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A Burglary Foiled by Calls That Didn't Reach 911
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/nyregion/27theft.html?pagewanted=print&po…> The New York Times November 27, 2004 A Burglary Foiled by Calls That Didn't Reach 911 By MARC SANTORA he plan seemed simple enough. The building had been cased and the burglars knew exactly what they wanted - advanced computer circuit panels that could be sold on the black market for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The night before Thanksgiving, about 8 p.m., they entered the Verizon building in White Plains undetected and set to work. But as the criminals removed the panels, they soon triggered problems across Westchester County. Most problematic, 911 systems across the region began to crash. By the time some 150 panels were removed, roughly 25,000 people had lost 911 service. At 9:51 p.m., the White Plains Police received a call alerting them to the fact that there might be a problem at the Verizon building. Still unaware that burglars were at work inside, a patrol car rolled up to the site, according to Inspector Daniel Jackson. "Literally, the two guys were walking out the door," Mr. Jackson said. They were carrying two large boxes when the officer shouted for them to stop. The men dropped the stolen boxes, fled on foot and were eventually run down by the officer and arrested, Mr. Jackson said. The two men were identified in a criminal complaint as Larry D. Davis, 43, of Brooklyn, and Gailican Phillips, 34 of Manhattan. They have been charged with conspiracy to commit interstate shipment of stolen property, a federal crime with a maximum sentence of five years in jail, according to the complaint. Mr. Jackson said that the burglary itself was not as disturbing as the widespread effect it had on the 911 system. The police are working with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security on the case. Terrorism has been ruled out as a possible motive. Although the burglary occurred in the Verizon building, the stolen equipment belonged to some half-dozen other telecommunications companies that use the premises to house part of their operations. No Verizon customers were affected, a company official said. Dan Diaz Zapata, a spokesman for Verizon, said the building had many levels of security - from video cameras to security badges to on-site guards - and that the company was cooperating with local and federal authorities. Mr. Zapata said that Verizon had redundancy capabilities built into its system that would have prevented a theft of their own equipment from having such a wide impact. Mr. Jackson said that there had been a theft at the building once before, in 2003, and the police had reason to believe one of the two men involved Wednesday also took part in that operation. He would not elaborate on other details in that case. However, much less was stolen then. According to the complaint filed in Southern District of New York, the circuit boards ranged in value from $5,000 to $70,000 each and, all told, were worth in excess of $1 million. The plan was to deliver them to an unnamed co-conspirator who, in turn, planned to sell them to an unnamed company in California, according to the complaint. "There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff," said a federal law enforcement official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of saying something that would compromise the investigation. There have been two other similar burglaries in New York City and New Jersey in recent years, according to Mr. Jackson. Those thefts were much smaller in scale. National Infrastructure Coordination Center of the Department of Homeland Security is also working with local police because of concern that the 911 system could be relatively easily compromised. After arresting the two men and photographing the stolen circuit panels, the police returned them to the companies that owned them. Once reinstalled, the 911 problems ended, and by 7 a.m. the system was back to normal, Mr. Jackson said. Police said the panels that were stolen were each about the size of a legal pad and are used by telecommunications companies to transmit data and connect calls. There is an industry standard for the panels and they can easily be transferred from one computer to another. Potential buyers of the panels on the black market range from small telecommunications companies to overseas clients, the police said. Copyrigh -- ----------------- 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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CFP-2005 Call for Proposals
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

--- begin forwarded text

