Netwar Front
since 03 - 21
| Powered by TagBoard Message |
Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
This is my blogchalk:
Brazil, Rio de Janeiro,
Rio de Janeiro, America,
Portuguese, English,
Vasconcellos, Male, 46-50,
Philosophy, technology.
|
This work is
licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
Review My Site
Friday, February 28, 2003
Anti-War Protesters Flood
American Government with
Calls in Virtual March
By Dana Hull
Opponents of a U.S.-led war against Iraq bombarded Senate offices and the White House today by fax, phone, and e-mail in what organizers billed as the first `"virtual march'' on Washington.
Time constraints, child care and transportation issues, and work schedules make attending demonstrations difficult for many people. But the ``virtual march'' was accessible to anyone who had a phone or a modem.
``I started at 7 a.m. and I finally got through to [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein's office at 10 a.m.,'' said Linda Carmichael, who lives in the Willow Glen neighborhood of San Jose. ``I haven't gone to any of the anti-war marches, mostly out of laziness. This seemed to be a wonderful way to have my voice heard without having to do a lot of work. But it ended up taking more time then I thought. I had to keep hitting redial.''
Fax-blasting members of Congress and making phone calls about a particular issue is nothing new, and indeed scores of citizens have contacted their representatives in recent months on everything from tax cuts to prescription drug coverage. But the effort highlights how technology continues to influence the way that protests are orchestrated.
``In the gulf war, people did not use e-mail that much and cell phones were rare,'' said Howard Rheingold, the author of ``Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution,'' from his office in Mill Valley. ``Now there's the possibility of war at a time when the Internet is part of popular culture, and people are increasingly sophisticated about e-mail and cell phones. Text messaging is big in a lot of places outside of the U.S. A year from now, that will be different.''
Founded @ Mercury News.
post by vasco on 2:24 AM
Canadian MP Said:
"Damn Americans.
Hate Those Bastards"
OTTAWA - The Liberal government faced new accusations of anti-Americanism yesterday after an MP who is an outspoken critic of George W. Bush said she hated Americans and called them "bastards" intent on going to war with Iraq.
Carolyn Parrish, the Liberal MP for Mississauga Centre, later issued a statement apologizing for the comments, which came on a day when Jean Chretien spoke to the U.S. President in an effort to reach a United Nations compromise in the Iraqi crisis.
"Damn Americans. Hate those bastards," Parrish said after the weekly Liberal caucus meeting in Ottawa. Parrish made the remark at the end of a media scrum in which she told a group of journalists there was no hope Canada could negotiate a deal to avoid war because the Bush administration has no interest in peace.
"Canada has a long tradition of coming up with compromises and I think if it flies, that is excellent. But I have no hopes for it," the Toronto-area MP said. "I watched Bush [yesterday] morning on television. That man is ready to go. He doesn't care. He is gunning for a fight. I think Bush is. I think he has got 150,000 troops over there, and I think he has got to do something with them."
more @ Canada.com. You can see the report also.
post by vasco on 1:48 AM
Thursday, February 27, 2003
E-Bay: Big Brother
Is Watching You,
and Documenting
"I don't know another Web site that has a privacy policy as flexible as eBay's," says Joseph Sullivan, director of the "law enforcement and compliance" department at eBay.com, reportedly the world's largest retailer. Sullivan was speaking to senior representatives of numerous law-enforcement agencies at "Cyber Crime 2003". His lecture was closed to reporters, but, in a recording obtained by Haaretz, Sullivan says that eBay is willing to hand over everything it knows about its Web users when asked by investigators.
Sullivan says eBay has recorded and documented every iota of data that has come through the Web site since it first went online in 1995. Every time someone makes a bid, sells an item, writes about someone else, even when the company cancels a sale for whatever reason - it documents all of the pertinent information.
more @ Haaretz.
Received from Risks newslist. The RISKS Forum is a MODERATED digest. Its Usenet equivalent is comp.risks.
post by vasco on 9:38 AM
Feds Seizing Control
of Guilty's Owner
Domain Names
Federal police have adopted a novel crime-fighting tactic: Seizing control of domain names for Web sites that allegedly violate the law. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that the domain names for several Web sites allegedly set up to sell illegal "drug paraphernalia" would be pointed at servers located at the Drug Enforcement Administration. A federal judge in Pittsburgh granted the U.S. Department of Justice permission to do so until a trial can take place, the government said.
Wednesday afternoon, the DOJ said it had taken over the iSoNews.com domain, whose owner pleaded guilty to felony copyright crimes under the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). David Rocci, 22, pleaded guilty in December to using his site to sell "mod" chips that let Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation owners modify their devices so they can use them to play illegally copied games, or "warez."
more @ Cnet News. See also the DOJ's release.
Received from Politech. POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list. You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech. This message is archived and Declan McCullagh's photographs are here.
post by vasco on 9:16 AM
New DNA Computer
After Update
Perform 50 Times Faster
Two years ago Israeli researchers developed an incredibly tiny computer that used DNA and enzymes as its software and hardware (a computer so small that a trillion of the machines could be placed in a
single drop of water). Now, the same researchers say they've found a way for molecular machines to do without an external energy source and to perform 50 times faster than the previous version, which is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's smallest biological computing device.
