Here we go (Bruce Sterling uncovered this): From mf@mediafilter.org Tue Feb 24 14:50:16 1998 Date: Tue, 24 Feb 1998 14:50:16 -0500 To: nettime-l@Desk.nl From: mf@mediafilter.org (MediaFilter) Subject: CryptoGate, from CAQ Sender: owner-nettime-l@basis.Desk.nl Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 543f05bc0c3da454ac1735ca6fc7a5eb Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore? by Wayne Madsen FOR AT LEAST HALF A CENTURY, THE US HAS BEEN INTERCEPTING AND DECRYPTING THE TOP SECRET DOCUMENTS OF MOST OF THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENTS It may be the greatest intelligence scam of the century: For decades, the US has routinely intercepted and deciphered top secret encrypted messages of 120 countries. These nations had bought the world's most sophisticated and supposedly secure commercial encryption technology from Crypto AG, a Swiss company that staked its reputation and the security concerns of its clients on its neutrality. The purchasing nations, confident that their communications were protected, sent messages from their capitals to embassies, military missions, trade offices, and espionage dens around the world, via telex, radio, teletype, and facsimile. They not only conducted sensitive albeit legal business and diplomacy, but sometimes strayed into criminal matters, issuing orders to assassinate political leaders, bomb commercial buildings, and engage in drug and arms smuggling. All the while, because of a secret agreement between the National Security Agency (NSA) and Crypto AG, they might as well have been hand delivering the message to Washington. Their Crypto AG machines had been rigged so that when customers used them, the random encryption key could be automatically and clandestinely transmitted with the enciphered message. NSA analysts could read the message traffic as easily as they could the morning newspaper. [...] >From CAQ #63 http://caq.com/cryptogate --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de

Military-Entertainment Complex Trembles in Fear as Modem-Wielding Pomo Contingent Gets Hip to RAND *8-/ From rdom@thing.net Thu Feb 26 13:48:47 1998 Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 13:48:47 -0800 From: ricardo dominguez To: nettime-l@Desk.nl Subject: infowar thread on www.thing.net Sender: owner-nettime-l@basis.Desk.nl Precedence: bulk X-UIDL: 6eafa74e7e813486ded1386d1b709582 InfoWar "War in our current era is one of reduced tangibility and soft power." --Joseph Nye. "Centralize strategically, but decentralize tactically." --Mao This is an invitation to join and participate on the InfoWar thread moderated by Ricardo Dominguez on the new Thing bbs system at: http://www.thing.net starting on March 5, 1998. The InfoWar thread will consider how soft power has redefined command, control, intelligence and resistance. InfoWar tactics are now moving beyond the theoretical questions about the rise of "network power" and the end of hierarchies. Instead, Military and Intelligence groups are now experimenting with pragmatic hybrid structures that can retain control over networks, while allowing network autonomy to expand within a specific types of command structures. In order to contain the rising soft power of small groups that can organize themselves "into sprawling networks" that can threaten hard power structures. Military and Intelligence communities since the late 80's have mapped 5 distinct possible structures for understanding InfoWar: 1)A Game, chess or Go. Go has displaced chess as the dominant tactical game metaphor. 2)The Wild West. Each town makes its own laws and out on the range its everyone for themselves and God against all. 3)The Castle/Bunker. Enclaves built for security with moats, massive walls, drawbridges and loyal Knights who roam the outskirts of the fiefdom. 4)A Plant. A rhizome made of endless root-structures,with poly-spacial connectivity, and a multi-layered linkages with non-plant agents. 5)The Hive. A bio-diverse system,with the ability to rapidly mutate, and capable of swarm like activity. Each map calls for different types of responses to the questions of security, aggression, and resistance. What can we gain from each map as the importance of InfoWar continues to grow with greater global access. The thread will also consider the specific case of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. They have been able to constrain the Mexican government from quickly eliminating the movement since 1994--by building a transnational network of resistance. How were a group of Mayan people deep in the Lacandona jungle able to become the first, "post modern warriors?" And finally, what happens when War Theory goes beyond InfoWar to overcome the problems that arise from the "age of networks?" Suggested reading list -- (not necessary to have read them to participate): Copernicus....Forward C4I for the 21st Century http://www.stl.nps.navy.mil/c4i/coperfwd.txt Cyberwar is Coming. Arquilla and Ronfeldt http://gopher.well.sf.ca.us:70/0/Military/cyberwar Electronic Warfare http://www.dreo.dnd.ca/pages/electwf/electwf.htm Guide to Information Warfare http://www.uta.fi/~ptmakul/infowar/iw2.html In Athena's Camp (John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, editors) http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR880/contents.html Information War and Cyberspace Security by RAND http://www.rand.org/publications/RRR/RRR.fall95.cyber/ Information War Cyberwar Netwar by George J. Stein http://www.cdsar.af.mil/battle/chp6.html Information Warfare http://vislab-www.nps.navy.mil/~sdjames/info_war.html What is Information Warfare? http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/inss/actpubs/act003/a003cont.html Zapatistas The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Cleaver/zaps.html Netwars http://www.teleport.com/~jwehling/Netwars.html Zaptistas in Cyberspace. http://www.eco.utexas.edu:80/Homepages/Faculty/Cleaver/zapsincyber.html Latin America's first post-Communism rebellion http://mprofaca.cro.net/chiapas.html Electronic Civil Disobedience http://mailer.fsu.edu/~sbarnes/ECD/ECD.html --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de

