A hacker's viewpoint

Pratap Ravindran

KEVIN Mitnick, who made it into the Guinness Book of World Records (and also jail) as the most notorious hacker after he broke into the computer systems of America's leading telephone companies, has come out strongly against the so-called Patriot Act that gives the Bush Administration electronics unprecedented eavesdropping powers to counter terrorism.

The 38-year-old Mitnick, who was released from incarceration in January last year and is banned from using a computer till January, 2003, taking up a job as a technical consultant or even writing about computer technology without getting a clearance from his probation officer following his conviction for software felonies, is currently playing the role of a CIA computer expert in ABC's spy thriller, `Alias.'

Trashing the Patriot Act as ``ludicrous,'' Mitnick has told Burhan Wazir of the ``Sunday Observer'' that the terrorists who attacked the US ``have proved that they are interested in total genocide'' and ``not subtle little hacks of the US infrastructure.''

Under the anti-terrorism legislation voted 36-0 by the judiciary committee of the US House of Representatives on October 4 with a sunset date of December 31, 2003, police wiretapping powers can be expanded and the utilisation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Carnivore surveillance system stepped up. Further, any US attorney or state attorney-general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore Net-surveillance system in emergency situations without obtaining a court order first. In addition, the police can be freed from the legal requirement to perform ``normal investigative procedures'' before resorting to tapping.

As for cyber-terrorism, Mitnick has argued that this threat can be easily countered ``by strengthening security measures at government institutions and private corporations.''

While bio-terrorism is engaging the attention of the US authorities and public at present, information technology experts point out that the threat of cyber-terrorism is also a real one in a highly networked society as in the US. It has been the subject of study by the US military establishment ever since the mid-90s when Barry Collin, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Security and Intelligence at Stanford University (California) and the man who, in fact, coined the term ``cyber-terrorism,'' came out with the crisp recommendation that this form of terrorism be thought of as ``hacking with a body count.''

Collins differentiates between mischievous hackers -- for instance, the kind of people who break into government machines to pinch a file -- and cyber-terrorists who are more inclined, by way of example, to mess up subway computer systems to cause collisions. He adds that, unlike suicide bombers and roof-top snipers, cyber-terrorists attack from the comfort and security of home and can be in more than one place at a time in cyberspace.

Pacific Air Forces News Service quotes him as saying: ``Hacking with a body count is part of the price we pay for the benefits of new technology. However, this doesn't mean we need to have a siege mentality. A little caution and awareness of the risks, as well as the benefits new technology brings, will help us strike a balance between being too closed and too open.''

Playing hide and seek

Strange, indeed, are the ways of contemporary war. The Americans, in their military campaign in Afghanistan, don't seem to have a very clear idea of where the Taliban are. The punchline is -- nor, probably, will the Taliban if the US Defence Department has its way!

The department says that it may take steps to limit the accuracy of global positioning system (GPS) receivers that are being used by the Taliban -- even while boosting civilian GPS quality outside Afghanistan.

GPS units generate positioning information by receiving signals from orbiting satellites and computing, on the basis of this information, their time and space coordinates. According to Lt. Jeremy Eggers, a spokesman at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado, home of the 50th Space Wing which oversees GPS, ``we have demonstrated the ability to selectively deny GPS signals on a regional basis ... when our national security is threatened.''

However, the US military GPS receivers -- used in planes and ships and so on and by the special forces -- will not be affected by the selective denial of signals.

It may be recalled that selective availability (SA), which globally degraded the quality of GPS available to civilians, had been turned off in May last year after the former US President, Bill Clinton, had passed an enabling executive order. Now, it would seem, selective availability is to be replaced with selective deniability which will allow the US military to geographically pinpoint areas for the degradation of GPS signals.

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