That's a well done article. This part was fascinating too-
"There were several Urban Moving Systems vehicles detained by police in the days before, during and after the 11 September attack, as well as many other vehicles belonging to other moving companies which were also occupied by Israeli nationals. Several of the Israelis traveled to airports using company vehicles and were unable to provide logical explanations for why they did so. One Israeli national with an invalid drivers license was arrested at the Mercer County Airport on 30 October 2001. It was found he had also driven to the FFA center in Pomona, New Jersey. The man was unable to provide reasonable explanations for being at either location.
According to a Fox News report in December, 2001, approximately 200 Israelis were arrested for spying on various groups and government officials before and after the attacks."
"24 December 2001
Fox News Series on Israeli Spying on US Telecommunications
Fox News, beginning mid-December, reported a four-part series on alleged Israeli spying on the US telecommunication systems through firms which provide telephone billing and assist FBI wiretaps. Recently the series was withdrawn by Fox News without explanation. The series has been recovered from private archives for publication here.
When the series first appeared it seemed to be another case of Israel bashing, in particular the parts that rehashed years-old allegations (we've linked to a 1996 GAO report cited by Fox, and other alleged participants' Web sites). And the series may well be calculated disinformation, if not by Fox then by its sources.
However, Fox's unexplained yanking the series is worth noting. Except for a few comments on the Net, there has been no mainline media follow-up on the reason for the yank. If Fox found that the reports are in error, that is the sort of thing that usually brings heat from competitors. If the withdrawal was due to government intervention that would indeed be news, but hardly unprecedented these days. If the yank was due to private intervention that too would be worth learning about -- who, when, why.
Here are comments on the series by Ronald Rivest, a premier US cryptographer and security scientist:
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 10:41:33 -0500
To:
cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: "Ronald L. Rivest" <rivest@mit.edu>
Subject: Israeli compromise of U.S. telecommunications?
I found the following four-part report by Carl Cameron rather shocking:
Part 1:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40684,00.html
Part 2:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40747,00.html
Part 3:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html
Part 4:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40981,00.html
Why should we be freely giving to Israeli corporations information (call records, CALEA information) that requires court orders to obtain in this country? Such information is obviously sensitive, and the well-motivated efforts to strengthen and protect our national infrastructure should reasonably include mandating that such information not be routinely handled by any foreign entities...
A more recent story indicates that the compromise was probably severe; criminals were escaping detection because of the compromise:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...8/224826.shtml
This vindicates concerns many of us have expressed over the years about creating single points of failure in wiretapping systems (e.g. the vulnerability of key escrow, etc.). Of course, in this case the vulnerability was intentionally created, it seems, by giving critical capabilities to foreign entities...
Ronald L. Rivest
Room 324, 200 Technology Square, Cambridge MA 02139
Tel 617-253-5880, Fax 617-258-9738, Email <rivest@mit.edu>
Note: Links within reports added by Cryptome."