Attack Of The Zombie Bots!
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(Conspiracy Nation, 09/20/05)
-- Attacks by something called "Zombie
Bots" have skyrocketed recently, according to a report by
Internet security firm Symantec.
The increased use of broadband connections has resulted in
home computer systems which are always online. Such desktops are
available targets for cyber-safecrackers.
Also vulnerable are computers using digital satellite links,
because geeks on the prowl with simple Radio Shack devices can easily
pick up transmitted signals.
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The term "Zombie Bots" is slang for zombie
robots, suggesting computers whose souls have been hijacked and
turned into robots for nefarious purposes.
"The robots have taken over."
This evokes the nightmare scenario envisioned in the film, "The
Terminator." And there is more besides. In an exclusive report, Wayne
Madsen (Mad Zen) details new
information on the activities of NSA cyber-spies. ("The Demise Of
Global Communications Security," http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/exclusive1.htm)
There is indeed some Mad Zen going on these days, and Madsen ought
to know. He is reportedly a former security analyst for the National
Security Agency (NSA), whose conscience finally forced him to break
ranks and become a whistleblower.
Madsen, in his exclusive report, reveals that, for years, "the
National Security Agency (NSA) maintained highly classified back doors
into the encrypted communications of worldwide foreign ministries,
military commands, banks, international organizations, and even the
Vatican, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the United
Nations." The use of these back doors
involves the secret placement of EPROM devices into computers then
shipped to the various organizations. Such EPROM (Electronically Programmable
Read-Only Memory) devices secretly transmitted sensitive information to
the NSA.
Reports on this back door plot
have previously appeared, for example in J. Orlin Grabbe's widely-read
series, "The NSA, Banks, and Vince Foster," which circulated in the
mid-1990s. A good summary appears in Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith's book, The Octopus.
Chuck Hayes, a mysterious character, is described in Thomas &
Keith's 1996 book (op. cit.) He was a source for extravagant tales of a
roving CRAY super-computer hidden inside a semi-trailer truck. This
embellishment detracted from more sober allegations by, for example,
Bill Hamilton, original developer of leading-edge software called
PROMIS. Hamilton is quoted by Thomas & Keith as saying, "I don't
know what's meant by the back door. What we've been told is that not
only the software was sold, but computers with extra chips... What the
chips do, we've been told, the extra chips, is to broadcast the data
inside PROMIS to satellites owned by the NSA..."
Michael Riconosciuto, "Danger Man," a shadowy, brilliant former
Iran-Contra insider, had a slightly different explanation. The EPROM
back-door chips "are not chips as such. The existing chips in the
machine are tricked into doing it." (qtd. in Thomas & Keith, op.
cit.)
There have also been persistent reports that the Windows operating
system, whose source code is a Microsoft top secret, contains a secret
back door key available to the NSA.
Also problematic is the recent advent of spyware keystroke logging
code which transmits supposedly secure logins and passwords to snoops
and thieves. (See "Keystrokes Of Clandestine Casinos," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Keystrokes.html)
One source further informs Conspiracy
Nation about "software under development at a university that
can translate a sound recording of keyboard strokes into the strokes
themselves."
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Conspiracy Nation
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html