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CRYPT NEWSLETTER 18

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CRYPT NEWSLETT

· 25 Feb 2024

CRYPT NEWSLETTER 18
Aug-Sept 1993

Editor: Urnst Kouch (George Smith, Ph.D.)
Media Critic: Mr. Badger (Andy Lopez)
INTERNET: ukouch@delphi.com
COMPUSERVE: 70743,1711

[The Crypt Newsletter is a monthly electronic magazine distributed free to approximately 12,000 readers on the Internet. It features media handling of issues dealing with computers and society, news in science and technology, and satire.]

IN THIS ISSUE

The OBIT computer . . .
FEATURE: the National Reconnaissance Office - still secret after all these years . . .
Computer Culture and Media Images . . .
Mr. Badger's fiendish IQ Test: Do you suffer from "Information Highway". . .
IN THE READING ROOM: "Kipper's Game" by Barbara Ehrenreich greases Gibson's latest . . .
much more.

COMPUTERS, THE LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT AND THE OUTER LIMITS!

In the Summer 1993 issue of Open Forum, published by the ACLU of Southern California, outgoing LAPD police commission president Jesse Brewer comments on the OBITS, a computer system which would be used to pinpoint violent officers within the organization. According to Brewer, the Officer Behavioral Indicators Tracking System (OBITS), costs $700,000 dollars for the complete system, or $92,000 for a scaled-down one.

So far no money has been earmarked for OBITS by the new mayor of Los Angeles, Dick Riordan. Brewer adds that the police union has fought the installation of the system "aggressively," and that currently problem officers are tracked by hand. Brewer supports installation of the OBITS computer.

Such "computer matching" programs have been used throughout government to try to catch tax deadbeats, loan defaulters and others thought to be abusing the system in some manner. Many privacy advocates consider such systems overly intrusive and prone to abuse by bureaucracy and citizens they are designed to serve.

Those with a mind for the weird may remember another anti- privacy computer system called OBIT, for Outer Band Individuated Teletracer, first unveiled in a 1963 episode of "The Outer Limits." The script, written by Meyer Dolinsky, outlines the OBIT as a demonical surveillance system designed to track spies and other agent provocateurs. Instead, it cracks the will of the government scientists and workers who think it is a good idea.

In "The Outer Limits: The Official Companion," Dolinsky explained, "I'm very much in love with freedom . . . The political focus of OBIT is all mine . . . These people, far from helping a free society, are really its worst enemy, in the sense they breed so much hostility and fear that they curiously accomplish the very thing they are trying to prevent. Witch-hunting is the wrong way to go about it."

It turns out the OBIT is an ingenious weapon in an invasion plan, seeded into society by space aliens bent on conquest. Managing OBIT is menacing character actor Jeff Corey as mysterious g-man, Byron Lomax. Lomax terrifies his superiors and subordinates until the climax, when he is revealed as one of the Cyclops-like aliens. The OBIT is smashed and Lomax disappears in a flash of light, but not before delivering a disturbing speech:

"The machines are everywhere! Oh, you'll find them all; you're a zealous people. And you'll make a great show out of smashing a few of them, but for every one you destroy, hundreds of others will be built, and they'll demoralize you, break your spirit, create such rifts and tensions in your society that no one will be able to repair them! You're a savage, despairing planet. And when we come here to live, you friendless, demoralized flotsam will fall without even a single shot being fired. You're all of the same dark persuasion. You demand, _insist_ on knowing every private thought and hunger in everyone -- your families, your neighbors, _everyone but yourselves_!"

We now return control of your television set to you . . .

CRYPT NEWSLETTER FEATURE: THE NATIONAL RECONNAISSANCE OFFICE, STILL SECRET AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

[Portions of this article were originally published by Times- Mirror, Inc. in 1991. They appear with permission.]

It was just another mid-summer sunny day near Santa Barbara, this year, when one of the most secretive organizations in the US military screwed up big-time in plain sight of American taxpayers, again. A Titan-4 ICBM lifted out of Vandenberg, carrying a National Reconnaissance Office Lacrosse radar-imaging spy satellite. Less than a minute later, it was $1-2 billion worth of twisted metal garbage when the Titan carrying it blew up, as they're wont to do, in flight. For the most part, the press yawned, well-trained after decades of being told the NRO didn't exist and that it was uncool, maybe even unpatriotic, to rudely insist on talking about it.

After all, it was only in September of 1992 that the Bush administration quietly declassified the organization's _name_ and became the first presidency to publicly identify its head, then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space, Marty Faga. Associated Press was the only news organization which noticed, barely, turning out a boring paint-by-numbers announcement.

None of this is particularly surprising, but it is eminently depressing considering the NRO, which runs the nation's spy satellite programs, is one of the largest intelligence organizations in the country and controls significant taxpayer money - at least $6 billion/year in 1993 by some estimates.

What National Reconnaissance Office, most would say?

