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.
Deluisional idiot or con man? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here came someone with a magic box who provided an easy solution, and the eggheads and their political masters bought it hook, line and sinker. What I find extraordinary is that the NSA was not involved or asked to vet this guy's findings. Billions of dollars and some of the finest brains working there, and no one thought to call them? Looks like even in 2003 inter-agency cooperation wasn't going very well.He was CIAs asset, and they were not going to share.
My conclusion: con man, and he will probably get away with this, because the government can not publicly prosecute him without looking like an Idiot.
Pro-Terrorism software (Score:5, Interesting)
In the other hand, should be a lesson to government between the difference of open and closed source. Snake oil is harder to sell if you can peek at the formula.
we won the war... (Score:3, Interesting)
but fucked up the end-game, according to charlie wilson's war;-}
an i saw this story on network news last night...
Re:Deluisional idiot or con man? (Score:3, Interesting)
He told Bauder to listen to the phone. "'When you hear the tone, I want you to hit the space bar on the keyboard.'" Bauder, in other words, would be secretly communicating with Montgomery while the military guys watched the supposed software demo on another computer.
...and at the time, he seriously didn't find it the least bit suspicious? This stretches credibility, either they're all huge idiots, or they were playing along while the going was good.
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:4, Interesting)
I never understood why Bush planed to bomb AlJazerea until now.
In case you missed it: Bush planed to bomb the TV station in an allied country until GB Premier Blair stopped him.
Re:Suprise surprise... (Score:4, Interesting)
The person who knowingly sells parts or software or equipment to the government is attempting sabotage. We need to return to the quite legal custom of executing saboteurs.
Re:diff needed (Score:4, Interesting)
just an fyi:
That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his inauguration speech in 1933 during the Great Depression. I was starting to wonder why I should bother posting this info until it prompted me to look for a bit more info on it and I found this cool site: http://www.bartleby.com/124/ [bartleby.com]
which contains the texts of the inauguration speeches for all of the Presidents of the US. Here's the actual quote, with a little more context:
quite a contrast to the 43rd President!
Re:Suprise surprise... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, And this is why information theory needs to be taught in kinder garden, the problems being that A. Most Teachers Don't Understand Information Theory and B. Nobody has come up with a way to conceptualize Information Theory in a way that can be thought to very young kids and then built on through out there education. B is probably quite doable but A is really going to be the big stumbling block. But since Information Theory can be applied to most anything it would very beneficial to our society to groove it in on the same level as a shape like a triangles.
We proved him a fraud years back, no one listened (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked for a Very Large Company looking to buy image compression software from this dude many years back. A co-worker did some extremely clever testing of the compression software that proved conclusively that the compression algorithms were cheating, and that it was intentional fraud. Upper management still wanted to believe the cheater and not our own internal debunking. Amazing how non-objective people can be, even (or especially) managers of scientists and engineers.
Re:Flights (Score:2, Interesting)
“What were we going to do and how would we screen people? If we weren’t comfortable we wouldn’t let a flight take off.”
Why are they still following flights and such so closely, while leaving all the other ways open? It wouldn't have the same effect this time, because terrorists just go for emotions of people to get their message out.
Seems like hysterical thinking for me.
Totally agree. I took Amtrak recently and I was *shocked* that there was absolutely no baggage screening or even a metal detector I had to go through to board the train--you just show up with your bags and walk in without any security, ID checks, or bag checks whatsoever. They don't even check for your ticket until about a half hour into the train ride. Sure, airport security sucks, but the last couple of major terrorist attacks in Europe were on trains and we still don't care about trains? This convinced me that the security circus crowd is correct...
Re:This just shows how broken it all is (Score:4, Interesting)
Sociopathy and social engineering. A win every time. For a while, at least.
Re:Deluisional idiot or con man? (Score:4, Interesting)
Social engineering at it's finest.
Re:The easiest way to stop terrorism: (Score:0, Interesting)
One of the first rescue workers on the scene, an Oklahoma City police officer named Terrence Yeakey, had expressed deep concern about some of the things he saw to family members. One day not long after he turned up dead. His death was ruled a suicide. Shades of Vince Foster: a very unusual "suicide" it was. The man apparently cut his wrists, made another cut on his elbow and then cut both sides of his neck around the jugular vein. Having already lost a great deal of blood, he was able to walk out into a fenced-off area at the outskirts of the city where he shot himself. His service revolver was not the weapon used. No autopsy was done, despite it being standard procedure to do an autopsy when a police officer dies under unusual circumstances. The obvious question: was Officer Yeakey about to reveal information about the Oklahoma City bombing? Members of his family think so, but of course no one can prove it. Officer Yeakey’s briefcase had disappeared. It turned up later, but had been in the hands of the police who did not want to release it to his family. There was plenty of time and opportunity for someone so inclined to have removed incriminating documents or photographs.
U.S. Judge Wayne Alley, whose office was located in the Federal Building, reported the next day of having been warned in a Justice Department memo about an unspecified "terrorist act" to be directed against the Federal building? Who issued this memo, and what happened to it? Judge Alley’s statement was published in the Portland Oregonian. Since then he has refused to repeat the allegation and refused all requests for interviews. Why? Along very similar lines, the Oklahoma City Fire Department was allegedly warned by the FBI the weekend before the bombing to be on alert for something that would take place over the next few days.
Re:diff needed (Score:1, Interesting)
I did not make any comment about the USA. Why did you?
Because modern leftists define themselves by nothing but their opposition to the USA.
Reactionary, simplistic, and stupid.
Don't think so? Remember when Bill Clinton was President, the "left" was all up in arms about how sanctions were killing hundreds of thousands of people a year in Iraq. To the point where the US Secretary of State said this on CBS's Sixty Minutes:
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Remember, this was in 1996. Sanctions against Iraq had been in place only about 4 1/2 years and had fully another 7 years to run. The number of casualties the "left" attributed to sanctions against Iraq about 40% into their full lifetime is already well in excess of the casualties attributed to the "unilateral" US invasion.
But after the US and, interestingly enough just about every country that didn't receive billions of dollars in Iraqi oil contracts, decided that 12 years of sanctions and 19 otherwise useless UN resolutions had done nothing but strengthen Saddam Hussein's hold on power and decided to remove Hussein, sanctions suddenly became the "best solution".
Despite 12 years of them being branded "murder".
To the "left", those "muderous" sanctions became the "best solution" the moment US policy moved beyond sanctions.
A perfect example of reactionary and simplistic "thinking" if ever there was one.
Yeah, the leftist echo chamber of Slashdot will try to mod this into oblivion. There's probably an Orwell quote or 400 about that reactionary process, too.