The model of the molecular computer is so-called automaton. Given an input string comprised of two different states, an automaton uses predetermined rules to arrive at an output value that answers a particular question. For example, it can determine whether a string containing only a's and b's has an even number of a's, or if all the b's are preceded by a's. In the latest design, two DNA molecules bond together to perform the computational steps. An enzyme known as FokI acts as the computer's hardware by cleaving a piece of the input molecule and releasing the energy stored in the bonds. This heat energy then powers the next computation. [The illustration above shows an input DNA molecule (green/blue), software DNA molecules (red/purple) and FokI (colored ribbons).] The authors report that a microliter of solution could hold three trillion computers, which together would perform 66 operations a second.
more @ Scientific American.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 8:50 AM
Telemarketing Try To
Strikes Back
the Call-Zapper Wars
There's a privacy arms race going on, as telemarketers try to defeat the privacy defenses of the TeleZapper, a $40 gadget that deflects unsolicited sales calls by faking the tones of a disconnected number. A company called Castel, which makes automated dialing technology, now says it has developed software that makes calls unzappable. Privacy advocate Robert Bulmash says, "The industry is crowing that 'We don't want to call people that don't want to be called,' and at the same time is calling them." Telemarketing, of course, is a very big business. The FCC says that telemarketers attempt 104 million calls a day to U.S. businesses and consumers, and that telemarketing sales revenue rose from $435 billion in 1990 to $660 billion in 2001.
more @ USA Today.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 8:28 AM
OIC To Consider
Using Oil
To Avert War
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 (Bernama) -- The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has decided to study the possibility of using oil as a weapon to deter the United States from attacking Iraq, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Wednesday. Consensus on this was reached at an informal meeting of 51 OIC members here today, called to discuss the situation in Palestine and the Iraq issue. Dr Mahathir said the meeting had agreed to "think about the idea" of using one of the most valued commodities in the world to prevent the looming US-led war on Iraq.
"They agreed that it must be studied carefully because it might hurt us more than (it hurts) other parties," he told a media conference after chairing the informal consultation at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) here. Several major oil producers were represented at the meeting, which was attended by 49 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which ended its 13th Summit here yesterday, and two non-NAM members. He said oil was a double-edged weapon, and if the price of oil went up, many non-oil producing countries of the South were going to suffer the most.
"Of course if we don't know how to use this weapon, we simply mark up the price, we might cause a very bad reaction. That is why I recommended that we should think about it," he said. Dr Mahathir said although the matter was not discussed in detail at the meeting, some members felt that such a "weapon might rebound" and the 57-member OIC might have to pay a very high price. "There was no consensus about using oil as a weapon, but there was a consensus on thinking about the possibility of using oil as a weapon. On that we all agreed," he said.
more @ Bernama.
post by vasco on 6:46 AM
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
Virtual March Reachs
Over One Million
Phone Calls Today
By Lakshmi Chaudhry
Over one million people from around the nation jammed the White House and Senate switchboards today to register their loud and unequivocal opposition to the war. Former Congressman Tom Andrews, National Director of Win Without War, said "Well over one million phone calls were made in just eight hours by people from every state in the country. Every Senator’s office and the White House switchboard received at least two and often more calls per minute. Many callers had to settle for busy signals."
The Virtual March on Washington was organized by Win Without War, a coalition of 32 organizations including the National Council of Churches, MoveOn.org, the NAACP, NOW, and the Sierra Club.
According to Andrews, the protest was designed to give the many who don't usually take place in marches a chance to let "their fingers do their marching." As part of the protest, folks emailed, faxed and phoned their Senators and the White House to express their support for U.N. inspections. Estimates for fax and email messages are not available as yet. But it is clear, in Andrews' words, the antiwar message "got through loud and clear today."
Lakshmi Chaudhry is Senior Editor of AlterNet. Previously a staff writer at Wired News, she has written for various publications including Mother Jones, The Village Voice, Bitch, and Ms Magazine. She holds a BA in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College and has a master's degree in International Relations from Syracuse University.
Founded @ AlterNet. More @ AlterNet's War on Iraq in depth coverage.
Received from AlterNet Headlines newslist, brief summaries of leading stories from AlterNet -- the independent news and syndication service.
post by vasco on 10:42 PM
Snucking in the
World's Top Nuclear
Research Center
By Noah Shachtman
I snuck into Los Alamos, the world's top nuclear research center, over the weekend. I thought Politech readers might want to see my story on how I did it.
I think the article raises serious questions about the safety of our country's nuclear secrets. So if group members could spread the word about this to friends and colleagues, I'd very much appreciate it.
"There are no armed guards to knock out. No sensors to deactivate. No surveillance cameras to cripple. To sneak into Los Alamos National Laboratory, the world's most important nuclear research facility, all you do is step over a few strands of rusted, calf-high barbed wire."
"I should know. On Saturday morning, I slipped into and out of a top-secret area of the lab while guards sat, unaware, less than a hundred yards away."
"Despite the nation's heightened terror alert status, despite looming congressional hearings into the lab's mismanagement and slack-jawed security, an untrained person -- armed with only the vaguest sense of the facility's layout and slowed by a torn Achilles tendon -- was able to repeatedly gain access to the birthplace of the atom bomb..."
For details -- and pictures -- click on over to my Wired News story.
Additional items on this story can be found at Defense Tech, my website devoted to technology and national security issues.
Received from Politech. POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list. You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech. This message is archived and Declan McCullagh's photographs are here.