You never heard that here, buddy - as a livid Hans Michael Mark, one of its past chiefs told investigator William Burrows in 1986 during preparation for the book, "Deep Black."

Founded late in the Eisenhower administration, the NRO still operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy which has existed for over 30 years.

Created as a joint Air Force-CIA effort to run spy satellites for the intelligence community, the NRO was, paradoxically, first envisioned as an unclassified operation. But operating from offices on the fourth floor of the Pentagon, it quickly became the holiest of secrets during the Kennedy administration, when Cold War tensions with its target, the Soviet Union, escalated precipitously.

It played the central role in keeping tabs on that Cold War adversary, supplying information on everything from targets for US nuclear forces to little-known catastrophes at defense installations in the Russian hinterland. Even now, NRO- controlled satellites keep watch on Saddam Hussein and the Korean peninsula.

The Bush administration's appointee to head the NRO, Marty Faga, inherited the organization just in time for the war with Iraq. John Pike, a military space analyist at the Federation of American Scientists, was quoted in The Washington Post to the effect that the volume of data coming down from the skies on Saddam's Iraq, was flooding the eyes of commanders in the field.

In a rare public announcement, Faga commented in the same article, "Every satellite that we own that has an application of value in that part of the world is employed for that purpose," an example of exactitude and verbosity by NRO standards. Faga added that US forces were relying on "many tens" of orbiting spacecraft. What he didn't add - and which has never been widely publicized - is that Saddam and his generals were more aware of the NRO than most Americans, having been the recipient of some NRO largesse while the Reagan administration was helping to prop Iraq up during its war with Iran.

Nevertheless, when Pentagon flack Pete Williams fielded a question on spy satellites during the war he answered with the party line, "These [programs] shall be eternally classified."

Despite having had its name declassified, the only sop the agency has extended to the public is an official phone number in the Pentagon, according to Steven Aftergood, an expert on secrecy and classification, also at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. Now you can call the phone number and reach someone who will tell you it's the NRO. That's progress!

So, how big is the NRO?

Well, consider the agency:

operates fifteen-ton infrared and visible-light satellites the size of Greyhound buses, called KH-12'- with KH standing for "Keyhole" - which in addition to close-look capability, generate the digitally calibrated terrain maps which program the Tomahawk missile's guidance system.
runs orbiting radar imagers which work at night and through bad weather, code named LACROSSE. And it blew one up this summer, estimated bill: $1-2 billion.
has Block 14 Defense Support Program (DSP) infrared early warning satellites. These two-and-a-half ton babies are responsible for detecting ballistic missile launches and surface or atmospheric nuclear detonations worldwide.
maintains telecommunications eavesdroppers operated for the NSA, code-named MAGNUM and VORTEX.
administers ocean-scouring spy platforms operated by the Naval Space Command, code-named WHITE CLOUD.

And it operates from installations that include The Office of Space Systems in Los Angeles, the Satellite Test Center (or "Big Blue Cube") near Sunnyvale, CA., the Naval Space Command in Dhalgren, VA., the Defense Communications Electronics Evaluation and Test Activity in Fort Belvoir, VA, Buckley Air National Guard AFB near Denver, CO and a component within the CIA's Directorate of Science & Technology.

Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Tim Weiner estimated in 1991 that the NRO draws $5.4 billion/year - an amount derived from a line cryptically labelled "selected activities" in the Pentagon's budget. This was slight change from the NRO's past cover, "special activities," a name which lead outside observers to label it the "Special Activities Office" in the early '70's.

Other estimates now range from $6-8 billion, well in excess of the 1991 CIA tab for $4-5 billion.

Since its inception in 1960, taxpayers have funded the agency to the tune of about $115 billion dollars, according to a number of unclassified sources.

And, if that isn't enough, "the public is _disinvited_ to the debate on expenditures for the NRO," laughed Aftergood.

Although completely beyond accountability, this is not to say there is _no_ debate. There is. But it's all secret argument over control, down-sizing in the post-Cold War period and who will get to do what, when and where. Such decisions, which won't be reported, are liable to have a big impact on the NRO's major vendors, TRW and Lockheed, centered in Southern California, a state already hard hit by the current depression. Ironically, when these "black budget" workers are finally given pink slips, it will be difficult, even uncomfortable, for them to complain about it to the media.

Not getting the shove this year is Jimmie Hill, deputy director of the NRO, who has been around the organization "forever," according to Aftergood. Nevertheless, it was only until recently that the Pentagon would admit Hill exists, although he's the agency's right hand until the Clinton administration names a successor to Faga.

A call to the NRO phone number bounced me into the ubiquitous Pentagon public information office. An NRO public-information- officer (n.b.: alert newsletter readers will savor the subtle paradox of this title) had to be summoned. She called me back, confirming that Faga's successor is likely to be Robert Fossum, former head of DARPA under Jimmy Carter and a professor of electrical engineering at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.

