Why the FBI  the Internet
Friday, 2001-02-23
UnBlinking has wandered some of the links the FBI will follow in the case of Robert Philip Hanssen. Hanssen now
stands accused in a remarkable case of Spy v Counterspy, which reminds us that the internet is watching... and that it
remembers.
[Usability note: All links here open into the same target window. The story is rather complete without clicking away.
(However, with no 'link' it's just 'UnBing' :-) If you find a citation of interest, click away, then slide that
new target window to one side. As those sites load, you can continue UnBlinking here.
To comment, please use
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Many pages regarding the Hanssen affair are solid journalism, such as FBI traitor suspect had mad C skillz
by Kevin Poulsen at The Register:
"...FBI computer logs showed that Hanssen continuously ego-surfed the Bureau's Automated Case Support System (ACS),
performing incriminating searches on his own name, address, and key words like "DEAD DROP AND WASHINGTON."
(A rare opportunity to plug my last gig at EgoSurf) If you
have skillz, it might also seem a bit mad to search for things like 'DEAD DROP' in a system you must presume is
logging all activity.
Back on course, William Knowles of c4i.org went data mining using
the new Google Deja Usenet Archive. Knowles reveals those
findings in his Internet Security Newsletter at Security Focus. It turns out that Hanssen has offered help to
others than the old KGB:
Hi, I upgrade my 770x to Windows 2000 professional. Everything works fine. Then...
Is anyone out there using the Kodak PalmPix with pilot-xfer for linux? How do you...
Is there a way to interface an eTrex GPS with my IIIxe?...
Anyone using your pilot under linux? How do you get it to sync? During the config...
Unless of course, these messages are code, to the Kremlin, and the whole wireless industry is just a cover for spies
to... OK, well, Hanssen also seeks assistance:
I have installed the Palm OS. It works fine, but the default Applications launch screen...
I have a Palm IIIx which I upgraded the OS on to 3.5.2. When I did, I still got...
Let's hope whoever replied isn't charged with conspiracy (given the lawyer-per-person ratio in D.C., it may
be an empty hope). The UnBlinking trail turns more interesting when Declan McCullagh of Wired describes Old Spy, New Tricks:
"WASHINGTON -- Robert Philip Hanssen is not only an accused spy who federal agents say is responsible for one of the
most serious breaches of national security in years.
He's also allegedly a geek...
The conservative news site World Net Daily on Wednesday reported that Hanssen is a Linux user and used e-mail
addresses including hanssen@nova.org and hanssen@orion.clark.net, both local Internet service providers..."
The WorldNetDaily article Suspected mole's computers seized by Paul Sperry will inform, and certainly amuse:
"...Hanssen is known to be "highly skilled in the use of computers and computer programming," according to the FBI's
search warrant request.
In fact, he maintains his own computer server and is a registered Linux user, WorldNetDaily has learned."
A Registered Linux User! Haven't we warned you about returning those warranty postcards? (I leave the puns
among 'PCMCIA-card' and 'card-carrying' for another day.) Well, maybe there's something to it, according to Linux Counter.
Of course, the LI guys may just have a good sense of humor.
From time to time, each of us presumes guilt by association. It's human nature. However, I nonetheless pooh-pooh
worldnewdaily's next sequelae non-sequitur, though I do enjoy the tacit implications:
"...Linux is an open-source software operating system, meaning the basic code is available free to anyone. Unlike
Microsoft Windows, programmers can modify it.
Linux is mostly used to run servers, but IBM now offers it on its laptops.
As of March 1, 1997, Hanssen owned an IBM Thinkpad 365E, according to Electronic Oasis Consulting Inc.
The government listed a laptop as one of the computers it wanted to search in Hanssen's home..."
What more proof would the FBI need? Linux, laptop... he must be guilty! However, the article iterates better
bits:
"Hanson has accessed the Internet from his home computer through a low-cost provider called Northern Virginia Internet
Access Cooperation, using the e-mail account hanssen@nova.org. He also has an address at hanssen@orion.clark.net."