post by vasco on 7:57 AM
Wi-Fi Made Telecoms
Missed the Boat
on Wireless Computing
Columnist John Ellis says that telecom companies missed the boat on wireless computing, despite having invested billions of dollars in building out a 3G global wireless data infrastructure. "Guess what? 3G is a bomb. Telecommunications companies all over the world are presently suffering because of the lack of demand (and high spectrum auction costs). They've spent millions of dollars advertising it, branding it, marketing it, and packaging it. Now they're practically giving it away. And still, it sits there -- dog food that dogs won't eat." Enter Wi-Fi, which could easily provide the last-mile connection to every home at a reasonable cost, thus solving the long-standing problem of how to expand broadband coverage, especially to households outside urban centers. Ellis says the obvious solution is to enlist "the Con Edisons of the world. Those kinds of companies have first class (and local) service operations. They have plenty of cash… They service every last residence (and most businesses) in their geographic area. They have the backroom billing operations. And they all need to extend their product offerings. But here's the kicker: Electric-utility management is largely made up of white men who turned 65 when they turned 40. Leadership in this area will probably come from a maverick. But it *will* happen. Wi-Fi, the least likely winner, has won. Electric utilities, the least likely revolutionaries, stand to gain the most from the Wi-Fi revolution." (Fast Company Mar 2003)
more @ Fast Company.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 7:39 AM
Patent Law Minefield
Will Blow up
Software Development
U.S. Patent System is Broken, Says Lessig
Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig has warned Europeans not to follow the same path toward software patent protection as the U.S., saying "The system in America is broken -- to the great detriment of software developers generally -- and there is no reason to believe the Europeans could do any better." Critiquing the last 10 years' tendency toward granting overly broad patents, he notes that software developers -- those whom patents ostensibly would protect -- are actually some of the most vocal critics of the current system. "Developing software is [now] like crossing a minefield," says Richard Stallman, the originator of the free software movement that has developed the GNU/Linux operating system. "With each design decision, you might step on a patent that will blow up your project." Lessig says that Europeans should take pains to avoid a similar quagmire: "American software developers will continue to choke on software patents, especially as more and more get enforced in massively expensive litigation… Until software patents prove themselves safe and effective, Europe could gain a great deal by sparing its developers the same drug. Rather than copying a failed American policy, the Europeans could be exploring alternatives to patents that might provide protection without sinking the intended beneficiaries. No doctor would approve an untested drug for his or her patient. Nor should Europe inflict such a remedy on its already weakened software industry." (Financial Times 20 Feb 2003)
more @ Financial Times.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 7:29 AM
Google Wants
Access to Blogger
Fingers Database
Google and the World of Blogging: You Are What You Point To
Google's purchase of Pyra, creator of the Blogger software for people who want to publish their own Web logs ("blogs") has puzzled some, because the businesses seem diametrically opposed: Google is used for finding information whereas Blogger is used for producing it. So what's going on? Meg Hourihan, one of the founders of Pyra, suggests that the acquisition of Blogger will give Google a way of gaining faster access to links in the Web logs. "I very much think it's about having the Blogger database, not so much the words but what people are pointing to, and getting their finger on that in real time." (New York
Times 24 Feb 2003)
more @ New York Times.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 7:17 AM
.:Want to See your Name in Chinese?:.
Then you must visit for3v3rzero, the best blog about nothingness. The blog is writed by d4rkraven, a scot male living in South carolina and loving anime and computers if we go to believe in what his tux blogchalker tell us. I don't find the Vasconcellos translation to Chinese but there is a lot of names converted. WTF u r waiting to click on for3v3rzero?
post by vasco on 6:13 AM
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
News From the Blog`s Front
WTF is going on with our education!!!! Evil Patchie talk about us last 20 and we don`t mention it. And you want to know what we think about Evil Patchie? They really are HARDCORE. You don`t believe us? Move your fat finger and click on Evil Patchie to see what we are meaning....
post by vasco on 8:52 PM
Blog Sticker
Anti-War Message
Is Rocking the Web
Created in the end of 2001 to sell stickers and buttons, the web site "Democracy Means You.com" have today more than 170.000 visitors in the counter and a lot of anti-war web sticker blogged by the Net. They are rocking today in the Netwar Front. Read their presentation.
DemocracyMeansYou.com exists to encourage you involved in YOUR government. We believe that most of the problems in the world can be changed with citizen involvement, especially by involvement in this country, which affects so much of the world. Our goal is to get you and us and them and everyone to TAKE ACTION wherever you think changes need to be made. That, and to have an opportunity to poke a little fun at the Right wing from time to time.
We hope, at a very minimum, we hope to inspire you to call your representatives—at whatever level of government—at least once a week. And of course, to be registered to vote. Voting in elections is the bare minimum of citizenship. If even 50% of eligible voters participated in elections, this would be a very different country.
The promise of America is a society where everyone is able to live and participate in governing with enthusiasm and passion, without fear of being silenced, jailed, or killed. That is true democracy. Through spreading thought-provoking material, writings, and organizing direct democratic action, we hope to get closer to that goal. Never mind the cynics who say "we're a Republic, not a democracy." Bullshit. We're a Democratic Republic. And to make it work, all of us need to participate, whatever our political stripes. But make no mistake, this is a left-wing, unapologetically liberal site.
We believe that compassion and generousity—along with accountability—are the keys to a succesful government, both domestically and internationally. We unashamedly believe in the power of people and creativity to solve the problems of government and the world. We believe that "hard-line" and "realpolitik" do nothing but aggravate the situation. We find the disrespectful and uncooperative posture of our government to be a liability. There is plenty of everything to go around. What is lacking is generousity and compassion.
While the U.S. has given a tremendous amount to peoples the world over, we have almost always had a price attached to our giving—and it has more often been out of greed than altruism. We believe that this is one of the major reasons America is so hated and feared—not "because we cherish freedom," as George W. Bush insinuated after Sept. 11th. That has little to do with it. Most countries that despise America despise it because of our manipulations, our disrespect of their cultures, and our patronizing sense of superiority. The incidents of the U.S. manipulating foreign governments and interfering with democracy are far more frequent than those times we have fostered it. Especially in the last half of the 20th century, and so far in the 21st.
We have, and continue to support dictatorships in countries as diverse as Chile, Iran, Iraq (yes, Saddam), Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and many, many more. In fact, that is the rule.