When and if Fossum comes to power he will have to take up the Titan 4 project, a trouble-plagued program the NRO has been fixing, and fixing . . . and fixing for almost a decade.

Using Titan 4's - like the one that smashed the Lacrosse this summer - started with nation's biggest engineering debacle, the Challenger explosion. When the Challenger went up like a Roman candle in front of the world, it took with it the NRO's ability to put 15-ton photo-intelligence birds into orbit at a time when close surveillance of the Soviet Union was of highest priority to the Reagan administration.

During Faga's tenure at the NRO, he was forced to wrestle with the task of restoring the capability, an effort that had been beset with screw-ups when Titans were thrown quickly into the breech. The missiles failed catastrophically in the aftermath of Challenger, destroying themselves and two Keyhole satellites, a Hexagon in 1985, and a more advanced model known as a Kennan, the following year.

In April 1991 Faga testified before Congress on another Titan mishap, a static test in which a booster motor failed.

The NRO has limped along on the project, expanding its facilities at Vandenberg, CA, and Cape Canaveral, FLA., so that spy satellites can be launched from either coast.

Calls to Faga's NRO office during work on the story in 1991, netted only his mouthpiece, PIO Air Force Captain Marty Hauser. Hauser initially asked for a list of questions, which was sent. Although Hauser said Faga would speak briefly, further calls handed the writer off to an adjutant mouthpiece, who generously offered to launder my copy for content prior to publication.

Steve Aftergood at the FAS laughed when this was recounted. "That was to make sure you didn't get anything right," he said.

Faga, a 1964 graduate of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, is now at MITRE Corp. (MIT Research & Engineering), yet another super-secret federally-funded corporation just down the road from the CIA. MITRE has been the Air Force's think tank for advanced technology programs during the Cold War. It should be comfortable to him, since he worked there in the early-70's after a stint as a technical representative at Perkin-Elmer's highly classified optical division in Danbury, Conn. Perkin-Elmer developed the Hexagon spy satellite's 6-foot reflector-equipped Cassegrain focus telescope in the early '70's. Hughes now owns and runs the division.

The NRO remains a target rich in irony. Consider that had the Titan destroyed a $2 billion dollar NASA satellite this summer, the press wouldn't have hesitated to draw their long knives on the techno-bumpkins at the US civilian space agency, no doubt even calling into question their reason for being. If more evidence is desired one needs only look to the doomed Mars Explorer for an example. However, since we're talking about the NRO, government secrecy is supposed to make it all, somehow, OK. Are you annoyed, yet?

While squabbling over the technical lapses of the Hubble telescope a few years earlier, the press studiously ignored everything associated with spy satellites - even more singular when one finally realizes that the NRO was orbiting its predecessor of the Hubble - then called "Big Bird" - as early as the mid-'70's. Of course, these telescopes were pointed in the opposite direction.

When I first learned of the ultra-secretive National Reconnaissance Office a few years ago, I thought that it had to be doing a good, necessary job - its leaders fine men. In 1993, this strikes me as naive, indeed. Americans, I think, deserve better than stonewalling by a group enjoying a situation which is the envy of all. Consider, if your boss won't even admit your name is on the payroll, it would be mighty hard for anyone to drag you to a public microphone and ask for a detailed explanation on why $6 billion, maybe more, ought to be dumped in your pocket even _after_ the evaporation of credible strategic threats to national security. Americans are finer people than that and have little need of hide-and-seek agencies which install dead-end phone numbers as their sole concession to public accountability in 1993. And until organizations like the National Reconnaissance Office are truly brought into the light, until idiot savant secrecy in the military-industrial complex is shown the door, there will be no real democracy in America.

Call the National Reconnaissance Office and talk to its "public-information-officer" at: 703-979-6472.

COMPUTER CULTURE AND MEDIA IMAGES

By George Smith

[Originally published in Computer underground Digest 5.65, an electronic magazine edited and published by Northern Illinois University faculty member, Jim Thomas. It reaches an audience of approximately 80,000 twice a week. Used with permission.

This review was drafted after a reporter for The Contra Costa Times in central California profiled a series of public bulletin board systems in the San Francisco Bay area known as the NIRVANAnet. The news piece was remarkable for its naivete, insinuation that the network was involved in illegal activity and the complete failure of the newspaper to allow the managers of the network to speak for themselves.]

"I've had enough of that crummy stuff. Crummy stuff, crummy stuff, crummy, crummy, crummy, crummy, crummy stuff." (from "Crummy Stuff," by The Ramones)

After reviewing numerous stories on the computer underground dating back to 1990, Mike Liedtke's Contra Costa Times piece on the NIRVANAnet BBS's comes off as another example of the genre: paint-by-numbers journalism, so predictable it's a cliche. The locales shift, the names change, the breathless "maybe something shady's going on here" tone stays the same.

