FAS | Intelligence | News | 2000 ||||

February 2000 Intelligence News

• Risk Management Rollout and Installation at the NRO August Neitzel CrossTalk February 2000 - For the past two years, the imagery intelligence (IMINT) organization at NRO, in partnership with the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), created and installed a risk management process that became an integrated aspect of program operations. The original pilot Risk Management program was undertaken by the Command and Control Division (CCD) at IMINT.
• Strategic Command cyberpartnership battles national vulnerabilities (AFPN) 29 Feb 2000 -- A growing partnership between U.S. Strategic Command information security professionals and the Omaha community is helping to eliminate vulnerabilities in the nation's critical computer infrastructure.
• Report on Foreign Use, Counterfeiting of U.S. Currency 28 February 2000 -- A new report estimates that 50 to 70 percent of the $500,000 million in U.S. currency outstanding is held outside the United States, but the amount of counterfeiting of U.S. notes abroad is proportionally no larger than that found inside the United States.
• Europeans Irked Over Orbital Snooping By Alex Canizares SPACE.com 28 February 2000 -- While the claims are so far unfounded, said Steven Aftergood, director of a project on government secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, the government clearly needs to come clean, at least partially, on how Echelon is being used.
• NSA defends listening operations Associated Press Monday, February 28, 2000 -- Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the NSA is "probably the most secretive agency of the U.S. government" and usually limits its communication with Congress to the House and Senate intelligence committees.
• DIGITAL WAR SIMMERS IN THE NET Marine Corps News February 28, 2000 -- Marine Corps leaders are facing the reality that along with the benefits of the internet they subject their systems to vulnerability to groups whose goals are mischief or worse. However, 85 to 90 percent of attacks come from inside the network. Most of the time it is unintentional.
• U-S - CUBA SPY Voice of America 27 February 2000 -- A Cuban diplomat, who refused to leave the United States after being charged with espionage, returns to Havana today (Sunday) after being escorted to a Washington airport by law enforcement officials.
• State Department on Expulsion of Cuban Diplomat 26 February 2000 -- The Cuban diplomat who had been declared persona non grata by the United States a week ago had now been escorted by the FBI to National Airport.
• U-S / CUBA DIPLOMAT Voice of America 26 February 2000 -- A U-S based Cuban diplomat at the center of spying allegations has refused to leave the United States and says he has gone on a hunger strike to prove his innocence.
• CUBA SPY - BAIL Voice of America 24 February 2000 -- In Miami, an alleged Cuban spy arrested last week has been denied bail while facing charges of espionage.
• U-S / CIVILIAN POLICE Voice of America 24 February 2000 -- President Clinton has ordered the State Department to establish a new program that would train civilian police for international peacekeeping missions around the world.
• PDD/NSC-71 Strengthening Criminal Justice Systems in Support of Peace Operations Presidential Decision Directive -- 24 February 2000 -- State Department to establish a new program that would train civilian police for international peacekeeping missions around the world.
• SENATE-COLOMBIA Voice of America 24 February 2000 -- President Clinton's request for a major package of anti-drug aid to Colombia is meeting a skeptical early reception on Capitol Hill.
• U-S SPY NETWORK Voice of America 23 February 2000 -- The United States is denying allegations by a British journalist that it has been using a world wide electronic spy system for industrial espionage in Europe.
• Tracking Hackers on IRC Wednesday, 23 February 2000 Author: David Brumley -- System logs show how and where the electronic bits came from, but they don't show *who* sent them. To prosecute successfully you must not only show where the intruder came from, but who was physically using the keyboard at that particular time. IRC can be a tool for finding out. Generally the unix clients are safe as long as you use common sense. Don't accept files from strangers, don't run untrusted IRC scripts, and never run commands you don't understand.
• Intrusion Detection Systems Wednesday, 23 February 2000 Author: David Brumley -- So, how do you detect these things? What we want is something that: a. Can distinguish from an attack and normal usage b. Gives zero false positives c. Gives zero false negatives.
• Rootkits: How Intruders Hide Wednesday, 23 February 2000 Author: David Brumley : To catch a cracker you must understand the tools and techniques he will use to try and defeat you. A system cracker's first goal is to hide away from you, the administrator. One of the most widely used cracker tools to do this is the rootkit. The initial attack that leads to superuser access is often very noisy. Almost every current exploit will produce a lot of network traffic and/or a lot of log activity. Once in, though, covering tracks is no problem for the skilled attacker.
