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Wednesday, February 12, 2003 |
Scott:
Look, Pa!
No economic policy!
[F]rom the vantage of one year before the '04 primaries, Bush
43 looks amazingly, uncannily like a replay of Bush 41. The economic policy
details differ, but the political shape is parallel.
Despite all the rumors, the recovery doesn't seem to have arrived in any
neighborhood you or your friends actually live in. . . . the current
downturn [has] left the economy still feeling like a disaster area. The
Republicans now control both houses of Congress, but the Bush budget is
such a hodge-podge of giveaways to the wealthy, outright deceptions and
deficit-inducing, tax code- complexifying "reforms" that even the
president's own party is rejecting it out of hand. His all-but-launched war
on Iraq -- completely unaccounted for in that budget -- has roiled the
markets and put corporate spending on hold. His team still can't get its
message straight (do deficits matter or not?). Is anyone home?
1:40:53 PM 
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The LeBron
Road Show: A Pot of Gold at the End of His Rainbow
Jumper, by Allen St. John, in The Voice.
11:27:45 AM
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Baghdad Back Flip: Colin
Powell's cynical reversal. By William Saletan, in Slate.
11:27:39 AM
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NSA printer virus
(VMyths)
U.S. News & World Report ran a story in early 1992 claiming the
U.S. National Security Agency intercepted printers bound for Iraq just
before the Gulf War. The magazine claimed NSA secretly replaced computer
chips in those printers with chips containing a virus. USN&WR cited "two
unidentified senior U.S. officials" as their source, saying "once the virus
was in the [Iraqi computer] system, ...each time an Iraqi technician opened
a 'window' on his computer screen to access information, the contents of
the screen simply vanished."
The 1992 USN&WR story shows amazing similarities to a 1991 April Fool's
joke published by InfoWorld magazine. Reporter John Gantz openly admits he
concocted the entire story. Security experts dismiss the USN&WR story as an
"urban legend" innocently created by the InfoWorld joke
"Desert Storm"
viral myths, by Rob Slade, in RISKS Digest.
11:27:31 AM
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Taking byte from Baghdad, by Gary Pounder, retired U.S. Air Force
intelligence
officer.
If Bush gives the order to attack Iraq, U.S. forces will initiate
information operations (IO) as part of their overall military
strategy. Aimed at disrupting Iraqi information systems, the expected
"information war" may represent the ultimate technology weapon in what
will be a high-tech campaign.
Details of this war are almost nonexistent. Although the Pentagon has
spent billions of dollars on IO since the early 1990s, it has said
little about its capabilities in this area.
. . .
The United States is not alone in developing information operations as
a tool of war. Although Iraq's IO capabilities in this area are
rudimentary, other potential adversaries - notably China - are
investing heavily in information warfare. More-sophisticated enemies
would have no qualms about mounting an IO campaign against us.
As the most "wired" nation on Earth, the United States has the
greatest vulnerability to information attack. Although our government
and private companies have invested heavily in computer security, the
recent virus that disabled thousands of automated teller machines
illustrates the potential impact of even small-scale cyber-attacks.
The forces about to be unleashed on Saddam Hussein may be used against
us in the future.
11:27:27 AM
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