Clinton freezes U.S. assets of Mideast groups

here's something I found in my mailbox:

___
	 WASHINGTON (Reuter) - President Clinton has ordered a freeze
on the U.S. assets of 12 Middle East ``terrorist'' groups, the
White House said Tuesday.
    White House spokesman Mike McCurry said Clinton had signed
an executive order ``to block the assets in the United States of
certain terrorist organizations that threaten to disrupt the
peace process'' in the Middle East.
	 ``The action will specifically prohibit certain kinds of
financial transactions with these groups,'' McCurry said.
	 The groups include Hamas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad, Abu
Nidal, Black September, the Fatah Revolutionary Council, Kach,
the Palestine Liberation Front, and the Islamic Group, McCurry
said.
	 He did not name the others, but said there would be more
information released at a 2 p.m. EST White House briefing with
officials from the Treasury, State and Justice departments and
the National Security Council.
	 Under the order, charitable contributions to these groups in
the United States will also be blocked, McCurry said. He said
Clinton had also frozen the U.S. assets of 18 individuals
suspected of involvement in Middle East terrorism, but McCurry
did not name them.
	 Clinton signed the order Monday night and it took effect at
midnight EST the same day, McCurry said. He said the president
acted under the authority of the International Emergency
Economic Powers Act.
	 Clinton plans to discuss the matter in his State of the
Union address to Congress Tuesday night, McCurry said.
	 ``One of the things the president will address in the State
of the Union tonight is the  new world in which we live, in
which there are new types of threats to our security and to
global security,'' he told reporters in his office.
	 ``We just had a very painful and tragic reminder of that in
Israel in recent days, and that's the impact of terrorism,''
McCurry said, referring to a weekend terrorist bombing that
killed 18 Israeli soldiers and a civilian. Islamic Jihad claimed
responsibility for the bombing.
    McCurry said the decision was the result of a detailed and
lengthy review within the U.S. government of how to combat
terrorism. The goal was to make it harder for these groups to
finance their activities by cutting off their  U.S. sources of
support and blocking their access to the U.S. financial system,
he said.
	  Clinton is also preparing anti-terrorist legislation,
McCurry said.
	 ``We do need additional legislation that would further
assist the efforts to combat terrorism, and the president will
soon send the Congress a comprehensive anti-terrorism package
that would stregnthen our ability to prevent terrorist acts, to
identify those who perpetrate violent acts and bring them to
justice,'' McCurry said.

The Eurodollar market got started because Russia feared 
arbitrary confiscation of its dollar bank accounts.

In the West, we see governments arbitrarily and
capriciously stealing financial assets.

As a result first world banking no longer has a large
advantage over third world banking.

This will eventually inject serious money into cyberspace
financial institutions -- once they exist, run smoothly,
have credible audit trails and a reputation.

At present it seems to me that unix machines on the internet
are intrinsicly insecure -- the methods used to secure them
are a collection of ad hoc patches.  For example all
unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan
horse attack.

(I expect the usual flame from Perry that I am stupifyingly
ignorant and that that is all fixed or will be shortly 
-- no Perry it is not all fixed -- it cannot be fixed.  
The necessary fixes have to be designed in at the
beginning.)

In consequence finance software running on the internet is
only acceptable for small time stuff.

Windows NT is supposedly secure.  Certainly its design makes
it possible to write software that is intrinsicly secure,
rather than creating a particular fix for each particular
hole.   The perimeter you have to defend is much smaller
and easier to explore.

On the other hand existing Unix security is probably
adequate for immediately proposed uses of internet
money -- selling beads and trinkets.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
                                          |  
We have the right to defend ourselves     |   http://www.catalog.com/jamesd/
and our property, because of the kind     |  
of animals that we are. True law          |   James A. Donald
derives from this right, not from the     |  
arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.  |   jamesd@netcom.com

In article <Pine.3.89.9501241122.A12422-0100000@netcom10>,
"James A. Donald" <jamesd@netcom.com> wrote:
> 
> At present it seems to me that unix machines on the internet
> are intrinsicly insecure -- the methods used to secure them
> are a collection of ad hoc patches.  For example all
> unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan
> horse attack.

Actually, I don't believe that HFS's B3 Unix is vulnerable to this.
And I understand that it is not available in a shrinkwrap version
for the '486.  I do not know if it is a restricted purchase item,
though.  I know it can't be exported with out license.

