Posted on 03/13/2006 2:49:53 PM PST by strategofr
...But this case management and data mining software, developed in the early 1980s by a small Washington D.C. company, Inslaw Inc., had proven itself to be a perfect intelligence tool...
Stolen by ruse from its owner, Inslaw Inc., the software was hacked and provided with a "trap door", ... a Trojan Horse hacker’s trick, that enabled the retrieval of information from the foreign intelligence services and banks it had been sold to on behalf of Israeli and U.S. intelligence. Without the knowledge of the software’s owner, and in violation of copyright laws, the PROMIS software was sold to over 40 countries and used in an unprecedented "sting operation", which yielded huge financial and intelligence benefits to the United States and Israel....
But "blowback" from the U.S. Government's theft of PROMIS in 1982 soon turned into a series of painful losses for U.S. national security, into criminal financial benefits for corrupt officials, and into intelligence "scoops" for the secret services of adversaries...
...The software helped the United States win the Cold War against the Soviet Union, but it also served the Russian mafia, Saddam Hussein’s regime, Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda, and an unspecified number of foreign spies and criminals....
(…) "Yes, we gave PROMIS to the Russians and Chinese to back door their intel. Worked like a charm. The only problem was ‘blowback’. As we gave it to our enemies in order to back door them through the trap door Trojan horse asset in PROMIS, we left sixty-four federal agencies wide open in the U.S. Government who also used PROMIS. The powers-that-be felt that the information obtained far outweighed the damage done to the security of the 64 federal agencies. Just think, federal agents exposed, witness relocation programs compromised, etc. Just a matter of time." PROMIS sold to bin Laden
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
nice
I didn't do it. Not my fault. Nobody saw me. You can't prove anything.
promis bump
"I didn't do it. Not my fault. Nobody saw me. You can't prove anything."
What are you saying? You think you're not in the database?
"nice"
thanks
Humor.
My psychiatrist, JRBC, knows me well enough to get it.
promis resurfaces again
Thanks for reminding us.
" Humor."
me too.
I have seen quite a few articles on PROMIS. Plus one book, years ago. Most of them are just confused, failing to make a point, instead meandering through endless "who kne whom" chains conspirationists love so much.
This one is crap.
For anyone with a shred of knowledge on software engineering and computer technology this doesn't pass the smell test. A case management software from the early eigties might have had some neat features, but absolutely nothing you could have built back then could not be replicated today with a fraction of effort - and much more powerful tools.
The basic gist of the PROMIS story is that they ripped of the company that built it, and in turn passed it around - trojanned - on the black market. Maybe. Very maybye, this might have been remotely possible, back then (even though the idea alone is a bit naive - software is so much more than just object code). But Saddam ? Bin Laden ? Modern Russian services ? Give me a break - this shit comes straight from the buzzword generator of someone who still has a vested legal/financial interest in the issue. Especially the russians have so much better and cheaper personnel resources at hand for software engineering, the last thing they need is an early 80's case amanegemnt system that ran on obsolete hardware nobody buys any more.
The only reason this thing still appears to live is that soemone tries to keep it alive.
good points
It's written for people who think that the movie rendition of hacking (long-haired teenager with multiple body piercings types something on the keyboard and says "I'm in!" as gothic music plays in the background) is reality.
"The only reason this thing still appears to live is that soemone tries to keep it alive."
Well put.
Are you trying to say that there is "no controling legal authority." ;)
Aside from this article being crap, I haven't seen anything to contradict the fact that the government stole the software, lost in court and was ordered to pay, and never paid. Am I wrong?
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