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Jim Bell Letter
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We offer a recent letter from Jim Bell that describes prison and his prospects: http://jya.com/jimbell4.htm It is published against his wishes, maybe. Read the letter to see the fear (or caginess) loss of freedom teaches.

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nuclear_2.html
by maria＠linux.nycmetro.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Reuters New Media [ Yahoo | Write Us | Search | Info ] [ Index | News | World | Biz | Tech | Politic | Sport | Scoreboard | Entertain | Health ] _________________________________________________________________ Previous Story: Mir Computer Working; Gore Cautious on Future Next Story: AIDS Doctors Volunteer to Test Vaccine _________________________________________________________________ Monday September 22 3:54 PM EDT Russia May Have 'Lost' Nuclear Bombs By Andrei Khalip MOSCOW (Reuter) - President Boris Yeltsin's former environmental safety adviser said in remarks published on Monday that some of Russia's portable nuclear bombs might indeed be missing, as asserted by another former Yeltsin aide. "The statement by Alexander Lebed concerning suitcases with nuclear bombs is definitely not groundless," academician Alexei Yablokov wrote in a letter to Novaya Gazeta weekly. The letter was written on September 9, days after Lebed, former presidential security adviser, told the CBS News "60 Minutes" programme that the Russian military had lost track of some of its nuclear weapons. He mentioned more than 100 suitcase-sized nuclear bombs, any one of which could kill up to 100,000 people. Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev insisted on Monday that Russia's nuclear arsenal was under firm control. "There are no concerns over this issue," Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. "The nuclear weapons are under permanent control." The minister appeared to be making a general remark and did not mention Yablokov or Lebed. Nuclear experts with international think-tanks have said in the past that Russia has strict control over its military nuclear sites and that they viewed nuclear bomb and missile theft as extremely unlikely. But they said there had been cases of theft of nuclear materials from power plants and scientific laboratories. Yablokov said the military might simply have no record of some of the portable nuclear bombs, which he said were made in the 1970s for the Soviet KGB for "terrorist purposes." "These nuclear charges were not registered by the Defence Ministry and as a result could have been dropped from the list of nuclear devices under international disarmament negotiations," Yablokov said. Yablokov, an outspoken advocate of environmental protection, also did not exclude that Russia carried out a nuclear test at its Arctic island of Novaya Zemlya last month. The United States said then it had detected a seismic event "with explosive characteristics" near the Novaya Zemlya test site, but Russian officials flatly denied any nuclear tests. They said Russia had voluntarily given up testing in 1992 and was sticking to this position. Yablokov's charges come at an embarrassing time for Russian officials, who are hosting U.S. Energy Secretary Federico Pena and Vice President Al Gore for wide-ranging talks due to include nuclear safety issues. Washington has more than once expressed concern over nuclear safety in Russia and what it called a possible transfer of Russian nuclear technologies to other countries, primarily Iran, which it views as a sponsor of international terrorism. Moscow says it is adhering strictly to its international nuclear non-proliferation obligations. Yablokov was sacked from Yeltsin's administration earlier this year. He had been in charge of environmental issues at top bodies of the former Soviet Union and Russia since 1989. He was chairman of Greenpeace-Soviet Union before 1990. _________________________________________________________________ ________________________ ___________ Help _________________________________________________________________ Previous Story: Mir Computer Working; Gore Cautious on Future Next Story: AIDS Doctors Volunteer to Test Vaccine _________________________________________________________________ [ Index | News | World | Biz | Tech | Politic | Sport | Scoreboard | Entertain | Health ] _________________________________________________________________ Reuters Limited Questions or Comments

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Minnesota Appeals Court Affirms Jurisdiction of the State
by Steve Schear 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Rolling Good Times: In a recent action, the Minnesota Court of Appeals states that the Attorney General has the right to regulate internet activity. This is one of the first pieces of case law to arise in the area of internet gambling. http://www.rgtonline.com/MinnAppeals.html

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Re: The problem of playing politics with our constitutional rights
by phelix＠vallnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 22 Sep 1997 02:32:12 -0500, Alan <alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com> wrote: >Mail is another hole. Eudora now distributes PGP 5.0 with the latest >version. (This version does not do RSA keys. You can get the plug in to do >those keys from PGP inc.) This is helpful, but there are many other >plug-ins that need to be written. Support for remailers is lacking. >Windows based code for Mixmaster is also a needed thing. A good interface >would help immensely. (Private Idaho was a big step in the right >direction. Integrated with a remailer people already use would be another >big step forward.) > Agreed. I think Remailer support could be a big opportunity. People may not understand/care-about encryption, digital signing, etc., but they definitely understand the need for anonymity. Question: If a free remailer plugin for eudora is released, can the remailers handle the increased load? Are there enough remailers? People will not tolerate more than a 24 hour delay for getting their