Fraudulent Anti-Terrorist Software Led US To Ground Planes 147
The Register, citing this Playboy article, reports that a Nevada man named Dennis Montgomery was able in 2003 to connive his way into a position of respectability at the CIA on the basis of his company's claimed ability, using software, to "detect and decrypt 'barcodes' in broadcasts by Al Jazeera, the Qatari news station." Montgomery was CTO of Reno-based eTreppid Technologies, which produced bucketloads of data purported to represent "geographic coordinates and flight numbers" hidden in these broadcasts. All of which, it seems, was hokum, finally debunked in cooperation with a branch of the French intelligence service — but not, says the article, before the fabricated information, chalked up to "credible sources," was used as justification to ground some international flights, and even evacuate New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. This was just a scam although it could have been a lot worse. The basic problem is that a lot of people don't really understand technology. If there's going to be any Mccarthy style overreaction it should be to throw this guy in jail for a long, long time.
Re:Flights (Score:5, Informative)
Because the US is now self-terrorizing, no bombers needed. We needlessly disrupt and frighten on our own to keep people on edge. And because once grown, government never shrinks, the massive increase in HSA and other such frightmongering will be a part of our culture (and budget) for the rest of United States history.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:5, Informative)
There you go.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2005/11/22/exclusive-bush-plot-to-bomb-his-arab-ally-115875-16397937/ [mirror.co.uk]
Second hit on Google. Now that wasn't so hard, was it ?
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:5, Informative)
the nation [thenation.com]
Re:Flights (Score:4, Informative)
You can't hijack a train, and take it somewhere else, later ramming it into a huge building full of people in some other city.
And... try going the combination of things you need to do in order to, say, steer a train pulling large payloads of dangerous chemicals someplace it's not supposed to go. You have to take over the locomotive and get control of the railyard switching systems and be able to magically control other trains to make sure they're not in your way.
Simply blowing up some passengers in the trains, a la Madrid, isn't as sexy in the US, since the attackers need to rise to the same level as their last large domestic attack, or appear to be (as they are) not as capable as they once were.
Re:Deluisional idiot or con man? (Score:4, Informative)
Here is also video of a Rachel Maddow interview with the author: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/maddow_with_roston_on_the_incredible_magic_al_jaze.php [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:4, Informative)
That's a story that gets brought up occasionally. Many Afghans were picked up, but unless there was more to go on than what an informant said they were released.
or tortured to death despite being completely innocent. [wikipedia.org].
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:5, Informative)
sense is lacking (Score:5, Informative)
Everyone is under a lot of pressure to perform. I worked for a defense contractor for 2 projects. The 1st project was a success, and the 2nd was a complete disaster. On that 2nd project, the customers were asking for a great deal, and many of them didn't understand that. They wanted in 1 year what had previously taken 15 years to do, and instead of being helpful, kept on throwing up idiotic roadblocks, for political reasons. As in, no non-American software allowed, because terrorists might have programmed in back doors and booby traps. That wasn't the real reason-- what they were really trying to do was force the use of what they were comfortable with, which was Windows. Security was the ultimate excuse, and was roundly abused to justify anything they wished.
Unfortunately, our management opted for dishonesty, in so far as they could agree on anything at all. Kissed up mightily, promising to do the job in 6 months knowing full well that they could not, and then tried to baffle with bull. Played along with the politicking. Leaned on their own people to rubberstamp things, or dress stuff up, and fought with each other over what we should do. Paralyzed by impossible and contradictory demands, and rank incompetence, we ended up accomplishing absolutely nothing. Gave the customers manure for a year, and that was not entirely unwelcome to some of the customers as they used us to hire a few favorites, and order equipment they'd get to keep after we crashed and burned. When enough of the customers at last got wise, the management blamed everything on us underlings and fired us all, to gain themselves more time. That didn't work for long, and finally, the contract was cancelled. Was the most miserable job experience I ever had.
This sort of scam is entirely believable. The defense people are suckers for security theater. Not the brightest at seeing through it, nor are they particularly good at telling the honest and competent from the dishonest and incompetent, even when it should be obvious. They don't help themselves when they engage in their own brand of lying, and collude. Honest contractors have a rough time being heard above the noise made by the legions of incompetent liars who are willing to promise anything to get that contract.
Re:Nice strawman. (Score:4, Informative)
Comparing our voluntary invasion of sovereign nations to WWII and the Revolutionary War is completely ridiculous. Afghanistan's government requested Soviet military support to quell the fundamentalist Islamo-Fascists from overthrowing their secular Marxist government.
Not quite true. Afghanistan had a Marxist, Soviet-aligned government threatened by Islamist ("Islamo-Fascism" is a bullshit term that has nothing to do with history), US-backed insurgents, but they specifically told the Soviet Union NOT to send troops, knowing that it would severely harm the government's already fragile public support. The Soviet Union decided to be its usual arrogant self and figured that it knew socialism a hell of a lot better than the silly Afghans, and that its own interests were paramount (a US-backed regime on their border wasn't a happy prospect for them), and invaded anyway, toppled the Marxist government and installed a puppet regime.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:5, Informative)
or tortured to death despite being completely innocent. [wikipedia.org].
And the people who killed him were charged with murder.
No. The low-level guys got minor slaps on the wrist and the officers got awards.
For example, the officer in command of the unit that tortured people to death at Bagram (Carolyn Wood [wikipedia.org]) was awarded awarded a bronze star and then transferred to Abu Ghraib where the prisoner famous abuses then took place and then she was awarded another bronze star.
So,just from that, it's pretty clear that the Bush administration (and their supporters) really just didn't care. But more fundamentally, it's been common knowledge in civilized countries for hundreds of years that if you set up a "justice" system without proper checks and balances (right to counsel, habeas corpus, etc) that your "justice" system is going to do bad things (torture) to innocent people.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_bombing_memo [wikipedia.org]
Wikipedia has a pile of links at the bottom of the page you can follow.
I can't find a record of a denial by the White House, and the guys who leaked the memo went to jail for it. Maybe the White House did issue an actual denial (I didn't search that much), and maybe there was something in the memo that wasn't Al Jazeera-related, that was why they went to jail.
But apparently it's well-acknowledged by everyone that there was a memo, but whether or not that memo contained any information about bombing Al Jazeera has not been confirmed nor denied.
That being said, I would be very shocked if this event didn't unfold in a similar form to the accusation. It would be a natural question as to whether or not to attack Al Jazeera—it's an uncontrolled media establishment operating in the war zone. If the question didn't arise, it would be remiss of those in charge. To actually bomb Al Jazeera in Qatar would be a capital B-A-D bad idea, so, if it was considered, it was rightly dropped.
I really hope it didn't actually come down to Bush and Blair having a discussion about it. The idea should have been considered and discarded before it got that high.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:2, Informative)