Unfortunately, so does the expertise of the reporters. Seemingly locked into some kind of "computer neophyte from Hell" never-never land, there never seems to be a lack of writers who turn in stories which are painfully unsophisticated, sensational and . . . crummy. It's damnable, because the picture which emerges is one of mainstream journalists who ought to be starting to get the lay of the land, but aren't.

By contrast, this lack of know-how hasn't stopped reporters, or even slowed them down, in generation of countless fluffy, trend stories on the information superhighway, this year's bright and shiny cliche.

So, that the users of the NIRVANAnet systems think the news media arrogant is not a scream of wounded pride or the surprised squeak of slimy characters exposed when their rock is turned over. It's justified.

Why?

Take for example a news piece which appeared in 1990 in The Morning Call newspaper of Allentown, PA, a continent and three years away.

The Call had discovered a now long gone "underground" bulletin board in nearby Easton, PA. I lived in the area at the time and Liedtke's Contra Costa Times piece was uncannily similar to the one Morning Call reporter Carol Cleaveland delivered for the Call's readership. The same ingredients were in the mix: a couple of textfiles on how to make bombs, a regional lawman explaining about how hard it is to nail people for computer crime and a tut-tutting sysop of another local "public domain" system acting as a tipster, warning concerned readers that he sure as Hell wouldn't want such a system in his backyard. Just like Liedtke's Contra Costa Times piece, there was not a shred of comment from the sysop whose system was being profiled. Nothing ever came of the nonsense. The system continued online for a couple of more years, no criminal charges were filed, and the local businesses appeared not to go up in flames at the hands of unknown hackers or bomb-throwing, masked anarchists. So, this was news?

Now, fast forward to The New York Times on January 25 of this year. In an 'A' section article, reporter Ralph Blumenthal profiled "Phrakr Trakr," a federal undercover man keeping our electronic streets safe from cybernetic hoodlums too numerous to mention singly.

A quick read shows the reporter another investigator from the mainstream who hadn't gotten anything from underground BBS's first-hand, relying instead on the Phrakr Trakr's tales of nameless computer criminals trafficking in "stolen information, poison recipes and _bomb-making_ [emphasis MINE] instructions."

While not dwelling on or minimizing the issue of phone-related phraud and the abuse of credit card numbers on underground BBS's (which has been established), Blumenthal's continued attention to text files for "turning household chemicals into deadly poisons, [or] how to build an 'Assassin Box' to supposedly send a lethal surge through a telephone line" was more of the same. It was the kind of news which furthers the perception on the nets that reporters are rubes, reluctant to use their mental faculties to analyze material of dubious nature.

Most anyone from teenagers to the college educated on-line seem to recognize text files on a BBS as usually menacingly written trivial crap or bowdlerized, error-filled reprints from engineering, biology and chemistry books. In either case, hardly noteworthy unless you're one who can't tell the difference between comic books and real news. So why can't we, make that why SHOULDN'T we, expect the same critical ability from mainstream journalists? Of course, we should.

And it's not only the on-line community which is getting mugged. Just about every sentient, reading mammal in North America was fed a continuous line on the Michelangelo virus for the first three months of 1992 courtesy of the mainstream press. In the aftermath, the perception seeped in that inadvertently or not, most reporters had been played for suckers by software developers. However, there was no informed skepticism when it counted.

Recall, newspapers around the country ran headlines warning of imminent disaster. "Thousands of PC's could crash Friday," said USA Today. "Deadly Virus Set to Wreak Havoc Tomorrow," said the Washington Post. "Paint It Scary," said the Los Angeles Times.

Weeks after the grand viral no-show on March 6th, reporters still insisted the hysterical coverage prevented thousands of computers from losing data. John Schneidawind of USA Today claimed "everyone's PC's would have crashed" in interview for the American Journalism Review but was unable to provide any evidence to back it up.

Even The San Jose Mercury News credited the publicity with saving the day. There was, however, little mention that corporate wallets were swollen with payouts from worried consumers or that most of the experts used as sources came from the same circle of businessmen benefiting from the panic.

In the aftermath everyone blamed John McAfee, the nation's leading antiviral software manufacturer. After all, it was McAfee who told many reporters that as many as 5 million computers were at risk, wasn't it?

However, a look back at some of his comments to American Journalism Review in May 1992 expands the limelight a little. "I told reporters all along that estimates ranged from 50,000 to 5 million," he said. "I said, '50,000 to 5 million, take your pick,' and they did."

"I never contacted a single reporter, I never sent out a press release, I never wrote any articles," he continued. "I was just sitting here doing my job and people started calling."

"Before the media starts to crucify the antivirus community," he continued, "they should look in the mirror and see how much [of the coverage] came from their desire to make it a good story. Not that I'm a press-basher."

Why does this happen? What drives one of these "good stories"?

John Schneidawind of USA Today, when interviewed shortly after Michelangelo said John McAfee was always available to explain things from the early days of the Silicon Valley. There was a sense, said Schneidawind, that "we owed him." That's even-handed reporting!