We criticize this country because we love the promise of America. We believe in the promise America: equality and democracy for all. Those who call us "un-American" are missing the point of America. We love the freedoms we enjoy. We are scared by those who threaten those freedoms in the name of so-called security, so-called commerce, or so-called free trade. (Tell us there is free trade when 90% of government subsidies in energy go to oil and coal companies rather than renewables. There is no such thing as free trade in practice. Those who claim otherwise are liars or ignorant. Nearly every successful company has gotten government assistance. The larger the company, the more assistance. That's not free trade. It's patronage.)
more @ Democracy Means You.
Founded @ Laquered Up Lickered Down.
post by vasco on 8:03 PM
Promise of
Self-Organizing
intelligent networks
By Mark Ward
US researchers are working on ways to make wireless computer networks organise themselves and manage data traffic levels without any human intervention. One Computer scientists at Intel are developing mesh networking technologies that can automatically work out the best route for data as demand changes or devices join and leave the system. The researchers believe such automatic networking systems will be needed as the numbers of devices that can communicate wirelessly proliferate. If the research proves fruitful, homes could soon be studded with small, smart wireless relays that shuffle data around at very high speeds.
Hops and hubs
The ease with which wireless networks can be set up stands in dramatic contrast to the time and trouble it can take to set up computer networks with old-fashioned cables. But welcome as this move to wireless is, researchers at Intel think that we have yet to exploit the full potential of these untethered networks. "The first generation of wireless networks have just tried to replace the wires," said Mike Witteman, head of Intel's network architecture lab. Mr Witteman said many companies were giving every wireless access points serving a cluster of PCs a direct connection to the corporate backbone.
Far better, he said, would be to use outlying wireless access points as relays to pipe traffic from far-flung groups of PCs back in a series of hops to a small number of hubs cabled in to the core network. Mr Witteman said his group at Intel and others outside the company, were working on so-called mesh network systems that can work out the best way to link all the devices they are in contact with, and find the ideal route for the data the devices are swapping.
Ideal for rural areas
He said the mesh networking protocols would be of tremendous use in homes or workplaces of the future which would have many different devices all of which can swap data via radio. "There are going to be tens of millions of computers out there with these capabilities and it's going to change the world," he said. The advantage of mesh networks, in which the radio footprints of participating devices overlap, was that they did not rely on a central hub or access point to relay data between all the devices in that network, he said.
Mr Witteman and his colleagues are working on ways to instil wireless devices with the intelligence to work out all the different routes that data can take from one point to another in any network they form. This, he said, would help them cope with sudden changes in the bandwidth of some links and re-route data via paths that can handle the data load. "If you are moving video and music around they are very susceptible to quality degradation," he said.
In future mesh networks every element, be it a PC, mobile phone or PDA, could act as a data relay which could open up a vast array of new opportunities, said Mr Witteman. Broadband service firms could use the wireless networks in the homes of subscribers to reach customers lying beyond their usual catchment area.
more @ BBC News.
post by vasco on 4:59 AM
US Planning American
Military Commander
Governing Iraq
It has been reported that the Bush administration is developing a detailed plan to occupy Iraq and install an American-led military government in Baghdad if the US topples Saddam Hussein. The New York Times newspaper and the Associated Press news agency have been briefed on the plan by unnamed senior administration officials. However, the Associated Press says the two officials it spoke to consider that of all the plans being studied in Washington, this is among the least likely to be approved. One prominent Iraqi opposition figure told the BBC the Americans would be naive to attempt to occupy the country.
Japan model
In the initial phase of the occupation, Iraq would be governed by an American military commander. The New York Times suggests this could be General Tommy Franks, commander of US Central Command, in a role similar to that General Douglas MacArthur who governed Japan after its surrender in 1945. Under the plan, US commanders would be responsible for maintaining stability and overseeing the transition to a democratic government for an undetermined period of time. The reports say officials believe that part of the merit of such a plan it that it would avoid the chaos and in-fighting that have plagued Afghanistan since the defeat of the Taleban. It would also allow the US forces full control over Iraq while they find and destroy weapons of mass destruction.
War crimes trials
The post-war occupation of Iraq might be carried out by a US force, a United Nations force, or a coalition of forces - perhaps including Britain. The plan also calls for war crimes trials of Iraqi leaders. Officially President George Bush has not yet decided on military action to achieve his stated aim of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his regime. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said he had no comment on the reports. The New York Times quotes an official as saying the administration is "coalescing around" the occupation scenario - but it stresses it is not yet been approved by Mr Bush.
Warning to Iraqi general
Correspondents have suggested that the floating of an occupation plan and the possibility of war crimes trials could be the US administration's way of warning the Iraq's generals of the cost of continuing to support Saddam Hussein or of using weapons of mass destruction in the event of US-led military action against Iraq. BBC Middle East analyst Roger Hardy says the idea is remarkable - a country which began its modern existence under a British mandate would, in effect, come under an American one. While opposing an occupation of Iraq or turning it into an American protectorate, Iraqi opposition groups say that a temporary foreign presence working with an Iraqi civilian government would be acceptable. Our correspondent says that the plan shows Washington is not finding it easy to come up with a convincing answer to the question of what will happen the day after the Iraqi leader has been overthrown.
Founded @ BBC News.
post by vasco on 3:49 AM
Powell Envisages
Four-Stage Postwar
Iraq Reconstruction Plan
WASHINGTON (Kyodo) U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell proposed a postconflict four-stage transition plan Thursday for a new Iraqi government and called for a long-term U.S. commitment in Iraq. In a hearing before the House of Representatives Budget Committee, Powell said if the United States goes to war with Iraq to topple President Saddam Hussein, the U.S. military commander in charge of the operation will also take charge of the country for a period of time.