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'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996701> | New Scientist 'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon 15:56 26 November 04 A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons. Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people. A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in La Voulte-sur-Rhtne, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of Kerala alone. Half of Kerala's plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera. But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by conventional means. Unnoticed homicides Using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to examine autopsy tissues for traces of the plant, the team uncovered a number of homicides that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This also suggests that some cases put down to suicide may actually have been murders, they say. Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove. Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. "It is the perfect murder," he says. Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does not grow naturally. -- ----------------- 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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U.K. government hit with another large computer failure
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,97853,00.html> U.K. government hit with another large computer failure The computer crash is being called the biggest in U.K. government history News Story by Laura Rohde NOVEMBER 26, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - IT system failures continued to plague the U.K. government this week, when as many as 80,000 civil servants working for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had to deal with what is being described in the local press as the biggest computer crash in government history. The DWP was carrying out a "routine software upgrade" on Monday when the system crashed, leaving around 80% of the department's 100,000 desk machines disrupted or completely shut down, a DWP spokeswoman said today. The problems lasted through most of yesterday, but the "majority of our system is up and running now," she said. Microsoft Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) run the DWP's network as part of a $3.8 billion information technology contract. Microsoft issued a short statement today saying that it worked closely with its partners to help rectify the situation and support the DWP, but declined any further comment. Representatives from EDS could not immediately be reached for comment. The head of the DWP, government secretary Alan Johnson, has promised an internal inquiry into the systems failure and the role Microsoft and EDS, of Plano, Texas, played in the crisis. The DWP, which is responsible for providing a variety of state benefits to about 24 million people, attempted to downplay the effect the computer problems will have on its customers, saying that the department's mainframe computers were not affected. "There will be delays with new and amended benefit claims, but we have been dealing with the problems though our contingency plans and the disruptions will be minimal," the DWP spokeswoman said. It is believed that the crash was caused when an incompatible system was downloaded on to the entire network, forcing employees to send faxes because they couldn't access their e-mail accounts and to fill out some payment checks by hand. The IT failure was only the latest in a string of serious computer system problems experienced by the department. The DWP's Child Support Agency (CSA) has been struggling with a $863 million system from EDS that has made payments to only one in eight single parents awaiting them. Last week, Johnson told a House of Commons Parliamentary Select Committee that he is considering shutting down the child-support case management and telephony system, and Doug Smith, the head of the CSA, resigned from his job. Today the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka, called on the government to hold off on its plans to cut 30,000 jobs in the DWP on the basis of IT improvements, in light of the computer crisis. Earlier this year, the government announced plans to eliminate 104,000 civil servant jobs across the government based in part on increased efficiencies gained though new IT systems. Since 2001, the DWP has spent around $8.04 billion on various IT projects, including the CSA system. According to a report it submitted to a Parliament Select Committee, the department has spent $579 million on management and IT consultancy, $97.4 million on staff substitutions and contractors and $102.7 million on professional services. The U.K.'s public sector IT projects in 2003 and 2004 are expected to cost more than $23.4 billion, but U.K. government IT projects have often been accused of being over-ambitious and prone to disastrous delays and cost overruns. Beyond the DWP, further examples include the benefit-payment card program from the Post Office, the Department of Social Security and International Computers Ltd. (ICL), which fell apart after three years and $567 million; software problems that delayed the Swanwick air traffic control center and have since been blamed for a near collision between two airplanes; the disruption wrought on thousands of people with travel plans in 1999 by the Passport Office's new computer system, and the National Probation Service's case-record and management system which was abandoned in 2001 after it was revealed the project was expected to be two years late and 70% over budget. -- ----------------- 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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MyKad too hi-tech to forge
