Disinformation and Science

Disinformation's tools emerged from science and art.
And furthermore: disinformation can happen in politics of course, but also in science:
for example by launching ideas which have not been proven exactly until the moment of publication. e.g. the thought that time runs backwards in parts of the universe:
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19991127/newsstory3.html

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Biometric technologies

In what follows there is a brief description of the principal biometric technologies, whose respective proponents - producers, research laboratories, think tanks - mostly tend to claim superiority over the others. A frequently used definition of "biometric" is that of a "unique, measurable characteristic or trait of a human being for automatically recognizing or verifying identity" (http://www.icsa.net/services/consortia/cbdc/bg/introduction.shtml); biometrics is the study and application of such measurable characteristics. In IT environments, biometrics are categorised as "security" technologies meant to limit access to information, places and other resources to a specific group of people.

All biometric technologies are made up of the same basic processes:

1. A sample of a biometric is first collected, then transformed into digital information and stored as the "biometric template" of the person in question.

2. At every new identification, a second sample is collected and its identity with the first one is examined.

3. If the two samples are identical, the persons identity is confirmed, i.e. the system knows who the person is.

This means that access to the facility or resource can be granted or denied. It also means that information about the persons behaviour and movements has been collected. The system now knows who passed a certain identification point at which time, at what distance from the previous time, and it can combine these data with others, thereby appropriating an individual's data body.

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Timeline 1970-2000 AD

1971 IBM's work on the Lucifer cipher and the work of the NSA lead to the U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES)

1976 Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman publish their book New Directions in Cryptography, playing with the idea of public key cryptography

1977/78 the RSA algorithm is developed by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman and is published

1984 Congress passes Comprehensive Crime Control Act

- The Hacker Quarterly is founded

1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is passed in the USA

- Electronic Communications Privacy Act

1987 Chicago prosecutors found Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force

1988 U.S. Secret Service covertly videotapes a hacker convention

1989 NuPrometheus League distributes Apple Computer software

1990 - IDEA, using a 128-bit key, is supposed to replace DES

- Charles H. Bennett and Gilles Brassard publish their work on Quantum Cryptography

- Martin Luther King Day Crash strikes AT&T long-distance network nationwide


1991 PGP (= Pretty Good Privacy) is released as freeware on the Internet, soon becoming worldwide state of the art; its creator is Phil Zimmermann

- one of the first conferences for Computers, Freedom and Privacy takes place in San Francisco

- AT&T phone crash; New York City and various airports get affected

1993 the U.S. government announces to introduce the Clipper Chip, an idea that provokes many political discussions during the following years

1994 Ron Rivest releases another algorithm, the RC5, on the Internet

- the blowfish encryption algorithm, a 64-bit block cipher with a key-length up to 448 bits, is designed by Bruce Schneier

1990s work on quantum computer and quantum cryptography

- work on biometrics for authentication (finger prints, the iris, smells, etc.)

1996 France liberates its cryptography law: one now can use cryptography if registered

- OECD issues Cryptography Policy Guidelines; a paper calling for encryption exports-standards and unrestricted access to encryption products

1997 April European Commission issues Electronic Commerce Initiative, in favor of strong encryption

1997 June PGP 5.0 Freeware widely available for non-commercial use

1997 June 56-bit DES code cracked by a network of 14,000 computers

1997 August U.S. judge assesses encryption export regulations as violation of the First Amendment

1998 February foundation of Americans for Computer Privacy, a broad coalition in opposition to the U.S. cryptography policy

1998 March PGP announces plans to sell encryption products outside the USA

1998 April NSA issues a report about the risks of key recovery systems

1998 July DES code cracked in 56 hours by researchers in Silicon Valley

1998 October Finnish government agrees to unrestricted export of strong encryption

1999 January RSA Data Security, establishes worldwide distribution of encryption product outside the USA

- National Institute of Standards and Technologies announces that 56-bit DES is not safe compared to Triple DES

- 56-bit DES code is cracked in 22 hours and 15 minutes

1999 May 27 United Kingdom speaks out against key recovery

1999 Sept: the USA announce to stop the restriction of cryptography-exports

2000 as the German government wants to elaborate a cryptography-law, different organizations start a campaign against that law

