THE BEHREND BEACON
Seattle mess
by Billy O'Keefe
Campus Correspondent
Columbia College
December 06, 1999
There was a whole lotta chanting
going on last Wednesday, Dec. 1, as
I made the second of three trips from
one of my classes to the student cen
ter. On the sidewalk, positioned in
front of a large pane of glass look
ing into center, some students were
holding big signs that sported slo
gans in large, demanding print.
I tried to get a good look at what
the signs said, but the group was
huddled in a semicircle of sorts, and
the messages were obstructed. The
members of the group there were
probably five people involved, al
though I can't say for certain were
also boisterously chanting a rhyme,
the words of which I could barely
understand, save for what I think
was the phrase - open admissions."
All I can say for sure was that it
was loud -- loud enough to stop stu
dents in the doorway, loud enough
to turn heads on the other side of the
student center's glass, and loud
enough to drown out any sort of cu
riosity those passing by might have
had. If you wanted to know what
was going on, you couldn't ask.
Military girds for upsurge by
hackers at the Y2K rollover
by Steve Goldstein
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
December 01, 1999
4RI-IINIGTON, Va. Ina large win
dowless room of a nondescript office
building a few miles from the Penta
gon, the war of the future is being
waged.
The field of battle is several dozen
tlat-screen computer monitors that
show Department of Defense commu
nications. Six screens display selected
computer traffic, though one during a
recent visit was tuned to the Weather
Channel. If fears of a concerted cyher
attack on the U.S. military are realized
what Deputy Defense Secretary
John Hamre has called an "electronic
Pearl Harbor" this room, the Glo
bal Network Operations and Security
Center, is where the battle will be won.
Or lost.
Between 80 and 100 unauthorized
- intrusions" of Pentagon computers
are reported each day; about 10 require
investigation. Most attacks come from
"ankle biters" hackers who just
want to annoy but some are aimed
higher up, at the nerve system of the
nation's defenses.
Alarmed by a dramatic increase in
ber attacks, the Pentagon is reorga-
sizing its computer network defense.
A September report by the watchdog
General Accounting Office concluded
that there were "serious weaknesses"
in the Department of Defense's infor
mation security.
Moreover, the rapidly approaching
Y2K rollover has military officials
wondering if they will be able to dis
tinguish between a network intrusion
and the millennium computer glitch.
Capt. Bob West, deputy commander of
the Joint Task Force on Computer Net
work Defense, said there was real po
tential for a "crippling" attack at any
time because of "substantial" vulner
ability, especially in the network that
handles non-secret communications
the NIPRNET (Non-classified
Internet Protocol Router Network).
According to the Defense Informa
tion Systems Agency, the number of
reported network intrusions has in
creased dramatically, to more than
18,500 this year compared with 5,844
in 1998. The Pentagon reported only
225 unauthorized network intrusions
in all of 1994.
"The NIPRNET is really vulnerable;
it has over two million hosts," West
said in an interview. Information that
can be accessed and misused includes
troop locations, orders for spare parts,
transportation logistics, names of mili
tary spouses, even credit-card and tele
phone numbers.
"It's a sensitive but unclassified net
work," said Gen. Thomas B. Goslin Jr.,
WORLD AND NATION
They were too busy putting on a show
to even hear you.
Don't know what's going on? Sorry,
you're in the dark and you're not get
ting out. And if that's the case, you just
chuckled and carried on your way.
That's what I did on two separate oc
casions, and that's what a drove of stu
dents in front of and behind me did.
Believe me, I checked. I'm not just
making assumptions here.
Nearly 2,000 miles away in Seattle,
the same bucket o' madness had
spilled its guts a day earlier, only for a
much larger cause and at a degree far
Tnore extreme. Fires were blazing,
windows were shattered, and the tear
gas in the air gave oxygen a run for its
money. People screamed this, people
shrieked that, and activists and ordi
nary folks were dragged away kick
ing and screaming by authorities.
Damn the man. The protests contin
ued the next day, and while the vio
lence had subsided for the most part,
the bedlam had not lost steam at press
time.
So hey, here's a question: do you
even know what happened? Do you
have ANY idea what cause or causes
these people were fighting? Don't be
ashamed if you don't. Even if you're
one of those dubious folks who can't
even name the vice president of this
director of operations for U.S. Space
Command, which recently assumed con
trol of computer network defense. "A lot
of information could tell you about
where we might be going" in an opera
tion.
