wmartin@ALMSA-1.ARPA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI) (01/07/86)
This digest never made it onto USENET, at least on one sub-tree, so it is
being reposted:
Date: 20 Dec 85 10:40-EST
From: Moderator <ARMS-D-Request%MIT-MC.ARPA at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: ARMS-D%MIT-MC.ARPA at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
To: ARMS-D%MIT-MC.ARPA at XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Re: Arms-Discussion Digest V5 #66
Arms-Discussion Digest Friday, December 20, 1985 10:40AM
Volume 5, Issue 66
Today's Topics:
"sanity" check
Jastrow analogy
Government secrecy and KAL007
SDI software specifications
Dezinformatsiya
Oops.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: aurora!eugene@RIACS.ARPA (Eugene miya)
Date: 19 Dec 1985 1002-PST (Thursday)
Subject: "sanity" check
The other day, as part of a discussion, a group named the World Security
Council stopped by. I've spoken to several people, some of whom read this
group. I would like to solicit other comments: who is this group (WSC)?
--eugene miya
NASA Ames Research Center
{hplabs,hao,dual,ihnp4,vortex}!ames!aurora!eugene
emiya@ames-vmsb.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Thu 19 Dec 85 18:37:31-EST
From: Richard A. Cowan <COWAN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Jastrow analogy
The AT&T software analogy is quite ridiculous. As pointed out at the
SDI economic debate at MIT 11/19, all the other computer software systems
(and predictions of technological failure that have proven wrong) were
problems of man against nature. SDI software, as Parnas also pointed
out, is a problem of man against man.
All historical analogies to SDI that involve successes in technological
problems of man against nature are worthless. If it were in the Soviet Union's
vital interest to wreck the operation of the phone system, and they were
willing to spend a few billion a year to do so, of course they could do it.
By the way, the economic debate I referred to was quite interesting. Panelists
were Bernard O'Keefe, CEO of Nuclear weapons contractor EG&G, Lester Thurow,
MIT economist, and Leo Steg, former manager of GE's Space systems division.
O'Keefe's company does Star Wars research, yet he ridiculed the Star Wars
concept and pointed out the economic dangers. Thurow didn't give an opinion on
Star Wars, but he pointed out the problems of diversion of talent, the new
competition from other countries, and the fallacy of thinking that we can spend
the Soviet Union into the ground. The Boston Globe had an article about it
on the front page of the Business Section, (11/21), but I felt the article was
shallow and biased.
If anyone is interested in a TAPE of the discussion, OR a TRANSCRIPT, please
contact me and I'll be happy to oblige (but you'll have to pay what it costs).
-Rich (cowan@mit-xx)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 85 20:49:43 EST
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ at Forsythe>@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Government secrecy and KAL007
| N.B. KAL007 was evidently an unconstitutionally authorized spy
| plane.
|
| My reading of it is that it was used after it went off course on its
| own; not quite the same thing.
We could get into quite a debate over KAL007. Re USA secrecy, the
Congress decided to hold SECRET hearings on account of testimony
by the spouses of two of the deceased crew that they were promised
extra cash to fly over Russia (Sept. 1985). Even without this, the circumstantial
evidence of intentional spying is substantial.
In the Congressional Record, opposite his declaration of National
Sewing Month, Reagan officially denounces Russia's destruction of
Korean Airlines Flight 007: "this cold-blooded, barbarous attack on
a commercial airliner straying off course is one of the most
infamous and reprehensible acts in history. Etc." (Public Law
98-98, 97 STAT 715.) Those who believe the United States' denial
that KAL007 was spying are as naive as those who believe Russia's
denial that they knew ordinary passengers were aboard. Has Reagan
denounced the U.S. military's fitting friendly foreign commercial
airliners (in New Mexico) with spying equipment? Is it worse to
shoot a passenger plane laden with unwitting hostages, or to use
unwitting hostages to perpetrate espionage?
Flight KAL007 was delayed 40 minutes by the "need for an
additional check of the onboard equipment"; no malfunctions were
found, but this delay symmetrically synchronized KAL007 with the
recurrent overhead passage of the U.S. Ferret-D reconnaissance
satellite. On an important missile testing night, KAL007's direct
flight over the most sensitive Russian military area would
inevitably stimulate defensive radars and electronic systems, giving
invaluable information to U.S. intelligence. Even before the flight
the value of exactly this information had been underscored by Paul
Bracken in his definitive treatise on nuclear command and control
"American military commanders in SAC and
NORAD, for example, ideally would like to know how the (electronic)
fingerprint of the Soviet Union changes as it goes through the
alerting process." The mission required KAL's top pilot and co-pilot
team, both having known U.S. intelligence connections, and a flight
crew of 29 instead of the normal 18. (Who were they?) The steady
course kept by KAL007 required several in-flight checks, and such
close attention was being paid to the flight that recordings of the
Russian pilots' conversations were made. Of course, Russian radar
crews knew this was the regular nightly KAL flight (there's only a
couple such flights in thousands of miles of sky each night), but
waited until the last moment to shoot it down when, after two and a
half hours over Russia, it was about to escape. (See, e.g., .italic
Defense Electronics, March 1984, p.20.)