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/11/27/nation/9513530&sec=na…> The Star Online > News Saturday November 27, 2004 MyKad too hi-tech to forge BY JANE RITIKOS KUALA LUMPUR: The National Registration Department has detected about 10 cases of forged MyKad issued to illegal immigrants in the country since it was introduced in 2001. However, the chips in the cards were not forged ones. Its director-general Datuk Wan Ibrahim Wan Ahmad said those caught with the fake cards were Indonesians and Bangladeshis, who claimed they had paid about RM200 for the card. The fake cards looked like genuine ones except that the forgers could not duplicate the smart chip imbedded in MyKad. "The physical appearance of the card looks real but the chip, a vital component of the card, is functionless and cannot be used for transactions. "This is because the features of the MyKad chip are so high-tech that they cannot be duplicated. Even if they could make a forged chip it has no data that is linked to our database," he said. Wan Ibrahim also said the chip in the fake MyKad was not readable. "We don't believe the chip can ever be forged. The information in our chip has data and biometric features," he said. The MyKad chip stores information of the cardholders including their identity cards, driving licences, passports and health data. Wan Ibrahim said there were also those caught with fake MyKad which had their laminated sheet tampered with to alter the physical details and picture. "When these cards are read, the identity of the bearer is that of someone else. These included those who were checked at the Immigration checkpoints at the airport. At a glance the cards looked real," he added. -- ----------------- 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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Cents and sensibility
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.asiaone.com.sg/cgi-bin/utils/it/printf.pl?specialsprt> IT AsiaOne - Specials Cents and sensibility Would you buy goods online that cost a few cents? Most people don't and won't, for they would either want it for free or fork out a reasonable amount for it By Raju Chellam , Business Times 27 Nov 2004 ON Jan 21, 1998, Boston-based computer giant, Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) began testing a new system for buying and selling low-cost information or goods over the Internet. The system, called MilliCent, was the brainchild of DEC CEO Kenneth Olsen and offered users the chance to buy information or goods or services over the Internet at prices ranging from one-tenth-of-a-cent to US$5 per transaction. That initiative was as revolutionary then as it is now. That's because the idea did not take off then - and has not quite taken off yet. The idea seems simple enough: instead of risking tens or hundreds of dollars buying stuff on the Net, would you mind parting with a single cent, or a few cents, or even a dollar, to buy something you like online? Most people don't - or won't - it seems. They would either want it free, or would be willing to pay a reasonable amount for it, but not just a few cents. Except perhaps for music. There are three success stories here: One, from Soundbuzz.com, a homegrown startup which offers 250,000 songs at $1.99 each for downloading on Creative Technology's MP3 players and other devices. Two, from Apple's iTunes, which charges 99 US cents to download a song from a repertoire of a million songs, to the iPod MP3 player. And three, from the booming ringtone industry, which charges from $1 to $3 per tune downloaded to your cellphone. All this however is a tiny drop in the ocean that is the Internet. Micropayments currently form less than one per cent of the commerce done electronically worldwide. While most consumers buy more goods or services that cost more than a few dollars online, very few buy goods or services that cost less than a dollar online. Gartner Inc says microcommerce will be a US$60 billion business, but only in 2015. Forrester Research says online retail sales - called B2C (business to consumer) - in the US are set to cross US$100 billion for the first time this year. Of that, less than US$50 million will comprise micropayments. That's a poor showing, even in the US. As for Singapore, IDC Corp says 2.8 million Singaporeans - 59.6 per cent of the population - have an Internet connection. Of that, only 1.4 million - 29 per cent of the populace - have shopped online for goods or services. Most of them would have bought stuff that costs over $10. Are more people reluctant to buy stuff that costs a fraction of a dollar online? Are there fewer goods available at those low prices? Or is it too cumbersome for either the buyer or the seller to process e-payments through credit cards for amounts less than a dollar? It is all of those factors and more. As for e-payments, there's a debit card service, called eNets, from Nets (Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore). In April, Nets launched eNets China Payment, that enables millions of mainland Chinese shoppers to use their Chinese bank debit cards to buy goods and services from Singapore's online merchants for the first time. At the launch, 110 online merchants in Singapore signed up to offer goods, including a dozen who offered to sell their wares online to China-based buyers. One lurking fear in buying goods online is fraud. Though consumer fraud is not yet as major an issue in Asia as it is in the US, it is still a major concern. 