Kevin L Prigge writes:
Dorothy Denning taught a class (COSC 511) "Information Warfare" Spring 97. Apparently as an assignment, several students put together an infowar incident database at:
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/samplem/iw/
Jim Bell's case is mentioned under:
http://www.georgetown.edu/users/samplem/iw/html/iw_database_92.html
Wow. This is the most blatant propaganda I've seen in a long time. It's full of so much inaccurate info that it can't be an accident. Their blurb on Bell says: "In his "Assassination Politics," Bell suggests that IRS agents are not protected against violent acts, because they have stolen taxpayers' money. He also initiates a betting pool as to what government employees and officeholders would be assassinated." If I remember correctly, Bell never 'initiates'[sic] anything, he just talked about it. They cites a Netly News article by Declan McCullagh (http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,800,00.html) Declan's article doesn't say, or even imply, that Bell actually set up his AP betting pool. The "database" authors apparently wanted to make a point by making his crime seem to be real, and were willing to stretch the truth to do so. This fits in with the rest of the "database". Take a look at the 'terrorisim' category. Most of the 'terrorists' crimes (or more correctly, arrests- this database seems to assume that being arrested or charged with a crime makes one guilty) are horrible terrorist crimes like sending hate email, or suggesting that a state senator who vociferously supports mountain lion hunting be "hunted down and skinned and mounted". In that one the California state senator somehow becomes a US senator... (http://www.georgetown.edu/users/samplem/iw/html/iw_database_90.html) The "database" is filled with inaccurately-labeled "data". I'd be willing to bet that it will be used to support the "Info war" military-industrial-complex money grab: "Look, a study at Gorgetown shows that we've had three incidents of Internet terrorisom in 1997 alone, one against a US senator!" Feh. "Research" like this makes me puke. BTW, you can add you own "IW incidents" via a form at http://www.georgetown.edu/users/samplem/iw/html/feedback.html -- Eric Murray ericm@lne.com Security and cryptography applications consulting. PGP keyid:E03F65E5 fingerprint:50 B0 A2 4C 7D 86 FC 03 92 E8 AC E6 7E 27 29 AF