But Powell said a quick transition to civilian leadership, either an American civilian or an international figure, is necessary. "We don't want an American general running a Muslim country for any length of time," he said.Powell said the civilian leadership should then be replaced by an organization to be created by the international community to establish a government representing the Iraqi people as soon as possible. "We have to be prepared for a fairly long-term commitment," he said, "a commitment that will change in shape, scope and dimension over time." Powell said the U.S. military should get out of Iraq as fast as it can, but some military presence may be necessary for a period of time to ensure stability.
In a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said a U.S. military presence in Iraq should be as brief as possible, but added it is uncertain how long the U.S. military will be stationed in Iraq, depending on what happens in the country. "Clearly, the goal would be to go in and see that what resulted was better than what was there beforehand," Rumsfeld said. "That means the United States simply has to be willing to stay there as long as is necessary to see that that is done, but not one day longer." "We have no interest in other people's land or territory," he said. "We have no interest in other people's oil."
more @ Japan Times.
post by vasco on 3:08 AM
Firing Leaflets and Electrons,
U.S. Wages
Information War
By Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt
WASHINGTON — Even before President Bush orders American forces to loose bullets and bombs on Iraq, the military is starting an ambitious assault using a growing arsenal of electronic and psychological weapons on the information battlefield.
American cyber-warfare experts recently waged an e-mail assault, directed at Iraq's political, military and economic leadership, urging them to break with Saddam Hussein's government. A wave of calls has gone to the private cellphone numbers of specially selected officials inside Iraq, according to leaders at the Pentagon and in the regional Central Command. As of last week, more than eight million leaflets had been dropped over Iraq — including towns 65 miles south of Baghdad — warning Iraqi antiaircraft missile operators that their bunkers will be destroyed if they track or fire at allied warplanes. In the same way, a blunt offer has gone to Iraqi ground troops: surrender, and live. But the leaflets are old-fashioned instruments compared with some of the others that are being applied already or are likely to be used soon.
Radio transmitters hauled aloft by Air Force Special Operations EC-130E planes are broadcasting directly to the Iraqi public in Arabic with programs that mimic the program styles of local radio stations and are more sophisticated than the clumsy preachings of previous wartime propaganda efforts. "Do not let Saddam tarnish the reputation of soldiers any longer," one recent broadcast said. "Saddam uses the military to persecute those who don't agree with his unjust agenda. Make the decision." Military planners at the United States Central Command expect to rely on many kinds of information warfare — including electronic attacks on power grids, communications systems and computer networks, as well as deception and psychological operations — to break the Iraqi military's will to fight and sway Iraqi public opinion.
Commanders may use supersecret weapons that could flash millions of watts of electricity to cripple Iraqi computers and equipment, and literally turn off the lights in Baghdad if the campaign escalates to full-fledged combat. "The goal of information warfare is to win without ever firing a shot," said James R. Wilkinson, a spokesman for the Central Command in Tampa, Fla. "If action does begin, information warfare is used to make the conflict as short as possible." Senior military officials say, for example, that the American radio shows broadcast from the EC-130E "Commando Solo" planes follow the format of a popular Iraqi station, "Voice of the Youth," managed by President Hussein's older son, Uday. The American programs open with greetings in Arabic, followed by Euro-pop and 1980's American rock music — intended to appeal to younger Iraqi troops, perceived by officials as the ones most likely to lay down their arms. The broadcasts include traditional Iraqi folk music, so as not to alienate other listeners, and a news program in Arabic prepared by Army psychological operations experts at Fort Bragg, N.C. Then comes the official message: Any war is not against the Iraqi people, but is to disarm Mr. Hussein and end his government.
American commanders say they believe that these psychological salvos have, to some degree, influenced Iraqi forces to move their defenses or curtail their antiaircraft fire. "It pays to drop the leaflets," Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, commander of allied air forces in the Persian Gulf, said by telephone from his headquarters in Saudi Arabia. "It sends a direct message to the operator on the gun. It sends a direct message to the chain of command." Deception and psychological operations have been a part of warfare for centuries, and American commanders carried out limited information attacks — both psychological operations, or "psyops," and more traditional electronic warfare like jamming or crippling the enemy's equipment — in the Persian Gulf war in 1991 and the air campaign over Kosovo in 1999, as well as in Afghanistan. But commanders looking back on those campaigns say their current planning is much broader and more tightly integrated into the main war plan than ever before.
"What we're seeing now is the weaving of electronic warfare, psyops and other information warfare through every facet of the plan from our peacetime preparations through execution," said Maj. Gen. Paul J. Lebras, chief of the Joint Information Operations Center, a secretive military agency based in Texas that has sent a team of experts to join the Central Command info-warfare team for the Iraq campaign. As modern combat relies increasingly on precision strikes at targets carried out over long distances, the military is likewise increasingly aware that there are many ways to disable the operations at those targets. An adversary's antiaircraft radar site, for example, can be destroyed by a bomb or missile launched by a warplane; it can be captured or blown up by ground forces; or the enemy soldiers running the radar can be persuaded to shut down the system and just go home. "We are trying very hard to be empathetic with the Iraqi military," said a senior American information warfare official. "We understand their situation. The same for the Iraqi population. We wish them no harm. We will take great pains to make those people understand that they should stay away from military equipment." Even so, the military's most ardent advocates of information warfare acknowledge that American pilots ordered into enemy airspace would rather be told that antiaircraft sites were struck first by ordnance, rather than by leaflets. Aerial pictures help the military assess bomb damage to a target. The softer kind of strike is harder to assess.
