-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Hacking for Jesus Hacker Takes Revenge on Computer Security Expert A DISGRUNTLED computer hacker has wreaked revenge on the British creator of a security system by changing his bank details and making it impossible for him to sell his house or get a mortgage. Paul Smith, 29, a creator of Access Denied, a so-called firewall security system, is now fighting to clear his name after the hacker added six default notices and a County Court judgment to the financial records held on him. Mr Smith's employer, Gen Technology, had issued a challenge on the Internet to hackers, defying them to break into a computer network protected by its Access Denied system. Hackers routinely breach military, government, commercial and private systems within a few hours of trying, but after spending several weeks making 240,000 attacks on Access Denied, no hackers had breached the firewall. Most firewalls need only a user name and password to allow access. Access Denied also needs a user profile and serial number hidden on the computer of the person wanting access to the network. If it does not find these, its makers claim it will terminate the connection within an eightieth of a second. Three weeks after the hacker challenge was issued, a disgruntled hacker managed to contact Mr Smith. "I got a phone-call from a hacker with a British voice. He said he was part of a team of hackers and had been humiliated in front of his friends after he had boasted that he would get in within five minutes," Mr Smith said. "He threatened me with a list of what was going to happen to me." A few weeks later Mr Smith applied for a mortgage, only to be rejected. "The hacker had managed to do exactly what he threatened to do," he said. The London Telegraph, Feb. 1, 1999 Impeached POTUS Betty Currie: the Saintly Presidential Pimp by Ann Coulter If James Carville describes you as “somewhere between a saint and a-one fine lady,” the sound of a jail cell closing could be in your future. In any event, you’re not likely to be the star witness against the president. That’s what Clinton’s buddy, Carville called Betty Currie back on May 7, 1998. He should know. This near-Mother Teresa had worked for Carville in the “War Room” during the Clinton campaign. Before that, had worked for the Dukakis and Mondale campaigns (with John Podesta for Dukakis, in the less-aptly titled “rapid response team”). In her opening argument for the defense, Clinton Counsel Cheryl Mills leaned heavily on Betty Currie's testimony before the grand jury. But in about 800 pages of testimony from January through July 1998, Currie’s testimony is all over the map, with wildly inconsistent statements. As one of the grand jurors asked Currie, -- "Mrs. Currie, which testimony should we be believing?” If anyone is going to call the president’s long-serving pimp to testify before the Senate, it is hardly surprising that it will have to be the defense. Betty Currie saw what went on between Clinton and Monica. She did not log phone calls and written messages between the intern and the president. She smuggled Monica through back entrances to trysts with Betty’s boss. She placed calls to Monica for Clinton so he would not have to go through the White House switchboard. She instructed Secret Service officers not to log all of Monica’s many visits to the president. In the most famous sexual encounter of the century -- the day Monica was wearing a blue Gap dress -- Betty waited for 20 minutes in the dining hall area off the Oval Office while Monica earned her presidential kneepads. (Clinton called Monica out of the audience from a radio address by offering to show her his “button collection.”) When they were done, Betty escorted them out of the Oval Office together, in order, in her words, to avoid “any perceptions.” As Betty explained, “I just didn’t want people to say that he was alone with someone, I could always say ‘I was there.’” Too bad Clinton was so careless with his DNA that day. When the president’s pimp first testified before the grand jury, she was careless too. On January 27, 1998, just a week after the story broke, Currie explained to the grand jury that the door to the oval office is closed “99.9 percent of the time”: You cannot walk in and out of the Oval Office if you want. Usually whenever the president is in the Oval Office the one door in the hallway is 99.9 percent of the time closed. That’s usually whenever he comes in the oval the agents come with him, so they’re out there. So that door is closed. (OIC, Supplementary Materials Part I at 550) She also remembered them being alone “together,” “with no one else present,” “ just the two of them,” “by themselves” for approximately 15 to 20 minutes at a time-- Q: Do you remember, on several occasions that the president and ms Lewinsky were in the study together with no one else present? A Yes, I think so. . . . Q: Do you remember that the president and Ms. Lewinsky were in the president’s study together just the two of them the president and Ms Lewinsky, with no one else there on several occasions? A: Yes. Q: On the occasions when the president and ms Lewinsky were in the Oval Office by themselves approximately how long were they by themselves in the Oval Office on average? A: If I had to give a guestimate again because I don’t I can’t see. I would say also maybe 15 to 20 minutes, sir. (OIC, Supplementary Materials Part I at 552-53) Clinton knew that this woman basically had the power to destroy his presidency. Soon after her first rounds of grand jury testimony, Clinton took this principal witnesses against him on a trip - the Contrition Tour through Africa. When she returned, “alone” depended on what you mean by “alone.” Currie seemed to have undergone a memory erase on the Contrition Tour. In her July 22, 1998 testimony to the grand jury, she couldn’t remember her earlier testimony, anything that ever happened between Monica and the president, or even the meaning of various English words, like “alone.” Q: Well, in fact, you’ve previously testified that 99.9 percent of the time that the president was in the Oval office, the door was closed. Do you recall that testimony? A: I do not. . . . Q: So it’s your testimony now that when Monica Lewinsky was in the Oval Office the door was always open. A: I would -- when you say 99.9 percent, could you show me where I said 99 percent of the time the door was closed? Q: And you say you don’t recall that testimony. A I do not recall that. Okay. Now -- I’ll get back to that Ms Currie . . . Q: Mrs Currie, when you say you define “alone” as alone can you tell us specifically and precisely what you mean by that? How are you defining “alone” in that context? A In that context, at the time it was given to me on January . . . 