Obviously, a great many news stories are hung on a sexy hook, too. Often this has little to do with reality. Put yourself in a reporter's shoes, fire-balling these leads past an editor. Techno-kids running amok in cyberspace, crashing the accounts of hapless businessmen, playing fast and loose with the law, fostering the dissolution of community in the suburbs! Or, computer virus plague set to incinerate data world wide! Or, government BBS flouts public interest, aids computer vandals in high-tech predation of nation's information superhighways! Whoosh! Bang! Who wouldn't bite?

Now imagine trying to sell an on-going series dealing with the warp and weave of the networks, touching on everything from dating BBS's to encryption to virus distribution to electronic publishing, copyright law and free speech. Frequently, you'll need more than 40 column inches per topic to do it right.

If you're a reporter you might hear these responses as reasons NOT to get into such a project.

We don't have the space. (There will, however, always be 40 inches of space for the latest equivalent of "Jurassic Park.")
We can get that off the wire. We can't afford to get involved in specialty journalism.
No more long stories - our readership won't follow them. (Policy at USA Today.)
No one is interested in computers. (Believe it or not, this was a popular one in 1992 at The Morning Call in Allentown, PA.)
I don't understand all that, our readers won't either.
Where's the hook?

So, proactive news stories, particularly on computers, are a hard sell many reporters aren't up to. Conversely, most have no trouble selling what Carl Jensen, journalism prof at Sonoma State in California, calls "junk food news."

Junk food news is, he writes, "sensationalized, personalized, homogenized trivia . . . generic to [some] of the following categories: Madonna's latest sexscapades . . . the newest diet craze, fashion craze, dance craze, sports craze, video game craze . . . the routine freeway pile-up . . . the torrents of rhetoric pouring from the mouths of candidates, pledging to solve unemployment, reduce the deficit, lower prices, [and] defy foreign invaders . . ."

Junk food news soaks up a lot of effort on the part of reporters. And there is no shortage of junk food computer news, either.

Take, for instance, almost anything using the word "cyber." The August 15th issue of The L.A. Times Sunday Magazine devoted three-quarters of a page to "Hack Attack - Cybersex." "Cybersex," in the finest gosh-oh-jeekers style, went on about yet another budding entrepreneur who's puzzled out there's a market in putting $70 worth of sex animation on CD-ROM. Only such a junk food news piece _could_ close with a quote from the businessman so ludicrous it would be laughed off the table in any self-respecting barroom. "This is a powerful medium," said the computer sex movie-maker. "The potential is there for people prone to become alienated to become alienated. But we also envision virtual reality sex as a vehicle for people to interact with others in a way they might not feel comfortable in reality."

The week before, the same magazine ran a story on cyberpunk Billy Idol and how callers to The Well were dissing him for being a phony. That's news!

Other computer junk food news stories include, but are by no means limited to:

Just about anything on Jaron Lanier and data gloves.
Tittering, voyeuristic "human interest" pieces on local lonely-hearts BBS's that DON'T mention that 50 percent of the data storage is devoted to color photos of hideously obese men and women screwing, young models licking each other's private parts and other similar stuff which, if warehoused as magazines in a windowless, beige-colored building on the publisher's block, would be the target of a picketing team from the metro section of the same newspaper.
Flogging the latest Steven Spielberg project which involves using 50-gazillion megabytes of computer power and more cash than the gross national product of the Ukraine to make a TV show on some kind of virtual reality living submarine with tentacular arms and talking porpoise sidekicks.
Anything on the information superhighway with the usual pro forma hey-even-I-could-think-of-that quotes from Ed Markey and Mitch Kapor.
Gadget stories - actually, unpaid advertisements - on the newest computer-chip controlled stun gun, the newest computer-driven home studio, the newest useless morphing software for amusing and cowing your friends, the newest wallet-sized computer which doesn't exist, the newest whatever-press-release-selling-it-came-in -through-the-fax-machine-today device.

Ah, but these are easy shots to take, being mostly the handiwork of features and entertainment reporters, long regarded as the soft white underbelly of the news media.

What about front page news? Take a look back at Joel Garreau's Washington Post expose of Kim Clancy and the AIS system.

It's reliance on the usual he said/she said reporting resulted in the trotting out of source Paul Ferguson who was able to pose as two people at once. This, perhaps, would not have happened had Garreau been more familiar with the complexities of computer security. As it was, the pursuit of the news from a human interest angle resulted in a set-up, or "official scandal" as its called by Martin Lee and Norman Solomon in a devastating criticism of journalistic methods, "Unreliable Sources: A Guide To Detecting Bias in Newsmedia" (1990, Lyle Stuart).

According to Lee and Solomon, "official" scandals as reported by the press, have certain hallmarks.