Information warfare experts look for what they call "the voilà moment." "In Afghanistan, the biggest lesson we learned in our tactical information operations — the radio and TV broadcasts — was the importance in explaining, `Why are we here?' " a senior American military officer said. "The majority of Afghanis did not know that Sept. 11 occurred. They didn't even know of our great tragedy." During the war in Afghanistan, this officer said, "The voilà moment came when we saw that the population understood why coalition forces were fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda." In Iraq, he said, "it will be when we see a break with the leadership." Delivering radios to the people of Afghanistan presented a particular problem. About 500 were air-dropped over the country, and all of them were destroyed on impact. The military and aid groups passed out more than 6,500, and millions of leaflets were dropped telling the Afghan people of frequencies used for the American broadcasts. The American military also took over one important frequency, 8.7 megahertz, used by the Taliban for its official radio broadcasts. That became possible once the towers used by the Taliban for relaying their military commands were blown up as part of the war effort. As in most totalitarian governments, the military and government used the same system for their radio broadcasts. The American military continues to broadcast to the Afghan people over that channel.
more @ New York Times.
post by vasco on 2:52 AM
800 Cruise Missiles
to Hit Iraq
in First 48 Hours
By Andrew West and agencies
The US intends to shatter Iraq "physically, emotionally and psychologically" by raining down on its people as many as 800 cruise missiles in two days. The Pentagon battle plan aims not only to crush Iraqi troops, but also wipe out power and water supplies in the capital, Baghdad. It is based on a strategy known as "Shock and Awe", conceived at the National Defense University in Washington, in which between 300 and 400 cruise missiles would fall on Iraq each day for two consecutive days. It would be more than twice the number of missiles launched during the entire 40 days of the 1991 GulfWar. "There will not be a safe place in Baghdad," a Pentagon official told America's CBS News after a briefing on the plan. "The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never been contemplated before."
The plan has emerged just as American diplomats at the United Nations hinted that the US Administration might be willing to give UN weapons inspectors another month to complete their task. Chief inspector Hans Blix is due to report back to the UN on Tuesday. President George Bush has been displaying increasing impatience with the pace of inspections and is eager to start the bombing. But according to UN sources he has resigned himself to the fact that the US lacks enough votes on the Security Council to wage a military campaign. Mr Bush's belligerence yesterday found a match in comments by Uday Hussein. In a rare public appearance, the son of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein said the consequences of American attack on his country would make the September 11, 2001, terrorist strike look like a picnic. He warned: "If they come, September 11, which they are crying over and see as a big thing, will be a real picnic for them, God willing. "They will be hurt and pay a price they will never imagine. They can get much more from Iraq without resorting to the logic of force and war."
According to the architect of "Shock and Awe", military strategist Harlan Ullman, the plan would rely on an extensive array of precision-guided weapons. "We want them to quit, not to fight," Ullman said, "so that you have this simultaneous effect - rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima - not taking days or weeks but minutes." The main objective was not just to disable Iraq's fighting capacity but to leave the population dispirited and unwilling to support Saddam's regime. "You're sitting in Baghdad and, all of a sudden, you're the general and 30 of your division headquarters have been wiped out," Mr Ullman said. "You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power and water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted."
more @ SMH.
post by vasco on 12:53 AM
Monday, February 24, 2003
The Texas Crown
Is Opening the Door
to Hell on Earth
We Plebeians
By Brian Holmes
But for a few lone wolves, the Aristocrats are weary, recalcitrant, suspicious. Dissension has broken out within the very ranks of the Monarchy. And the eternal muttering of the Plebe has swollen to a tremendous roar. Such is the world situation in the tripartite terms of Empire.
Still reeling from the largest deflationary shock and the worst overcapacity crisis since 1929, the great corporate Houses - excepting the oil and defense industries - see nothing to be gained from unleashing the dogs of war. After a bullish exile to New York they returned to Davos last month on their knees, begging to regain our "trust." The world military Powers, after swearing fealty to the United States in the wake of September 11, are now facing the inherent contradictions of their regional interests once again; thus the dissension within the two primary courts of the transnational police, the United Nations and NATO. And to make matters worse from these two viewpoints, the unprecedented success of the February 15 demonstrations finally renders it impossible to ignore the presence of a new actor on the world stage: transnational civil society, or better, the Multitudes.
Beyond the ongoing collapse of globalized finance, which has hardly wreaked the last of its effects, two things are of compelling interest. The first is the continuing, seemingly unstoppable rise in the self-organizational powers of the Plebe. Since the first Day of Global Action not even five years ago, in May of 1998 - which seemed astounding, because 150,000 people demonstrated in Hyderabad, 50,000 in Brasilia, and a few thousand in Geneva, all against the WTO - we have now reached a situation where tens of millions can summon themselves simultaneously into the streets, and into the screens of the global media. The February 15 preemptive strikes against the war were "called for" by the movement of the Social Forums. But what are the Social Forums, if not a collective name, a collective phantom - the Luther Blissett of world politics? Anyone can constitute a forum, and no one can speak in their name; the social forums are tools which the movements have given themselves, vectors we have invoked from the historical latencies of solidarity, critique and rebellion. The strength of the new social movements is to go beyond both the twentieth-century form of the political party and its mass megaphones: radio and TV. The February 15 protests were organized through every imaginable network of tactical media, from word of mouth and intimate dreams to the Internet. And despite all the chaos, despite the "lack" of representation, it is overwhelmingly obvious that these movements speak the truth, which has become too simple to refuse: intolerable war, intolerable inequality.
There will be more to this story, it's sure: there will be political crises brought on by this new self-organizing force, and severe organic crises within the movements themselves, as soon as the emerging counterpowers begin to divide, to adopt positions of practical power, forcing us to deal with the differences between what Miguel Benasayag would call a "situation" of critique and a "situation" of management. There are no guarantees whatsoever as to how a post-party politics might work, nor even as to how it might survive in a hostile world. But setting that aside for the moment, let us look rather at the shorter term, at the second question of compelling interest in this ugly present situation. Will the Imperial Monarchy survive this crisis? By that I mean: Will the seemingly rational tendency to accompany the globalization of capital through the construction of a legitimating legal and military governance of the world succeed in weathering the irrational outburst of aggression and regional self-interest currently being spat out by the ruling oligarchy of the United States?