18th whatever it was, when the question was asked, “we were never alone, I would say, “No,” because the president, for all intents and purposes, is never alone. There’s always somebody around him. Q: . . . . When you say, “I mean ‘alone’ as alone” do you mean the president is alone if he’s in the oval office you’re outside at your desk? A: Could you say that again? I’m sorry. Q: If the president is in the Oval Office and you’re out at your desk . . . is the president alone? A: Is he alone in the Oval Office or is he alone period? Q: [L]et’s back up. (OIC, Supplementary Materials Part I at 666) After more of the same “Whose On First,” games, Currie finally asked to take a break so she could talk to her lawyers. When she returned, the prosecutor read her earlier statement about the door to the oval office being closed “99.9 percent of the time.” Currie explained, “That’s the door in the hallway -- that is correct for that door.” The most striking thing about Currie’s appearances before the grand jury is the evident frustration expressed by the grand jurors with the president’s secretary. Regarding the gift pick up service Currie performed for the former White House intern, for example, one juror pointedly inquired -- Why of all the people and acquaintances of Monica’s why do you feel as though she would entrust these valuables to you and no one else and not secure some sort of storage or vault or what have you for these articles? Currie’s powerful comeback was -- “Now that I don’t know, she may have asked some one else.” (OIC, Supplementary Materials Part I at 707). So there you have it. These are, of course, the same grand jurors that laughed out loud at the president’s testimony. The president may well be blessed with another OJ jury in the “World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.” But the president and his loyal secretary might not be so lucky with the District of Columbia grand jury. Human Events, Jan. 27, 1999 Crisis in Brazil Brazil Looks for Early Release of IMF Funds Real falls to more than R$2.0 to the dollar Stanley Fischer, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, arrives today in Brazil, where the government is pressing for the speedy release of funds from its $41.5bn emergency aid package and desperately looking for a way to halt the continuing slide of the Real against the dollar. Pedro Parente, Brazil's deputy finance minister, said Mr Fischer's arrival would help "speed up the process" of whether the IMF would allow the prompt release of a $9bn tranche due to be made available by the end of February. On Friday the Real, allowed to float two weeks ago, broke through the barrier of R$2 to the dollar. The currency has devalued by more than 40 per cent since January 12. Mr Fischer is flying to Brazil direct from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where yesterday he stood by the IMF's controversial package for Brazil, which attempted to prop up an exchange rate that many observers thought overvalued the Real. Mr Fischer said a clear and credible monetary policy was the key to stabilising the Brazilian currency. "There is no question that the currency has gone far too far given the underlying strengths and policy changes in the Brazilian economy." The government has been trying to use high interest rates, which are now 37 per cent, to prevent further devaluation. However, this has prompted fears of an explosion in the stock of domestic debt, most of which is at floating interest rates, and a possible debt rescheduling. The talks with the IMF come amid the first signs of panic among ordinary Brazilians over the currency crisis. Banco do Brasil, the country's largest bank, and Febraban, Brazil's main banking association, both admitted that on Friday there were a number of heavy withdrawals from bank branches, but denied there had been a widespread run on deposits. Some of the biggest withdrawals were made from the bank branches in the Senate and lower house of Congress in Brasília. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso was forced publicly to deny on Friday that he was planning to freeze bank accounts or take other emergency measures. The Financial Times, Feb. 1, 1999 Crisis in China Banks Cut Off Funds to Fujian Trust No more credit Foreign banks have cancelled provisional credit lines worth $100m (£60m) to a leading Chinese trust and investment company, underlining the severity of the credit squeeze facing corporate China's overseas borrowers. Fujian International Trust and Investment Corporation (Fitic) has been forced to renegotiate payment schedules on three international bank debts, as foreign lenders have withdrawn loan quotas and caused a "relatively difficult liquidity situation", according to a senior company official. China's international trust and investment companies - known as Itics - have been starved of credit since the closure of Guangdong International Trust and Investment Corporation (Gitic), a provincial government-backed investment agency with debts of $4.37bn, sent foreign banks into retreat from corporate Chinese risk. In an interview, Xin Shimin, vice chairman of Fitic, the investment arm of the Fujian provincial government, said foreign bankers' fears of further Itic closures would make it impossible for the company, as well as any other provincial Itics, to borrow abroad this year and possibly next. Foreign lenders have thought "the closure of Gitic was the beginning of a Chinese financial crisis . . . they thought all the Itics would be