Internal Surveillance, External Risks

I've enjoyed the regular back page article Inside Risks in the Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery (CACM) for a number of years. These short articles discuss various risks usually related to computer and information security. The December 2007 article by the equally fascinating collection of authors Steven M. Bellovin, Matt Blaze, Whitfield Diffie, Susan Landau, Jennifer Rexford, and Peter G. Neumann (Google them to see who these folks are, if you don't know them already). The article is especially insightful about the risks of government wiretapping and how things can (and have) gone wrong with such systems. The upshot is that someone may be listening in, and it may not be who you think it is: Internal Surveillance, External Risks

Depleted Uranium Munitions

The US military has been using all sorts of bombs and bullets with highly radioactive U-238, mostly in Iraq. I was interested in what this all means for both soldiers and civilians. There are many sites talking about this issue, but most seem to be out of the mainstream. But there is a 2001 article in Counterpunch, which is always provacative. It claims nearly half of all Iraqis in places like Basra will get cancer from these munitions. And this was just from Gulf War I. Dirty Bombs, indeed: DU: Cancer as a Weapon, Radioactive War

Free Lunch

Another NPR article that caught my eye:

David Cay Johnston on How the Rich Get Richer
Investigative reporter David Cay Johnston explores in his new book how in recent years, government subsidies and new regulations have quietly funneled money from the poor and the middle class to the rich and politically connected.

CIA Agent-Turned-Critic Philip Agee Dies

I generally don't listen to National Public Radio, but I ran across this article about the recent death of Philip Agee: CIA Agent-Turned-Critic Philip Agee Dies He seemed to travel freely around the world, in spite of losing his US passport. An interesting story.

Security Threat

Dear Vice President Cheney,

Some very suspicious events have been brought to my attention lately. Perhaps you and other members of the US government are already aware of them. Nearly everyone I have spoken to recently appears to be aware of this situation, and I cannot believe that the US government has not taken any action.

I am talking about a bearded gentleman most often seen wearing unusual clothes named "Santa Claus". Even this name appears to be an alias. His actual name seems to be Saint Nicklaus. "Santa Claus" may be just a mis-pronounciation of his actual name, since he seems to be a foreigner.

The widely-believed story that I have heard on numerous occasions is that Mr. Nicklaus is able to maintain heavy surveilence on US citizens, particularly young children. His organization supposedly keeps highly detailed records of all of the activities or children, and perhaps even adults. I'm not sure how this is possible, but perhaps he is using some sort of modern technology.

Mr. Niklaus is also supposed to be the owner of a children's toy manufacturing company. But this company claims to give all of its toys away. Clearly such a firm would be bankrupt very quickly. My suspicion is that this is part of some sort of elaborate money laundering scheme. Nothing else makes sense.

In addition, his toy factory seems to be staffed entirely with 'little people'. The claim is that these are elves (or is it dwarves?). This seems to be a very strange hiring practice. Why would anyone do this? My guess is that these are also children (children seem to be a recurring theme with Mr. Niklaus). Could Mr. Niklaus be running a large child-labor operation, too? We've seen many of these cases in other countries recently.

Finally, why has Mr. Niklaus chosen to locate his factory at the North Pole. I'll note that this is currently an area with no strong central government. The only possible answer is that Mr. Niklaus is looking to avoid public scrutiny and exist outside of the rule of law.

Pehaps most disturbing is the story that Mr. Niklaus and his associates routnely enter the US without going through proper immigrations or customs procedures. They are even rumored to violate US airspace, it would appear, undetected. Even more outrageous, most people I spoke with believe that this happens nearly every year, on or about December 25.

I know much of this seems fantastic, but I have heard this from multiple reliable sources. I assume that the US government is aware of this situation and is taking appropriate action. If not, I hope this letter will help see to it that some investigation of Mr. Niklaus and his activities is begun as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steven Morphy-Godchaux III,

Austin, TX
12/4/2007

NASA mum on plane data that might scare you

NASA is currently witholding data from a federally funded study on airline safety, because it may frighten us (NASA mum on plane data that might scare you). This could (they presume) be damaging to the airline industry. Things are pehhaps worse than I had thought in the US. Unless I'm missing something here, the US government has declared that the profits of the airline industry are more important than your safety, or even your right to know how safe or unsafe it is to fly in the US today. And the solution to an unsafe environment is not to make improvements, but to hide the data.

Judy Miller's War

I confess to having to Google for Judy Miller's name in the last post (how soon we forget). But what it did turn up was a 2003 story from Counter Punch titled Judy Miller's War. Wow. And this was all known in 2003. Is anything on the up-and-up in America these days?