million, including $6 million in government money, during the next 19 months for a dozen new academic fellowships nationwide to teach future computer engineers to design safer software. * Providing unspecified incentives to companies for reducing software defects. * Offering bounties for information leading to the conviction of hackers and virus writers. * Establishing a cybersecurity report card for operators of the most important computer networks. * Setting up a government laboratory to keep track of software repairing patches and test how effectively they work. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as rah(a)shipwright.com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' [View Less]

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Re: [Politech] John Gilmore on the homeless, RFID tags, and kittens
by Nomen Nescio 02 Apr '04

02 Apr '04

At 05:39 PM 4/1/04 -0500, Steve Furlong wrote: >On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 16:21, R. A. Hettinga wrote: > >> Tastes just like chicken? > >Can we change the subject? My girlfriend is Chinese, Does she have a chip implant? I've already eaten >things that I wouldn't have considered to be food Ask her to shower first > she doesn't like my >cat Get a new girlfriend

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