From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 1996 14:38:08 -0700 (PDT)
To: Clint Barnett <cbarnett@eciad.bc.ca>
Subject: Re: DP (Disinformation Politics) was: NSA/GCSB spying [RANT]
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SGI.3.91.961018213534.21020A-100000@oswald>
Message-ID: <32694926.134F@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Clint Barnett wrote:
> It was not my intention to discredit the theory, in fact I believe I
> mentioned that in my original "e". When Canada changed to the Metric
> system, I went along with it, what could I do? Politicians raise my
> taxes, and I bear that burden as well.

[snip]

> If you think that you can resist the NSA and win, more power to you, and I'll help if
> I can, but I don't think you can.

You can't exactly resist them, that's true....

> However, I strongly believe that you have the power to limit the information they
> steal from you, and thereby limit the control they have over you.

How much limiting you can effect depends on how badly they want whatever info.... 

> If you can keep your wits about you, act fast when you have to, and run away to fight
> another day, then you can maybe do some good, but don't make a martyr of yourself or
> anyone else, because martyrs can't write code, they can't attack or defend a system,
> they can only lay there and rot in jail or in the ground.

Just like some people say that the answer to problem speech is more free speech, not 
suppression, I say the only answer to the NSA (shy of pulling their funding somehow) is 
to simply throw so much stuff their way that they can't have live people read it, and 
they can't sort through it with profiling progams etc. since all of it would look so 
interesting that they couldn't just discard it.

You could even (and please don't quote me on this) flood them with "really interesting" 
looking snake-oil crypto, or fairly easily breakable e-messages with buzz words that 
require human operators to analyze.  This latter item would require the originators to 
familiarize themselves with current (and rapidly changing) street slang for such 
concepts as "doing a hit", "bombing a car", "kidnapping an executive", and so on.

People on this list are lining up resources to crack single DES, ostensibly to hold up 
in front of some Congressional committee and say "look, we did it, now you'll have to 
cancel your export proposals", etc.  Well, I spent a number of hours with people like 
Willis Carto and Bob Fletcher, who have waved a great deal of interesting stuff in front 
of Congressional committees, and look what it got them.  In Carto's case, bombed, 
raided, discredited and demonized, and bled of much money, and in Fletcher's case, shot, 
gassed, and his son chemically attacked with loss of lung, ....

I have to wonder, if we were to develop some disinformation software, and maintain a 
database to drive it, if we couldn't use some of the resources they're gonna throw at 
single-DES to create zillions of messages, each varying slightly in content (the main 
function of the disinfo software), and with randomized headers to defeat the NSA filters 
and whatever.  It should not be at all difficult to cull a list of interesting places to 
send the messages to....

If Jim Bell's AP is to be the free man's bastion of last resort, one might consider in 
the meantime organizing a network of anonymous disinformers, who could generate and 
dispense disinformation as screensaver app's on whatever CPU's they have lying around.
Just exploring the idea of how much and what content would provoke the NSA et al would 
be great fun, and very educational.  The only *serious* crypto required, I think, would 
be for assuring anonymity over a long period of time, for a number of participants.

Since you couldn't monitor the NSA response directly, you'd also need to analyze a wide 
variety of media to look for hints about same.  If enough people got involved, there 
would be more opportunity for specialization of this sort.