• U-S CYBERTERRORISM Voice of America 23 February 2000 -- U-S security experts say Russia and China could pose a serious threat to U-S computer networks in the near future.
• CUBA SPY Voice of America 22 February 2000 -- The government of President Fidel Castro in Cuba has accused the United States of maintaining a massive espionage operation in its Interests Section in Havana.
• Statement by Bill Harlow Director of Public Affairs On Release of Inspector General's Report 22 February, 2000 -- The Inspector General has publicly stated that his conclusion was that no one intentionally impeded the initial investigation, but his report concludes that the actions of some Agency officials had the effect of delaying the effort.
• CONGRESS-CIA Voice of America 22 February 2000 -- A former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency has apologized for breeches of agency security. But key members of the U-S Congress say the actions of John Deutch are inexcusable.
• SHUTTLE LANDING Voice of America 22 February 2000 -- The space shuttle Endeavour landed at Kennedy Space Center Florida Tuesday evening. The touch down completed an eleven-day mission that resulted in the most detailed maps ever produced of the Earth's surface.
• SHUTTLE Voice of America 21 February 2000 -- Thanks to a nine-hour extension that allowed mapping to continue into Monday, the instruments covered virtually 100-percent of the land area scientists had targeted.
• SHUTTLE Voice of America 21 February 2000 -- The 60-meter-long radar mast that was key to the mission's success had trouble retracting.
• Text: Expulsion of Cuban Diplomat USIA 19 February 2000 -- The acting head of the Cuban Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland told the State Department on February 19, 2000 that his government will not voluntarily withdraw the diplomat linked by the FBI to the recent arrest in Miami of INS official Mariano Faget.
• COMPUTER ATTACKS Voice of America 18 February 2000 -- The Federal Bureau of Investigation immediately began to investigate the electronic attacks. The investigation soon spread with help from law enforcement officials in Germany and Canada.
• Strategic Command prepared for cyber threats (AFPN) 18 Feb 2000 -- Ironically, some of the most serious cyberattacks yet on major Internet sites like Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, eTrade and CNN have occurred while the Air Force is stressing computer security. February is designated as Information Assurance month.
• SHUTTLE Voice of America 18 February 2000 -- The radar mapping mission of the U-S space shuttle Endeavour may be extended because of extraordinary fuel conservation measures by the astronauts and flight control team.
• Chinese Scientists Participate in SRTM People's Daily February 18, 2000 -- Among the 42 chief scientists who participate in the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), only one, Guo Huadong, director of the Remote Sensing Application Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and expert in radar remote sensing, is from China.
• NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT U-S ROLE IN CHILE Voice of America 18 February 2000 -- As a result of the Pinochet affair, President Clinton has ordered the opening of long-sealed U-S files. That has led to the long-suspected disclosure that the State Department covered up information on possible U-S involvement in the deaths of two anti-Pinochet Americans living in Chile.
• MIAMI / CUBA SPY Voice of America 18 February 2000 -- The FBI says Mariano Faget is guilty of two crimes: passing secret information and making false statements to federal officials. The US District Attorney for Miami, Tom Scott, says other suspects could also be charged.
• Text: U.S. Officials Arrest Cuban-Born INS Employee for Espionage USIA 17 February 2000 -- Through sophisticated technical and physical surveillance techniques, the investigation revealed Faget making unauthorized contacts with Cuban intelligence officers in Miami and other cities in the United States.
• BIN LADEN MATCHBOXES Voice of America 17 February 2000 -- The U-S government has distributed hundreds of matchboxes offering a reward for the capture of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
• Address to Kennedy Political Union of American University Lt Gen Michael V. Hayden, USAF, Director, National Security Agency 17 February 2000 -- National Security Agency is lagging behind. For example, you may have heard about the recent network outage at NSA. Due to a software anomaly, our aging communications infrastructure failed and our ability to forward intelligence data, process that data and communicate internally was interrupted for 72 hours. Thousands of man-hours and $1.5 million later, we were able to resume normal operations.
• DoD News Briefing Thursday, February 17, 2000 -- And what exactly process, what process is DOD IG reviewing? How could classified material have gotten onto an unclassified system, and the whole issue that you have heard about with the computer itself, how did this happen? Just how did that material get to where it got?