The Pentagon also maintains a classi
fied network, the SIPRNET (Secret
Internet Protocol Router Network), but
officials are reluctant to shift a lot of
currently unclassified information to se-
"We're learning just
like the rest of the
world that the prom
ise of the Internet is
that it gives us so
much capability, but
also so much vulner
ability in security."
-Gen. Thomas B. Goslin
Jr., director of operations
for U.S. Space Command
cret cover. "Once you put things on a
secure network, you put some constraints
on yourself," Goslin explained. Goslin
declined to answer whether the
SIPRNET had been breached.
"There are people who have tried to
get into that particular network; I don't
want to talk about it," Goslin said.
The Pentagon is a tempting target,
West said. "A hacker who says he's got
ten into military systems has a badge he
wears proudly," he said.
West and others attributed the surge
in reported attacks to the rapid growth
of the Internet, and advancing skills of
computer users. And better detection
systems have caught intrusions that prob
ably would not have been reported be
fore.
But the GAO report said that "serious
weaknesses in information security con
tinue to provide both hackers and hun
dreds of thousands of authorized users
the opportunity to modify, steal, inappro
priately disclose and destroy sensitive
DOD data."
West acknowledged that information
technology was a double-edged weapon.
"We're learning just like the rest of the
world that the promise of the Internet is
that it gives us so much capability, but
also so much vulnerability in security,"
he said.
The Pentagon is trying to upgrade the
software for intrusion detection systems,
train military personnel as security ex
perts, and reexamine the traffic allowed
DECEMBER 10, 1999
muddied up
country, you're a long way from porations and the almighty dollar
alone this time. Here's the skinny than those of workers and con
(and a skinny skinny at that): the sumers. In both respects, I agree.
World Trade Organization was in Se- But this is where it gets ugly.
attic last week for a series of meet- As is allowed, a nonviolent dis-
PHOTO. AMBER LEWIS
Three anarchists break from attacking "global capitalism."
ings about, well, world trade. Critics
have chastised the WTO for insensi
tive practices against workers and the
environment, citing the respective
abuse and abundance of poor work
ing conditions and unsafe, geneti
cally-modified (g.m.) crops that pop
up in the foods we eat every day.
They also believe that the WTO is far
more privy to the wishes of large cor-
on nonclassified networks. The millen
nium rollover will provide a test. Al
though DOD systems have been made
Y2K-compliant, military officials
worry that they are susceptible to an
attack.
"It's certainly a golden opportunity,"
said West, cautioning that he had not
seen intelligence warning of particular
attacks
Apart from concern that hackers con
sider New Year's a prime time for mis
chief, there is some worry that intrud
ers have planted codes disguised as
Y2K protection but set to go off Jan. 1,
like a time bomb.
"We have some indication that there
will he more sophisticated-type people
trying to gain access under the guise of
a Y2K problem," Goslin said.
For the Pentagon, computer network
defense is an effort that now involves
hundreds of people and billions of dol
lars annually, West said. The Joint Task
Force, originally established in Decem
ber 1998, has been put under the au
thority of U.S. Space Command at
Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado.
The command also will oversee the
computer network defense components
operated by the Army, Air Force, Navy
and the Marines, including their CERTS
computer emergency response
teams. In wartime, the task force will
be dispatched to set up top-secret com
puter networks for field commanders.
Next October, U.S. Space Command
will begin developing ways to attack the
enemy's computer-dependent weapons
and systems.
Some of this "non-kinetic" warfare
occurred during the bombing campaign
against Serb forces in Kosovo. The
emphasis now, however, is defense.
Gen. Robert Shea, Marine computer
defense commander, described the ef
fort as a "long, long march."
"Before we get to the end of the
march," he added, "there's going to be
some ambushes." The first ambush was
self-inflicted. A 1997 war-game exer
cise known as Eligible Receiver showed
that sophisticated hackers (in this case
from the National Security Agency)
could cause power outages and 911
emergency phone system overloads in
a number of cities. They also reportedly
gained "supervisory-level". access to
dozens of military networks, disrupting
e-mail and phone traffic.