"The 'scandal' [came] to light much later than it could have." So it was with AIS: The hacker files were removed from the BBS weeks before the story was retold by The Washington Post.
"The focus is on scapegoats, fallguys, as though remedial action amounts to handing the public a few heads on a platter." Kim Clancy, the administrator of AIS, was the fallguy, er, fall-lady, here.
"Damage control keeps the media barking but at bay. The press is so busy chewing on scraps near the outer perimeter that it stays away from the chicken house." While the news media was chewing on AIS, it neglected to discover Paul Ferguson doing double-duty, anti-virus researchers helping themselves to dangerous code on AIS while complaining about it to others, and the ugly truth that much of the virus code and live viruses on amateur BBS's throughout the U.S. can be traced to AIS's opponents, a few of the same complaining researchers.
"Sources on the inside supply tidbits of information to steer reporters in certain directions -- and away from others."
"The spotlight is on outraged officials." In this case, "anonymous", Paul Ferguson, Ed Markey, etc., -- asking tough, but not TOO tough, questions.

Because it ran in The Washington Post, Garreau's story immediately touched off a wave of pack journalism. The Associated Press digested all the wrong, flashy aspects of Garreau's work. Specialty publications catering to corporate computer users published weird, warped tales on AIS, culminating in Laura Didio's August 9th feature in LAN Times which called Computer underground Digest "a BBS" and had the ubiquitous Ed Markey claiming that the AIS system had infected itself with a virus, a serious falsehood. This from a reporter, no, make that a _bureau chief_, who works for a computer publication!

So if the NIRVANAnet BBS operators are angry with Mike Liedtke for blind-siding them in the pages of The Contra Costa Times, good for them. If they think mainstream journalists have been doing a rotten job on computer stories, they have the ammunition to prove it.

It is right for them to expect more from journalists than the passing on of whatever received wisdom is currently circulating about the computer underground. It's perfectly legitimate to expect more from reporters than junk food computer news or dressed-up press releases. They're right if they think they're being patronized by news organizations which assign reporters who don't know what a modem is, have only been Prodigy members or who believe that being a "people" person is sufficient qualification to report in this beat.

Good journalists are obliged to be responsive and receptive to the beats and communities they cover. So it should be with the computer underground. It is not considered cool to use ignorance or inexperience as an excuse for slipshod work, to take the path of least resistance, to rely only upon sources who are mainstream professional acquaintances or whose names are right near the telephone. Those who think otherwise are jerks.

BUREAU CHIEF MR. RAOUL BADGER ADMINISTERS NATIONAL IQ TEST - ALL FLUNK, CITIZENRY DESPONDENT, PRONE TO ALCOHOLISM

Readers of my regular diatribes may be relieved to know that this is the time of year Mr. Badger abandons the highways and byways of cultured life and retires to the piney woods of the south east. Western Civilization can only improve as a result. [Of course, the thought of Mr. Badger patrolling the woods with high powered rifles in hand is not for the faint of heart, but let the residents of the South Carolina Piedmont worry about that . . .]

In a moment of reflection, and detoxification, I discovered a New York Times Book Review (August 29, 1993) cover story on hypertext works of fiction [known as Hyperfiction, doubtless a contribution from the Bill Gates school of marketing]. As one would expect, the emphasis is on the novels themselves, as opposed to the medium in which they are delivered. The reviewer in question is Mr. Robert Coover, a fiction writer and teacher at Brown University in Rhode Island. Mr. Coover has been conducting workshops in the use of hypertext for the writing of fiction for the past three years, and his experience shows.

A sidebar article entitled "And Hypertext Is Only the Beginning. Watch Out!" might sound naive and sensationalistic, but I get the feeling that shame for the headline can be laid at the editor's feet, because the article is a well balanced and fairly thorough introduction to everything from the what, how, and where of hypertext to the underlying implications of a format that allows the reader to select a plot line. A sample quote shows Mr. Coover's obvious fondness for the medium and his awareness of the realities of its use.

"It is the irresistible instructional power of hypertext that most convinces me of its inevitability as a medium for art, narrative and otherwise, for hyperfiction itself is off to a somewhat more hesitant start. For the narrative artist, hyperspace has all the charm of a starry sky in august: the weather's comfortable, the twinkle's alluring, but the vista's intimidating and there are no reliable star charts. It is pretty empty out there, too."

For those interested, look it up. It includes reviews of a dozen hypertext works and has a follow up article on William Gibson's "Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)". [Which no one in IBM-clone land has actually seen because it was priced so only the aristocracy could afford it.]

Normal reviews of the ubiquitous "Information Highway" articles have been suspended. One would have to be a Trappist monk to have missed them for never in the course of human events have so many, with so little knowledge, written so much to the annoyance of all. Our grand and glorious nationwide data and communications network might be coming, but in the meantime talk about it has clogged the bandwidth in half a dozen markets.

