From Eugene.Leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Fri Jul 13 08:59:53 2001 From: Eugene Leitl To: cypherpunks-legacy@lists.cpunks.org Subject: IP: MSFT and our nuclear arsenal (fwd) Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2001 08:59:53 +0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="===============7985070137641596788==" --===============7985070137641596788== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -- Eugen* Leitl leitl ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 20:41:54 -0400 From: David Farber Reply-To: farber(a)cis.upenn.edu To: ip-sub-1(a)majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: MSFT and our nuclear arsenal >Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 19:40:36 -0400 >Subject: MSFT and our nuclear arsenal >From: Kai Lui >To: Dave Farber > >An interesting piece from the Washington Post if you haven't already seen >it. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the specific MSFT software is not >identified. > >Kai Lui >------------------ > >Nukes: A Lesson From Russia >By Bruce G. Blair >Wednesday, July 11, 2001; Page A19 > >Although the United States spends nearly $1 billion every year to help >Russia protect its vast storehouse of nuclear weapons materials from theft >or sale on the black market, few Americans know how this aid helps >strengthen America's own nuclear safeguards. > >Russian experts at the Kurchatov Institute, the renowned nuclear research >center in Moscow, recently found what appears to be a critical deficiency in >the internal U.S. system for keeping track of all bomb-grade nuclear >materials held by the Energy Department -- enough material for tens of >thousands of nuclear bombs. > >Kurchatov scientists discovered a fatal flaw in the Microsoft software >donated to them by the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This same software >has been the backbone of America's nuclear materials control system for >years. The Russians found that over time, as the computer program is used, >some files become invisible and inaccessible to the nuclear accountants >using the system, even though the data still exist in netherworld of the >database. Any insider who understood the software could exploit this flaw by >tracking the "disappeared" files and then physically diverting, for a >profit, the materials themselves. > >Full article at: > >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44053-2001Jul10.html For archives see: http://www.interesting-people.org/ --===============7985070137641596788==--