Bogus Words Sprinkled in E-mail Can Confuse Computers
Here is a roundup of the latest wiretap news:
Washington Visitors Offered Wiretap Tours
Do you have a hankering to see the underground hotel parking garage in Crystal City where the FBI videotaped a congressman taking a $100,000 bribe? Would you like to stay in a hotel room in Bethesda with two-way mirrors that is a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives favorite for sting operations involving illegal weapons sales? How about standing on the open-air roof of a tour bus and peering through binoculars at the National Security Agency campus at Ft. Meade? It’s all available from Spymaster Tours, a Washington, D.C. company that specializes in national security tours. If you choose to spend the night in the hotel room with the two-way mirrors, Spymaster will furnish you with a notarized certificate attesting that no one will be watching from the other side of the mirrors during your stay.
Software Can Foil, or at Least Confuse, E-mail Monitors
A Silicon Valley startup company is offering a new e-mail program designed to fool National Security Agency computers monitoring your e-mail. The software, named Take That!, randomly sprinkles keywords through your e-mail before sending it. NSA computers reading your e-mail will immediately consider it harmless and move on to the e-mail of others in the ceaseless search for messages that threaten national security. For example, if the Take That! user selects the “Bush-Cheney Friendly” option from a pull-down menu, the software will automatically insert phrases such as “Bush rules, Dude!” or “I’d go hunting with Dickey Baby any day” or “Alberto is soooo cute, it just gives me goosebumps.” Take That! users who are feeling daring, can select “Prankster” from the pull-down menu. E-mails will then be randomly sprinkled with phrases like “I love Osama”, or “Where can I buy three tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer” or “For Sale: uranium hexafloride centrifuge. Quick sale for cash. Unmarked $100 bills only.”