An international inquiry, all hard evidence destroyed, concluded
several computer operator errors a probable cause of the incident by
applying the well-proven Electronic Warfare Theorem: "If possible,
get an expensive electronic device (i.e. a computer) to make a
decision; if the decision turns out to be wrong, one of its tape
units can be disconnected and two programmers fired in retribution."
(Bourland, "Non-Decision Theory", Memorandum to the Director of
Research, DOD, Dec. 1961; appeared in .italic Datamation.)
To: LIN@MIT-MC.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 85 10:03:50 EST
From: Michael_Joseph_Edelman%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
In the fascinating Lin-Johnson discussion, the subject of KAL 007 was
brought up, with Johnson referring to the flight as an "unauthorized
spy plane" and Lin implying it was an accidental overflight that was
then used somehow as an intelligence gathering mission. Both accusations
have been made before, and both are unsupported.
Murray Sayle, writing some months back in the New York Review of Books
gave a well-documented account of how the overflight could have occured
by accident, based on past errors and known problems with KAL007's navigation
gear. James Oberg (well known for his account of the Soviet space program,
"Red Star In Orbit"), writing in the October or November issue of
The American Spectator, reviews the literature to date on KAL007. Among
other things, he tears apart the article from the British defense magazine
(name escapes me) that was the basis of most of the conspiracy arguments.
The article in question was written pseudononymously (in order to generate
speculation that the author was a highly-placed source, it appears) by
a gentleman with no experience or knowledge of the defense community.
I highly recommend that digest readers look at both articles, and then make
their own decisions.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 85 14:08:41 pst
From: Gary Chapman <PARC-CSLI!chapman@glacier>
Subject: SDI software specifications
The problem with coming up with a specification for SDI software has been part
of the critique of most computer scientists, and our own Dr. Lin, from the
beginning. Dave Parnas, in his recent Senate testimony, reiterated the
"five points" of why SDI software cannot be made reliable that were contained
in his original memoranda to the SDIO (and then published in the October issue
of American Scientist). Point number one is:
SDI software must be based on assumptions about target and decoy
characteristics which are controlled by the opponent. We cannot
rely on our information about them. The dependence of any pro-
gram on those assumptions is a rich source of effective counter-
measures. Espionage could render the whole multi-billion dollar
system worthless without our knowledge.
--Gary Chapman
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Dec 85 14:28:34 EST
From: Michael_Joseph_Edelman%Wayne-MTS%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
> Date: Tue, 17 Dec 85 17:50:19 EST
> From: Will Martin <wmartin@BRL.ARPA>
> Subject: "Nuclear Event Detector"
>
> .... Aside from those cases in which your electronics are a puddle of
> slag by the time this device lets them know they have something to worry
> about, won't the EMP effects have completely destroyed the circuits this
> is "protecting" anyway? Or is this a valid product, maybe usable in
> military electronics or "hardened" sites? It just seems totally
> off-the-wall to me. Anybody know anything about these sorts of things
> and have comments or explanations to offer?
...matter of fact, I have sitting on my workbench at home a
wondeful example of mid-1950's EMP-proof technology. It's a
portable military communications reciever with its antenna input
protected by a number of VR-type tubes acting as surge surpressors.
EMP is picked up by a conductor acting as an antenna. You can
protect the device connected to the conductor, shield the conductor
or replace it with something like fiber optics. It's a lot easier
than shielding from radiation.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 85 10:38:27 EST
From: "Jeffrey M. Broughton" <Jeff Miller AMSTE-TEI 4675 <jmiller at apg-1>@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Dezinformatsiya
I apologize- our organization is heavily involved in the generating of
quarterly reports, so I could not put as much as I would like to have in this
message.
Disinformation is not a synonym for misinformation or propaganda. It is
not a legitimate member of the English lexicon. Why? The term
"dezinformatsiya" was coined by the Soviets. Many terms used in the
intelligence trade are borrowed from all over, including one's opponents. The
Sovs love the terms "mole," and "sleeper." Where did they get them from?