If indeed Hanssen is the fellow from Orion (perhaps codenamed Spock?), we'll ask AltaVista, which directs us to a James Bond shrine including:
Robert P. Hanssen - 10/28/99 12:54:51
My Email:hanssen@orion.clark.net
Age: 55
Where are you From: Chicago
Favorite Bond: Sean Connery
Favorite Bond Film: From Russia with Love (in its time)
Perhaps a little too on the nose, eh? Now, did his last snippet mean "a great film, considering the epoch in
which it was made," or "a great country, back in the days when Men were Manly and Russia was Russian"? If, on the
other hand, he's actually hanssen@nova.org, he's quite a philosopher who offered up a review at Amazon:
A Critique of Modernism for Our Times, April 2, 1997
Reviewer: hanssen@nova.org
Etienne Gilson brilliantly plumbs the depths of Thomistic Realism, and false Thomisms as well, in this answer to
Kantian modernism. The volume, exquisitely translated, is 'must reading' for any student entering the modern
university. This book brings the essential elements of philosophy into view as a cohesive, readily understandable, and
erudite structure, and does so rigorously in the best tradition of St. Thomas. If you must read only one book on
philosophy or if you want to make philosophy you life's work, read this book first.
On this topic, quite seriously, UnBlinking would recommend The Thomist, offering abstracts of great clarity dating back as far as 1939. Click over to Vol. 1 (1939) and read at least:
Humility according to St. Thomas
The Roots of Obligation
Social Unity and the Individual
Truly wonderful writing on profound topics, such as moral virtue, moral authority, moral society... clearly
much grist for the media mill. Someone at the FBI is at this moment reading those articles, one after another,
trying to conjure up the psychological profile of the next counterspy. And trying to figure out how Saint Thomas Aquinas figures in it all.
(OK... back to our usual UnBlinking blend of sarcasm and patience.) Again, if this fellow is
hanssen@orion.clark.net, AltaVista tells us he appears in recent posts to the American
Firearms Traders Board. You may find the mutual acronymity of AFTB and BATF mildly amusing.
At AFTB, AltaVista's index notwithstanding, we find no mention of our special Robert in the past year. But, wait...
a search of the AFTB
site (for either keyword 'hanssen' or 'orion') returns exactly one article, about a Colt AR-15. Specifically, a Colt
AR-15 created prior to a federal ban
on certain weapon capabilities:
Re: Pre-ban AR-15/Car-15 2KB 01/18/2001 13:45:33
Just one problem: the URL is no longer available--though it's only forty days old. Removed perhaps by the person
who posted it? or by...? So, we make another search for this very topic (Pre-ban AR-15/Car-15).
Actually, eight postings were made on this thread! However, all those in Re: 00000051.htm are also
missing from the site! Perhaps the FBI stopped over to visit AFTB with a warrant and a webmaster?
The AFTB home page tells us to "Visualize
Freedom™" By the way, weapons discussed must be MADE IN THE U.S.A.--as pointed out three times on
that one page! Its site parent, YankeeDog is helpful:
"Yes! We Ship Internationally "
How convenient for the GRU! YankeeDog lists other items which (depending upon your political persuasion) you either
like to see, or fear seeing, adjacent to one another:
American Bowie Knifes | Blackpowder Beauties
Shooting Tests | Firearms Trader Board | Optics & Accessories
United States Constitution | Patriot Chat Room | Hot Links
and among those hot links, an equally
interesting consortium including:
American
Blackpowder
Goverment
Hackers
Knives
online news
Category 4
Web Masters
"Idaho"
Firearms trading might predictably elicit a certain degree of controversy:
"TWO MEN ARE ARRESTED IN INTERNET GUN SCHEME"
and, as a helpful interested party points out:
"The webboard to which the news item alludes is the "American Firearms
Traders Board", http://www.yankeedog.com/firearmstraders/_disc4/0000000a.htm
The advertisement dates from April 1st, 1998.
I have sent them a cc, although they were probably the first to know about this unhappy event..."
AFTB were understandably displeased at the publicity, given that the troubling article may not have been entirely
accurate. They conclude (as you may, by following the thread) that the original report missed some telling facts.
However, wondering what lurks within the overall (it's huge, 616K) message archive we
discover that there are many, many gun clubs, and that the FT Meade club needs
members:
If you, or someone you know, is an active or retired military, DOD civilian, NSA or DIA employee, you are eligible to
join the Fort Meade Rifle and Pistol Club. Dues are only $20 per year and we have 9 ranges from 50 to 600 yards. We
have IPSC, Swiss Rifle, WWII, Cowboy, Class 3 and Counter Sniper shoots. If you meet the above criteria, please e
mail me for details.
It's interesting that 'No Such Agency' employees, among others, are welcomed--but not specifically FBI agents. Could that
suggest that NSA gun owners knew better than to consort with FBI counterspies, or that NSA spies knew that FBI gun
owners were counter-counterspies, or...
At this point I must conclude I have come full circle, UnBlinking from the top of the internet to the bottom, and back
again.
Looks like the FBI has their work cut out for them.
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