messages delivers. What about spamming? Another Question: Since such a plugin uses (has the hooks for) encryption, would it be covered by ITAR? (i'm asking because I'm seriously considering making the eudora plugin) Anyway, the remailer 'network' needs to be strengthened. Right now, Raph's pinging service (or whatever private idaho uses) is the only way private idaho can tell which servers are up. Attack this point, and reliability when chaining remailers becomes uncertain. Imagine a TLA co-opting this service and altering the list to favor government friendly remailers. It also needs to be easier to set up a remailer. I'd like to see the software distributed in .deb and .rpm packages for Linux. Once set up, the remailer could automatically announce itself to the world (perhaps via a newsgroup post). The various listing services would pick up on this. The more automated it is, the better. >I am sure that people can think of all sorts of other ideas for needed >apps. But to make them usable for the "general public", the apps will be >needed to be written for Windows. (As much as I hate to think about it...) Private idaho needs to be rewritten (in Java possibly) to be simpler to operate. There should be one button to press to send a message without messing with what type and which remailers to use; the program could choose these things randomly (ok, it's not the best thing to do, but at least it's easy to use). It also should be updated to use pgp 5.0 (not exclusively, of course). If possible, also add support for the Eternity Service. Stenography Plugin for mail/news readers. It's our one (and possibly only) defense against GAK. You can't decrypt what you can't see. (watch for Stenography to be classified as encryption and be similarly restricted.) Is there any support for signed web pages? Is this covered by SSL?

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) The remailer list here has been out of date for some time, but should be up to date now. I'm still working on updating the web page. Last update: Mon 22 Sep 97 6:48:37 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net ******+***** 10:29 99.99% nym config(a)nym.alias.net *+####+##### 1:02 99.98% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org +++++-++*+++ 30:09 99.86% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca +++++-++++++ 39:28 99.85% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org #**#*-#**#*# 10:53 99.83% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net ----.---__.# 16:36:54 99.67% replay remailer(a)replay.com *+**** ***** 4:33 99.64% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org ----------- 3:50:50 99.64% neva remailer(a)neva.org +--* --- --- 3:48:40 99.08% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com ***** -***** 3:10:16 98.66% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net ---- --+-+* 2:23:45 98.11% hera goddesshera(a)juno.com --.------- 8:36:27 97.55% arrid arrid(a)juno.com _.-----.- 12:37:56 95.99% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ------- -- 3:02:31 94.18% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com ----- 4:58:22 31.61% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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End-to-end cellular encryption needed - CDisk from Comverse Technology
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is just one commercial product that implements most of what CALEA requires. The great thing about market economies is that we'll obtain the surveillance state at a competitive price. ====== Excerpts from "The CDisk Product Description", Reliable, Customized Solutions for Intercepting Calls from Cellular Switches Comverse's CDisk is a comprehensive digital audio system. It intercepts and captures call audio and data from cellular switches and distributes it to designated Monitoring Centers where it is processed and archived. In order to be effective, interception facilities for switches in cellular networks must offer * One system that supports all cellular networks. * Target subscriber management. * Access to all calls in which the target subscriber is a party. * Coverage of all types of calls. * Automatic collection of call data (Session Related Information - SRI), combined unambiguously into one conversation file. * Strict security provisions. CDisk meets the need with a mature, field-proven product CDisk covers all cellular networks: * Its field-proven interface connects with all major switches. * Its open system supports multiple networks and Monitoring Centers. * Its modular concept adapts simply to new standards and technologies. With CDisk's target-subscriber management tools, authorized users can: * Automatically process thousands of targets. * Add, edit and delete targets from the list. * Schedule start and end times, as well as define other conditions for interception. * Seamlessly cover targets across multiple networks. * For each target, define access rights for multiple Monitoring Centers, from organizations down to individual users. * Define priority targets. CDisk provides comprehensive call access by: * Covering all types of calls including voice calls, data calls - voice band modem, facsimile calls, short message service (SMS), unrestricted data calls. * Monitoring all types of call services, including call transfer, forward calls, diverted calls, conference or multi-party calls (CDisk accesses all parties involved.), call waiting. * Processing mixed voice and data calls. * Monitoring uncompleted and busy call attempts. * Supporting call diversion supplementary services. * Covering roaming visitors. Automatic collection of the following data for each target subscriber's call (Session Related Information): * Equipment ID - IMEI. * Called number, including cases of uncompleted calls (for MSISDN and IMSI). * Specification of the type of call (voice, data, fax, or SMS). * Conference call party numbers. * Diverted call number. * Target subscriber cell location - Location Area Identity (LAI) at call start and call termination. * Date, time, and duration of call. * Enabling users to listen to calls in real-time or in playback (after they are recorded).