A real attack occurred from January
through March, described by officials
as a "sustained, well-resourced intru
sion." The matter is under investigation
by the FBI, amid reports that Russia
might have been involved. No one is
commenting, even off the record. At
tacking a DOD Web site is the usual
modus for the "ankle-biters." But West
said officials did not regard defacing a
Web site as a big deal because there was
no "operational impact."
play of civil disobedience was
planned by commoners and activ
ist groups like the Direct Action
Network whose name contains
such misused words as "Direct,"
"Action" and "Network."
Thousands of people showed
up. They yelled, they chanted,
they rhymed like a bunch of white
Biz Markies. Then some people
"It's when the hackers get into the
so-called (dot).mil environment that
real trouble can occur. These attacks
most often happen when the United
States is engaged somewhere mili
tarily. NATO's air campaign in
Kosovo brought a rash of computer
intrusions.
An intrusion-detection system
produced jointly by the government
and commercial ventures has proved
useful only for monitoring intru
sions after hackers have broken in
not for alerting officials to sus
picious entries as they happen.
"They let you know after the barn
door has been opened," Shea said.
In fact, many attacks may at first
look innocent. For example: a staff
person is going through some files,
which seems fine until someone dis
covers that the staffer is actually on
leave. The task force members look
for anything on the network that is
not normal, or is occurring outside
a regular cycle of traffic.
"More often than not we see
something that looks funny and it's
not such a big deal," said West. "The
real sophisticated ones don't want
to be seen." When an intrusion is
successfully traced, it typically is
handed off to the FBl's national in-
frastructure protection agency.
"The military is not going to show
up on someone's doorstep," said
Maj. Michael Birmingham, a
spokesman for U.S. Space Com
mand. A computer hacker who at
tacked the White House Web site
this year pleaded guilty to a felony
in November, and was sentenced to
15 months in federal prison and a
$36,000 fine.
But attribution is mostly a needle
haystack exercise. West said for
eign-based hackers often entered
systems through Canadian or
American university sites, making
it difficult to trace the origin of the
attack. And mostly, the hackers
don't have a set destination. "They
don't go where they want to go,"
West said. "They go where they
The Pentagon is now building re
dundant communications networks,
so that hackers can't see how the
military is responding to an attack.
And they are trying to increase the
recognition speed of intrusions.
Military officials do not want to
have to immediately retreat and re
group when cyberwar breaks out.
"Today we are primarily reac
tive," West said. "We monitor the
network. We use intelligence re
ports. We want to become more pro
active and be able to predict when
malicious activity might occur."
the message
a small number, to he fair started
smashing the front windows of outlets,
such as the Gap and Starbucks, and tag
ging the ruins with yet more slogans.
Among them: "Destroy the Gap" and
"No sweat shops."
So is it about food, clothes, workers,
the environment, or all of these things?
To be honest with you, I have no idea.
I was hoping someone could put down
their brick and tell me. Too bad I'm not
ready for the crash course these folks
are trying to teach an entire country.
Few people are. And now a lot of well
meaning people who were quietly
bringing the issue to the public's con
sciousness are now going to run into a
wall of confusion, anger and indiffer
ence. That's what happens when you
break things to make a point. But that
doesn't matter to some of these people,
who would rather make a headline than
any meaningful impression on anyone.
So we have no choice but to dive into
this mess headfirst, only to be confused
by it all and stop caring in a few (circle
one) weeks/months/years.
And make no mistake about it:
people will stop caring, and that's only
if they give a donkey's bum in the first
place. Who's to say anyone will? What
ever this cause shapes up to be, it will
be seen first as a violent, ironic embar
rassment in which people tried to save
Texas couplc find $300,000
in brown paper bag
Knight Ridder Newspapers
December 07, 1999
DUCANVILLE, Texas Serendipity
smiled on a Duncanville couple over the
weekend, but they apparently chose
safety instead. Police said a woman and
her husband stumbled upon a brown
paper bag Saturday afternoon in the
middle of a Red Bird street. Without
looking inside, the woman said, she pre
sumed it contained schoolbooks left
behind by an absent-minded youth.
But inside the sack was nearly
$300,000 in cash, a 9 mm chrome hand
gun and 18 rounds of ammunition.
"The gun would lead the citizen to
believe that this is obviously from some
kind of criminal offense, - said police
Deputy Chief Danny Garcia. "Having
kept that money, it may have turned into
the worst decision anybody can make."