Of course, the Europeans have now "resolved" their crisis within NATO; of course they have now presented a "united" front for continuing negotiations within the framework of the UN. This kind of consensus is the European credo, the bare minimum of European existence, it will always be obtained between the leaders. And one can be sure it will be obtained in a way that leaves an open door to cooperation with the United States, and to military cooperation above all - the monarchical function par excellence. As much as the two historical founders of Europe, France and Germany, wish philosophically to institute a continental power that can achieve some economic and political autonomy, still they all want desperately to maintain the reality of a global military policy, as a bulwark against the increasingly real possibility of global chaos. This too is part of the wider consensus. But can this common front of the political classes be held, in electoral terms, when approximately 80 percent of populations throughout Europe are opposed to the imminent specter of war? In other words: Will the EU be forced by its people into creating a division within the Occidental heart of Empire
To be sure, those 80 percent are opposed to a war outside the UN framework; and despite Chirac's posturing and Schroeder's pollling strategies, the miserable probability is that the European leaders will finally bow to US pressure from within the UN, pushed on by the imperative to maintain the monarchical courts of transnational military cooperation. After all (propaganda is when you repeat) 80 percent are opposed to a conflict *outside* the UN framework....
But what if the advance information proves correct: what if the onslaught in Iraq will be inaugurated by what military strategist Harlan Ullman calls the principle of "Shock and Awe," whereby the "Allies" launch up to 800 cruise missiles in two days - more than all that fell in the forty days of the first Gulf War? This is a strategy for the massacres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of Guernica and Dresden, in our time, for no justifiable reason. Peter Turnley's photographs from the Mile of Death during the last Gulf War already show what this can mean. This is not a "just war." The Texas Crown is opening the door to hell on earth.
What we plebeians must envision is a general strike on a world scale, if it comes to such a day. An urban strike, a blockage of our cities, like the piqueteros in Argentina, but everywhere. We no longer need to wait for the unions, we no longer need to wait for the political parties, their members will be ahead of them, in the streets. Only a credible threat from below can stave off the treachery of our so-called leaders. We must prepare with every possible form of communication, in whispers that become a roar. Prepare for what? A total stoppage of all the world's cities in the event of war: an exodus from hell on earth, reasonable, deliberate, peaceful and unbending. We plebeians can break the power that calls for a world of war.
Essential links: Harlan Ullman et al., Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance; Peter Turnley's Photographs of the Gulf War.
post by vasco on 11:36 PM
Drug Jailed Leader
Command a Cellphone
Bomb and Burn Riot
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 24 February
Rio's city wake up with bombs explosions, burning buses and gangs robery and firing actions ordered by Red Command's jailed drug leader Fernando Beiramar, shuting down schools, commerce and services.
Red Comand's leader Fernando Beiramar have ordered Rio's monday paralisation. He coordinate the movement by cellphone from Bangu's jail. Action starts either in Del Castilho, where buses were burned; and in Santa Cruz were train station was attacked with firing between police and gangs. Benfica had 3 buses and 4 cars burned. At last 19 buses were burned and 13 people wounded, 2 seriously hospitalized. The goal of initial action was paralize transport services, what is sucessfull achieved. When morning comes 3 artesanal bombs have exploded at Vieira Souto avenue in Ipanema, one of the richest place of Rio de Janeiro, broking windows and terrifying people.
The map above shows the presence of traffick groups over the Rio de Janeiro's city. Red circle owns to Red Command (Comando Vermelho), orange circle to Third Command (Terceiro Comando) and yellow circle to Friend's Friend (Amigo dos Amigos).
more news (in portuguese) @ Estado de São Paulo: "14 buses, 6 cars and 1 truck were burned in Rio"; Folha de São Paulo: "Traffic release violence's wave near Rio's carnival"; GloboNews: "Rio's violence wave leaves 6 seriously wounded and burneds buses"; Terra Notícias: "After morning chaos, Rio increases police presence".
post by vasco on 8:04 PM
Sunday, February 23, 2003
Crypto research
under fire
in U.K. suit
By Declan McCullagh
A lawsuit over possibly fraudulent withdrawals from cash machines in London could gag academic research into the vulnerabilities of banks' cryptographic systems.
South Africa's branch of Citibank, which is investigating about $80,000 in disputed withdrawals, has asked London's High Court of Justice to take testimony starting on March 3 from a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge. The researchers fear that Citibank's proposed secrecy order would restrict future explorations into bank security systems.
"The background is that my student Mike Bond has discovered some really horrendous vulnerabilities in the cryptographic equipment commonly used to protect the PINs used to identify customers to cash machines," Ross Anderson, a Cambridge faculty member, said in a post to a U.K. encryption mailing list this week. "It now looks like some of these vulnerabilities have also been discovered by the bad guys. Our courts and regulators should make the banks fix their systems, rather than just lying about security and dumping the costs on the customers."
The High Court held a hearing Thursday on how the case should proceed and promised a decision before March 3, Anderson said in a telephone interview Friday. "The order as originally sought by Citibank would have gagged anything revealed in the hearing," he said. "The language that was being used meant that anything that was revealed in the hearing would have been silenced forever."
Bond co-authored a paper this month titled "Decimalisation table attacks for PIN cracking," which described how a rogue bank employee could discover 7,000 customer personal identification numbers in a half-hour. The research reports a flaw in the security of the 1980-vintage IBM 3624 ATM and many of its successors, which store PINs in a tamper-resistant hardware security module.
more @ CNet News.
