If it wasn’t enough with the NSA deving a secure kernel
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/index.html
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the primary sponsor of Reiser4.
Redesigned to provide the Linux community with a modular, high performance journaling filesystem not only strengthened against attack, but designed to enable developers to much more easily create security applications and to reuse their code.
God faces dope wrap
Drugs diary evidence of substance abuse
by Our calm and measured Daily Mail correspondent
London police today announced the arrest of The Lord God following the appearance of a damning document apparently detailing several thousand years of substance abuse by the cult religious leader and his followers.
The crackdown is a result of concern over the impact of the lax drugs policy implemented in the London borough of Lambeth last year, which has seen crime fall and police spend time on the streets.
The guide — called simply “The Bible” — seems to indicate that much of Mr God’s activity was carried out while under the influence of drugs. One senior officer told is: “I’ve never tried drugs myself but this book clearly demonstrates that the author was on a drug-induced trip.”
Areas of particular interest to the authorities include chapters where everyone speaks in tongues, gnashes their teeth, see visions and communicate with burning bushes. “That’s just not normal,” the officer told us. He also cast doubt on one of the main tenets of the book: “Creating the world in seven days is simply not possible under usual sober conditions. My aunt’s bungalow in Croydon took seven months to build and it’s only got one bathroom.” Insiders have also pointed to the existence of the platypus as further evidence of drug-taking.
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said that Mr God was currently being questioned over the book and added that he hoped that this wouldn’t jeopardise his chance to gain eternal salvation.
Local Tory MP, Otto Tunist, commented: “I think that this indicates how far the Labour government has failed the people of Britain. Under a Conservative Government, we would increase funding tenfold to address this problem, recruit more police, give all UK citizens a fiver and hang every third refugee.”
Legal experts have warned though that God may get off on a technicality — no one can prove that he wrote the book. “We will be arguing that this Bible was in fact written by a series of individuals working autonomously and without direction from Mr God,” God’s lawyer told us. “As such, there is not charge to bring against my client.”
Theologians also doubt the case will be successful due to considerations of practicality. “Even if they did find him guilty, jailing him would prove impossible,” one told us. “That’s one of the advantages of being omnipresent.”
(c) and full respect to the Rockall Times:
“Dealing with Microsoft operating systems is like having the school president as your best friend. Yeah, he’s pretty popular. But when you realize that you’re just in high school, you realize he doesn’t have the ability to do shit.”
“Y’see, the Web is full of people like you and me, making links between documents; human beings, making decisions about documents, voting with their links. When I link to some arbitrary document, it’s an indication that I think that it’s in some way authoritative. When you link to a document I wrote, you’re indicating that I’m in some way authoritative. The Internet is already structured in a meaningful way, but that structure is obscured. Google teases out the relationship between the URLs, examining the webs of authority: this person is linked to by 50,000 others, and he links to this other person over here, which indicates that person one is a pretty sharp individual, one who’s inspired 50,000 human beings to take time out of their busy schedules to link to him; and person one thinks that person two is on the ball, which suggests that person two knows what she’s on about.”
http://oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2002/03/08/cory_google.html
….In a way, Google has become the Web’s brain, its synapses fired by 3 billion searchable documents and 150 million queries daily. As with HAL in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Google’s smarts can be scary. As the court of first resort for finding information on the Web, Google could exert untold influence over how we think.
With only 300 employees and a modest headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Google seems an unlikely candidate for Big Brother. Touring its offices recently, I was struck by how similar Google is today to other bright, unspoiled tech start-ups of the past, notably Netscape, Apple and Microsoft….
Monday, February 25, 2002 – 12:00 a.m. Pacific – Paul Andrews
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134410682_andrews25.html
The Next Sixty Years —
A Business Perspective
Feb 2002
By Rolf Dobelli, [email”>rolf.dobelli@getAbstract.com[/email”>
http://theharrowgroup.com/articles/20020304/TNSY.htm
· 2004: First global consumer boycott (consumers linked via Internet boycott brands on a global scale).
· 2004: Financial services have become commodities. Banks and insurance companies compete on lifestyle rather than interest rates.
· 2005: Most market research based on virtual (membership and identity in virtual communities) rather than physical properties (zip code, age, sex, etc.).
