Epilogue: The Sound of Time

Use this section for any discussion specifically related to the chapters posted online of the unfolding biography, "Defying Gravity: The Parallel Universe of T. Townsend Brown
twigsnapper
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nearly a fit

Post by twigsnapper »

James and Paul, regarding " Charlie Wilsons War and everyone else who has talked of " keeping secrets". Great things are often accomplished by people that others are just not watching. That "covert" war was such a well kept secret that many of the boys over there even now do not know the history of the CIAs relationship in the area. And the longterm result of the actions of so few people. But sadly there is a line that I found appropriate " and the ball keeps on bouncing".

Some of this might make you smile Paul.

I understand that Joanne Herring nearly had a fit over Sorkins initial script and it was only after some muscle arrived to hold up Wilson and Herrings end that he revised the script.

I thought that you might see some similarities between Joanne and Jackie Cochran. No one ever sucessfully waged a war against either of those women!

Thought you all would enjoy this ...

"Herring, played by Julia Roberts in the Mike Nichols film, tells us she "practically choked" when she read Aaron Sorkin's original screenplay. The movie ended with a shot of the Pentagon in flames, implying that Herring and Wilson (played by Tom Hanks) had abetted Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda crew.

"Can you ever predict a war?" she argues. "The shelf life of a Stinger missile is five years. There's no weapon we got them that can be used today."

Herring also didn't cotton to the way Sorkin had Roberts swearing, spouting evangelical screeds and engaging in martini-fueled romps with Hanks.

"I didn't like the cursing, the drinking, the blatant sex," says the 78-year-old thrice-married Houston socialite, philanthropist and former talk show host. "They turned me into a kooky, hypocritical tart."

Ah, perhaps, but Roberts was fun to watch anyway. twigsnapper
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Post by Trickfox »

Declassified NSA Document Reveals the Secret History of TEMPEST
By Ryan Singel April 29, 2008 Wired ONLINE
9:07:00 PMCategories: Sunshine and Secrecy

It was 1943, and an engineer with Bell Telephone was working on one of the U.S. government's most sensitive and important pieces of wartime machinery, a Bell Telephone model 131-B2. It was a top secret encrypted teletype terminal used by the Army and Navy to transmit wartime communications that could defy German and Japanese cryptanalysis.


This teletype-encryption machine, known as the Sigaba m134c, was used alongside the Bell Telephone machine found to be leaking signals. The Bell 131-B2 used special one-time tapes to create unbreakable codes.

Then he noticed something odd.

Far across the lab, a freestanding oscilloscope had developed a habit of spiking every time the teletype encrypted a letter. Upon closer inspection, the spikes could actually be translated into the plain message the machine was processing. Though he likely didn't know it at the time, the engineer had just discovered that all information processing machines send their secrets into the electromagnetic ether.

Call it a TEMPEST in a teletype.

This story of how the United States first learned about the fundamental security vulnerability called "compromising emanations" is revealed for the first time in a newly-declassified 1972 paper TEMPEST: A Signal Problem (.pdf), from the National Security Agency's secret in-house journal Cryptologic Spectrum.

"There has always been speculation about TEMPEST coming out of the Cold War period," says Joel McNamara, author of Secrets of Computer Espionage: Tactics and Countermeasures, who maintained for years the best compilation of public information on TEMPEST. "But the 1943 Bell Labs discovery is roughly ten years earlier than I would have expected."



The unnamed Bell Telephone technician was the Alexander Graham Bell of a new, secret science, in which electronic eavesdroppers -- as far away as hundreds of feet from their target tune into radio waves leaking from electronic equipment to steal secrets.

Building on the breakthrough, the U.S. developed and refined the science in an attempt to spy on the Soviets during the Cold War. And it issued strict standards for shielding sensitive buildings and equipment. Those rules are now known to government agencies and defense contractors as TEMPEST, and they apply to everything from computer monitors to encrypted cell phones that handle classified information.

Until now, little has been known about when and how the U.S. government began trying to protect itself from this threat, and the NSA paper tells the story well.

