Anonymous Internet for Federal Agents

[George at Orwellian.Org]

What, no article from Chaotic today regarding
NASA landing a craft on an asteroid?

He only sent it to his three other lists? Whaaaaa!

----

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB981939629132013437.htm
#    
#    February 12, 2001
#    
#    Small Start-Up Helps the CIA
#    To Mask Its Moves on the Web
#    
#    By NEIL KING JR.
#    Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
#    
#    How's this for a curious pairing? Stephen Hsu and his partners 
#    at SafeWeb Inc. launch a Web site (www.safeweb.com) offering 
#    the utmost in Internet privacy -- and then hook up with the 
#    notoriously intrusive Central Intelligence Agency.
#    
#    The new alliance between the Oakland, Calif., entrepreneurs and 
#    the spooks from Langley, Va., shows how serious the CIA is about 
#    improving its spycraft. The agency two years ago set up its own 
#    venture-capital firm, known as In-Q-Tel, to search out just the 
#    sort of innovations that SafeWeb offers.
#    
#    The CIA, in this case, wants to use a SafeWeb program to mask 
#    its own movements on the Internet, so it can gather information 
#    incognito. SafeWeb suggests that the CIA also might use its 
#    technology to allow its far-flung agents and informants to 
#    communicate home, without the countries they are spying on ever 
#    knowing.
#    
#    What's puzzling is why a tiny, year-old start-up would want to 
#    link up with an agency that is the nemesis of privacy buffs 
#    everywhere.
#    
#    "I'm sure we'll take a hit from the 5% of our most paranoid 
#    customers," says Mr. Hsu, SafeWeb's 34-year-old co-founder and 
#    a theoretical physicist by training. But the CIA connection, 
#    he says, is deliberately distant. SafeWeb will provide the agency 
#    with customized software, but the CIA will have no access to 
#    the company's Web computers or to the workings of its core 
#    software, he insists.
#    
#    And who better to test the power of its privacy software than 
#    the world's top spies? "If our technology can satisfy them," 
#    Mr. Hsu says, "it can satisfy just about anyone."
#    
#    The technology is a clever piece of software called Triangle 
#    Boy that SafeWeb plans to post free this month on the Web. The 
#    CIA, through In-Q-Tel, is investing in a revved-up version of 
#    the software, which can bounce digital traffic around the Web 
#    anonymously, as well as rights to an equity stake in SafeWeb 
#    should the company go public. Neither side will disclose financial 
#    details.
#    
#    The CIA has been slow to mine the riches of the Internet for 
#    fear of exposing its own vast computer network to viruses or 
#    hacker attacks. It also worries that others will monitor its 
#    activities if it roams the Web without proper disguise.
#    
#    What SafeWeb offers is a chance to move about the Internet without 
#    leaving any trace. Users simply go to the company's Web site 
#    and type in the address of the actual site they are seeking. 
#    SafeWeb's site acts as an intermediary; anyone monitoring the 
#    activity would see only the traffic between the user's computer 
#    and SafeWeb -- and not the user's ultimate destination. The site 
#    recorded more than one million unique visits last month.
#    
#    But what really caught the CIA's fancy was Triangle Boy, a 
#    software package that can turn any personal computer into a 
#    surrogate Web server. The system allows users to navigate to 
#    any number of innocuous PC addresses, and then go to the actual 
#    Web site they are seeking -- without leaving a trace. Triangle 
#    Boy works by forwarding the request for the desired Web site 
#    on to SafeWeb's site, which then makes the connection. SafeWeb 
#    developed Triangle Boy to deter companies or countries from 
#    blocking access to its site, as Saudi Arabia did last November.
#    
#    CIA specialists say their core interest in Triangle Boy is 
#    anonymous Internet browsing. "We want to operate anywhere on 
#    the Internet in a way that no one knows the CIA is looking at 
#    them," says a senior CIA official with connections to the In-Q-Tel 
#    team.
#    
#    But the possible uses go way beyond that. SafeWeb says the agency 
#    also could use the technology as a secure way for its "assets," 
#    or contacts, to communicate with CIA headquarters. The CIA also 
#    suggests that it may one day build a global network made up of 
#    Triangle Boys and servers equipped with SafeWeb-style software 
#    to communicate with employees and informants. CIA Director George 
#    Tenet told the Senate last week that one of his chief ambitions 
#    is "to take modern Web-based technology and apply it to our 
#    business relentlessly."
#    
#    The SafeWeb technology could prove just as handy in getting 
#    information covertly into other countries. It was this application 
#    that originally inspired Mr. Hsu to reach out to the CIA last 
#    summer. "I imagined them wanting to use Triangle Boy to get Voice 
#    of America or something like that into countries where it was 
#    blocked," he said.
#    
#    Others suggest more devious possibilities. An application like 
#    Triangle Boy, if scattered among hundreds of PCs, could be a 
#    way to cloak a multipronged "cyber attack" on someone else's 
#    computer system. The CIA, along with the Pentagon, has worked 
#    for years to perfect ways to electronically meddle with other 
#    countries' banking systems or electricity grids, and Triangle 
#    Boy could allow them to do it without the target ever knowing 
#    who was behind the attack. "It would be the functional equivalent 
#    of an electronic silencer," says one technology expert with wide 
#    experience in the intelligence community. "You could shoot 
#    electronic bullets right down the pipe without anyone knowing 
#    where they came from." Intelligence officials deny they have 
#    any interest in using Triangle Boy for offensive attacks.
#    
#    The CIA wants the strengthened version of Triangle Boy 
#    reconfigured so it can handle the CIA's own much higher-powered 
#    encryption. It also wants to ensure that only its own employees 
#    and contacts can communicate via Triangle Boy. SafeWeb is expected 
#    to deliver the customized version by April.
#    
#    Some observers suggest that the CIA's real interest is figuring 
#    out how to crack Triangle Boy and to thwart its use among the 
#    public. Encryption and the spread of Internet-based communications 
#    have made life miserable for the National Security Agency, the 
#    CIA's sister organization responsible for electronic eavesdropping 
#    around the world. Software such as Triangle Boy will render the 
#    challenge that much tougher.
#    
#    But the CIA denies the allegation. "We're looking to use new 
#    technology, not to break it," said the CIA official, who added 
#    that the NSA was informed of the Triangle Boy investment and 
#    will later get to inspect the software. But with or without CIA 
#    involvement, the official said, technology is moving too fast 
#    for the NSA to keep up.
#    
#    For Mr. Hsu, the key is to manage the relationship with the CIA 
#    without damaging his company's reputation. His customers, after 
#    all, are people who take privacy very seriously, so trust is 
#    a critical part of its business model. There are already glimmers 
#    of suspicion in some Internet chat rooms. "This could be the 
#    greatest NSA trap ever," wrote one skeptic of the SafeWeb site. 
#    "This actually makes it easier for people to spy on you," wrote 
#    another.
#    
#    Mr. Hsu, though, insists that the CIA relationship is "completely 
#    separate from our core business." The agency will have no access 
#    to SafeWeb's operations or insider knowledge of its proprietary 
#    software. But on the other hand, he says, if the CIA is pleased 
#    with its customized version of Triangle Boy and puts it to use, 
#    "that will be a big seal of approval from the government."