'Illegal access to checking accounts is the fastest-growing type of US financial consumer fraud, and thieves appear to be proliferating through online channels,' says Avivah Litan, Gartner's vice-president and research director. A Gartner poll in April concluded that 1.98 million online adults have experienced this sort of crime in the past 12 months. The cost is about US$2.4 billion in direct fraud losses, or an average of US$1,200 per victim. 'It will take time for the financial services industry to develop sophisticated backend tools, but banks must implement stronger access controls to online and phone banking systems,' Ms Litan says. If issues like fraud are holding back the growth of online payments in general, is there no hope for micropayments? Not quite. There's some evidence that online payments, whether big or small, are getting traction in the US now. The most well-known company in the category is PayPal. Some others, such as Beenz, Flooz and DigiCash, which boomed in the dotcom era, have since vanished. New ones are coming, with names like Bitpass, Peppercoin, Salon, Valista, Payloadz, Firstgate, Paystone and Yaga. They are all startups with dreams of becoming the next Google in mind. That will take time. Until that happens - or until the next rush of interest shifts to the 'microfirms' that offer micropayments - buyers will have to struggle to find goods and services that cost under a dollar online, even as sellers of goods that cost little struggle to find buyers online. -- ----------------- 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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Hacking tool 'draws FBI subpoenas'
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/25/nmap_draws_fbi_subpoenas/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Security ; Network Security ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/25/nmap_draws_fbi_subpoenas/ Hacking tool 'draws FBI subpoenas' By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus (klp at securityfocus.com) Published Thursday 25th November 2004 10:42 GMT The author of the popular freeware hacking tool Nmap warned users this week that FBI agents are increasingly seeking access to information from the server logs of his download site, insecure.org. "I may be forced by law to comply with legal, properly served subpoenas," wrote "Fyodor," the 27-year-old Silicon Valley coder responsible for the post scanning tool, in a mailing list message. "At the same time, I'll try to fight anything too broad... Protecting your privacy is important to me, but Nmap users should be savvy enough to know that all of your network activity leave traces." Probably the most widely-used freeware hacking tool, Nmap is a sophisticated port scanner that sends packets to a machine, or a network of machines, in an attempt to discern what services are running and to make an educated guess about the operating system. An Nmap port scan is a common prelude to an intrusion attempt, and the tool is popular both with security professionals performing penetration tests, and genuine intruders with mischief in their hearts. Last year Nmap crept into popular culture when the movie the Matrix Reloaded depicted Carrie-Anne Moss's leather-clad superhacker Trinity performing an Nmap portscan (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/16/matrix_sequel_has_hacker_cred/) on a power grid computer prior to hacking in. But success comes with a price, and on Tuesday Fyodor felt the need to broach the "sobering topic" of FBI subpoenas with his users. He advised his most privacy conscious users to use proxy servers or other techniques when downloading the latest version of Nmap if they want to ensure their anonymity. In a telephone interview, Fyodor said the disclaimer wasn't prompted by any particular incident, and that he'd received "less than half-a-dozen" subpoenas this year. "It's not a huge number, but I hadn't received any before 2004, and so it's a striking new issue," he said. None of the subpoenas produced anything, Fyodor says, either because they sought old information that had already been deleted from his logs, or because the subpoenas were improperly served. In every case the request has been narrowly crafted, usually directed at finding out who visited the site (http://www.insecure.org/) in a very short window of time, such as a five minute period. "They have not made any broad requests like, 'Give me anyone who's visited insecure.org for a certain day,'" he says. Fyodor theorizes the FBI is investigating cases in which an intruder downloaded Nmap directly onto a compromised machine. "They assume that she might have obtained that URL by visiting the Nmap download page from her home computer," he wrote. He confesses mixed feelings over the issue. "The side of me that questions authority is skeptical of these subpoenas," he told SecurityFocus. "The other side says, this may be a very serious crime committed ... and if I were the victim of such a crime I would probably want people to cooperate" -- ----------------- 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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HNS - Z1 SecureMail Gateway 2.1 Checks Certificates In Real-Time