· 2005: The Internet enables most professionals to choose their residence on the basis of tax rates and lifestyle, rather than the strength of the local job market.
· 2006: The first individuals go public (IPO).
· 2006: Second economic crisis in Asia: Robotic production becomes cheaper than manual labor; Asia looses its advantage in the global economy.
· 2007: Advertising industry collapses: Most advertising in electronic media filtered out by intelligent agents; most private shopping done by bots based on product standards, price and ratings.
· 2007: AI fund managers produce consistently better returns than human money managers.
· 2007: Money-laundering made easy by virtual money-laundering banks hosted offshore using agents that automatically move money in and out of financial markets.
· 2008: Children becoming significant spenders (without parental involvement) as they are able to spend money through the Internet.
· 2009: In U.S., single national identification card is increasingly used for retail transactions (debit card), banking (credit card) and all government services (taxes, etc.)
· 2009: China launches cyberwar against Taiwan, trying to crash its economy.
· 2010: Companies plant first shopping viruses into private shopping bots.
· 2010: Fund management software combining AI investment selection and automated electronic trade execution is cheaply available; decline of brokerage and mutual fund industries.
· 2010: Forced transparency of publicly traded stock and massive increase in program trading equalizes equity returns across industries, companies and time; seeking higher returns, investors flock to venture capital and private offerings, creating a whole new industry of semi-publicly traded stock.
· 2010: 50% of all retail banking in developed countries via Internet.
· 2010: Formation of a global electronic stock exchange.
· 2010: Private money issued by Internet banks, credit card companies, auction sites and e-commerce companies leads to first global hyperinflation.
· 2010: Monetary system managed by private companies and suppliers of computer operating systems. Fed has diminished control over monetary policy.
· 2010: Exponential growth of electronic content leads to development of an information and knowledge-rating industry.
· 2010: Mandatory social competence classes in MBA schools.
· 2010: Info-fasting becomes global craze.
· 2010: Authenticity movement as backslash against VR. First retail chains publish their authenticity policy.
· 2010: Technology-driven unemployment of people over 40 years of age.
· 2010: Synthetic person becomes major role model for global youth.
· 2010: Purpose industry becomes major economic force.
· 2011: First global marketing and sponsoring contracts for synthetic person.
· 2012: Computer virus halts trading at major stock exchanges around the world. Trading flocks to e-Bay.
· 2015: Inequality of income and wealth in western countries reaches level of South America, leading to social unrest.
· 2015: Executive search companies increasingly consider personal network of candidates rather than knowledge and skills.
· 2015: Securitization of ideas and individuals (not only organizations / companies).
· 2018: The last labor union in a developed country is dissolved.
· 2020: Last national currency joins $, Yen, Euro or Renmimbi.
· 2020: Hiring decisions based on DNA.
· 2020: Anti-discrimination laws against synthetic workers.
· 2025: Anti-discrimination laws against human workers – management prefers synthetic workers as they are easier to manage.
· 2025: Paper money taken out of circulation in developed countries.
· 2025: Hiring decisions based on brain scan.
· 2030: US Supreme Court rules that brain scan of employee remains property of employee but can be used by employer even after employee has left the company.
· 2050: Wealthiest person in the world is synthetic.
· 2060: Re-creation of management titans from DNA (Sloan, Ford, Rockefeller, JP Morgan).
Rolf Dobelli, Ph.D.
Founder & Chairman
[email”>rolf.dobelli@getAbstract.com[/email”>
http://www.getAbstract.com
phone: +41.41.367.5151
phone: +1.954.359.4070
As the creator of the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption software, Zimmermann has for years found himself in the middle of a debate about how much power individuals should have. More good, he has maintained, comes from giving individuals the power to send encrypted e-mails than would come from blocking a handful of zealots from exploiting the tool.
Zimmermann has likened PGP to the automobile in one analogy. When Bonnie and Clyde used the automobile to get away from the scenes of bank robberies and cross state and county lines, no one had ever done such a thing. The initial reaction among some law enforcement groups was to call for the banning of the private automobile. However, what changed were people’s attitudes and laws; for instance, law enforcement was no longer blocked from pursuing suspects across state and county lines.
The same principal holds true with high-tech tools that empower many law-abiding people to protect their privacy for personal, business or political reasons.
