Student Uncovers US Military Secrets

karthik_r085 writes "According to The Register, An Irish graduate student has uncovered words blacked-out of declassified US military documents using nothing more than a dictionary and text analysis software. Claire Whelan, a computer science student at Dublin City University was given the problems by her PhD supervisor as a diversion. David Naccache, a cryptographer with Gemplus, challenged her to discover the words missing from two documents: one was a memo to George Bush, and another concerned military modifications to civilian helicopters."

old news

[Swen Swen]

The Monde (famous French newspaper) published an article [lemonde.fr] on the story a few days ago. An English translation can be found here [infosecwest.com].

Parent is confused

[moronga]

A fixed-width font (like courier) uses the same width for all characters. A document printed in a fixed-width font would make the process easier, because you would know with certainty how many letters fit into a black box.

If you read the article, the seven words that were found to be a possible fit range from seven to ten characters, implying that the document was printed in a variable width font.

Re:Well?

[TexasDex]

I found this on Yahoo News a while ago: WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) classified as "secret" and withheld from public dissemination for nearly 29 years a prank terrorist threat against Santa Claus, according to documents released.

The threat -- purported to come from a then- and still-unknown group calling itself the "Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge" -- was contained in a classified compilation of intelligence on possible terrorist attacks produced by the CIA (news - web sites) in late 1974, according to the documents.

"A new organization of uncertain makeup using the name 'Group of the Martyr Ebenezer Scrooge' plans to sabotage the annual courier flight of the Government of the North Pole," the CIA said in its December 17, 1974 "Weekly Situation Report on International Terrorism."

"Prime Minister and Chief Courier S. Claus has been notified and security precautions are being coordinated worldwide by the CCCT working group," it said, identifying the night of December 24-25, 1974 as the date for the planned "sabotage."

It was not clear whether the CIA had learned of a prank threat to Santa, or if the analysts compiling the report had inserted it as a holiday joke.

Along with the threat to Santa, the situation report included deadly serious incidents and warnings including intelligence detailing potential terrorist attacks in the Middle East, possible bombs at the British embassy in Buenos Aires and a plane hijacking.

Despite the dubious nature of the threat to Father Christmas, the CIA blacked out all references to it when the situation report was declassified in 1999, according to the documents.

The documents, which include the original report as well as the redacted version released to the public in 1999, were released by the National Security Archive as part of its campaign against the "overclassification" of government files.

"The CIAs secret Santa leads the archives lengthy compilation of declassified documents that illustrate the arbitrary and capricious decision making that all too often characterizes the US governments national security secrecy system," it said in a statement.

The National Security Archive, part of the George Washington University in the US capital, is a private research group that seeks the declassification of government documents through the Freedom of Information Act for historical purposes.

Re:obvious solution

[Anonymous Coward]

iiill would never get chekced, because it isn't in the dicinoairy. What your doing is dividing all the word in a dicionairy into for example 147 catagories (3-150Pixles) instead of say 40 (1-40 letters). Now you do the math from here.

Re:This information isn't even blacked out!

[zebez]

It's from a pdf document, page 51: Document [newamericancentury.org]

from wikipedia.org [wikipedia.org]:

"Critics, mostly from the far-left and the far-right, frequently quote out of context a line from Rebuilding America's Defenses which refers to the possibility of a "catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" (p. 51), citing this as being suspiciously prescient of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and suggesting that the PNAC or its associates wanted, knew about, or even were involved in the attacks. This quote is considered by some to be part of the evidence of a plot to use the attacks as a pretext for the implementation of their policies. Many even incorrectly claim that the report directly states that this "new Pearl Harbor" is needed to justify war on Iraq. However, a full reading of the text shows it says nothing of the sort. The line is in the middle of a discussion about the military's employment of emerging information technologies, and the report guesses that full transformation to new technologies is likely to be a slow process, absent some "catalyzing" event which would presumably cause the military to upgrade much more quickly."

Duplicate story (May 08)

[gnalle]

"Decryption" of Bush Memo Posted by Hemos on Saturday May 08, @07:31AM [slashdot.org] from the cool-technologies dept.

jjq writes "A decryption of the so-called Bush Memo, see the CNN news, http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/04/10/bush .briefing/ was presented at Eurocrypt 2004 (Interlaken) during the rump session. David Naccache shown how to recover words from removed text in several memos. See more about this story at Lemonde.fr (sorry, it is written in French)." Just use the the fish.

Re:This information isn't even blacked out!

[vovin]

First paragraph on page 63:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrual policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current misstions.

RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf [newamericancentury.org]

Re:obvious solution

[LS]

Don't you think that if they had the insight to convert a censored document to fixed width, that they would also make all the blacked-out spaces of the same length, and give NO information to potential cryptographers?

LS

Re:This information isn't even blacked out!

[Diplo]

Check the signatories of the PNAC Statement Of Principles [newamericancentury.org] and note the signatures include Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and Lewis Libby.

Now read this letter [newamericancentury.org] published on their website in May 1998 :

"

We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power."

From the PNAC document 'Rebuilding Americas Defenses [newamericancentury.org]' dated September 2000 :

"

The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The document also :

• Refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';
• Describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';
• Reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;
• Says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';
• Pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.

For those that are interested (and that should be every free-thinking person) I've collected a lot more associated evidence which I published in an article [diplo.co.uk] on my website.

Irish != IRA

[Pfhor]

Also, considering the political state of Northern Ireland (which is part of Great Britain, etc.) last year, most of these terrorist groups have just become glorified drug gangs, since a major way they go their money was through the drug cartel, now with a cease fire, there is more infighting and killing between the protestant militant groups over drug issues, than between the catholic and protestant groups.

Re:Irish != IRA

[mcpheat]

Northern Ireland is part of "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". It isn't part of Great Britain which is the large island to its east comprising Scotland, England & Wales.