- computer hackers do no longer only visit websites and change little details there but cause breakdowns of entire systems, producing big economic losses

for further information about the history of cryptography see:
http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/html/timeline.html
http://www.math.nmsu.edu/~crypto/Timeline.html
http://fly.hiwaay.net/~paul/cryptology/history.html
http://www.achiever.com/freehmpg/cryptology/hocryp.html
http://all.net/books/ip/Chap2-1.html
http://cryptome.org/ukpk-alt.htm
http://www.iwm.org.uk/online/enigma/eni-intro.htm
http://www.achiever.com/freehmpg/cryptology/cryptofr.html
http://www.cdt.org/crypto/milestones.shtml

for information about hacker's history see:
http://www.farcaster.com/sterling/chronology.htm:

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The 2nd Chechnya-War

In the summer of 1999 between 1.200 and 2.000 Muslim rebels from Chechnya fell into Dagestan. Rumors say that Russian soldiers closed their eyes pretending not to see anything. During the fightings that started soon, many persons got killed. The hole issue was blamed on Chechnya.
At that time there were rumors that there would be heavy bombing in Moscow in September. And there was. Those two things together brought back the hatred against the Chechnya rebels. The 2nd War between Russia and the Muslim country began. While the first war was lost at home, because the Russians, especially mothers, did not understand why their sons should fight against Chechnya, this time the atmosphere was completely different. In the cities 85% and all over Russia 65% of the Russian population agreed with the war. This time the war was a national issue, a legitimate defense.
The media emphasized this.
Alexander Zilin, a journalist, found out that the truth was far from the one presented in the media: First of all there was no evidence that the Moscow-bombings were organized by Chechnyans. On the contrary it is more than probable that the crimes were organized by a governmental institution for national security. The disinformation was part of the strategy to make the population support another war with Chechnya. The media were part of the story, maybe without knowing. They kept on the government's and army's side, showing only special and patriotic parts of the war. For example the number of dead Russian soldiers was held back.

The U.S.-behavior on this:
The USA would like to intervene but they are afraid of ruining the weak relation to Russia. For years the main topic of U.S.-politics has been the struggle against terrorism. Now Russia pretends to be fighting terrorism. How could it be criticized for that?

The reason for this war is rather cynical: it worked as a public relations-campaign for Vladimir Putin, candidate for the president's elections in. When Putin came into power as minister-president of Russia in August 1999, opinion polls gave him 2% for the elections in summer 2000. By the end of November he got already 46%! And finally he won. The public relations war worked well.
At the same time a propaganda-campaign against his rival Y. Primakov (98), formerly the most popular candidate, was spreading lies and bad rumors. Opinion-polls showed very fast that he had lost the elections because of this black propaganda, even before the elections took place.

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Viacom

One of the largest and foremost communications and media conglomerates in the
world. Founded in 1971, the present form of the corporation dates from 1994 when Viacom Inc., which owned radio and television stations and cable television programming services and systems, acquired the entertainment and publishing giant Paramount Communications Inc. and then merged with the video and music retailer Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. Headquarters are in New York City.

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UNIVAC

Built by Remington Rand in 1951 the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was one of the first commercially available computers to take advantage of the development of the central processing unit (CPU). Both the U.S. Census bureau and General Electric owned UNIVACs. Speed: 1,905 operations per second; input/output: magnetic tape, unityper, printer; memory size: 1,000 12-digit words in delay line; technology: serial vacuum tubes, delay lines, magnetic tape; floor space: 943 cubic feet; cost: F.O.B. factory U.S.$ 750,000 plus U.S.$ 185,000 for a high speed printer.

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Montage

Certain elements of two or more photographs can be put together, mixed, and the outcome is a new picture. Like this, people can appear in the same picture, even "sit at the same table" though they have never met in reality.

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Integrated circuit

Also called microcircuit, the integrated circuit is an assembly of electronic components, fabricated as a single unit, in which active semiconductor devices (transistors and diodes) and passive devices (capacitors and resistors) and their interconnections are built up on a chip of material called a substrate (most commonly made of silicon). The circuit thus consists of a unitary structure with no connecting wires. The individual circuit elements are microscopic in size.

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