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side effects of techno-arms-races considered beneficial
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A million monkeys operating under the pseudonym "Will Rodger <rodger(a)worldnet.att.net>" typed: > > The one exception I recall is the position taken by the Competitive > Enterprise Institute. The CEI took the position that no regulation at > all was needed and that marketplace forces would police the Net. > Their view, for better or worse, is not very visible elsewhere. > > Another solution, of course, is a techno-arms race solution to > privacy. That works for readers of this list, but that's not who the > FTC worries about. Libertarians will, of course, shudder at the > notion that they should. Cypherpunks know the underlying math. Cypherpunks have seen the future-- in the long run, privacy wins the techno-arms race (barring quantum computation etc.). So if the battle goes to the techno ground, we win, and everyone who values their privacy wins. (_Not_ just the techie elite. Tech comes to the masses, too, including privacy tech.) If the battle takes place in the Byzantine halls of power and opinion, then I'd say the outcome is anyone's guess. See the current U.S. legislative debacle. * Creation of laws is likely to do more harm than good -- this is one reason to abjure legislation and lobbyism and work on coding and distributing. This much is already known to my readers. I'd like to add another detail: Techno arms races have positive side effects! Ratings systems, reputations, markets, scripting languages, CPU tech, distributed computing, information security and smart agents technologies which enhance our privacy tech, or which are enhanced by our privacy tech, or both. * Even a _good_ law which _solves_ a problem interferes with the development of technological solution to the problem. A solution which might have had broader applications. This is another reason to abjure such kludges. Regards, Zooko, Journeyman Hacker P.S. Anybody remember that stupid phrase from Wired: "To hack politics down to its component parts and fix it."? Egh. I'd sooner code a critical system in COBOL while stupid and/or malicious strangers edit my code and my development environment without warning. Which is to say: I wouldn't try! P.P.S. Because "Techno arms races have positive side effects." is why I like spam. It forces people to learn about killfiles, digital authentication, resource management, denial-of-service attacks and suchlike. Unless a law manages to silence the offensive speakers and return the masses to their inflexible, insecure environments.

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What will it cost to let Big Brother watch?
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This story was scheduled for page 18 of this week's Time magazine, but got cut at the last minute and replaced with a Diana investigation update. Background: Previous CBO cost estimates released in May and July focused on versions of SAFE that dealt only with exports. This estimate not only covers the costs of operating snooperware systems; it predicts that some products may drop crypto and users may abandon its use if such a requirement exists. Enjoy. --Declan] ****** ENCRYPTION What Will It Cost To Let Big Brother Watch? By Declan McCullagh High tech firms battling what they call an Orwellian anti-privacy bill in Congress are challenging a new government study. Last Friday the Congressional Budget Office stuck a price tag on a bill that would ban the manufacture of telephones, computers, and software that the FBI can't easily monitor. The amount consumers would pay: an estimated $200 million to $2 billion a year. But technology groups say the true cost would be astronomical. "It would be the greatest technological challenge the U.S. software industry is facing today, larger than the year 2000 problem. We don't know how to do this," says Jon Englund of the Information Technology Association of America. He says that since the CBO study focuses on computer programs and not the Internet, the true cost would be hundreds of billions higher. A huge chunk of existing technology would have to be redesigned, and plans to protect cyberspace from eavesdroppers would be derailed. That's an acceptable tradeoff, say the plan's backers. "Organized crime, drug organizations, and terrorist organizations have the ability to use encryption and render law enforcement folks unable to have access," says Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), a backer of the FBI's plan. The House Commerce committee is scheduled to vote on Oxley's proposal on Thursday. ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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InfoWar 19 / GeigerBurg III Text
by A Player To Be Named Later 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

B ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The True Story of the InterNet Part III InfoWar Final Frontier of the Digital Revolution Behind the ElectroMagnetic Curtain by TruthMonger <tm(a)dev.null> Copyright 1997 Pearl Publishing ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- InfoWar Table of Contents * Extra! : News From the Front ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Extra! : News From the Front ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [News Flash! From: http://www.turnleft.com "The Home of Liberalism on the Web"] What They Don't Want You to Know by Auto-Correspondent "http://www.cjnetworks.com/~cubsfan/conspiracy.html" In order to understand InfoWar you need to realize that everything is controlled by a CypherPunks list made up of Cult of One members with help from Nobody and Anonymous. The conspiracy first started during the Censorship Experiment in majordomo(a)toad.com. They have been responsible for many events throughout history, including the InfoWar. Today, members of the conspiracy are everywhere. They can be identified by their Code writing. They want to electronically forge TruthMonger posts and imprison resisters in Silicon Valley using Trei Transponders. In order to prepare for this, we all must Nuke DC. Since the media is controlled by Declan McCullagh we should get our information from Black Unicorn's yellow-menace writing in blanc snow.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just as he had suspected! A Player To Be Named Later read the output of the Java script at Left Turn's 'Make Your Own Conspiracy Theory' page. Left Turn had confirmed everything he had been discovering on his own, even when he had discovered facts and information which pointed toward completely contradictory conspiracy theories. A Player To Be Named Later recognized that this was positive proof that the roots of the Great Conspiracy had spread throughout the very fabric of reality, itself. He now knew that the conspiracy was no longer just some outside entity which lived in the shadows around him, waiting for him to let down his guard before it sprang its waiting traps and enclosed him with its vicious iron jaws. He now knew that it went much, much deeper than that. Now, he knew the conspiracy was in his Mind! A Player To Be Named Later had immediately dropped all of his other InterNet personas and erased all signs of them from his hard drive. With the new knowledge he had gained, he knew that he could no longer trust even himself. The first sign that the conspiracy had managed to spread throughout both reality and virtual reality were the posts to the CypherPunks mailing list by Damaged Justice. Subject: Internet putting truth in danger From: Damaged Justice <frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu> Organization: Somewhere just far enough outside of your jurisdiction To: cypherpunks(a)Algebra.COM THE generation that has grown up on The X-Files poses a threat to the future of journalism, Fergal Keane, the BBC's Asia Correspondent, said last night. Subject: Assassination Politics of a sort There's a bounty on Gordie Howe's head. And Gordie isn't laughing about it. Howe, 69, is planning to file a police complaint against a California radio personality who offered a bounty to have "the old fool pummeled back to reality." Subject: FBI vs Silicon Valley: Guess Who's Winning? The likely outcome: a tactical retreat by industry to avoid an all-out rout. The electronic wizards seem to have met their match in a Washington cop named Louis Freeh. Subject: Trac[k]ing the Successful Drug User By deploying their questionnaire on the Web, the researchers are hoping to use the relative anonymity of the Net to access a "hidden population" of drug users who would be disinclined to give accurate reports of illegal use to face-to-face interviewers, Nicholson says. In a short series of posts, Damaged Justice had managed to subtly point out that: The InterNet, in the hands of the public, was a threat to truth. Assassination Politics would lead to the death of heroes such as Gordie Howe. Louis Freeh is going to kick the electronic wizards' butts. Successful people on the InterNet are all secret drug users. A Player To Be Named Later had seen the duplicity in Damaged Justice's posts long before this, just as he had in the posts of Se7en. Se7en purported to be a diabolical hacker turned lecturer, working the security and LEA (law enforcement agency) circuit, but it had become obvious that it was they who were working him. Se7en had got caught up in the LEA's child pornography ruse and wrote a lengthy diatribe to the CypherPunks list about the millions of pedophiles lurking in the shadows of the InterNet. This came at a time which was convenient for adding support to the agendas of several of the government shills working the list at that time. A Player To Be Named Later had followed the trail of alleged pointers and addresses that were provided by Se7en, only to find the usual spooks lurking in the background. It was obvious that the spooks were doing their best to cultivate a crop of genuine pedophiles by seeding the InterNet with pointers to trails of perversion that they had carefully laid out themselves. No doubt they would keep their self-generated perverts on ice until it came time to drag them out into the public eye for one of their show-and-tell displays of the 'good fight' they were putting up against the evil InterNet. A Player To Be Named Later hadn't run his usual analysis on the past posts and email traffic of Damaged Justice and those connected to him, but he was not sure that it really mattered anymore, anyway. There were indications that FUD/DoubleSpeak/SpinDoctoring/VirtualTruth-whatever you wanted to name it-had reached critical mass. He took another look at one of Choate's posts to the CypherPunks list: Subject: 6 USAF Crashes in 7 days = InfoWar? From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> To: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer) Just a thought... The connection was obvious. A number of stories made