July 2007 - cypherpunks-legacy

Why Appeasement Doesn't Work Either (was Re: OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today - July 12, 2007)
by R.A. Hettinga 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

At 4:39 PM -0400 7/12/07, OpinionJournal wrote: >Why Appeasement Doesn't Work Either >http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/07/s… > > >Writing at Wired.com, Bruce Schneier makes a counterintuitive but >fascinating argument that draws on an academic paper by Max Abrahms titled >" Why Terrorism Does Not Work >http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/isec.2006.31.2.42?cookieSet… >." As Schneier sums it up, people have a "cognitive bias" that leads them >to an erroneous conclusion about the motives of terrorists: > >*** QUOTE *** > >Because terrorism often results in the horrific deaths of innocents, we >mistakenly infer that the horrific deaths of innocents is the primary >motivation of the terrorist, and not the means to a different end. . . . > >[Abrahms] analyzes the political motivations of 28 terrorist groups: the >complete list of "foreign terrorist organizations" designated by the U.S. >Department of State since 2001. He lists 42 policy objectives of those >groups, and found that they only achieved them 7 percent of the time. . . >. Terrorism is a pretty ineffective means of influencing policy. . . . > >This theory explains, with a clarity I have never seen before, why so many >people make the bizarre claim that al Qaeda terrorism--or Islamic >terrorism in general--is "different": that while other terrorist groups >might have policy objectives, al Qaeda's primary motivation is to kill us >all. This is something we have heard from President Bush again and >again--Abrams [sic] has a page of examples in the paper--and is a >rhetorical staple in the debate. . . . > >Since Bin Laden caused the death of a couple of thousand people in the >9/11 attacks, people assume that must have been his actual goal, and he's >just giving lip service to what he claims are his goals. Even Bin Laden's >actual objectives are ignored as people focus on the deaths, the >destruction and the economic impact. > >Perversely, Bush's misinterpretation of terrorists' motives actually helps >prevent them from achieving their goals. > >*** END QUOTE *** > >What's really perverse, though, is the conclusion that Schneier draws from >all this: > >*** QUOTE *** > >None of this is meant to either excuse or justify terrorism. In fact, it >does the exact opposite, by demonstrating why terrorism doesn't work as a >tool of persuasion and policy change. But we're more effective at fighting >terrorism if we understand that it is a means to an end and not an end in >itself; it requires us to understand the true motivations of the >terrorists and not just their particular tactics. And the more our own >cognitive biases cloud that understanding, the more we mischaracterize the >threat and make bad security trade-offs. > >*** END QUOTE *** > >But wait. According to Schneier, terrorism doesn't work because our >cognitive biases cloud our understanding. If we developed a clearer >understanding, in this view, we would focus more on terrorists' stated >goals. Surely this would, at least in some cases, lead us to accede to >terrorists' demands so as to appease them. > >Result: Terrorism would have a higher success rate. Surely this would not >escape the notice of people with political grievances, who would become >more likely to employ terrorism to realize their goals. If indeed what >Schneier offers is clarity, it is accompanied by the strongest argument >we've ever heard for opacity. > -- ----------------- 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'

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Re: Gripen: Risks of safety measures in military jet ... (R-24.72)
by Henry Baker 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

This delay-caused pilot-induced-oscillation reminds me of trying to drive some of the simulated vehicles in current video-game environments. The video (and other) effects are stunning, but the experience is marred by the delays between the controls and the perceived video. Unlike driving a real car at >100mph, for example, where the effects of control inputs are felt immediately, the control inputs in videogame-simulated vehicles have a noticeable delay. These delays can cause uncontrollable oscillations if not consciously damped by the gamer. Analogously, a gamer who gets into a real car and attempts to go >100mph will find the opposite situation -- he is expecting a delay, but instead gets instant (and potentially disastrous) results, compounded by the real inertia of his arms & legs interfering with any recovery effort. ------------------------------

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Re: Gripen: Risks of safety measures in military jet ... (R-24.72)
by Henry Baker 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

This delay-caused pilot-induced-oscillation reminds me of trying to drive some of the simulated vehicles in current video-game environments. The video (and other) effects are stunning, but the experience is marred by the delays between the controls and the perceived video. Unlike driving a real car at >100mph, for example, where the effects of control inputs are felt immediately, the control inputs in videogame-simulated vehicles have a noticeable delay. These delays can cause uncontrollable oscillations if not consciously damped by the gamer. Analogously, a gamer who gets into a real car and attempts to go >100mph will find the opposite situation -- he is expecting a delay, but instead gets instant (and potentially disastrous) results, compounded by the real inertia of his arms & legs interfering with any recovery effort. ------------------------------

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Phone switch rootkit in Greek surveillance (Re: RISKS-24.72)
by Peter G. Neumann 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