Cool...gotta get in on these... nothing like adding a little Discordian disinformation to the government's filing system...

From: Geert Lovink Message-Id: Subject: ars 98 on Infowar To: nettime-l@Desk.nl Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:40:39 +0100 (MET) INFOWAR In 1998, under the banner of "INFO WAR", the Ars Electronica Festival of Art, Technology and Society, is appealing to artists, theoreticians and technologists for contributions relating to the social and political definition of the information society. The emphasis here will lie not on technological flights of fancy, but on the fronts drawn up in a society that is in a process of fundamental and violent upheaval. The information society - no longer a vague promise of a better future, but a reality and a central challenge of the here-and-now - is founded upon the three key technologies of electricity, telecommunications and computers: Technologies developed for the purposes, and out of the logic, of war, technologies of simultaneity and coherence, keeping our civilian society in a state of permanent mobilisation driven by the battle for markets, resources and spheres of influence. A battle for supremacy in processes of economic concentration, in which the fronts, no longer drawn up along national boundaries and between political systems, are defined by technical standards. A battle in which the power of knowledge is managed as a profitable monopoly of its distribution and dissemination. The latest stock market upheavals have laid bare the power of a global market, such as only the digital revolution could have fathered, and which must be counted as the latter=BCs most widely-felt direct outcome. The digitally-networked market of today wields more power than the politicians. Governments are losing their say in the international value of their currencies; they can no longer control, but only react. The massive expansion of freely-accessible communication networks, itself a global economic necessity, imposes severe constraints on the arbitrary restriction of information flows. Any transgression of a critical control functions in the cybertechnologies=BC sphere of responsibility and influence puts central power wielders in a hitherto unheard-of position of vulnerability and openness to attack. The geographic frontiers of the industrial age are increasingly losing their erstwhile significance in global politics, and giving way to vertical fronts along social stratifications. Whereas, in the past, war was concerned with the conquering of territory, and later with the control of production capacities, war in the 21st century is entirely concerned with the acquisition and exercise of power over knowledge. The three fronts of land, sea and air battles have been joined by a fourth, being set up within the global information systems. Spurred on by the "successes" of the Gulf war, the development of information warfare is running at full speed. Increasingly, the attention of the military strategists is turning away from computer-aided warfare - >from potentiation of the destructive efficiency of military operations through the application of information technology, virtual reality and high-tech weaponry - to cyberwar, whose ultimate target is nothing less than the global information infrastructure itself: annihilation of the enemy=BCs computer and communication systems, obliteration of his databases, destruction of his command and control systems. Yet increasingly the vital significance of the global information infrastructure for the functioning of the international finance markets compels the establishment of new strategic objectives: not obliteration, but manipulation, not destruction, but infiltration and assimilation. "Netwar" as the tactical deployment of information and disinformation, targeted at human understanding. These new forms of post-territorial conflicts, however, have for some time now ceased to be preserve of governments and their ministers of war. NGOs, hackers, computer freaks in the service of organised crime, and terrorist organisations with high-tech expertise are now the chief actors in the cyberguerilla nightmares of national security services and defence ministries. In 1998, under the banner of "INFO WAR", the Ars Electronica Festival of Art, Technology and Society, is appealing to artists, theoreticians and technologists for contributions relating to the social and political definition of the information society. The emphasis here will lie not on technological flights of fancy, but on the fronts drawn up in a society that is in a process of fundamental and violent upheaval. see also: http://web.aec.at/infowar/eng.html

The NetAid event of Belgrad radio B92 is something of a David-vs-Goliath uphill-struggle on the Web. There's a great lineup of artists supporting them (Sonic Youth, Mike Watts, etc.). Read more in the B92 topic: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/radio/28 .

