Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive

[Stephen Wylie]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian G Batten [mailto:I.G.Batten@ftel.co.uk]
> Sent: 12 September 2001 15:12
> To: ukcrypto@chiark.greenend.org.uk
> Subject: Re: Crypto Blamed for US terrorist attack - World Exclusive
> 
> My recent coining
> was ``In the UK we have liberty in practice, but not in theory; in the
> US they have it in theory, but not in practice''.  

Or used to have: we now have a Human Rights Act, but few human rights, only
criminals seem to benefit. Every move we make on major roads is now
surveilled by spy cameras. The repressive legislation restricting freedom of
assembly has not been repealed AFAIK.

> My parents flew JFK--LHR on Sunday morning, having used a 
> But then how much better is it in Europe?  I fly
> BHX--BHD (Belfast City) fairly regularly, and there's no photo id
> required on that.  The special branch occasionally demand id 
> on entry to
> Birmingham on the way back, but that's only happened to me once in
> dozens of flights.

On my one visit to Dublin, there was a copper standing staring at us as we
got off the plane in  Brum.

> wonder the hi-jackers could get knifes on board.  Indeed, I've shot a
> Glock 35 recently, a concealed-carry 5 shot .45" with a polycarbonate
> frame, and I doubt that there's much more metal in that if it 
> only had a
> couple of rounds in it.

Manufacturers seem free to make weapons whose obvious application is
terrorism. Nobody stops 'em.

> 
> This is just a risk/reward trade off: are sensitive metal detectors
> worth the anguish, when internal hi-jackings are unheard of?  As of
> yesterday morning, you might say ``no''.

The US has a longer history of terrorism than people seem to be saying. What
about the Weather Underground, Saccho and Vanzetti, the SLA? It seems they
have short memories. The possibilities were obvious. And why was a massive
building permitted with no possibility of evacuation? 

The KGB had (has?) a plan for the explosive demolition of virtually the
whole of Manhattan, based on tiny amounts of explosive producing a domino
effect. This was reported by Soviet defector Arkady Shevchenko in his
autobiography. Nothing was done about it. Equally nothing is being done
about reports that Saddam Hussein is hawking anthrax bombs to anyone who
wants one. 

The international TIR agreement allows large containers to pass
international frontiers without Customs inspection, because they are
allegedly for re-export. The USSR used this to import large quantities of
arms into Turkey in the 80's, and succeeded in destroying Turkish democracy.
Nobody stopped 'em. 

Why bother repressing crypto when they aren't repressing anything else?
Except anti-road activists, of course.


> (Don't buy
> > rail shares in the UK - sooner or later the government will 
> take it all
> > back again)

I sincerely hope so, and the sooner the better!

> > 
> > The Son of Star Wars gung-ho techies in the US military have egg on
> > their faces. Expect less money to go to them & more to the FBI &
> > immigration control.
> 
> Maybe.

US federal procurement is based on the 'pork-barrel' principal, so the Star
Wars scam may well go ahead, in spite of its obvious futility, esp in the
light of the TIR vulnerability I mentioned above, which allows the
importation of any quantity of munitions into the West. If I was Saddam, my
weapons would already be sitting next to their targets.

> 
> > Nobody will even pay attention to crypto.
> 
> It's been mentioned already, but in terms of stego concealment in
> jpegs.  Impossible to guard or legislate against, I'd suggest.

Illegalisation of pistols in the UK has been accompanied by a huge rise in
police estimates of the number of them held by criminals.

> 
> > Of course the rumour that it was all got up by Mossad to 
> persuade the
> > USA to ignore Israeli repression in Palestine is already doing the
> > rounds, no doubt helped along by the residual anti-semite 
> factions in
> > the US right.
> 
> Or got up by the US themselves to justify (fill in paranoia here).

It was quaint to see former Premier Barak raving on about the threat to
Western democracy on TV. Last night we had a documentary about Israel's
involvement in systematic arbitrary detention and torture in South Lebanon.

Steve