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Zimmermann said he has no regrets about making his PGP code widely available. He bristles at the idea that he feels guilty that terrorists or anyone else might have used his invention for nefarious purposes.
Zimmermann said he was shocked to see a story in The Washington Post suggesting that he felt responsible for giving terrorists a way to communicate with one another outside of government surveillance.
He went so far as to publish a response to the Post article on his Web site.
http://www.computerworld.com/storyba/0,4125,NAV47_STO65748,00.html
“Microsoft has built a FreeBSD version of Linux, but this is more of a publicity gig than a serious endeavour…”
http://www.cw360.com/article&rd=&i=&ard=110220&fv=1
…still, that’s what we’d hoped about their DOS version of CP/M
—
Well spotted NTK – but as Mickey$oft recently rewrote MS Office to run under Mac OS 10 / FreeBSD. Clearly MS can “Go where they want, when they want.”
MX
The New Craft of Intelligence
Making the Most of Open Private Sector Knowledge
By Robert David Steele (C)
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020311/viewpoint.html
Despite the fact that U.S. taxpayers have been paying more than $30 billion a year for a national intelligence and counterintelligence community to protect it from both traditional state-based threats and unconventional non-state actors, the events of 9-11 demonstrated our inability to detect and prevent bold asymmetric attacks that used our own airliners as precision missiles. Armed with new concepts, money, and suicidal pilots, Osama bin Laden has cost us at least $20 billion in damages.
The problem with spies is they only know secrets
Unfortunately, our spies and our satellites have lost touch with reality, for they collect less than 10% of the relevant information that we must digest to understand the complex multi-cultural world that is now capable of producing very wealthy and suicidal terrorists. We need a “new craft of intelligence” that can access and digest the broad historical, cultural, and current events knowledge that is available openly in over twenty-nine languages — by exploiting these open sources we can create open source intelligence, or OSINT, suitable for informing our public as well as our state and local authorities and our international partners, as to the threats to our nation.
What are open sources? Open sources go well beyond the Internet (3 billion pages of substance and rising) and premium online services (ten times what is on the Internet, with value-added) to include “gray literature” (limited edition publications including dissertations and local directories from around the world); specialized market research, private investigations, and other information broker services; and geo-spatial information services including commercial imagery and Russian military maps for all countries of the world (the U.S. does not have military maps for 90% of the world.) Open sources include experts on any subject, in any language. Shocking as it may seem, our intelligence community does not routinely strive to identify the top people in the world (not just Americans) on the various topics of concern — from terrorism to the environment to human trafficking to corruption to disease and public health — with the result that our analysis tends to be shallow and incestuous, relying on the same consultants again and again.
Where’s the action?
Why is this not obvious, and, more importantly, why is it not being acted upon? Although the bipartisan Aspin-Brown Commission on intelligence reform (reporting in March 1996) found that our intelligence community is “severely deficient” in its access to open sources of information, and also found that the various departments and agencies of government have failed to fulfill their responsibilities for collecting, processing, and analyzing open source information relevant to their missions, nothing has been done to implement the Commission’s recommendations for reform. The Commission specifically stated that OSINT should be a top priority for funding within our $30 billion a year intelligence budget, and that it should be a top priority for the attention of the Director of Central Intelligence.
The DCI then serving, John Deutch, and the DCI now serving, George Tenet, chose to ignore virtually all of the recommendations of this bipartisan Commission.
The Department of State, which is statutorily responsible for the collection of open source information abroad, has abdicated this responsibility and has no funds and no process in place for responsibly collecting relevant information from all the countries where we have taxpayer-funded Embassies.
Just recently, the Department of Defense, about to spend billions and billions of dollars on new satellites that we do not need, closed down the open source information portion of the General Defense Intelligence Program, claiming they lacked sufficient funds and that open source intelligence is not a priority.
The various other departments rely almost exclusively on “free” information that is given to them by parties with their own agenda to pursue.
There are no structured processes for the collection, translation, and analysis of Islamic, Chinese, Russian, Arab, Japanese, Korean, or other foreign language materials.
There is no central coordinating authority for ensuring that open sources acquired or translated by one part of the government are readily available by all the other parts, nor is there a government-wide open source intelligence requirements and acquisition authority.