Jeremy Kirk, Greek spying case uncovers first phone switch rootkit, 12 Jul 2007 http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070712/tc_infoworld/90154 A highly sophisticated spying operation that tapped into the mobile phones of Greece's prime minister and other top government officials has highlighted weaknesses in telecommunications systems that still use decades-old computer code, according to a report by two computer scientists. The spying case, where the calls of around 100 people were secretly tapped, remains unsolved and is still being investigated. Also complicating the case is the questionable suicide in March 2005 of a top engineer at Vodafone Group in Greece in charge of network planning. A look into how the hack was accomplished has revealed an operation of breathtaking depth and success, according to an analysis on IEEE Spectrum Online, the Web site of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The case includes the "first known rootkit that has been installed in an [phone] exchange," said Diomidis Spinellis, an associate professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, who authored the report with Vassilis Prevelakis, an assistant professor of computer science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. A rootkit is a special program that buries itself deep into an OS for some malicious activity and is extremely difficult to detect. The rootkit enabled a transaction log to be disabled and allow call monitoring on four switches made by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson within Vodafone's equipment. The software enabled the hackers to monitor phone calls in the same way law enforcement would, minus the required court order. The software allowed for a second, parallel voice stream to be sent to another phone for monitoring. The intruders covered their tracks by installing patches on the system to route around logging mechanisms that would alert administrators that calls were being monitored. "It took guile and some serious programming chops to manipulate the lawful call-intercept functions in Vodafone's mobile switching centers," the authors wrote. The secret operation was finally discovered around January 2005 when the hackers tried to update their software and interfered with how text messages were forwarded, which generated an alert. Investigators found hackers had installed 6,500 lines of code, an extremely complex coding feat. "The size of the code is not something that somebody could hack in a weekend," Spinellis said. "It takes a lot of expertise and time to do that." The investigation, which included a Greek parliamentary inquiry, netted no suspects, due in part to key data that was lost or destroyed by Vodafone, the authors wrote. It's not known if the hack was an inside job. Vodafone may have been able to discover the scheme sooner through statistical call analysis that could have linked the calls of those being monitored to calls to phones used to monitor the conversations, they wrote. Carriers already do that sort of analysis, but more for marketing than security. But the defense against rogue code, viruses and rootkits is complicated due to how telecom infrastructure has developed. "Complex interactions between subsystems and baroque coding styles (some of them remnants of programs written 20 or 30 years ago) confound developers and auditors alike," the report said. ------------------------------

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Phone switch rootkit in Greek surveillance (Re: RISKS-24.72)
by Peter G. Neumann 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

Jeremy Kirk, Greek spying case uncovers first phone switch rootkit, 12 Jul 2007 http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20070712/tc_infoworld/90154 A highly sophisticated spying operation that tapped into the mobile phones of Greece's prime minister and other top government officials has highlighted weaknesses in telecommunications systems that still use decades-old computer code, according to a report by two computer scientists. The spying case, where the calls of around 100 people were secretly tapped, remains unsolved and is still being investigated. Also complicating the case is the questionable suicide in March 2005 of a top engineer at Vodafone Group in Greece in charge of network planning. A look into how the hack was accomplished has revealed an operation of breathtaking depth and success, according to an analysis on IEEE Spectrum Online, the Web site of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The case includes the "first known rootkit that has been installed in an [phone] exchange," said Diomidis Spinellis, an associate professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, who authored the report with Vassilis Prevelakis, an assistant professor of computer science at Drexel University in Philadelphia. A rootkit is a special program that buries itself deep into an OS for some malicious activity and is extremely difficult to detect. The rootkit enabled a transaction log to be disabled and allow call monitoring on four switches made by Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson within Vodafone's equipment. The software enabled the hackers to monitor phone calls in the same way law enforcement would, minus the required court order. The software allowed for a second, parallel voice stream to be sent to another phone for monitoring. The intruders covered their tracks by installing patches on the system to route around logging mechanisms that would alert administrators that calls were being monitored. "It took guile and some serious programming chops to manipulate the lawful call-intercept functions in Vodafone's mobile switching centers," the authors wrote. The secret operation was finally discovered around January 2005 when the hackers tried to update their software and interfered with how text messages were forwarded, which generated an alert. Investigators found hackers had installed 6,500 lines of code, an extremely complex coding feat. "The size of the code is not something that somebody could hack in a weekend," Spinellis said. "It takes a lot of expertise and time to do that." The investigation, which included a Greek parliamentary inquiry, netted no suspects, due in part to key data that was lost or destroyed by Vodafone, the authors wrote. It's not known if the hack was an inside job. Vodafone may have been able to discover the scheme sooner through statistical call analysis that could have linked the calls of those being monitored to calls to phones used to monitor the conversations, they wrote. Carriers already do that sort of analysis, but more for marketing than security. But the defense against rogue code, viruses and rootkits is complicated due to how telecom infrastructure has developed. "Complex interactions between subsystems and baroque coding styles (some of them remnants of programs written 20 or 30 years ago) confound developers and auditors alike," the report said. ------------------------------

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by Lillian Soto 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

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by Evangelina Gore 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

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by Rodney Toney 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

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12 Jul '07

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12 Jul '07

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