Now, those who have dared to read such dreck know that two perilous outcomes await the unfortunate reader:

BAD: Drinking too much booze and getting a killer hangover.
WORSE: Not drinking enough and having the recollections of yet another insipid article haunt your sober hours.

But never fear, for Mr. Badger feels compelled to share his personal guide to recovery from the flotsam and jetsam of "Information Highway." Yes! With this guide in hand YOU can safely traverse any article on the most popular non-existent news event of the season. Yes! Follow our lead and YOU will know exactly how much alcohol is needed to restore your sanity and self-esteem.

But be warned, this test not only measures the weakness of the piece in question, but your ability to handle the brave, new cyberworld. So gird your loins and prepare to keep score. Onward and forward! Hours of experimentation guarantee reproducible results!

>>TEST BEGINS HERE!<<

To read this newsletter, you are using:

a hardcopy printout (Go to #6) -an unregistered file utility (Go to #5) -a commercial/registered package (Go to #4) -a pirated commercial package (Go to #3) -"C:>TYPE CRPTLT.R18 | MORE" (Go to #2)

Lamer! This test has standards, and you failed the first one. Abort test. Reload in six months.
The Info Highway isn't even paved yet and you're already speeding? I like that. Start with 0 points. Cruise on over to #9.
The Info Highway don't need no blue-haired grannies clogging up the road. Start with 20 points. Find your way to #9.
One of those that'll keep it within 10 miles/hour of the speed limit, huh? Doubtless the Info Highway will be cluttered with such as yourself. Start with 5 points. Go to #9.
You're kidding, right? Oh, you're not! O.K., did you:

print it at office/school (Go to #7) -use a friend's printer (Go to #8) -use your own printer (Go to #2)

In that case, we'll cut you some slack. Anybody who's already freeloading has his heart in the right place. Start with 10 points. Go to #9.
Mooching off friends already? Nobody wants to be in a bus line for lamers on the Info Highway. Start with 15 points. Go to #9.
The article in question on the Information Highway:

doesn't mention Mitch Kapor (Go to #10) -quotes Kapor once (Go to #11) -quotes Kapor 2-4 times (Go to #12) -is an interview with Kapor (Go to #14) -is an interview and has his picture on the cover (Go to #13) -I thought Kapor's were something you found in sauces & appetizers (Go to #10)

Man, did you luck out. Mitch Kapor is usually seen more often than Elvis at a Memphis shopping mall. No additional penalty points added. Go to #18.
Only once? You get out easy with 5 points added to your total. Go to #18.
Ouch! Add 5 points per quote. Go to #18.
ABORT TEST NOW! You are now a [dis]honorary Kapor Catamite. When the Info Highway arrives, it'll find you by some sleazy off-ramp, dressed in high heels, torn hose, and a leather miniskirt, you cheap cyber-slut.
Man-o-man! You're in trouble now. Did you:

read the entire article (Go to #17) -glance over it (Go to #16) -look for laughs (Go to #15) -buy it for the interview (Go to #13)

What are you trying to do, steal Mr. Badger's job?!?!? Remember kiddies, this is a job for professionals. Do not attempt in the home environment. You've been warned! Go to #18.
You're still skating on thin, thin ice. Ten additional points need to be added to reflect you're obvious lack of judgment. Go to #18.
After reading the article, you feel,

Kapor is a pioneer, a leader, and a vital voice for the future of American computing (Go to #13)
Better Kapor than nobody else (Go to #16)
Thank God he isn't Bill Gates (Go to #15)

The Information Highway is presented as:

A total package for the future consumer (Go to #19)
A total package that doesn't exist yet (Go to #20)
An non-existent package and nobody knows what will be in it (Go to #21)
The latest techno-scam (Go to #22)

Yeah, right. 20 point naivete penalty. Go to #23.
Better, but still too rose-colored not to require a penalty. Add 10 points and go to #23.
Actually, probably the most accurate assessment possible. Go to #23 with no penalty.
Ahh, such corrosive cynicism is fine relief from the standard utopian pipe dreams. Subtract 10 points from your current tally. Go to #23.
Add/Subtract points for each of the following:

-10 for each quote from Emmanuel Goldstein -5 for each quote from an obscure, unknown technoid -3 for each quote from obscure corporate CEO scum -1 for each quote from a think tank/consultant +5 for each quote from Vice-President Gore +7 for each quote from Congressman Ed Markey +10 for each quote from Bill Gates
Go to #24.

The article:

doesn't mention ISDN (Go to #27)
mentions that the Bells (Go to #26) won't market it
explains that the initials (Go to #25) stand for: "It Still Does Nothing."