Bell Telephone faced a dilemma. They had sold the equipment to the military with the assurance that it was secure, but it wasn't. The only thing they could do was to tell the [U.S. Army] Signal Corps about it, which they did. There they met the charter members of a club of skeptics who could not believe that these tiny pips could really be exploited under practical field conditions. They are alleged to have said something like: "Don't you realize there's a war on? We can't bring our cryptographic operations to a screeching halt based on a dubious and esoteric laboratory phenomenon. If this is really dangerous, prove it."

So the Bell engineers were place in a building on Varick Street in New York. Across the street and 80 feet away was Signal Corps Varick Street cryptocenter. The engineers recorded signals for about an hour. Three or four hours later, they produced about 75% of the plain text that was being processed--a fast performance, by the way, that has been rarely equaled.

Oddly, the lessons were forgotten at the close of the World War II -- even as the Soviets seemed to have learned to insulate their machines. In 1951, the CIA told the nascent NSA that they had been playing with the Bell teletype machines and found they could read plain text from a quarter mile down the signal line.

In 1962, the Japanese, then our allies, attempted just that by aiming antenna on top of a hospital at a U.S. crypto center, according to the article. And the Russians did the same -- planting not just the famous 40 microphones in the U.S.'s Moscow embassy, but also seeding mesh antenna in the concrete ceiling, whose only purpose could have been stealing leaked energy pulses.

The principal of the TEMPEST attack is deceptively simple. Any machine that processes information -- be it a photocopier, an electric typewriter or a laptop -- have parts inside that emit electromagnetic and acoustic energy that radiates out, as if they were tiny radio stations. The waves can even be picked up and amplified by nearby power lines, telephone cables and even water pipes, carrying them even further. A sophisticated attacker can capture the right frequency, analyze the data for patterns and recover the raw information the devices were processing or even the private encryption keys inside the machine.

Decades ago the FCC has set standards prohibiting electrical devices from interfering with other ones, concerned merely about noise. These days we know that computer monitors, audio cables and other information machines like credit card machines in restaurants actually emit sensitive information.

Outside of the government, almost nothing was known about how such eavesdropping worked until 1985, when a computer researcher named Wim van Eck published a paper explaining how cheap equipment could be used to pick up and redisplay information from a computer monitor. The first mentions of TEMPEST began in the mid 60s, and Gene Hackman introduced the Faraday cage to the public in the 1970s in the classic eavesdropping movie The Conversation.*

In addition to explaining how the U.S. discovered compromising emanations, the declassified NSA document provides a surprising historical snapshot of Cold War espionage techniques, says McNamara.

"It is ... interesting that CIA rediscovered the vulnerability in 1951 and work on countermeasures soon followed," he says. "One can assume that the U.S. Intelligence Community also begin using the electronic surveillance technique against foreign powers during this same time frame. From the 1953 and 1954 dates mentioned in the document, it seems the Russians were aware of the vulnerability by then, and were taking measures to secure their communications equipment.

Pennsylvania University science professor Matt Blaze also expressed some amazement at the Bell researchers discovering as early as 1943 that digital equipment leaked information.

"The earliest reference to emissions attacks I'm aware of ... is Peter Wright's recollections, in his book Spycatcher, of following around spies in 1950's London by tracking the local oscillators of their radio receivers," says Blaze. "But that's analog, not digital."

The NSA did not declassify the entire paper however, leaving the description of two separate, but apparently related, types of attacks enticingly redacted.

One attack is called "Flooding" and the other "Seismic."

The idea of being able to steal plain text of an encrypted message using earthquake sensors? Stinkin' cool.

THREAT LEVEL anxiously awaits the back story on that attack to be told.

*Professor Matt Blaze questions whether Hackman was in a Faraday cage in The Conversation, since Hackman was able to transmit out. He was definitely in some sort of metal cage, but I may have jumped to conclusions about its Faraday-ness.
So.....When are they going to declassify the next stuff?

This is simply diverting attention away from what is going on NOW.