The rewards of open source intelligence
There are immediate benefits to both national security and national prosperity of creating a government-wide open source intelligence program — preferably not managed by the intelligence specialists, who have repeatedly demonstrated their complete disdain for open sources of information. Those benefits would include the provision of an insurance policy for intelligence coverage of Third World security issues; an immediate increase in the timeliness, coverage and political utility of overtly available information; an immediate increase in open source information sharing across the departments and with the private sector; and finally, the provision of a foundation for a web-based OSINT exchange with allies, other nations and international groups.
I believe that a government-wide open source intelligence executive authority should be established, and a budget authorized and appropriated, to fulfill the following open source intelligence support objectives, and I have advocated this approach since 1992. The goals: to improve diplomatic understanding of foreign perceptions and conditions ($45M); to improve military and law enforcement understanding of emerging and existing threats ($75M) and to improve commerce and treasury understanding of international economic environment ($5M). I have already established that this proposal is acceptable to key Congressional leaders and to the political leadership in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), but to my enduring dismay, have been unable to break through the staff barriers to any Cabinet leader in government willing and able to take on this function on behalf of the people of the United States of America — Colin Powell is my first choice for the post. My second choice is the creation of a small new agency.
I would venture two common-sense observations that we must communicate to our government: 1) we cannot afford to ignore the rest of the world; and 2) we need a government-wide open source program right now. In close coordination with the most authoritative experts and retired intelligence and defense leaders available, I’ve created a list of initiatives to achieve these objectives, which appears below. If you think this makes sense, I hope you will write to your Senators and Representatives in Congress. The common sense of the people must come into play on this matter.
Recommended Open Source Initiatives
Digital History Project ($5M) to digitize and translate key Islamic, Chinese, and other foreign language historical, political, economic, cultural, social, and technical materials.
Non-Governmental Organization Data Warehouse ($10M) to provide free storage and network access to the various international organizations whose “local knowledge” is vital to U.S. understanding.
Global Coverage Distance Learning and Expert Forum Network ($10M) that will establish open ethical boards of review for all countries and topics, including distance learning and expert forums.
Generic Open Source Training Initiative ($10M) to create both distance learning modules accessible by our state and local, armed forces and diplomatic personnel and our public.
Public Information Sharing and Collaboration Toolkit ($10M) comprised of a generic set of industry standards and related tools for desktop level exploitation and analysis of digital foreign information.
Regional Open Source Information Networks for Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America ($40M) , each with an open source collection and processing center in partnership with local governments who will provide regional language skills and access to gray literature and local experts.
International Trade and Chamber of Commerce Network ($5M) to establish a web-based network maximizing access by U.S. businesses to foreign economic, regulatory and taxation information.
Digital Marshall Plan ($20M) to provide direct assistance and subsidies to extend the Internet to every corner of the world (including rural areas in America) via wireless delivery means.
University of the Republic & Global Outreach Program ($15M) that will bring together and educate “cohorts” of mid-career subject-matter experts from state and local governments, the federal government, and the business, academic and media communities, as well as foreign professionals.
About the Author
Robert David Steele is a 25-year veteran of the U.S. national security community. He has been a clandestine case officer in three foreign countries, helped program funds for imagery satellites, carried out tactical operations in support of strategic signals intelligence programs and founded the Marine Corps Intelligence Center (now Command). He and his small company have been featured in Year in Computers (2000) and the writings of Alvin Toffler, among others. His first book, “On Intelligence: Spies and Secrecy in an Open World,” sold out in the weeks after 9-11, has just been re-issued. His forthcoming book, “The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political (Citizen’s Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Ignorance)”, will be available in late April 2002. Steele is the founder of Open Source Solutions, Inc., which sponsors an annual conference for intelligence professionals from all walks of life and all countries of the world, and recently founded the Council on Intelligence as a public advocacy forum.
Airports look to biometrics for security
By Brian Fonseca
March 1, 2002 3:31 pm PT (C) idg.net
U.S. AIRPORTS UNDER intense public and legislative pressure to revamp security checkpoints and prove passenger identities following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are examining the role that biometrics and new IT security innovations can play in safeguarding air travelers.