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.net-security.org/press.php?id=2702> Net-Security.org Z1 SecureMail Gateway 2.1 Checks Certificates In Real-Time Posted on 26 November 2004 | Other Zertificon Solutions releases at HNS E-mail security solution enhanced with online protocol and monitoring in new release Zertificon Solutions just released version 2.1 of the Z1 SecureMail Gateway. The so called "virtual admin office" protects corporate e-mail traffic with centralized cryptography and electronic signature from being manipulated and spied out. The server-based solution contains a certificate management that now also supports the OCSP protocol. This enhancement enables verification of external certificates in real-time and is an increase of the security level. The Online Certificate Service Protocol (OCSP) is the emerging standard for the validation of certificates at trust centers. With the disposal of OCSP the common use of steadily growing Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) and databases with expired certificates obsolete. This new way of certificate validation is faster, every time up-to-date and receives a security level which could not be achieved by manual verification by the PC user. Version 2.1 of the Z1 SecureMail Gateway now also contains a statistic module that e.g. shows how many e-mail messages went in and out, how many of them were encrypted and / or signed, which standard was used (PGP or S/MIME). Thus the statistic module monitors the increasing use of central encryption and electronic signature. Free and unlimited test version 2.1 is available on the companies website. About Zertificon Solutions: The Berlin/Germany based specialist develops software and solutions for secure electronic business processes and communication. Zertificon Solutions markets security software which aim on a superior convenience in administration through qualified reseller or consultants and within projects. The core product, Z1 SecureMail Gateway, protects the complete e-mail traffic of an organization via server-based encryption and electronic signature. The company offers security services for IT systems like system integration, software development and consulting within its competence areas "Secure eMail", PKI & SmartCards and Open-Source Security. -- ----------------- 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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Blunkett's Bad Idea
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110142750390883913,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 26, 2004 REVIEW & OUTLOOK Blunkett's Bad Idea November 26, 2004 Amidst Tuesday's pomp and pageantry that was the State Opening of the British parliament, the biggest smile during the Queen's speech probably belonged to Home Secretary David Blunkett. For, in spite of cabinet opposition, he managed to get his pet project -- a national identification card -- put atop the government's legislative agenda. Aside from extolling the worth of ID cards in the war on terror, Mr. Blunkett has been lauding their usefulness in fighting organized crime, combating welfare abuse, and curbing illegal immigration. In fact, save improving the performance of the nation's sports teams, it almost seems for Mr. Blunkett that there's no problem these magical cards can't solve. If an argument could be made that ID cards would be a valuable aid against terrorism, fine. But they're not. An ID card system, to cite but one case, didn't prevent the Madrid massacre. So Mr. Blunkett touts other benefits, like reducing benefit fraud. But at a projected cost of #3.1 ($5.8) billion, that'll have to be a lot of fraud. The government's real response to civil libertarians is: "If you've got nothing to hide, why oppose?" That's not the point. A state exists for the people and is accountable to the people. Not vice-versa. At least not in free and democratic countries. Britain is, or was, freer than its Continental neighbors precisely because the government wasn't as intrusive in peoples' lives. To so fundamentally alter the relationship between citizen and state, as Mr. Blunkett proposes, a compelling case needs to be made. He hasn't. -- ----------------- 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: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report
by John Kelsey 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

>From: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina(a)hotmail.com> >Sent: Nov 24, 2004 12:08 PM >To: jamesd(a)echeque.com, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report >James A Donald wrote... >>And the problem with a civil war in Iraq is? >And the answer is: 9/11 sucked. >Oh wait, I guess I have to explain that. After the Soviets were pushed out >of Afghanistan the place became a veritable breeding ground for all sorts of >virulent strains of Islam, warlords, and so on. Iraq would likely denigrate >into the same, eventually launching similarly nice little activities. Well, I'm sure glad we avoided having Iraq become a breeding ground for all sorts of virulent strains of Islam, warlords, etc. Also that we avoided it becoming a place that trains people in how to carry out effective guerrilla warfare against US troops. We sure dodged a bullet there.... >-TD --John

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