From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 95 17:19:04 PDT
To: cypherpunks
Subject: SAIC bought InterNic, but who is SAIC?  A spook contractor!
Message-ID: <9509290018.AA08111@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Forwarded-by: gordoni@base.com (Gordon Irlam)

Thought you might find this interesting.  I don't know if you have
thought about it or not, but control over the root name service plus
some funky software is all that it takes to be able to selectively snoop
on all the packets addressed to any host on the net.  DNS is currently
the achilles heel of a secure internet...

                                                     gordoni

From:  Wes Thomas <wes@ora.com>

The press recently reported that the National Science Foundation has turned
over Internet Domain Name registration to Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI) of
Herndon, VA. The press failed to note some interesting connections.

Tomorrow morning (Sept. 26), Web Review, a biweekly online magazine (see
Special Report at http://gnn.com/wr/) will reveal that NSI was purchased in
May by Scientific Applications International Corporation (SAIC) of San
Diego. SAIC is a $2 billion company indicted by the Justice Department on
ten felony counts for fraud in managing a Superfund toxic cleanup site (SAIC
pleaded guilty) and sued by the Justice Department for civil fraud on an
F-15 fighter contract.

SAIC's board members include Admiral Bobby Inman, former NSA head and deputy
director of the CIA; Melvin Laird, Nixon's defense secretary; and retired
General Max Thurman, commander of the Panama Invasion. Recently departed
board members include Robert Gates, former CIA director; William Perry,
current Secretary of Defense; and John Deutch, the current CIA director.
Current SAIC government contracts include re-engineering information systems
at the Pentagon, automation of the FBI's computerized fingerprint
identification system, and building a national criminal history information
system.

"At the very time the Internet community is struggling with the issues of
encryption and privacy, I'm more than a little uneasy to find this bunch of
ex-spooks sitting at the very entry point of the Net," says Jim Warren (a
leading activist in making government records accessible) in the article,
which was written by investigative journalist Stephen Pizzo, Web Review
Senior Editor and co-author of the book Inside Job, an expose on the savings
& loan looting.

Web Review is produced by Songline Studios, an affiliate of O'Reilly &
Associates.