• SHUTTLE Voice of America 17 February 2000 -- A series of small fuel saving steps devised by ground controllers has given Endeavour enough reserve to finish mapping Earth's terrain by radar.
• SHUTTLE WEDNESDAY Voice of America 16 February 2000 -- U-S space shuttle controllers say they have saved almost enough fuel aboard the orbiter Endeavour to allow the radar mapping mission to continue as planned.
• Intel group launches new TEAM (AFPN) 16 February 2000 -- Teaching Early Airmanship and Mentoring, or TEAM, addresses the contemporary issues and challenges facing airmen who have served this country for three years or less.
• CYBERHACKER INVESTIGATION Voice of America 16 February 2000 -- FBI Director Louis Freeh says a worldwide investigation into last week's attacks on some well-known websites in the United States has turned up a number of valuable leads.
• Fact Sheet: On Status of OECD Anti-Bribery Convention USIA 16 February 2000 -- The purpose of the Convention is to oblige states that are parties to make it a crime under their national laws for their citizens or commercial enterprises to bribe foreign public officials in the conduct of international business.
• RESPONSE TO CYBER ATTACKS AGAINST THE INTERNET: REGULATE?; PROTECT 'OPENNESS!'; HAIL 'WHITE KNIGHT' HACKERS! Foreign Media Reaction 15 February 2000 -- . Pundits everywhere noted that the Internet is "changing society in general and each of our lives in particular," but there was little agreement on anything else. Opinion was mixed on several fronts, including the likely perpetrators of the attacks, the degree of damage inflicted, the proper response to such incidents, and the overall merits of the new e-commerce. Many analysts saw the attacks as reprehensible "sabotage" against a new and beneficial technology. They were divided, however, on whether to respond by imposing more regulation on the Internet.
• CLINTON - INTERNET SECURITY Voice of America 15 February 2000 -- President Clinton Tuesday met with high-tech executives, members of his cabinet, academic experts and privacy groups at the White House to discuss ways to bolster internet security in the wake of last week's attacks on major web sites.
• CHINA-JAPAN HACKING Voice of America 15 February 2000 -- China says it did not instigate the recent attacks on computer web sites maintained by the Japanese government.
• Cyber Security Budget Initiatives WHITE HOUSE Fact Sheet -- February 15, 2000 -- The President has developed and funded new initiatives to defend the nation's computer systems from malicious cyber activity. The Administration has developed and provided full or pilot funding for key initiatives designed to protect the federal government's computer systems.
• Strengthening Cyber Security through Public-Private Partnership WHITE HOUSE Fact Sheet -- February 15, 2000 -- Today the President and members of his Cabinet met with leaders of Internet and e-commerce companies, civil liberties organizations, and security experts to jointly announce actions strengthening Internet and computer network security.
• REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN PHOTO OPPORTUNITY WITH LEADERS OF HIGH-TECH INDUSTRY AND EXPERTS ON COMPUTER SECURITY February 15, 2000 -- The disruptions at several websites last week highlight how important the Internet has become to our whole way of life in America, and how vulnerabilities at one place on the Net can create risks for all.
• Clinton Holds Meeting on Ways to Make the Internet Safer By Wendy S. Ross and Stephanie Cupp USIA 15 February 2000 -- President Clinton met February 15 at the White House with executives of major e-commerce companies, computer security experts, reformed hackers, officials of civil liberties organizations, and members of his Cabinet to discuss ways the U.S. government and private industry can work together to make the Internet less vulnerable to hackers.
• PICKERING - COLOMBIA Voice of America 15 February 2000 -- A senior U-S State Department official visiting Colombia says a proposed one-point-six billion dollar package of anti-drug aid for the South American nation will be used in part to fight leftist guerrillas.
• CONGRESS-COLOMBIA Voice of America 15 February 2000 -- The Clinton Administration is waging an all-out campaign for congressional approval of one-point-six billion dollars in aid for Colombia.
• U-S AID FOR COLOMBIA Voice of America 14 February 2000 -- President Clinton is arguing for a one-billion-six-hundred-million dollar total aid package for Colombia to help that troubled Latin American nation battle drug traffickers and a pair of major guerilla groups.
• Transcript: State's Larson at Hearing on OECD Anti-Corruption Drive USIA 14 February 2000 -- Alan Larson, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, briefed journalists February 14 at the State Department on U.S. and international anti-corruption efforts.