closed," Mr Xin said, explaining the refusal of overseas lenders to extend fresh credit in the wake of the Gitic closure in October. But, he reassured international lenders that such concerns were misplaced. "Gitic was a special case. We are a normal case," he said, adding that both the Fujian provincial governor and Zhu Rongji, the prime minister, had signalled the government's continuing support for the company. "Fitic will definitely not be closed," he said. The future of other trust and investment companies in Fujian, a relatively wealthy trading province on China's eastern seaboard, was less certain. Of the 11 Itics in Fujian, only two or three - including Fitic and Xiamen Itic - are expected to be left after the planned restructuring, he said. The Itics, which have estimated foreign debt of about $15bn, are tiny by comparison with China's big four banks, but they have been some of the most prominent Chinese borrowers from foreign banks and an important channel of foreign funds into infrastructure projects. Fitic, which has assets of RMB11bn ($1.3bn), has two outstanding global bond issues - a $100m Yankee bond due 2007 and a ¥14bn ($122m) Samurai bond due 2006 - as well as foreign bank debt of $280m, of which $30m is short-term. Restructuring has already made more than RMB400m in funds available, so "there will be no difficulty in making payments on foreign loans," Mr Xin said. The Financial Times, Feb. 1, 1999 US vs. Iraq Bombing Iraq is No Solution, Oil Execs Are Told Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter slams international policy As a Gulf War veteran and former United Nations weapons inspector, Scott Ritter should have many reasons to support bombing and sanctions against Iraq. Today, he can't think of one. ''You can't solve everything by bombing,'' the broad-shouldered, steely voiced ex-marine told an audience of oil industry executives attending an energy conference here Friday. "International policy on Iraq has dissolved into total confusion." Last August, the 37-year-old Ritter quit as a chief weapons inspector in Iraq, complaining the U.S. failed to adequately back inspection efforts. Since then, the former military intelligence officer has spent time on the lecture circuit, recounting his experiences in the Middle East hot spot. Some Americans have hailed him as a hero, while others like Democratic Senator Joe Biden Jr. have mocked Ritter for trying to make decisions above his "pay grade." Ritter's story dates back to 1991, after he served as a captain under Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during Operation Desert Storm. An expert in ballistic missile technology, Ritter ended up working with the United Nations Special Commission, or UNSCOM, to verify the extent of Baghdad's weapons. Over time, UNSCOM played a cat-and-mouse game with Iraqi forces to uncover Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The UN also introduced an economic embargo on Iraq, following its invasion of Kuwait. Ritter -- whom the Washington Post once dubbed the UN's "most effective and aggressive inspector" and the "United Nations' intelligence operative" -- says the bulk of the biological, chemical and nuclear weapons were destroyed by 1997. Iraq's military was defanged and Hussein "was on the verge of being disarmed,'' he said. Economic sanctions, however, remain in place, although the the UN introduced an "oil-for-food" plan in 1996. Under the scheme, Iraq can export up to $5.3 billion US worth of crude every six months to buy necessities for its people. But due to the dilapidated state of its oil industry and low crude prices, it has only been able to export just over $3 billion worth of oil over the past six months. Some countries have proposed lifting the oil embargo and even the U.S. is entertaining the thought. However, the Clinton administration is holding a hard line on allowing Iraq to import spare parts for its oil industry. Ritter, who once monitored intermediate-range nuclear forces in the former Soviet Union, says all economic sanctions -- including the oil cap -- should be lifted. Sanctions have inflicted damage on the 22 million Iraqi people without affecting Saddam's grip on power, he said. "Children were starving to death,'' he recalled. "This is not morally correct." Thomas Stauffer, a former Harvard University professor and expert on Middle East energy issues, agrees, calling the policy "bankrupt." "He's dead on,'' says Stauffer, who was also speaking at the Peters & Co. energy conference. "This is part of an effort to destroy the future potential of (Iraq) as much as possible . . . it no longer has anything to do with weapons." Ritter recently made international headlines saying the United States took control of UN intelligence-gathering in Iraq. He acknowledged the search for weapons peered inside the same organizations that were personally protecting Saddam. Taking part in more than 30 inspection missions, Ritter himself was labelled a spy by Baghdad. But the UN team had to act as honest brokers and wasn't established to collect intelligence for any country, he told the crowd. As for recent American and British bombing of Iraq, Ritter said UNSCOM head Richard Butler developed a deliberately provocative report in December to provide a backdrop for U.S. military action. The bombing of Iraq has shut all four of the refineries operating in the country. Ritter dismissed the "Wag-the-Dog" theory that air force strikes were started to divert attention from the president's impeachment. Instead, the action was taken "to salvage a failed foreign policy," he said. But bombs only isolate Washington and a constructive approach to Iraq is needed, Ritter said. Failure to act will only harbour anger and hunger among the Iraqi people, a potentially deadly combination that could create a new terrorist threat for the West. "The US has become a prisoner to its own rhetoric,'' he told reporters before getting ready to return home to Westchester, N.Y. "There is no end game. We have to come up with an end game. We can't allow this situation to continue." Calgary Herald, Jan. 30, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
