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Re: NATIONAL SECURITY PORN RISK
On Tue, 12 Jul 1994, Sandy Sandfort wrote:
> Does anyone on the Cypherpunks Channel have any inside information about
> the "computer porn ring" that was busted at Lawrence Livermore Labs? Is
> there a crypto tie-in?
From: [email protected] (Paul Phillips)
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.net-abuse,alt.security,alt.news-media,news.admin.misc
Subject: LA Times Yellow Journalism
Date: 12 Jul 1994 18:43:23 GMT
This on page A1 of the July 12 1994 LA Times:
"Computer at Nuclear Lab Used for Access to Porn"
[ snip ]
-- Excerpt --
One computer expert, who requested anonymity, said there might be more
to the incident than meets the eye. The expert suggested that the hard-core
pornography may be a cover for an ultra-sophisticated espionage program,
in which a "sniffer" program combs through other Livermore computers,
encodes the passwords and accounts it finds, and then hides them within
the pornographic images, perhaps to be downloaded by foreign agents.
-- End excerpt --
It's a Steganography reference. This sets off my warning bells --
why would they explicitly mention the Stego technique, unless possibly it
was used in the porn ring there? Granted, Stego makes good journalism
fodder ("Hide your encrypted nuclear bomb plans in porn GIFs from the
Internet!"), but it's definitely not as sexy [sic] as "Taxpayer-funded
computers used in secret porn ring!" Anybody know exactly what was going
on at LLL? We can't get papers easily up here. :(
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Brandt Handler <[email protected]>
Philadelphia, PA <[email protected]>
Currently at CMU, Pittsburgh, PA PGP v2.6 public key on request
Boycott Canter & Siegel <<NSA>> 1984: We're Behind Schedule