Cybermania Takes Iran by Surprise Youths Swarm Online; Tehran Scrambles to Respond By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, July 4, 2001; 12:00 AM TEHRAN � Arash Fahimi is a teenager in a nation that frowns on dating, outlaws rock music and offers a 17-year-old almost no chance for travel beyond its borders. But Fahimi, like hundreds of thousands of young Iranians, has discovered an escape from his cultural cocoon. Sitting at a computer terminal in an Internet cafe, he downloads the latest Western pop music hits and chats daily with cyber-acquaintances around the globe. He even found a girlfriend on the Internet. "I want to have a better idea of what the world is like," said Fahimi, earphones clamped under a Nike baseball cap and fingers tapping out a chat room response on his screen. "If I can't make a trip abroad, the Internet is the best way." In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where public behavior is stringently regulated and citizens fear arrest for speaking their minds, the Internet is transforming personal lifestyles and liberating public expression at a pace that a technologically handicapped bureaucracy has been unable to control. Although Iran lags behind much of the world in Internet use � service became widely available only about 18 months ago � it is now escalating so rapidly that the government has been caught off guard. Officials are drafting rules and preparing software and equipment for controlling Internet access and service, but authorities say it is unclear whether restrictions will be implemented, and if they are, how effective they would be. For now, chat rooms have become the new, uncensored recreation centers for young people with few places to socialize or express political views. Web sites offer a link for gays and lesbians to meet in a culture where homosexuality remains taboo. They provide a forum for dissenting opinions in a country where the conservative-controlled judiciary has shut down nearly 40 reformist newspapers and magazines in the past year. They can be a conduit for sending flowers to mom or making software-related U.S. business deals despite U.S. sanctions. Internet cafes, or "coffeenets" in Iranian parlance, are opening in Tehran at the rate of about one a day, with an estimated 450 now operating, according to government and business estimates. Some private Internet service providers claim the number of new subscribers each month is more than triple the number of just over a year ago. "One-and-one-half years ago there were two Internet cafes in Tehran," said Madjid Emami, 30, a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley who returned to his homeland seven years ago and recently started Pars Online, a private Internet service provider, with a group of friends. "Now there's an Internet cafe on every corner. Even tea shops are putting computers in." Government and private service providers estimate that 350,000 to 1 million Iranians use the Internet � mostly through universities, government agencies and Internet cafes � up from 2,000 users five years ago. The cafes charge about $2 for an hour online. Rather than lash out at the potential evils of the Internet, many of the country's highest-ranking clerics have created their own Web sites � as the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said � to "answer religious questions, to introduce the jurisprudential decrees of Imam Khomeini (may Allah's blessings be upon him)" and to offer their own interpretation of Islam. But government authorities are raising concerns over the uses of the Internet and debating what to do about them. "The state is concerned with the security problems the Internet might bring. Anyone can put what they want on a site without being tracked," said Shahram Sharif, 29, a reporter who covers computer issues for the daily newspaper Hambastegi. "One day the Internet will conflict with the interests of the state. They are going to have to decide whether it will be filtered or whether they'll leave it free. Now, it's all open to question." Several weeks ago, police shut down nearly all Internet cafes in Tehran, claiming they lacked operating licenses. Owners discovered the government had placed a notice in a little-read newspaper several months earlier warning them to obtain permits. All but a handful of the cafes have since been licensed and reopened, officials said. "It's the negative points of the Internet we have to fight, not the Internet itself," said Ahmad Motamedi, who heads the Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone, which has the most potential authority over computer access and control. " continued at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15729-2001Jul3.html

Kit Fit for the Future Shines at Paris Arms Fair Mon Jun 17, 2:41 PM ET By Estelle Shirbon VILLEPINTE, France (Reuters) - Forget binoculars. Now you can carry your own solar-powered spy plane in a backpack and send it flying over nearby hills while it beams video images back to you. The drone, about three feet long and equipped with both regular and infrared cameras for day and night vision, is on display at the Eurosatory arms fair near Paris, where some 800 exhibitors are showing the latest in defense equipment. "I call it the foot-soldier's third eye," said Michel Haigrou, an engineer at French company Tecknisolar-Seni and one of the remote-controlled mini spy plane's inventors. The plane is designed to let soldiers in hostile territory see what is happening around them, he said. It can be assembled in less than three minutes and fly a distance of just over half a mile from the person controlling it. more @ http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&ncid=753&e=8&u=/nm/20020617/sc_nm/france_inventions_dc_1