statism watch

Paul Watson and Alex Jones, prisonplanet.com
October 21, 2005

Buried under the constantly updated reports of Hurricane Wilma, its increasing or decreasing strength and where it will make landfall, is the reality that the government already has developed technology enabling control and reduction of hurricanes.

However, unsurprisingly they have no shown no willingness to use it to save lives or businesses as we come to the conclusion of what many are calling the most unprecedented hurricane season in history.

Former Naval physicist Ben Livingston briefed President Lyndon B. Johnson on hurricane control technology 40 years ago and continues to try to educate the public on its potential effectiveness today.

During a recent appearance on the Alex Jones Show, Livingston outlined the basics of the technology.

“A hurricane is made up of energy sails and each of those sails adds to the ferocity of it. It was proven in 1974 by an international project that these energy sails exist and that they are the reason that hurricanes can develop and grow move and cause damages. So there’s no reason to attack the hurricane in total but just to fly in to the right front quadrant primarily relative to the direction the storm is moving in and seed those energy sails that are converging and making the rain and wind velocity increase in the front part of a hurricane.” Livingston asserted.

He went on to explain exactly how to minimize and control the hurricane:

” We would be trying to destroy or at least grossly reduce the velocity in these individual energy sails by seeding the clouds with silver iodide in the top part of the cloud… and those tops would then have so many small droplets in them that the prevailing wind just blows them away and so an energy sail would be neutralized until it can regroup which may be several hours later.”

The seeding process may sound complicated but it is not at all. There would be no need for more than two small aircraft at a time to safely fly upwards into the hurricane.

“We’re carrying more cloud seeding material on one airplane now, over 800% more on each plane than we had during Project Storm Fury” (The project set up by the US Government to discover how to control hurricanes in the 60s). Livingston added.

Alex put the question to Livingston, if it is so simple to do and the government knows how to do it and has been doing it since the 60s then why did they not attempt to minimize hurricane Katrina?

“This is a long story with a deep history. Back in the mid 50s, 1954 or so, the government allotted the first amount of money for weather modification and weather control practices to the US weather Bureau to the tune of about 30 million dollars.” Livingston said.

“Their charge was to employ the most brilliant scientists around the world, and meteorologists and physicists, to work out a concept for reducing damages from hurricanes. What brought that on was that we had three tremendous hurricanes in 1953 and ’54 that affected the twelve northeastern states… Basically The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was formed to take that responsibility.” He went on to say.

With Florida residents now being urged to evacuate and weather experts still unsure of Hurricane Wilma’s exact path, how long will it be before public interest peaks in weather control technologies and real pressure is applied to force the government into using them?

We won’t be holding our breath.

Source | See Also: Weather War? | NASA Funds Sci-Fi Weather Control Technology | Much of Britain sprayed in secret germ warfare tests

Robert Vamosi, CNET
October 14, 2005

Biometrics, although it’s been around for a while, is suddenly hot within the security industry. Over the years, I’ve talked with various biometric vendors and security individuals, and I’ve always come away with a lukewarm feeling about the matter. I like biometrics on my laptop but not at the airport. Now biometrics, specifically fingerprint scanners, may soon be coming to a retail store near you as a convenient form of payment. The genie appears to be out of the bottle, with talk of library cards and even automobiles equipped with biometric security devices available or coming soon. Yet the question remains: Are biometric devices more secure than existing methods? I think not.

Fingerprint scanning in a nutshell

You may not realize it, but the ridges in our fingertips have evolved over the years to allow us to grasp and grip objects with our hands. The ridges and valleys of skin are formed based on genetic and environmental factors, thus, fingerprints are said to be unique from individual to individual. Even identical twins do not share the same fingerprints.

There are two basic methods for scanning fingerprints: optical scanning and capacitance scanning. Optical scanning uses a charged coupled device (CCD) to take a picture of your fingerprint. In doing so, it flips the image so that the valleys appear dark and the ridges appear light.