it into the periphery of the mainstream press concerning the U.S. spooks campaign to murder 'bad' foreigners by introducing defective parts into the products they bought for their armed forces. Then the U.S. forces immediately got hit with a rash of high-profile 'accidents' to their own military units. It was a clear message to the U.S. spooks that two (or more) could play that game. So clear, in fact, that the Pentagon publicly and privately pulled in the reins on a variety of normal and special operations, in order to shake the trees for defective parts and defective soldiers. (Mostly the latter.) The Real Guy had planned an expose on the background events taking place in this area, but had decided not to do so, uncertain as to why he had made that decision, at the time. Now, A Player To Be Named Later realized that it was because FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Disinformation) had become the rule of the day, and there was no longer anyone left to preach to but the converted-and the converted were becoming unconverted at an increasingly rapid rate. It had become obvious, I suppose, when it took so little effort on the Pentagon's part to cover up the pair of rogue U.S. Air Force pilots who had been positively linked to the Circle of Eunuchs by the secret task force dedicated to rooting them out of their hiding places deep within the bowels of government and corporate agencies around the world. It was not surprising that they had managed to cover up the involvement of the nuclear bomber pilot, since they were able to label her a sex criminal before she had taken any overt action that would serve to trigger the interest of those paying close attention to such things. It was her proximity to the Author's current location that had led to her discovery. The retired Air Force intelligence officer who had been assigned to shadow the Author in Do Well, Saskatchewan, had alerted Canadian Customs to notify him any time that soldiers from Minot Air Force Base crossed into his territory. Although she never made physical contact with the Author, her mere presence in close proximity to him led to an in-depth investigation that turned up enough 'coincidences' to require her removal from service. What was very troubling, however, was the fact that another of the Author's contacts, from the Air Force base at his old stomping grounds in Tucson, had been able to break formation on a training run, fly halfway across the country with live bombs, almost making it to the site of the McVeigh trial in Denver, and yet it hardly rated a "Gee, I wonder why he did that?" in the mainstream press. Tentative suggestions that the pilot was 'emotionally troubled' were eaten up by the press, despite evidence to the contrary from his friends and relatives, so readily that the Air Force never even had to release the 'psychiatrist reports' that had been hastily prepared to be 'leaked' to the right sources, if needed. A Player To Be Named Later wondered if all reporters for the mainstream press were not, in fact, still incarcerated in the press compounds set up for Operation Desert Storm. Were the 'backgrounds' they appeared to be reporting from in reality just virtual creations from inside their media prison? A pilot carrying live bombs makes a beeline for the site of the Oklahoma Bomber's trial; a truck full nuclear warheads goes missing; soldiers on a base are the target of an armed assault; the pilot of a nuclear bomber is shanghaied on curiously slim pretexts; a horde of major armed forces figures suddenly resign or are shifted to non-sensitive positions-and the world hardly seems to notice. When a single former Russian General, however, with close connections to the spooks, writes a no-brainer book with unsupported claims about nuclear suitcases falling into the hands of the US's proclaimed 'enemies,' then the mainstream press snaps to attention and gives full coverage to the dark threat posed by theoretical, unseen, dark-skinned people who we will need to be protected from, in the future. "Gee, I wonder why he would do that?" A Player To Be Named Later said, sarcastically, while visualizing a dark-skinned person in a foreign country purchasing a nuclear suitcase from CIA-run Russian spooks. "I suppose that if there was hard, non-refutable evidence of an Air Force soldier purchasing a nuclear suitcase and going AWOL, headed for Washington, DC, that this would be the reaction of the mainstream press. But let a foreign 'darkie' try it, and all of a sudden we need to suspend some more basic human rights, even if it was a BATF shill who was being run by a CIA connected, former German intelligence operative who is related to a high-ranking German politician who was involved in the Iran-Contra drugs-for-arms scandal." A Player To Be Named Later reached for a bottle of Scotch sitting behind his laptop, taking a slow pull off of it as he reviewed the signs of the death of investigative journalism in the past few years. The CIA had used Woodward and Bernstein effectively during their assault on the Presidency at the close of the Nixon scandal. The problem was that it inspired a plethora of uncontrollable impersonators who wreaked havoc with their efforts at FUD control. So they orchestrated the movement of investigative journalism into the mundane mainstream of everyday life. The sheeple didn't care about world politics and behind the scenes power struggles. Their real interests lie in secret videos of an employee