Trickfox
The psychopropulsier (as pointed out in the book The Good-bye man by Linda Brown and Jan Lofton) is a Quantum entanglement project under development using Quantum Junctions. Join us at http://www.Peeteelab.com
htmagic
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van Eck phreaking

Post by htmagic »

Check it out.
I know someone that used to be in the Navy reserves that did this type of stuff. That's why secure communications were done in secure rooms with Faraday cages. The new LCD monitors radiate less but still can be picked up. Also, those ferrite beads on the cables remove the radiated signals from the lines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Eck_phreaking

MagicBill
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Aaron Sorkin

Post by Paul S. »

James Barrett wrote: Or, haven't you seen the movie yet? That one role is worth watching. And of course Sorkins " You aint no James Bond" is almost as good as some of the other lines. Course I remember you might be still in a tiff with the writer?
Yes I've seen the movie (Charlie Wilson's War) though I have to confess a certain reluctance at the time, because, as you say, I find myself in a bit of "a tiff" with Mr. Sorkin over his handling of facts -v- fiction in his recently closed Broadway play, "The Farnsworth Invention."

The play calls itself an "historical drama" but, from my perspective at least, it plays like "The Philo Farnsworth story as told by the RCA PR department," which has been the problem for like 60 years now...

I met Aaron about a year ago and conducted a seminar with him, and was quite accommodating, perhaps in the misguided anticipation that I would somehow ingratiate myself to the guy. But once I started speaking publicly about the historical transgressions in his play (see http://thefarnsworthinvention.com), we've been more or less at loggerheads. More recently, I gather I have earned the enmity of the entire cast and crew, as evidenced in a comment offered by Jimmi Simpson (the actor who played Philo in the play) posted to the http://farnovision.com website.

In fact, today is looking like the day I try to explain to Aaron etal why any of this matters: if we don't appreciate where the breakthroughs actually come from, what chance do we have of recognizing them when the next one comes along?

Or something like that.

Who was it who said that history is just "lies agreed on" ? I think it was Napoleon.

--PS
Paul Schatzkin
aka "The Perfesser"
"At some point we have to deal with the facts, not what we want to believe is true." -- Jack Bauer
Mark Culpepper
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watched it three times

Post by Mark Culpepper »

No explaination for it but I watched " Charlie Wilsons War three times just recently and was fascinated with the Joanne Herring character and I thought. What would SHE think of your book and what you are trying to say here Paul. Course she might see it in a purely Christian light but it seems in the movie ( what can I actually trust of that script) that she felt strongly that they were all put together to get something accomplished ... and they did. So maybe while others might not recognize what is going on here, she might. Of course I don't know anything more about her than I have seen on the film and just read from Mr. Twigsnapper. But seems the lady is a powerful force here and just might understand. Strangely, I think of " Claire" in Enigma, the sword over all of their heads and then I think again the name " Caroline". When Roberts was telling Charlie Wilson what he had to do, practically step by step ... and the Soviets were defeated ... I thought ... do you see what this film is saying. Somehow these few individuals made a historic difference. Isn't that what is needed today? MarkC

PS Anybody happen to know Ms Herring? What does she think of Pauls book?
Victoria Steele
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remember

Post by Victoria Steele »

Why bother explaining to Sorkin? Great flipping idea! Remember the women! I would contact Joanne Herring.

Only Paul, before you contact her you might reconsider your use of the sort of condescending phrase " suruppy sweet voice" when you mentioned "Mr. Papermans" secretary. Or at least the woman who placed the call. Your dislike of things Texas showed like a cheap slip. And ladies from that area just might pick up on that. I did. <g> Victoria
Last edited by Victoria Steele on Fri May 02, 2008 1:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
htmagic
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Re: Aaron Sorkin

Post by htmagic »

Paul S. wrote:<SNIP>
Yes I've seen the movie (Charlie Wilson's War) though I have to confess a certain reluctance at the time, because, as you say, I find myself in a bit of "a tiff" with Mr. Sorkin over his handling of facts -v- fiction in his recently closed Broadway play, "The Farnsworth Invention."

The play calls itself an "historical drama" but, from my perspective at least, it plays like "The Philo Farnsworth story as told by the RCA PR department," which has been the problem for like 60 years now...

I met Aaron about a year ago and conducted a seminar with him, and was quite accommodating, perhaps in the misguided anticipation that I would somehow ingratiate myself to the guy. But once I started speaking publicly about the historical transgressions in his play (see http://thefarnsworthinvention.com), we've been more or less at loggerheads. More recently, I gather I have earned the enmity of the entire cast and crew, as evidenced in a comment offered by Jimmi Simpson (the actor who played Philo in the play) posted to the http://farnovision.com website.

In fact, today is looking like the day I try to explain to Aaron etal why any of this matters: if we don't appreciate where the breakthroughs actually come from, what chance do we have of recognizing them when the next one comes along?

Or something like that.

Who was it who said that history is just "lies agreed on" ? I think it was Napoleon.

--PS
Paul,
http://www.quotegarden.com/history.html wrote:All the ancient histories, as one of our wits say, are just fables that have been agreed upon. ~Voltaire, Jeannot et Colin
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art14845.asp wrote:15 "What is history but a fable agreed upon?"
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
16 "History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon."
-- Napoleon Bonaparte
So even that may be muddied.
But Paul, some of us read your story on Farnsworth long ago and know the truth. And we believe that you, as a writer, took great pains to accurately portray this man's biography. It went so far that others decided to do a play and maybe a movie as a result.

But, some people will go to the Internet to study more and that's when they will learn the TRUTH. And that's when they will learn the true story of Philo T. Farnsworth and read your site. If the director changed the truth to suit his (or others) motives, so be it. He will have to live with those consequences. Do not repay anger for anger but rather win them over with your kindness, generosity, and charm. We on this site know you have it. It is understandable to be upset but you (nor I or others on this site) have the scales of justice in our hands.
And it is a good thing we don't! :wink:

Look on the bright side of things. Maybe once they see the play and wish to learn more, they will come to your site and learn that Farnsworth had the answer to FUSION energy, something the Department of Energy (DOE) has been wasting billions of dollars on for years. And maybe they will demand that DOE fund the fusion project that works!

And once they see the Farnovision site, maybe people will be curious and start to learn about Thomas Townsend Brown and your work on this site. Once they do that, maybe we'll have the paradigm shift that we've been looking for and uncover the hidden technologies and agendas.

So look for the good, Paul, and you'll find it. Look for the bad and you'll find it too.
But it's always better to look for the good... :)

Peace,

MagicBill
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FM No Static At All
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Post by FM No Static At All »

Thought I would add this to the controversy.
http://www.fusor.net/board/view.php?bn= ... 1188238350

Fred
Victoria Steele
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putting the fix in

Post by Victoria Steele »

So .... to buy a little more time on their fusion effort they fudged the results? As if others haven't done that from time to time. But it always comes back to bite them.

On another subject since everything else is so heavy, a bit of hollywood magic also . The new movie IRONMAN. All you guys out there especially have to see this one! It was actually more interesting than I expected it to be with all the gadgetry, Paul, you will love it. Mr. Twigsnapper I am sure will approve of the red headed leading lady. I thought of you Mikado more than once, and anyone who sees the movie will know exactly why ....(the testing was the greatest!) I even thought of Trickfox and his " hic cup" phrase and actually wondered if that particular scene happened to be there just for him. ( Though its nice to think that you would never be under that sort of pressure! ) and I have a challenge for all of you who have kept up with all of the conversations that we have had here on this forum. I dare you to find what I consider the rest of the " cosmic ha has" in this movie. It takes " working out of your garage" to a whole new level, believe me! And there were two things at the end that made me immediately think of Dr. Brown. Avalon and Catalina Island is mentioned!..... and at the absolute end of the movie just remember what we have all been saying " Do the unexpected!"

Its fun and worth the ticket. My humble opinion. I just wish the power supply and the propulsion was silent ...... but that wouldn't be as spectacular.More efficient surely though then!, the ultimate universal soldier .... and stone silent. sheeze. Gort again! Victoria
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Re: putting the fix in

Post by Mikado14 »

Victoria Steele wrote: So .... to buy a little more time on their fusion effort they fudged the results? As if others haven't done that from time to time. But it always comes back to bite them.

Well Red, you are probably right, in most instances. But remember, buying time is only a stop gap procedure and just as in majeek, you have to pay the fiddler is you want to dance.
Victoria Steele wrote:Mr. Twigsnapper I am sure will approve of the red headed leading lady. I thought of you Mikado more than once, and anyone who sees the movie will know exactly why ....(the testing was the greatest!) I even thought of Trickfox and his " hic cup" phrase and actually wondered if that particular scene happened to be there just for him. ............. It takes " working out of your garage" to a whole new level, believe me!
Funny you should bring this up. Garages, barns, basements...whatever. Time to put up or shut up is just over the horizon. Who here will rise to meet that challenge for the dawn is almost upon us and the sleep is almost over and for someone special.....the faceless man has appeared twice during the day.

Mikado
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy
Victoria Steele
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names and faces

Post by Victoria Steele »

Just another few things about that recent movie IRONMAN.

I thought that it would just be a superman type cartoon thingy but it was scarey how relevant most of it was. The opening scenes ( won't spoil it) were chilling.

But I was looking at faces. and again ( not spoiling it) I thought immediately of Morgan strangely when the Bridges character was introduced. I don't know, just sort of how I had him pictured as an older man. Course ( not spoiling it here) ... I liked him better earlier in the movie!

And I thought how wonderful it would have been if Dr. Brown had had the robotics and the computers and everything. Can you even imagine what he would have been able to accomplish. And of course , there is the endless ( almost) supply of funding for the work that he would have wanted to do. And then I thought but that is really what is coming up in the world and to go forward now with Dr. Browns work those people in white coats WILL HAVE that kind of interlocking technology. We are finally catching up. And IRONMAN is not all that fantastic .... really. Perhaps someday you won't even have to have anything called a " warbird". The soldier himself would suffice. But then ...as the movie tries to point out .. there has to be a different look besides weapons! . Victoria
Radomir
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idea

Post by Radomir »

Saw the movie last night and agree with you that there is definitely more than one thread in common with and at least one directly relevant to our discussions here.

"You think just because you have an idea, that it's yours?"

Ouch.

Did you stay until the very very end past the credits? If not you missed about 30 seconds of additional film. Not vital, but for old fans, definitely an tantalizing prelude to the next movie.

Best,
R.
Victoria Steele
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I figured

Post by Victoria Steele »

I figured that there was going to be a sequel when the Air Force guy hesitated in front of another prototype ... a silver one? and said something like ... " someday". If thats the case then I can barely wait to see the next movie.

Using others as a tool too ... sad but so true. Like the early CIA directive ( before Charlie Wilsons input ,I understand) was to " bleed the Russians dry of bullets by feeding them Afghan targets." Til the Afghans started shooting back.

Speaking of "Charlie Wilsons War" watching the time sequence of things being shot down during 1987-88 and I did have to wonder what our man Morgan was doing during those years particularly? He spoke fluent Russian, so was he translating? Was he part of the special ops training Afghan troops? If so then it makes more sense that he would return there toward the end of his career. Paul can you tell us anything more? Seems to me that he would have been involved in seeing to it that the Russians pulled out of that territory. That might have been a worldwide and maybe even a top priority Caroline Group interest, but like Mr. Twigsnapper said " the ball is still bouncing."

And Radomir ... with Ironman I was very aware of the inner struggles being shown and wondered how in the world someone would EVER be able to pull off developing something radically new in this age of almost everybody knowing everything. I'll bet right now even my keystrokes are being monitored because this forum has hit some pretty interesting topics for alot of silent people out there. Am I being paranoid? Or a realist?

And when we have that meeting in Philadelphia, or where ever ( save me a dance and a seat) will Paul have to ask again "How many of you are from the CIA? Or the " intelligence community" or however he is going to phrase it. As I recall in Vegas one lady actually raised her hand. (Or so I was told) We have alot of very silent visitors to this forum and I will be willing to bet, wherever this meeting is, representatives will be there too.
And just like that bottle of scotch handed to Charlie Wilson. Multinational bug gathering.

OK. Now nobody wants to go. Hey. I am just speaking of some of the concerns right off the top of my head. Remember what Radomir quoted from the Ironman. and I agree. Ouch.

And damn. I left too soon. I guess that I will have to see it again. Trickfox? Have you seen yourself yet? The guy who mentions your favorite word? Pure you! Victoria
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Ironman

Post by Trickfox »

Well Victoria

I will go and see the movie but it will have to be in French because they don't show any movies in English in my part of Canada.

I wonder if they will say "hiccup" in the French version.
Trickfox
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Re: Ironman

Post by greggvizza »

Trickfox wrote:I wonder if they will say "hiccup" in the French version.
How do you say hiccup in French?

GV
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