In response, vendors are stepping up with new offerings. On Monday, Chyrsalis-ITS and AiT will announce a partnership to create a cryptographic digital signature and public and private key management solution capable of pinpointing forgery of or tampering with passports and travel documents.
Designed to plug into multiple biometrics templates and platforms, AiT’s GenIE secure document issuance system will correlate certified digital signatures with stored facial, fingerprint, or iris data to confirm that the personal document has not been altered, according to Alan Boat, CTO of Ottawa, Ontario-based AiT.
“We can use a digital signature to authenticate the document, and then we can use biometrics to authenticate the individual,” said Boate. “The idea here is you have an authenticated block of data. It’s protected by digital signatures, and it can be verified wherever you take off or land.”
Boate said Chrysalis-ITS, also based in Ottawa, will provide the boxes to authenticate digital signature requests and manage and store the private root keys to sign biometric and text data.
The call for heightened security at borders and travel hubs is at a fever pitch. For instance, the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2001, currently before the U.S. Senate, seeks to require countries participating or interested in joining the U.S. Visa Waiver program to institute tamper resistant passports equipped with biometric identifiers.
According to Chris Christiansen, program vice president for Framingham, Mass.-based IDC’s e-business infrastructure and Internet security services, the strength of biometrics lies not as a standalone security tool, but rather as a “human element” cog within a multi-factor authentication system.
“Biometrics will not be the sole technology being used for authentication, and it shouldn’t be. Security is about adding layers, it’s not about substituting technology,” said Christiansen. “The human element [in security”> is extremely important [and is achieved by”> a combination of biometrics, identity, and smart card technology.”
In order to be successful, Christiansen said the visibility of biometrics facial identification technology should be negligible and transparent to the average traveler to avoid inconvenience.
This week, Inforonics ABS (Advanced Biometric Security), Viisage, and DynCorp announced a partnership to provide integrated facial recognition technology for assessment at Logan International Airport in Boston. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) and Logan Airport, the 90-day technology evaluation is designed to demonstrate for government agencies and airline industry the role biometrics can play at Logan and other U.S. airports, said Dave Gabree, managing vice president of Littleton, Mass.-based Inforonics ABS. The evaluation, about halfway toward completion, is being monitored and coordinated by Counter Technology.
Logan Airport has fallen under intense scrutiny and criticism since two terrorist teams were able to bypass the airport’s security screening system and take control of American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 on the morning of Sept. 11. The planes struck and destroyed the World Trade Center North and South towers, respectively.
Logan Airport could not be reached for comment for this article.
Gabree said Inforonics ABS, a division of MSP (managed services provider) vendor Inforonics, is combining its plug-in ready enterprise biometrics framework with Viisage’s face recognition technology and DynCorp’s software application management solution.
Designed to work in conjunction with stationed National Guardsmen at airport security checkpoints, the technology lies within a camera located near the metal detectors. Captured images of passengers coming through the magnetic-scanning machine are compared against a database to screen for wanted or suspicious individuals.
Tom Sheehan, chief of police at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, said his facility is considering implementing a multi-factor fingerprint and facial recognition system to secure high priority access areas. He said a combination of biometrics and electronic entry system technology is needed to institute multiple methods to verify someone’s identity.
“That’s one of the reasons we’re looking at putting a biometrics system in to our access to areas. It is difficult to circumvent,” Sheehan remarked.
Currently, the Dallas/Fort Worth airport uses an electronic fingerprint system to perform background checks on employees applying for specific security badges or apprehended criminals.
Christiansen said last week’s merger of biometrics powerhouses Identix and Visionics will significantly enhance product development efforts between the two companies to push biometrics into new realms of functionality.
Joe Atick, formerly chairman and CEO of Jersey City, N.J.-based Visionics and CEO of the newly formed biometrics company, said that after Sept. 11, customers began to ask for total security in the company’s product deployments.
“There is a lot of people who built an impression of biometrics based on old experiences, they were expensive, they were clunky,” said Atick. “We have an opportunity to do airport security right, and to a trusted traveler that status is critical — to feel safe and not hindered but at the same time not compromising protection.”
Brian Fonseca is an InfoWorld staff writer.
—
WOW – no illegal immigration from now on. Your tax Dollars/Pounds/Euros will be wisely spent on those who contribute 🙂