Received from Politech. POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list. You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. To subscribe to Politech. This message is archived and Declan McCullagh's photographs are here.
post by vasco on 2:48 AM
Experimental Broadcast:
Public WiFi Network 2
Public Cable Network
What is the Experiment About?
The goal of the experiment is to establish procedure and criteria for broadcasting to the cable or satellite TV network from remote locations, using laptop, camera and any type of available broad-band Internet connections - preferably WiFi. The motivation for such an exercise is the attempt to break away from classical TV production in a studio environment and enable immediate and on-the-fly transmission from remote locations to the TV network, ultimately leading toward creative production of program from within a P2P network.
How Was It Done?
Bryant Park in New York is one of the largest public WiFi access points, with enough bandwidth to carry Internet streaming at sufficiently high quality, acceptable for TV transmission. Prior to the experiment, the following quality threshold has been established:
* video quality: 320x240 pixels in size, with 8 frames per second, encoded by an open MPEG4 video codec (Xvid);
* audio quality: 128 kbps AAC or MP3 compression codec.
Hardware and software were deliberately composed in order to be within the reach of a mid-skilled Internet user: a standard IBook with OS X operating system and (publicly available) QuickTime Broadcaster as well as a digital camera. Alternative, and more preferable solution would be a fully Open Source solution: a PC laptop with Linux operating system and MPEG4IP software bundle.
The Internet broadcast was then unicast via WiFi network (installed in the Bryant park by NYCWireless) to the computer at MNN and finally transformed to a video signal by a scan converter. The signal was then channeled into a video mixer and played in an experimental setting as a regular broadcast stream.
What Were the Results of the Experiment?
The most important result is that the concept is valid: the current consumer-level technology, coupled with broad-band Internet, offers viable framework for distributed TV production and distribution via the Internet. Connectivity and bandwidth found in Bryant Park was sufficient enough for the Internet broadcast to the MNN headquarters. While we stayed in the range of 500-800 kbps range, we did not fined any significant bandwidth congestion.
Video quality and the smoothness of the video has varied, according to what compression codec or image quality we have used, but as general rule we concluded that the image quality is very good, but we would need additional resources (more efficient software or more powerful CPU) to archive a goal of constant 8 frames per second rate. It would be interesting to test x86/Linux/MPEG4IP combination in the same setup. Some preliminary tests from PC desktop show slightly better results.
What is the Road-Map for the Future?
* assemble a PC version of the remote broadcaster, based fully on Open Source software and conduct equivalent tests;
* compile easy plug-and-play software setup, convenient for standard mid-skilled users;
* make a bootable Linux CD, with all the software needed, and as many WiFi, audio and video device drivers included, enabling immediate establishing of broadcast services upon boot.
Who and When has done the experiment?
Experiment was conducted on a particularly cold day in January 2003, by (in alphabetical order) Kenyatta Cheese (MNN), Martin Lucas (Hunter College) and Drazen Pantic (Location One).
Received from Nettime. Nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets. More info e-mail Nettime.
post by vasco on 2:14 AM
Netherlands Court
Provide Legal Protection
for P2P Free Swap
Music Industry Threatened by Dutch Ruling
A court ruling in the Netherlands last March appears to provide legal protection for businesses that enable peer-to-peer services, where users can swap copyrighted songs and movies for free. The Dutch decision is being appealed, but the ruling demonstrates the breadth of the challenge facing music companies and other owners of copyrighted works as more P2P providers move their operations overseas. Still, record-label officials maintain that the Netherlands ruling was an aberration that will be reversed in the appeals process, noting that courts in South Korea and Japan have ruled against P2P services in copyright cases. "We intend to enforce our rights not just in the United States, but worldwide," says Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America. Meanwhile, when U.S. courts side with the music industry, as in last month's federal ruling against Sharman Networks, which is based in Vanuatu and offers Kazaa file-swapping software, the question of enforcement looms large. "How are they going to enforce" the judgment, questions one of Sharman's lawyers. And even in the Netherlands case, a U.S. judgment isn't automatically enforced, says Tim Kuik, director of Brein, a Dutch foundation that deals with copyright enforcement, but would probably have to go through a separate Dutch court proceeding. (Wall Street Journal 21 Feb 2003)
more @ Wall Street Journal. (subscription required)
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 1:44 AM
Lawyers Say
Hackers Are
Getting Bum Rap
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers has joined with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Sentencing Project in publishing a position paper that argues people convicted of computer-related crimes tend to receive harsher sentences than perpetrators of comparable non-computer-related offenses. "The serious nature of the offenses is overplayed," says Jennifer Granick, author of the paper and clinical director at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society. "The (majority) of the offenses are generally, disgruntled employees getting back at the employer or trying to make money." In a review of 55 cases prosecuted under the most-often used computer crime statute, only 15 involved harm to the public and only one resulted in a threat to safety. Those convicted "are receiving sentences based on the fear of the worst-case scenario rather than what the case may really be about," says Granick. The paper was submitted in response a request for public comment by the U.S. Sentencing Commission as required by the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Cybercrime legal expert Scott Frewing says he agrees with many points raised in the paper, but recommends a two-tiered sentencing threshold: "I would be comfortable in a situation where the code addresses the discrepancy between those who cause bodily injury and those that don't. If that results in the law being unfair to a virus writer, maybe that's enough to put them on notice." (CNet News.com 20 Feb 2003)
more @ CNet News.
Received from NewScan Daily newslist. NewsScan Daily (FREE), a lively summary of information technology news writed by John Gehl and Suzanne Douglas. To subscribe, send email to Newscan. Copyright 2003. NewsScan Daily (R) is a publication of NewsScan Inc.
post by vasco on 1:27 AM