dipping his dick in a coworker's coffee; a mechanic putting the old distributor cap back on and charging the customer for a new one; a black mayor snorting coke and getting a little trim from the ladies of the night. All of this became breaking news which required the full force of the media digging into the dark corners of these people's lives. Until the world's nasty little secrets became just another everyday, run of the mill part of normal life. Now, Media Reality had finally approached critical mass, as foreseen by a variety of voices crying in the wilderness, from George Orwell to Marshal McLuhan. Now, it was only a matter of time. A Player To Be Named Later read the "Internet putting truth in danger" post by Damaged Justice, once again: Mr Keane, delivering the Huw Weldon Memorial Lecture at a television convention, said that he was worried about the growing influence of the Internet, and the conspiracy theories that are aired on it. God help us if things deteriorated to the point where ordinary people put the mainstream media 'truth' in danger by pointing out the obvious to people who didn't really want to know why a U.S. Air Force pilot would head for the site of McVeigh's trial with a load of live bombs. Maybe he just got lost He told the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention that the rash of rumours about the circumstances of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales showed that there was a public appetite for speculation and fantasy. He said: "Will the generation growing up on The X-Files really want to choose calm, considered reportage when they have science-fiction and fantasy?" "Calm, considered reportage." A Player To Be Named Later intoned, solemnly, thinking about the first interview he had seen by the major media with someone who had been close to the Princess's fatal accident. "Explosion." That was the first, and only, time he had heard that word used by someone who had been present at the time of the accident. By the time the rest of North America had awoken that morning, there were only reporters feeding the world the disinformation being officially released by the authorities. And in a world where reporters will dig up a dead body to do DNA tests to see if the deceased was, indeed, fucking Tom Cruise, the major networks somehow managed to 'lose' the footage of interviews with the original witnesses, offering, instead, interviews with people who thought that maybe something was perhaps taking place down there in the tunnel, but who really knows? We were told that there were no witnesses to the accident, yet we were still fed unlikely reports of a motorcycle with photographers on it zigzagging in front of the death vehicle at over a hundred miles an hour, and sundry other inanities reeking of 'now you see it, now you don't' spin doctoring. He said that the trend threatened to plunge reporting into the "rumour-ridden gloom of the Middle Ages". God forbid that unseemly rumors might spread concerning a man heading a covert organization involved in running illegal drugs and arms ascending to the Presidency after succeeding the front-man who had come to power as a result of those illegal actions, and who had invaded a foreign country to capture the drug-dealing monster who had been his closest bum-buddy during his spook days. God forbid that Joe Average should be exposed to the knowledge that a succession of their Presidents were backed by the big bucks made by their friends and relatives in business with the Nazis right up to the end of World War II. Knowledge such as this was dangerous knowledge that would put the spoon-fed "truth" of the mainstream media "in danger" if the InterNet was allowed to become a purveyor of 'unofficial' or 'non-approved' news. A Player To Be Named Later thought of the three days of intensive press coverage in which a multitude of mainstream media personnel spent hour upon hour adding fuel to 'official leak' inspired rumors while not seeming to be able to get any information at all on the players who were part and parcel of the media's daily business activities. He had been waiting to see the pictures of the concrete column that the heavily armored death vehicle had supposedly hit at over a hundred miles per hour. Nothing. {In Toledo, or Detroit, or some other 'cable channel' city, a day or so later, some no-name John Doe was killed after his vehicle struck a concrete column on a local road structure. There were reporters from a number of media sources there, getting close-ups of the vehicle, the column, and the damage to it, the broken scraps of concrete at the accident scene. A Player To Be Named Later saw it two or three times that day, as the media ensured that all the circumstances surrounding the death of John Doe would be subjected to the light of mainstream media 'truth.' He saw pictures from a variety of different angles, obviously taken in the interest of satisfying his 'right to know' all of the details surrounding the death of John Doe, Anywhere, USA.} ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" "WebWorld & the Mythical Circle of Eunuchs" "InfoWar (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet') ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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InfoWar 19 (Part III of 'The True Story of the InterNet)
by A Player To Be Named Later 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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