On the other hand, it's also multi-K$. :-(

> (I expect the usual flame from Perry that I am stupifyingly
> ignorant and that that is all fixed or will be shortly 
> -- no Perry it is not all fixed -- it cannot be fixed.  
> The necessary fixes have to be designed in at the
> beginning.)

True.  But they did build it in from the beginning. :-)

--
America - a country so rich and so strong we can reward the lazy 
          and punish the productive and still survive (so far)

Don Melvin                  storm@ssnet.com                finger for PGP key.

"James A. Donald" says:
> At present it seems to me that unix machines on the internet
> are intrinsicly insecure -- the methods used to secure them
> are a collection of ad hoc patches.  For example all
> unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan
> horse attack.
> 
> (I expect the usual flame from Perry that I am stupifyingly
> ignorant and that that is all fixed or will be shortly 
> -- no Perry it is not all fixed -- it cannot be fixed.  

Actually, I would be curious to find out from James what the hell he's
talking about. Yes, if you get a priv'ed user to run a program it can
do anything. Thats the case in all operating systems that I know of.

> Windows NT is supposedly secure.

And my mother is a bicycle.

NT is about as secure as VMS was, i.e. not at all. Its just got
different bugs.

> Certainly its design makes it possible to write software that is
> intrinsicly secure, rather than creating a particular fix for each
> particular hole.

You mean, it makes proof of security possible for real programs? That
there is a proof of security available for the NT kernel? I'd settle
for a proof of non-crashing myself. Short of that I'm unaware of any
system that is "intrinsically" secure.

Now, I don't believe, in general, in flaming people for gross
ignorance, but it seems that Mr. Donald believes that there is some
sort of design flaw in Unix that makes it "inherently insecure". I
have no idea what this flaw might be. I know that Unix suffers from
the same problem all other operating systems from MVS to VMS to NT to
whatever else you can name suffer from -- bugs that make it possible
to break the system. If Mr. Donald can name an operating system that
has some sort of systematic way to make it secure that he knows of --
in other words, a formal proof of security of the system (i.e. an A1
secure system by the formal nomenclature), I'll happily hear about it
from him for the first time. Certainly my teachers never heard of such
a thing, and neither have I.

Perry

Now that the damage is done, (the assets frozen) I hope that all the
good black-marketers kept enough to keep them online, till the groups
can manage to sell some more oil. (Anyone ever price snake oil?)

Meanwhile, a national emergency, could ultimately force one that uses
PGP to have to either work for the Defense Dept. or a related company
that serves the Dept. directly. The Gulf War didn't cause any ripples,
but then PGP was in its infancy then. If they want to limit usage, it
sure looks like a good way to start.

Carol Anne

Registered<BETSI>BEllcore Trusted Software Integrity system programmer
***********************************************************************
Carol Anne Braddock   "Give me your Tired, your Poor, your old PC's..."
The TS NET                                  REVOKED PGP KEY NO.0C91594D     
carolb@spring.com                                       carolann@mm.com
************************************************************************
COMING SOON TO AN INTERNET NEWSGROUP NEAR YOU...............CENSORED.COM

On Tue, 24 Jan 1995, James A. Donald wrote:

> For example all unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan horse attack.

Ah, which one would this be?

-- 
Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) | dave@esi.com.au | VK2KFU @ VK2AAB.NSW.AUS.OC | PGP 2.6
Opinions expressed are mine. | E7 FE 97 88 E5 02 3C AE  9C 8C 54 5B 9A D4 A0 CD

> 
> On Tue, 24 Jan 1995, James A. Donald wrote:
> 
> > For example all unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan horse attack.
> 
> Ah, which one would this be?
>


The same one that causes airplanes to crash.  :-)

This was obviously a doofus statement and should be treated as such.

- paul

 
_______________________________________________________________________________
Paul Ferguson                         
US Sprint                                          tel: 703.689.6828
Managed Network Engineering                   internet: paul@hawk.sprintmrn.com
Reston, Virginia  USA                             http://www.sprintmrn.com

James A. Donald writes:
 > For example all unix machines are vulnerable to the trojan
 > horse attack.

*The* trojan horse attack?  I'm not sure I understand that
phraseology; it (methinks, perhaps out of confusion) seems like saying
that JFK International is vulnerable to attack by the terrorist.

| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |