WE ARE THE ENEMY: BUNKER MENTALITY IN USAF INFO-WAR KOOKS

Just in case you've harbored the suspicion that Crypt Newsletter exaggerates the outright paranoia now gripping portions of the United States military with regards to the Internet, in this issue I've excerpted substantial portions of an article which appeared in a July 1996 issue of Intercom, an electronic publication published on a Web server out of Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Intercom is a good source of US Air Force orthodoxy on the topic of information technology as it pertains to members of the service.

In this article, the information airmen of Goodfellow AFB, Texas, tell us they're already under attack. Computer viruses, say soldiers, are continuously assaulting the base, leaving it in essentially a continual state of information war. While the article may appear reasonable to the principals who commissioned it, publishing it on the Internet has only served to reinforce the notion that some "info-warriors" in the U.S. military are starkly paranoid nutcases.

It's a whole new realm of warfare and you're no longer safe at work or at home," said Lieutenant Randy Tullis, for Intercom.

"As evidence of the increase in information warfare activity, communications officials at Goodfellow have logged 12 incidents of computer viruses in less than four months this year," said Sgt. Michael Minick.

The Intercom feature continues, "In all of 1995, [Goodfellow] handled 14 cases [of computer virus infection.]"

"While viruses are not an all-out war waged against the base with weapons of mass destruction, the results can be devastating," states the article, rather balefully.

"Information warriors will try to deal heavy blows in future wars, and Goodfellow and its 315th Training Squadron is at the forefront in training defenders against these warriors," the article says.

"The most popular aspect of [information war] is the process of attacking and protecting computer-based and communication information networks," said Goodfellow AFB's Captain Tim Hall.

Hall had also advertised on the Internet in mid-November 1996 for an info-war instructor at Goodfellow. The job description called for a captain's rank to "[Create and develop] infowar curricula for all new USAF Intelligence personnel; Supervise IW Lab development, student training, infowar instructional methods and infowar exercises."

"Some attacks are by people who unintentionally access networks and others are by those bent on destroying government computer data through use of devastating viruses and other means," said Hall.

"Students also learn how other countries such as Russia, China and France plan to conduct [information warfare] operations," said Hall.

"Indeed," said Crypt Newsletter.

It's war -- war against hackers, say the information soldiers of Goodfellow.

Instruction courses at the base are designed to inculcate "basic awareness in the defensive skills needed to recognize and defeat information warriors, commonly called computer hackers," Hall said for Intercom.

Goodfellow is stepping up efforts to train its information warriors. "We are going to propose Team Goodfellow build an advanced [information warfare] course," said another soldier. "It will teach offensive and defensive concepts in a classroom and hands-on training in a lab environment," which is a tricky way of saying that soldiers think hacking the hackers, or whoever they think might be launching info-war attacks, is a savvy idea.

Long-time Crypt Newsletter readers probably can't help but recognize trenchant similarities between the quote of Goodfellow info-warriors and examples of the paranoid rantings found sprinkled through the writings of teenager-composed 'zines from the computer underground ca. 1992.

We'll kick them off Internet Relay Chat. They'll never get channel ops on our watch. Yeah, that's the ticket.

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Additional color: Alan Dunkin promptly wrote to Crypt Newsletter with some additional local commentary on the environment in which Team Goodfellow operates. He speculates on possible causes of institutional paranoia.

"My freshman year straight out of high school I decided to go out of town and went to Angelo State University, in San Angelo, Texas," writes Dunkin. "I'm not sure why, but Angelo State had a good music program and a [supposedly] decent computer science program, which was my major back then. And I decided to go the 300 miles or so [from Dallas] and see what it was like."

"The USAF runs classes right out of Angelo State and, of course, I'd also see training aircraft from Goodfellow, which is based in San Angelo, all the time. I also knew students who were either in ROTC or knew someone inside of Goodfellow.

"During and after I left, I kept track of Goodfellow throughout the years, and that base has been the center of some strange happenings which might explain a lot of broad paranoia about that place:

* In 1993 I was told that Goodfellow was the center of intelligence 
  training in the USAF, and computer technology.  I really didn't believe
  it, and still don't -- to an extent.

* A high ranking officer was caught distributing child pornography 
  throughout the BBSes in the San Angelo area, though apparently not 
  from the base itself.

* Angelo State was supposed to be one of the top notch computer
  science schools in the entire "Key" country -- west-central Texas -- 
  although the its facilities were fairly pitiful and the labs were 
  constantly infected by viruses. (One of which I nearly transmitted on
  diskette to Jim Thomas at NIU by mistake.) [The viruses] supposedly 
  got spread by the ROTC students who worked on Goodfellow machines.  
  I could never confirm this though.

* There are a lot of pranksters and techno-weenies at Angelo State, many 
  whom I knew created viruses for the express purpose of destroying 
  information, records, etc., on school computers.  I never heard of any 
  successes (in such a relatively small town and university things like 
  this spread  quickly via word-of-mouth) but the air force base systems 
  would have been a tempting target [for these types].

"I think the combination of incidents, the apparent breaching of Goodfellow AFB security -- which was weak to begin with, the numerous technological problems that surrounded Goodfellow and the jump on the technology bandwagon, may have contributed to the feeling of distinct paranoia at Goodfellow as described by Crypt. I'm not really surprised. In 1993 during my Freshman year they had hardly heard of the Internet in San Angelo, while I petitioned in the local newspaper for access. Supposedly school access would be attempted within 2 years, an appalling [lag] for a school -- and city -- that likened itself to be a technological mecca in the west Texas scrublands."

Dunkin also commented one searing case in 1995 involving base security. Tracy McBride, a 19-year old servicewoman, was abducted from a Goodfellow laundry and later found dead under a highway bridge in an adjacent county. Her murderer, an out-of-state man, was captured.

Paranoid or not, for a long time Goodfellow has been a training school for some air force intelligence activities. From a biographical sketch of the base:

"In 1958, Goodfellow's mission became the training of Air Force personnel in the advanced cryptologic skills that the Security Service required at installations worldwide. Eight years later, in 1966, the mission expanded further to include joint-service training in these same skills for Army, Navy, and Marine Corps personnel.

"[By the 80's] senior intelligence personnel had . . . begun seriously to contemplate the consolidation of all Air Force-managed intelligence training to one location. The site selected for intelligence training consolidation was Goodfellow, and the base was designated a Technical Training Center in 1985. During the next three years, ITC brought to Goodfellow advanced imagery training from Offutt AFB, Nebraska, electronic intelligence operations training from Keesler AFB, Mississippi, and targeting, intelligence applications, and general intelligence training from Lowry AFB, Colorado."

Not all USAF intelligence training is conducted at Goodfellow. However, a sampling of the Top Secret courses taught at the base are:

Military Geography as Related to US Intelligence Problems   
Clearance: TOP SECRET/SCI            
Objective: Provides a brief overview of geography, geopolitical
environment, society, economics, lines of communications and military
forces structure of the CIS, and other strategic areas as they relate
to intelligence problems. 

Introduction to US Imagery Reconnaissance            
Clearance: TOP SECRET/SCI    
   
Special Studies              
Clearance: TOP SECRET/SCI     
   
Objective: Provides advanced multi-sensor imagery analysis techniques
to solve specific intelligence problems. Examines doctrine,           
techniques, and countermeasures unique to denial and deception,
low-intensity conflict, counter narcotics, and special operations.

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Relevant links.