• Text: State Dept.'s Larson on OECD Anti-Corruption Drive USIA 14 February 2000 -- U.S. Under Secretary of State Alan Larson says that on the first anniversary of the anti-bribery convention of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 21 of the 34 signatory countries have ratified it.
• SHUTTLE MAST Voice of America 14 February 2000 -- A small valve at the end of the 60-meter mast emits nitrogen to hold the boom steady. But despite a constant nitrogen flow, the valve is not providing enough steadying pressure.
• SHUTTLE LAUNCH Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- The first U-S space shuttle mission of the year has finally gotten underway after months of delays because of technical problems and weather.
• SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR TAKES OFF ON MAPPING MISSION ABC NEWS 11 February 2000 -- Mr. JOHN PIKE (Federation of American Scientists): With all of our airplanes and helicopters navigating using satellite navigation, they need to know where the valleys are they can hide in, and they need to know the hills that they need to avoid.
• TERRORISM TODAY Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- Terrorism today is harder to understand because its motives are often unclear. But that makes it no less dangerous.
• THE INTERNET UNDER ATTACK Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- After a series of unprecedented, electronic attacks on commercial internet computer web sites this week, daily newspapers in the United States are filled with comments.
• CYBERHACKER INVESTIGATION Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- An electronic attack on a computer at the University of California is giving the F-B-I what could be its first break in the nationwide investigation into three days of cyber-attacks.
• CLINTON - INTERNET SECURITY Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- President Clinton will meet with leaders of the high-tech industry next week to discuss enhancing Internet security following this week's attacks on major web sites.
• INTERNET HACKING PREVENTION Voice of America 11 February 2000 -- After a three-day hacker spree that briefly downed such popular Web sites as Yahoo!, CNN, e-Bay, and E-Trade, companies across the United States say they are taking steps to make sure their computer systems are never compromised again.
• PRESS BRIEFING BY JOE LOCKHART February 11, 2000 -- I think you've seen from remarks from the companies, there are some vulnerabilities in the system that they have not worked out an effective defense to. I think you have to put in perspective what's happening here as far as the attacks on the system.
• DOD net administrators must check for hacker denial-of-service 'tools' (AFPN) 11 February 2000 -- All DOD network administrators will check their computers and servers to ensure they're not infected by hacker tools that can be used for denial-of-service attacks.
• DoD News Briefing February 10, 2000 -- Now, today, the Defense Department is putting out a message to all facets of the Department, saying that we're asking for network administrators around the department to take a look at the computers on their networks and to take a look at the drives to see if someone has planted some of this denial-of-service tools on the drives of Defense Department computers.
• EMBASSY SECURITY FUNDING February 10, 2000 -- The President?s FY 2001 budget includes more than $1.1 billion to reduce further the risk of loss of life from terrorist attacks on our overseas diplomatic missions. This represents an increase of over $500 million in additional Federal funds to address enhanced security needs of diplomatic and consular facilities overseas.
• STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT February 10, 2000 -- Today I am announcing initiatives to further improve the security of American men and women serving their country in diplomatic and consular missions overseas and to ensure that the United States performs these activities in the most efficient and effective manner possible.
• Post-Millennium Terrorism Review Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan, Coordinator for Counterterrorism -- Speech at the Brookings Institution, February 10, 2000 -- Although terrorists still target military installations (such as the 1996 Khobar Tower attack in Saudi Arabia) and diplomatic missions (as in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam)--they have expanded their target list to include attacks on "softer targets" such as hotels and tourist sites and may be planning to bring those attacks into the continental United States--to an extent that quite frankly we were not anticipating.
• CYBERHACKER INVESTIGATION Voice of America 10 February 2000 -- The U-S Justice Department is investigating what it calls the largest computer attack on the Internet in memory.
• COORDINATED INTERNET ATTACK Voice of America 10 February 2000 -- Several "e"-businesses have been temporarily put out of operation by computer vandals, called "hackers," who flood the computers and systems of the businesses with extraneous messages, overloading them and closing them down.
• Web in modern age is arena for activism, terrorism, even war By Jon G. Auerbach and William M. Bulkeley The Wall Street Journal Thursday, February 10, 2000 -- "This whole area is now ripe for policy making," said Steven Aftergood, a specialist with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington. "If Amazon.com is not open for a few hours, they lose a good chunk of money. People argue that an increasingly large part of the economy is now vulnerable to outside interference, and that something must be done."