Western spy movies. Thus, "disinformation" is a piece of jargon with a finite
meaning, which derives from the world of covert intelligence operations.
Another example about which a number of respondants gave me what-for a few
months ago: Active Measures. Coined by the KGB, "aktivnye meropriyatiya" is a
technical term which refers specifically to those covert actions conducted in
the accomplishment of a disinformation operation. They do not refer to covert
operations conducted for purposes of sabotage or espionage, * unless the
sabotage or espionage is in support of a disinformation operation *
Propaganda is defined quite simply as means of persuasion, the propagation of
ideas. It is a tremendously broad subject area whose proponents would spend
hours arguing would rightly be a fitting subject in itself for the ARMS-D
digest, as its one of the most potent weapons in the arsenals of nation-states
today. Although many of its experts would claim it to be an art or a science,
it is neither, being a vast area with as many broad as narrow applications.
In understanding the difference between disinformation and propaganda, always
keep in mind that propaganda can very well consist of the truth; I am not
aware of any disinformation action which ever used truth.
Disinformation operations could be done in support of propaganda put out by a
government. Nazi SS troops, disguised as Polish soldiers attacked a German
radio station on the Polish border in late August 1939 to support official
propaganda about Polish agression, and justify the 1 Sept. '39 invasion.
More often, propaganda is coordinated in support of an ongoing disinformation
campaign. In the early sixties, KGB men began a campaign of swastika-painting
and other anti-semitic activities in West Germany. At the same time they
channelled a number of forged documents purporting to be from neo-Nazi groups
showing the involvement of agencies of the German government. A goodly
quantity of the documents were ascribed to one party which didn't even exist.
Before the Federal government could figure out what was going on, the story
was carefully and dramatically broken by TASS, PRAVDA, all the E.Bloc news
services, hundreds of communist and socialist newspapers worldwide, and dozens
of seemingly right wing newspapers the KGB operates for these kinds of
puposes. The cry of Nazism and anti-semitism caused severe political damage
to the Bonn government, which found itself in the ludicrous and humiliating
position of publicly appologizing for non-existent crimes.
The Soviets and their little brothers love to pick on the West Germans. The
disinformation experts of the Czech Statni Tajna Bezpecnost, under the
direction of Ladislav Bittmann (who defected) became the early masters of
deception. One of their coups involved the meticulous forgery of seeming Nazi
wartime documents supposed to, among other things, name important SS and party
functionaries, many of whom just happened to be real people holding important
bositions in the Bonn govenment. Much effort went into determining the
precise kinds of paper, ink, stamps, and text style, not to mention teams of
scientists and engineers who came up with a plausible explanation for how the
documents would have survived intact in a crate at the bottom of a lake. STB
divers planted the crate in a lake in Austria in part of Hitler's old "Alpine
Redoubt". An elaborate story was concocted to lead to the discovery of the
crate, whose contents were believed and caused great damage to the German
government.
Highly recommend the book by Ladislav Bittmann I quoted in earlier message. I
believe Ballentine has it in paperback. It is rare that the West gets to hear
from a defector who was an architect of a given field of intelligence.
Also, "Inside the KGB" by Aleksei Myagkov.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 85 10:38:36 EST
From: "Jeffrey M. Broughton" <Jeff Miller AMSTE-TEI 4675 <jmiller at apg-1>@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Oops.
- I forgot to insert a (rather key) section in my hasty message of
yesterday.
Disinformation; a broad field of endeavor which has grown out of traditional
deception techniques practiced by most intelligence agencies.
All intelligence services have practiced the art of confusing the opposition's
intel experts. Tricks have been devised to simulate strengths that never
existed, weakness instead of strengths, hide capabilities etc.
The Soviets realized the potential for taking these techniques and expanding
their scope to include all areas of the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
The degree to which they can carry out these kinds of operations, vastly more
so than a democratic country would dare, is that there are no watchdog
functions over KGB activities other than (technically) the Party, and the
executive branch (if you will) of the government. Since the KGB, answerable
only to that executive, serves the executive exclusively by insuring its
continuing power, it has carte blanche to conduct operations against all the
executive's enemies, foreign and domestic, real and perceived. Remember, the
common reference to the US by KGB personnel is glavni protivnik or glavni
vrag; the chief target or the main enemy.
Perhaps more Americans should acquaint themselves with information on the
Soviet regime and the KGB. For that matter, the US government and the CIA.
Most people seem unaware at the vast differences in size and mission area
between the two services.
------------------------------
End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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