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Posted on 06/14/2002 1:23:17 PM PDT by hawaiian
The Pentagon has had its second major intelligence embarrassment in a week after a teenager in Austria hacked into secret plans, including the location of US nuclear missiles.
The exploits of Markus Hirsch, 17, come only days after British surveillance enthusiast John Locker was able to hack into US spy satellite pictures.
Now an FBI team is on its way to Vienna to question Markus. Their big fear is that Osama bin Laden followers may have enjoyed similar access for months. Full Story
The TV satellite pix were NOT HACKED. They were being broadcast on a commercial satellite "in the clear" (unscrambled) because they contained no intelligence value.
What stupid, inaccurate hysteria.
Michael
Do you suppose they will burn him and his family out ala Waco, or is Lon on the way to bravely shoot him in his doorway?
Boonie Rat
MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66
www.nukepills.com
Feds Stockpile Anti-Radiation Pills Thu Jun 13, 2:52 PM ET By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal agencies in Washington ordered 350,000 potassium iodide pills this week from a North Carolina company to protect people from cancer caused by radioactive iodine, which can be released in nuclear explosions.
The agencies are stockpiling the pills "in case of a nuclear event," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security.
"It's been an ongoing effort," Johndroe said, adding that it is not a direct result of the arrest of Jose Padilla, a suspected al-Qaida member who may have been planning a "dirty bomb" attack on Washington.
The government orders Monday and Tuesday represent 9 percent of NukePills.com's business this year and were 18 percent higher than the company's total 2000 sales, said owner Troy Jones. Private citizens are buying as well.
"In 2000, who ever heard of potassium iodide?" Jones said Thursday. Until then, his only clients were survivalists and those who lived near reactors.
After Sept. 11, many people were ordering the pills that protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, a cancer-causing agent that can be released in huge plumes in atomic explosions.
The orders have nearly overwhelmed Jones' three-person sales team since Monday, when Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) announced Padilla's arrest.
However, experts believe a "dirty bomb" would release other kinds of radiation. Potassium iodide, which sells for about $1 a pill, would be helpful only if a dirty bomb used radioactive iodine instead of other radioactive substances, and then only for people close to the explosion.
People aren't buying this product because they think they're going to protect themselves from a dirty bomb, Jones said. "They're buying it because they think something worse is going to happen to this country, (such as) an attack on a nuclear plant or a suitcase (nuclear) bomb."
Johndroe isn't going that far, but he acknowledged the government is making large buys of potassium iodide.
The purchases were made by agencies including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ( news - web sites), the Department of Energy ( news - web sites) and the Department of Health and Human Services ( news - web sites).
The Food and Drug administration ( news - web sites) approved over-the-counter sales of potassium iodide in 1982. It recommends that anyone exposed to radioactive iodine take one tablet daily for up to 14 days, and recommends smaller doses for children.
Jones said he was getting about one order per minute online, and most of the new clients were from the Washington area.
The Padilla arrest, Jones said, "was a wake-up call."
I remember reading an interesting book by a military man which basically said that a lot of things that save money are hopelessly inappropriate for the military. For example, if you want to save money, you should build only one type of tank, and one plane, so you can spread the costs over as many units as possible. This is bad militarily, because you always want to be able to surprise the opposition, which is a great deal easier if you use different equipment, with different strengths and weaknesses.
The other important principle is simplicity and reliability. You need to always be able to rely on your equipment in battle. Windows is obviously highly inappropriate in this case. Unix is enormously simpler in design than Windows, so it's a far superior foundation for any military system.
The people who decided the military should switch to Windows forgot these very important lessons. And they didn't even save any money, with the Linux alternative growing strength.
Sorry, folks.
(Personally, I would NEVER in a million years use Windows to run my business, let alone the military. Idiots).
D
The best method of preventing hackers from getting access is disconnecting the cable or phone line outright.
Terrorists don't need to have expensive weapons......just as they used or own planes to fly into the WTC.....so they'll use or own nuclear warheads to destroy some other place.
Like taking a man's fist and using it to smash into his own face.
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