In an interview Monday, the woman
described the Hollywood-like scenario,
saying "I started hyperventilating" af
ter examining the bag's contents. The
couple flagged down a Dallas officer,
who himself gasped at the amount of
money inside. He immediately called a
supervisor to the scene, a police report
states.
The woman stood across from a
Christmas tree and a bevy of red stock
ings as she described feeling more fear
ful than proud. She didn't want her iden
tity revealed and sought no publicity for
her actions. Although citizens routinely
report finding sums of money in the
hundreds and even thousands, depart
ment officials couldn't cite an instance
in which a Dallas resident found so
Okla. shooter used dad's gun
TMS Campus
December 07, 1999
FORT GIBSON, Okla. (TMS) The
13-year-old boy who opened fire on his
middle school classmates used his
father's 9mm semiautomatic handgun,
officials said at a Tuesday morning
news conference. The gun was pur
chased at a Wal-Mart.
Meanwhile, President Clinton, in
Washington, D.C., said investigators
from the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms were on the
scene in Fort Gibson. "Our prayers are
with each of the children and their fami
lies," Clinton told reporters.
On Monday, the seventh grader fired
the gun at least 15 times on the campus
of Fort Gibson Middle School, wound
ing four students before he was subdued
by a school teacher.
Police Chief Richard Slader said the
student had more ammunition available.
The gun was registered to the youth's
father, although it was not known when
it was purchased, Slader said. The boy's
the planet by setting it ablaze. The day
after the riot, I overheard a girl liken
ing the melee to the Civil Rights
movement in the 1960'5. That would
be worth a good laugh if she were
alone in that belief, but I know she's
not. I'm sure many of the people who
were high on tear gas last week felt
the same way, like they were a part
of something special.
Not likely. Not even close. When
men and women like Martin Luther
King, Jr. and Rosa Parks fought for
their freedoms, they did it with elo
quence King by educating the
common man with a mix of poetic and
common sense, Parks by simply liv
ing the life she felt she'd earned. They
didn't spend hours of their lives writ
ing slogans, dressing up in costumes
and looting tech vests. But they did
take a once-scornful public and force
it to realize just how wrong it had
been all those years.
That didn't happen last week, ei
ther on my campus or in Seattle.
Those demonstrations were met with
anger, head-shaking, shrugs and
laughter, on behalf of those who
fought not just against the cause, but
for it too. Enlightenment? Not on the
list, sorry. Progress? Only if you like
illusions. Change? Yeah, right.
much money at one time. Chief
Garcia, who last month presented an
award to two men who turned in
$2,000 that they had found in an Oak
Lawn apartment complex, termed this
case "amazing."
Police are now working to deter
mine the origins of the money. Detec
tives will check robbery and missing
property reports for any possible con
nections, as well as examining the
money itself for any signs of narcot
ics. Investigators will also wait to see
if anyone calls to claim the money. Al
though they're certain that amount of
money will attract more than a few
phone calls, the claimant will have to
know details about the money and
have a credible story about how he or
she lost it.
It's no leap of logic to presume that
the loot could be related to drugs, be
cause the department's narcotics divi
sion routinely executes search war
rants that yield "extremely large
amounts of money," Chief Garcia said.
If police can't link the money to
anyone within 60 days, state law states
that the investigation becomes a game
of finders-keepers. The woman and
her husband could officially apply to
secure all of the nearly $300,000. The
woman indicated that her family might
place a claim on the money. "But that
has some responsibility that goes with
it," Chief Garcia said, referring to the
possible danger of claiming the
money. (Dallas Morning News staff
writer Connie Piloto contributed to this
report.)
name is not being released, but the
news reports say students at the school
identified the shooter as Seth Trickey.
The day after the shooting, classes
resumed. Many students who typi
cally ride a bus to school were brought
by their parents. Local police were on
hand, telling students to enter to
through the back doors of the school.
Officials have said the boy did not
have any previous record of wrong
doing. He's been described as a good
student, active in his church and popu
lar. Prosecutors cannot charge the teen
as an adult unless one of his victims
dies. Of his victims, a 12-year-old girl,
suffered the worst injury a shot to
the cheek. She was listed in fair con
dition on Tuesday. In addition, a 13-
year-old was treated for a wound to
his forearm and another 13-year-old
underwent surgery for a leg wound.
Brad Schindel, 12, was shot in both
arms. Fort Gibson is 50 miles south
east of Tulsa.
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