41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
41 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
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Dateline: Jan/12/92
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OPERATION DESERT STORM, ONE YEAR LATER
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American Agents Set Virus loose in Iraqi defense computers
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Several weeks before the air campaign of Operation Desert Storm began,
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U.S. intelligence agents notched up the odds for the American-led coalition
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a bit.
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The agents had identified a French-made computer printer that was to be
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smuggled from Amman Jordan, to a military facility in Baghdad, where it was
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to be used in a computer network critical to the coordination of Iraq's
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formidable air-defense batteries.
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They were said to be second only to those of Moscow.
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According to two senior U.S. officials familiar with these events,
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this is what happened next.
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The U.S. agents in Amman replaced a computer microchip in the French-made
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printer with another microchip provided by the National Security Agency (NSA)
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in Fort Meade,Maryland. Technicians there had designed a computer virus into
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the tiny electronic circuits of the microchip.
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The virus was designed to disable a mainframe computer the officials said,
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but by attacking through a printer, known as a "peripheral" piece of
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equipment, it was able to circumvent the electronic security measures
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designed to protect mainframe computers from such interference.
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The virus was cunningly designed, and must have driven Iraq's air-defense
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computer technicians to distraction.
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Once the virus was in the system,the U.S. officials explained, each time an
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Iraqi technician opened a "window" on his computer screen to access the
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information, the contents of the screen simply vanished.
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The virus seems to have worked as planned,the two officials said. The irony
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is that it was probably not needed.
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The coalition's overwhelming air-superiority would have ensured pretty much
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the same result whether the Virus had been used or not.
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Source of this Tidbit: Boston Sunday Herald 1/12/92
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