CDR: Aldrich Ames might go free; .gov security still lax, etc...

[sunder]

>From SLF:


http://thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=TS00133394&d

Moscow poised to offer Cold War-style spy swap 

Chris Stephen In Moscow 

REPORTS in Russia suggest Moscow is preparing to offer the
United States a Cold War-style "spy swap" involving the
release of an American businessman charged with espionage in
return for the convicted spy Aldrich Ames. 

A Moscow newspaper, Sevodnya, yesterday quoted a source
in Russia’s security service, the FSB, as saying they were
considering offering to swap the businessman, Edmond Pope. 

He is accused of trying to buy plans for the same top secret
torpedo, the Squall, that was being tested by the Kursk
submarine when it exploded and sank last month. 

<SNIP>



http://www.bergen.com/morenews/fake200009026.htm

Investigators with phony ID
easily breach security checks 

Sunday, September 3, 2000

By TAMARA LYTLE
Special from The Orlando Sentinel

WASHINGTON -- Investigators used phony law-enforcement
identification available on the Internet and elsewhere to breach security
at some of the nation's most sensitive agencies, including the CIA, the
FBI, and the Departments of Justice and State.

The investigators breezed into 18 federal facilities, Orlando International
Airport, Washington's Reagan National Airport, and the U.S courthouse
in Orlando simply by flashing fake badges and credentials. In some cases
they were able to claim they had firearms but still bypass metal
detectors and other screening.

<SNIP>


http://www4.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2620091,00.html

Big Brother Is Watching . . . What You Buy
August 28, 2000  8:19 AM ET
By Lisa Dempster


In his nightmarish novel 1984, George Orwell envisioned a future in which the merest hint of privacy would be treason and
protagonist Winston Smith would be cowed into embracing truth in his telescreen. The year in question came and went, but could
Orwell's bad dream become our reality two decades later? What kind of privacy protection will we be able to expect from the Internet
in 2004? Picture this: Retinal scans, fingerprint readers built into your mouse and voice recognition software able to nail your
identity down to the roots of your genetic code. Great for keeping your identity a secret from advertising piranhas, but do you
really want your bank or online health-care provider to store such intimate information?


Unlike Orwell's dour Smith, who struggled to conceal his thoughts and feelings from Big Brother, privacy advocates predict our
biggest concern in four years' time will be camouflaging ourselves from corporate behemoths devoted to discovering our every
purchasing peccadillo - and pandering to it.


<SNIP>

http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=306483

UPDATE: MS Word documents can be tracked on Web 
by Peter Sayer, IDG News Service\Paris Bureau 
August 31, 2000, 07:53 

 Creators of Microsoft Word documents can use the application's
 well-documented ability to include Web hyperlinks in documents to
 remotely track who is reading a them, according to a study by the
 Denver-based Privacy Foundation published Wednesday.

 Users of Microsoft's word processor have been able to embed graphics in
 their documents for the best part of a decade, but only in versions of the
 program since Word 97 have users been able to replace a bulky,
 memory-hogging graphic with a short URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
 pointing to the location of the graphic on a Web server. Each time the
 document is opened, the computer sends an HTTP (Hypertext Transfer
 Protocol) request to the Web server asking for the graphic in order to
 display it.

<SNIP>



-- 
----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos---------------------------
 + ^ + :Surveillance cameras|Passwords are like underwear. You don't /|\
  \|/  :aren't security.  A |share them, you don't hang them on your/\|/\
<--*-->:camera won't stop a |monitor, or under your keyboard, you   \/|\/
  /|\  :masked killer, but  |don't email them, or put them on a web  \|/
 + v + :will violate privacy|site, and you must change them very often.
--------_sunder_ at _sunder_._net_------- http://www.sunder.net ------------