-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's Lesson From Fermat's Last Theorem by Amir D. Aczel Baghdad became a center of mathematics. The Arabs absorbed mathematical ideas as well as discoveries in astronomy and other sciences from the inhabitants of the areas they overcame. Scholars from Iran, Syria, and Alexandria were called to Baghdad. During the reign of the caliph Al Mamun in the early 800s, the Arabian Nights was written and many Greek works, including Euclid's Elements, were translated into Arabic. The caliph established a House of Wisdom in Baghdad, and one of its members was Mohammed Ibn Musa Al-Khowarizmi. Like Euclid, Al-Khowarizmi was to become world-renowned. Borrowing Hindu ideas and symbols for numerals, as well as Mesopotamian concepts and Euclid's geometrical thought, Al Khowarizmi wrote books on arithmetic and algebra. The word "algorithm" is derived from Al-Khowarizmi. And the word "algebra" is derived from the first words in the title of Al-Khowarizmi's most well-known book, Al Jabr Wa'l Muqabalah. It was from this book that Europe was later to learn the branch of mathematics called algebra. While algebraic ideas are in the root of Diophantus' Arithmetica, the Al Jabr is more closely related to the algebra of today. The book is concerned with straightforward solutions of equations of first and second degree. In Arabic, the name of the book means "restoration by transposing terms from one side of an equation to the other"--the way first-order equations are solved today. ===== Today's News Hacking for Jesus Clinton Signs "Finding" to Hack Milosevic Bank Accounts Hack bank accounts? Gee, I wonder where they got this idea? (Wonder if they'll find Hillary's bonds in Luxembourg.) NEW YORK, May 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Senior intelligence officials tell Newsweek that last week President Clinton issued a "finding," a highly classified document authorizing the CIA to begin secret efforts to train Kosovar rebels in sabotage -- age-old tricks like cutting telephone lines and blowing up buildings -- and to conduct a cyberwar against Slobodan Milosevic. According to sources who have read the finding, in addition to training the rebels, the CIA has been instructed to conduct a cyberwar against Milosevic, using government hackers to tap into foreign banks, and, in the words of one U.S. official, "diddle with Milosevic's bank accounts," Washington Correspondent Gregory Vistica reports in the May 31 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, May 24). The White House declined to comment on the finding, and Newsweek does not have access to the entire document. But, Vistica reports, some intelligence officials with knowledge of its contents worry that the finding was put together too hastily, and that the potential consequences haven't been fully thought out. "If they pull it off, it will be great," says one government cyberwar expert. "If they screw it up, they are going to be in a world of trouble." PR Newswire, May 23, 1999 Nuclear Spying Security Checks at Labs Stopped When Clinton Took Office We all friends now. What's mine is yours. After President Clinton took office, the Energy Department stopped background checks on Chinese and Russian scientists visiting sensitive nuclear labs, a move that intelligence professionals call "incredible." The background checks were suspended because the Clinton administration ordered the Energy Department to "facilitate" cooperative programs with scientists from the two countreis. As a result, at least 13 scientists with suspected foreign intelligence ties were allowed into the labs without proper CIA or FBI scrutiny. "This is, to say the least, incredible," says intelligence analyst Sander Owen. Five of those scientists were allowed into the Sandia lab at Albuquerque, N.M., while eight visited the Los Alamos lab, also in New Mexico, that U.S. officials believe has been a target of Chinese espionage for more than 20 years, congressional investigators said. Security checks, mandatory before 1994, were reinstated last November amid growing worries about Chinese espionage at the government's premier weapons labs. While U.S. officials claim they have no evidence that nuclear secrets were lost to any of the 4,409 Russian and Chinese visitors between 1994 and late 1998, when background checks were reinstated, they have no guarantee information did not escape. ``As far as I am concerned, the exemptions (for background checks) should never have been given,'' said Ed Curran, a veteran FBI official who last year took over counterintelligence at the Energy Department. ``You have to have the information to make a decision (on access). The lab director has to know who is on his site,'' Curran said in an interview with The Associated Press. The administration made it a priority after the Cold War to open up the once highly secretive weapons labs and expand their nondefense research programs. The surge in Russian visitors stemmed from what the administration claimed was "an urgent need to help improve Russia's safeguards on nuclear material to keep it from terrorists or antagonistic states." The increase in Chinese visitors was attributed largely to the labs pushing to expand nonweapons research and broaden links to scientists not only in the United States but abroad. But at the same time the security checks were stopped, the Clinton administration was also approving transfer of sensitive technologies to the Chinese by Loral, a company headed by Democratic campaign contributor Bernard Schwartz. According to government officials and documents, the request to end security checks originated in the fall of 1993. In 1994, the number of Chinese visitors to the Los Alamos and Sandia labs more than doubled, from 146 to 329, according to Energy Department figures. The number of Russian visitors rose from 201 to 364. ``The number of foreign visitors was increasing, and in some cases it was taking months for the checks to get done,'' Energy official Joan Rohlfing said. ``It was such an inefficient system that it simply was not enabling any of the programs to move forward.'' Energy officials agreed to end the background checks. Rohlfing said the exemption was supposed to be ``only for visitors who were going to unclassified areas of the laboratory.'' The General Accounting Office, the investigatory arm of Congress, first found problems with the termination of background checks in a 1997 report. The GAO documented ``13 instances where persons with suspected foreign intelligence connections were allowed access without background checks - eight visitors went to Los Alamos and five went to Sandia. ``Available records also indicated that eight other persons with suspected connections to foreign intelligence services were approved for access to Sandia during the period; however, DOE and Sandia lacked adequate records to confirm whether the persons actually accessed the facility,'' the GAO added. GAO auditor Victor Rezendes said suspending background checks only invited trouble. ``The safeguards you put on windows and doors may not stop a burglar, but you don't want to sleep with your door open,'' he said. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson reinstated the background checks in November as a congressional committee was finishing an investigation into reports of Chinese theft of U.S. technology, including alleged espionage at the weapons labs. In March, a longtime Los Alamos scientist, Wen Ho Lee, was fired and remains under suspicion of providing secrets to China. The FBI is investigating, but Lee denies any wrongdoing and has not been charged. The GAO repeatedly decried potential losses, even though visitors, with rare exception, are not allowed into the most secure sections of the research labs and are supposed to be monitored closely. GAO investigators in 1997 found classified or sensitive material in areas frequented by visitors. In one example, six boxes, marked ``sensitive material'' in red letters, were found in the hallway of a lab where foreign visitors walked. Classified information also was found in a newsletter available to visitors. Adding to the problem was little spending for counterintelligence. In 1996, according to GAO, Los Alamos spent $100,000, or $111 per Russian or Chinese visitor, to monitor possible espionage. That was less than one-fifth the amount spent by another lab, Lawrence Livermore, which had about half as many visitors. Asked recently whether foreign visitors posed a threat, John Browne, director of the Los Alamos lab, replied, ``Yes, a potential threat. The potential is there.'' Still, he defended the visitor program, saying it is important to interact with international scientists. While reversing the decision on background checks, Richardson also has been an advocate of the program. ``We've got to be careful that we don't penalize the foreign visitors program that so far has not been the source of the problem,'' Richardson said. ``If we cut our foreign visitor program, it will hurt our national security.'' Capitol Hill Blue, May 23, 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. 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