In capacitance scanning, electrical current instead of light is used to make up a fingerprint sample. Your finger rests against an array of tiny cells. The benefit here is that capacitance scanning is much harder to forge than a mere optical scan of a fingerprint.

Whether it be an optical image or a capacitance scan, the fingerprint must be compared to an existing database. To compare the entire print would require a lot of processing power; instead, as seen on CSI and other crime shows, unique identifiers are tagged and compared against a standing database using algorithms. Unfortunately, there are no standards regarding fingerprint analysis–at least not among the many new commercial systems about to roll out.

Closed system vs. open system use

When it’s used on a closed system, such as a laptop or a flash drive, I have no problem with biometric security. Your unique fingerprint data is stored on media inside a device that is within your control. Any inaccuracies (any false identifier about your particular fingerprint) are confined to that closed system; there is virtually no chance of another individual having a fingerprint close enough to your own that it would give them access to that system. So in this sense, biometric devices are secure.

What I have a problem with is the use of fingerprints for open system use, such as identification at airports or biometric cash registers. Companies such as Pay By Touch are racing to install fingerprint readers at local points of sale; stores identified on its site are specific locations of Piggly Wiggly, Cub Foods, and Farm Fresh stores. The idea, according to companies such as Pay By Touch, is that swiping your debit card and keying your PIN takes too much time; it creates long lines at the checkout. With biometrics, they argue, you simply press your index finger to a pad, and your debit account is automatically accessed, and more people buy more things faster.

But is it secure?

I question the security of a one-touch payment system. With a debit card, I’m using two-factor authentication: I need the card, and I need a PIN number. With one-touch payment systems, you have only the fingerprint between you and fraud.

Built-in flaws in the system

Before we get too carried away with the intoxicating freedom afforded by using our own fingertips as valid authentication, Simson Garfinkel points out, in a recent issue of CSO magazine, several examples of built-in flaws regarding fingerprint scanning: What about children with faint and sometimes ill-defined ridges and valleys? Certain ethnic groups are at a disadvantage, having less-distinct fingerprints than others. And what about people without hands?

And certainly if you’ve watched enough television or read an issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, you know of a few ways to lift fingerprints using talcum and tape, or even gummi bears. In April 2005, security analyst Bruce Schneier wrote about a carjacking in Malaysia that involved the attacker sawing off the index finger of the victim in order to gain access to the victim’s biometrically secured Mercedes S-class.

Also, we’re human, and as we age, so do our fingerprints. Stored fingerprint data isn’t perfect (as mentioned above, it’s only a sampling of unique data points and not your whole fingerprint) and hasn’t been thoroughly tested over time. In other words, could a fingerprint sample provided as a teenager differ significantly by the time you reach your fifties? It could; we just don’t know yet what impact that may have on your electronic identity. That’s why I don’t think we should be jumping at the first opportunity to use fingerprint scanning instead of other forms of ID.

But the bigger issue is…

What will companies do with this new database of fingerprint information? My main objection to using biometric data in open systems lies within the database. We haven’t yet solved the problem of warehousing credit card and social security numbers, so why should I feel better about companies recording my fingerprint templates? A credit card you can cancel, and with some difficulty, you can also change your social security number (although you are better off not doing so). But if someone steals a database of unique fingerprint markers–well, then what?

Without adequately answering these questions, the Department of Homeland Security will soon issue biometric ID cards to its employees. And biometrics are being used in library cards in Naperville, Illinois. And now some theme parks are using hand geometries (not fingerprints) to track individual customers visiting the park, marketing it as a ticketless way to ride rides.

I think using fingerprints to secure a personal electronic device is fine. But I don’t think it’ll be more convenient or safe to use your fingerprint at the grocery store, not without an additional layer of security, such as a PIN–but that defeats the convenience argument. And finally, what will we do to police these various companies and organizations that now want to store our fingerprints in addition to our credit card and social security numbers? I plan to avoid these systems wherever possible and, for the time being, if alternative methods are not offered, I’ll boycott the businesses using them.

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