Stop. Send article to Mr. Badger. He won't believe it unless he holds it in his grimy little paws. Suspend test pending independent verification of your truthfulness.
Subtract 10 points. Go to #28.
Add 20 points. Go to #28.
In the article, the Baby Bells:

want to run the info highway (Go to #29)
want to run it and be free to create much of the programming (Go to #30)
will probably get "channel hopping" banned as "unlawful use of a carrier." (Go to #25)

This is news? They want to run everything. Add ten points and go to #31.
Yawn. Old news. Add 5 points. Go to #31.
In the article, the cable companies:

want to charge for the info highway (Go to #32)
want to run it and charge for even more channels (Go to #33)
are in a poor position to provide interactive services, already gouge consumers, and will doubtless want the public to pay for either fiber optics or new compression standards (Go to #34)

This is news? They want to charge for everything. (Compare with #29.) Add ten points and go to #35.
Surprise, surprise. Could only be news to a true Gomer Pyle. Add 5 points. Go to #35.
Don't bother sending the article to Mr. Badger. Even reporters know that the cable industry is run by creatures that have cirrhosis-scarred livers for a conscience. We'd give a penalty for old news, but we enjoy hearing the truth about the weasels too much. Go to #35.
You've reached the end of our handy little guide. Compare your running total with the chart below.

Results

0 or below: hard to believe, but you've managed to read an article on the Information Highway without needing any alcohol by the time you finished. Mr. Badger suspects that you started reading while already heavily intoxicated and skewed the results.
1 to 10: A few glasses of champagne should elevate your spirits. If you wish, you can substitute any of those adjective/noun drinks. [You know, Salty Dog, Pink Lady, etc.]
11 to 20: Beer. Drink it steadily. You should recover by the time you have trouble opening the bottles.
21 to 30: Long Island Ice Tea. Drink a pitcher with reckless abandon.
31 to 40: Good vodka. You're already in pain and there's no point wasting time. Don't let the ice in the glass melt.
41 to 50: Cheap vodka. Don't even bother with the ice.
51 to 60: Wild Turkey/Jack Daniels/George Dickel. Don't even bother with the glass.
61 to 70: Tequila. Go until the worms start to taste good.
71 to 80: Everclear/Ouzo/Agua Ardiente. Don't worry about where you drink it, you'll inevitably wake up elsewhere.
81 to 90: MD20/20 -- Thunderbird. Don't worry about where you drink it, you'll end up hospitalized.
91 to 100: Make sure your medical coverage is current. Work your way through ALL of the aforementioned.
100+: Rubbing alcohol/Isopropanol. Don't worry, the damage to your mind and soul are already done.

Submit results to Andy Lopez (Mr. Badger) at Crypt InfoSystems.

IN THE READING ROOM: "KIPPER'S GAME" BY BARBARA EHRENREICH

Let us now gore a sacred cow in favor of a new book you'll not want to miss. It's Barbara Ehrenreich's "Kipper's Game" (Farrar Straus Giroux, $22.00) and it greases William Gibson's "Virtual Light" as it backs its way, almost by accident, into the "cyberpunk" genre. Gibson, despite earnest efforts, has become a cliche, right down to the cyber shades on the cover of his new "Virtual Light." An _OK_ read that book, but not even close to "Kipper's Game" whose author is better known as a sharp social critic ("The Worst Years Of Our Lives") and a prattling essayist for TIME magazine who likes to talk about her daughter too much for the lip-reading Philistines which make up its subscribers.

But the flogging of crap for TIME hasn't hobbled the talent that went into "Kipper's Game," a story that pukes hackers, epidemiology, and scheming Nazis into a future pot which, for reasons I haven't figured out, evokes the same gray doom as Ursula Le Guin's "The Lathe of Heaven."

"Kipper's Game" drops you immediately into a world of petrified academics where aging blowhards perform like dancing bears for the vacuous while their research is propped up by cynical post-docs and graduate students. Sounds like it could be real!

The central character, Della Markson, is a woman whose life is crumbling, perhaps just like yours. Her son, Kipper, is missing - on the lam from unknown evil after developing a computer game which leaves its users wrecked.

"He would not kill another human being. But there was the game. The game was hard to explain. She had to admit that most people would stop if they designed something addictive, something that could leave people stupid or dead, they would not keep going with it, perfecting, refining," reads part of the book.

Ehrenreich hurls a rotting disease which hotwires the brain while it savages the body into the mix, too, something I haven't seen done effectively since Thomas Disch's "Camp Concentration." And, of course, no future dystopia would be complete without a nest of Nazi masterminds gone corporate, in this case - the "Erntegruppe," lurking behind every rock.

By the end of "Kipper's Game," everything is hammered shit; even the Supreme Being has shown up, blown its bugle and disappeared, unnoticed amid the squeal of TV talk shows, information overload and grasping bit-characters.

Don't cry for William Gibson as you give him the boot from your library - there's always "Beyond 2000" and OMNI magazine. Virtual, shmirtual - "Kipper's Game" is the genuine article.

--------------

Crypt Newsletter editor George Smith lives in Pasadena, CA. He has been on National Public Radio's "TechNation: Americans & Technology" and contributed to American Journalism Review.