• Hacker Covered Tracks in Web Onslaught By James Gordon Meek APBNews.com Feb. 10, 2000 - Another potential problem could be the traffic logs stored at victim sites, ISPs, or the third-party computers at universities and corporations that were used in the attacks, which the FBI will need to analyze, said John Pike, a security expert at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington.
• MEXICO DRUGS Voice of America 10 February 2000 -- General McCaffrey says the drug smugglers are shifting at least some of their operations elsewhere, including their old smuggling routes in the Caribbean.
• INTERNET SECURITY Voice of America 09 February 2000 -- Computer hackers conducting a wave of attacks against some of the Internet's most popular web sites have prompted the F-B-I to open a criminal investigation.
• MCCAFFREY - MEXICO Voice of America 09 February 2000 -- The director of the U-S Office of National Drug Control Policy, General Barry McCaffrey, says the United States is doing its part to reduce the demand for illegal narcotics.
• Text: "Stopping Money Laundering Requires International Cooperation" USIA 8 February 2000 -- An essential aspect of the fight against illegal drugs is an attack upon the profits made by the drug cartels. Traffickers enter the drug business as a quick way to make money. By attacking the financial gains made by drug organizations, this illegal activity can be hurt where it is most vulnerable.
• Text: U.S.-India Counterterrorism Working Group USIA 8 February 2000 -- The inaugural meeting of the U.S.-India Counterterrorism Working Group, announced in January 2000 following meetings between Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and India's Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh in London, was held February 8 in Washington.
• COHEN - C-I-A Voice of America 08 February 2000 -- If Defense Secretary Cohen revokes the one-time spymaster's last clearance, John Deutch will have to get his information from a newspaper rather than classified documents.
• DEUTCH LOSES CLEARANCE Voice of America 08 February 2000 -- The chairman of the Senate Committee that watches over U-S intelligence activities says there may have been favoritism and a cover-up in the case of former C-I-A Director John Deutch.
• A NEW SCANDAL HITS THE C-I-A Voice of America 08 February 2000 -- Revelations that a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency took home top-secret information and placed it on his unsecured home computer are causing embarrassment at the highest levels of the U-S government.
• EGYPT/PILOT Voice of America 05 February 2000 -- Egypt says one of its pilots has sought asylum in Britain, claiming he has information about the crash of EgyptAir flight 990 off the east coast of the United States last October.
• Text: Summers on Corruption, Money Laundering USIA 3 February 2000 -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers says that as global economic interdependence increases every country becomes increasingly vulnerable to financial crime and corruption, which ultimately distorts economic growth and public trust.
• CIA Director on Ballistic Missile Threats to United States By Susan Ellis USIA 3 February 2000 -- The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, says threats are growing from weapons of mass destruction (WMD) aimed at the United States from many parts of the world, and that "over the next 15 years...our cities will face ballistic missile threats from...North Korea, probably Iran, and possibly Iraq."
• LOCKERBIE TRIAL Voice of America 02 February 2000 -- Two Libyans charged with the 1988 bombing of a United States passenger airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.
• Computer failure at NSA irks intelligence panels Laura Sullivan Baltimore Sun February 2, 2000 -- John Pike, an analyst with the group, said for the system to break down at the data-processing level and not at the off-site data-collection level, "it would have to be something that could shut down the whole local shop -- like its collection management system or its data server."
• SENATE-CIA Voice of America 02 February 2000 -- The director of the Central Intelligence Agency is not ruling out a security breach within his own agency - committed by his own predecessor.
• SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE CHAIRMAN AND VICE CHAIRMAN COMMENT ON DEUTCH ALLEGATIONS 01 February 2000 -- Senator Shelby added, "as soon as the Director delivers the panel's report, I will ask the Committee to thoroughly examine all the facts surrounding this very disturbing series of events.'
• PAK - AFGHAN TERRORISM Voice of America 01 February 2000 -- A senior leader of Afghanistan's Taleban Islamic movement has reiterated his group's opposition to the expulsion of alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden from the country.
• STATEMENT BY GEORGE J. TENET DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE 1 February 2000 -- Regarding a story in the media this morning questioning whether an investigation of former DCI John Deutch was impeded by senior officials, the bottom line is that a complete investigation was done, decisive action was taken and steps have been implemented to improve our security process.