Extending Hacker Creativity

This article was written for and validated by "Security Intelligence Report", a monthly magazine targeting the Intelligence Community 

                                        Losing the Battle for High Tech Warfare
             
Working in the quiet of his room, Joe Hacker carefully pans for gold, in the streams
thought secure by the managers and designers of big ticket weapon systems.  The Pentagon,
Administration and Congress choose to ignore or are ignorant of cloned weapons that might
destroy the functionality of our military.  In the November 28, 1994 issue of Security Intelligence
Report, Frank McGuire wrote a commentary about an RF (Radio Frequency) gun being tested
in South America by the US Army.  He commented that the weapon has existed since 1989.

Beginning in 1989, and possibly before, hackers and hobbyists were affecting computer chips using RF as the destructive mechanism.  Dr. Tom Sobczak wrote a short explanation about how frustrated Americans, he chatted with on the net, were testing and fine tuning RF guns that turned on collision warning sensors in aircraft, shutdown the electronic ignitions of automobiles, and, affected the functioning of humans operating some weapon systems.  American creativity and ingenuity are not rivaled anywhere in the world.  Unfortunately for the on the front line "grunt," his life is affected by big ticket item providers and generals seeking jobs when they retire.  These guardians of the national security ridicule the potential for misuse of existing appropriate technology by "kids."

Reports that "strange things" have occurred to law enforcement vehicles chasing drug traffickers and alcohol distillers in some southern states never make the main stream press.  Auto manufacturers replace poorly functioning or "bad" chips regularly.   The logic of mutated RF can as easily shut down the engines of a fighter, bomber or commercial airliner in flight.  All might be the target of experimenters or terrorists.  No one wants to frighten the flying public.  They ignore flight TWA 800.

In 1992, a Newsweek article mentioned Dr. Sobczak's ability to collect technological (sometimes called competitive) intelligence outside the processes used by the American Intelligence Community.  Dr. Sobczak has failed dismally to awaken the curiosity of these experts to the sharing and trading that occurs among creative Americans and others identified using names like Joe hacker, Sam phreaker, Harry cracker and Justin ham.  For all his failures, Sobczak is called, periodicaly, by intelligence professionals looking for tidbits of intelligence they might have missed.

In 1994, Sobczak created a new designation that he offered to the DoD and the CIA.  He refocused his database after reading about the comments by ASD (Reserve Affairs) Deborah Lee.  Ms. Lee said that the United States will make more and better use of its reserves.  Ms. Lee triggered a new phenomenon, "Patriotic Terrorists in Objection to National Policy."  These PTO's are "weekend warriors" who are unhappy that they will be called upon to earn their pay.  Those who monitor Bulletin Board Systems and INTERNET E-mail may locate more than they bargained for.  They may read about dirty  tricks ranging from the mundane, i.e., putting sugar in the gas tank to the futuristic, i.e., virus to stop tactical computers or sniffers to identify and reroute the orders that trigger unit mobilization. Experiments that Sobczak has shared with Defense agencies range the spectrum of military (and civilian) operations.

     1.   PSYOPS (Psychological Operations) - 1990 Sobczak told Major Gus Taylor at
US SOCOM that Pathfinders taking training in the wind tunnel at WPAFB had incurred the ire
of local college age hackers.  They "hit on" the hackers' girl friends.  In retaliation the hackers
conceived a software routine to affect the VDU operators on board the SOCOM MC-130H
being developed and managed by the USAF/ASD/Airlift SPO for SOCOM.
    
     2.   MIRAGE - developed by or for individuals who needed to reach the shore
without being bothered by the US Navy or Coast Guard.  The device created a dead zone
where radar and other electronic devices acted strangely.  Several areas along the US East
Coast are listed as electronically unstable.  The USCG ignores readings that would otherwise trigger action.  These routes remain unguarded pathways into the USA.

     3.   Video Display Unit (VDU) output copying - An out of date, no longer manufactured,
mechanical TV tuner can be positioned to receive signals generated by a VDU.
Sobczak explained this phenomenon to Cpt. Lynn Miner who flew to New York from the
Phillips Laboratory at Kirtland AFB.  Signals can be copied to a VCR and reproduced at will.
Imagine using the playback to fool the operator a defensive radar.  Could it be the film loop used in the movie "Speed" was not all farce?

     4.   Tesla Coil Kill Mechanisms - A Tesla coil allows voltage to be stored in a large
capacitor.  Should the voltage be dumped into a telephone line, it will fuse circuits and might
even kill.  Hackers attempt to destroy competitors computers using this logic.  Telephone
circuits are heated to the point that they melt.

     5.   Virus as a Weapon - Imagine if Mr. Morris had placed a computer software
virus, as described above in PSYOPS, into his INTERNET worm.  In place of memory
indigestion, which told of a problem as computers slowed, users of networked computers
would be susceptible to headaches for years.  Reasonable people would think to blame the
computer screen for causing damage to a user.  We all use computers too much.  We bring
on our own headaches.

     6.   Non-Ionizing Radiation - Pulsing the movement of electricity over power lines
might allow the grid to influence people.  Not all people, but, definitely, those with
susceptibilities to electrical aberrations in their psyche and physical makeup would be hurt.
Sobczak tested this phenomenon with positive results.

     In Newsweek on December 5, 1992, Mr. John Barry worried whether the GOP will stall
the military's high-tech revolution.  No one need worry.  The high-tech revolution continues.
Unfortunately, it is neither acknowledged nor controlled by the leaders responsible for our
national defense.