we must be on someone\'s radar if XENI \'s trolling

solaar at hushmail.com solaar at hushmail.com
Wed Sep 19 23:31:51 PDT 2001


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Let's play a game: what is Xeni Jardin doing on this list?

(a) I'm a reporter who has no knowledge on this subject but hear that cypherpunks are "hot" and maybe I can snare a story.
(b) I'm a reporter who has no knowledge on this subject but hear that that cypherpunks are "hot" and maybe I can snare a story ... in the process of screwing some people (fuck 'em if they're smarter then me - isn't that your motto).
(c) I'm a reporter trolling for leads and since I fucked everyone over in the Alley and Valley & no one will give me the time of day, I better get some new leads - & these are just the people to screw over next.

Which is it? ... This time
solaar





- ----- Original Message -----
From: Xeni Jardin <xeni at xeni.net>
To: <cypherpunks at lne.com>; <CYBERIA-L at LISTSERV.AOL.COM>
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:21 PM
Subject: WP:FBI investigating if/how terrorists used stego, crypto


> Terrorists' Online Methods Elusive
> http://www.washtech.com/news/netarch/12557-1.html
>
> By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Jonathan Krim,
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Wednesday, September 19, 2001
>
> Government agencies are contacting computer experts for help in
> understanding how Osama bin Laden and his associates may have used the
> Internet to send encrypted electronic messages to one another to
> coordinate last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
> sources said yesterday.
>
> For at least three years, federal agents had found evidence that bin
> Laden's group embedded secret missives in mundane e-mails and on Web
> sites. But efforts to track down and decipher the messages have
> floundered.
>
> Numerous, easy-to-download software applications are available online that
> enable users to protect transmissions from curious eyes and frustrate
> government attempts to create a systematic way to locate and screen those
> messages.
>
> Basic encryption tools allow people to scramble messages so that only
> those with a "key" can read them. An increasing number, however, go beyond
> this by allowing messages to be hidden inside graphics, music files or in
> the headers of e-mails. The technology, known as steganography, allows
> users to get around electronic wiretaps by piggybacking messages on
> seemingly innocent digital files for things such as 'N Sync songs, a
> posting on eBay or a pornographic picture.
>
> The proliferation of this technology, people in the security community
> say, is changing the rules of the intelligence game by allowing anyone to
> coordinate dispersed global armies quickly and cheaply.
>
> Several experts in the field said yesterday they've received calls from
> the government asking for their assistance. One academic researcher said
> he was asked to remain on standby to help try to peel the layers off of
> any encrypted messages the government might find.
>
> But that might be the easy part. Sources close to the investigation said
> the few messages investigators have intercepted in the past did not take
> advantage of encryption techniques. The challenge, at least in this case,
> has been finding the messages in the first place.
>
> Neil Johnson, associate director of the Center for Secure Information
> Systems at George Mason University, which receives funding from the
> government, said steganography is powerful because messages can
> effectively be hidden almost anywhere.
>
> Johnson's recent research has focused, with some success, on how to crack
> it by examining a site, image or data stream for signs that steganography
> was used, he said.
>
> Mark Loveless, a computer security consultant with BindView Development
> Corp., said the technology is also popular because if it's used properly
> it would be almost impossible to trace the author of the message and the
> recipient because of the random way in which files are distributed from
> user to user using swapping services such as Napster and Gnutella.
>
> In the wake of the attacks, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has proposed making
> it mandatory that software developers give government security agents the
> "keys" to encryption programs when they are created, a position strongly
> opposed by many in the technology community who worry it could be used to
> invade the privacy of law-abiding computer users.
>
> Phil Zimmermann, the creator of a popular encryption technology, said he
> believes the answer to catching the terrorists lies in human footwork
> rather than more surveillance technologies: "It's not practical to frisk
> everyone on the planet to find the one person with a box cutter."
>
> The government has been waging war on data-scrambling technology on
> several fronts for more than 30 years. It has asked Congress for stricter
> rules on exporting the technology and has taken the developers of such
> technology to courts. Most recently, the NSA created a whole department to
> try to "leverage emerging technologies and sustain both our offensive and
> defensive information warfare capabilities," according to a recent
> document outlining its cryptography strategy.
>
> At a closed congressional hearing last year, one federal official said
> that U.S. intelligence is "detecting with increasing frequency the
> appearance and adoption of computer and Internet familiarity" in the hands
> of terrorist organizations. "The skills and resources of this threat group
> range from the merely troublesome to dangerous," the official said in a
> submitted statement. "As we know, Middle East terrorist groups  such as
> Hezbollah, Hamas and Osama bin Laden's organization  are using
> computerized files, e-mail and encryption to support their organizations."
>
> That view was echoed by Ben Venzke, an intelligence and cyber-security
> consultant in Virginia who assists several government agencies.
>
> "Groups like them are very intelligent," he said. "They are very wise in
> the ways of tradecraft and operational security and will make use of any
> tools that are available," he said.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Back to Washtech.com Home
>
> ) 2001 The Washington Post Company
>
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