'Hello Kitty' battles in cyber wars

[William Knowles <wk () C4I ORG>]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_lobaido_news/20000930_xnlob_hello_kitt.shtml

[Fact, Fiction, or Stephen Glass' new pseudonym?  -WK]


September 30th 2000

By Anthony C. LoBaido

Computer hacking activities have increased markedly in Asia as groups
of cyber warriors target everyone from communist governments to
software consultants to drug-running juntas.

One of the many tools these hackers use, however, doesn't quite fit
the mold of 21st century weapon of war -- it's known as "Hello Kitty."
The Japanese-created image -- which adorns everything from pencil
boxes to noodles to lawn mowers in the Pacific Rim nations -- has
spawned a multi-billion dollar empire. So great is the popularity of
Hello Kitty that last year, when a McDonalds in Taiwan ran out of
Hello Kitty dolls during a promotion, a full-scale riot broke out,
complete with injuries and police.

Now, the latest step in the evolution of Hello Kitty has arrived. The
kitten is now officially a weapon of cyber warfare waged by
anti-fascist hackers targeting the oppressive regimes of communist
China and the narco-junta in Burma / Myanmar.

"Hello Kitty is sweet, innocent and popular. It is a well-known
symbol, especially in Asia. I would put it on a par with Coca Cola,"
said Kim So Young, a South Korean, college-aged hacker who works with
the shadowy Laurie Holden Hackers based in Thailand. The group --
which is pro-Taiwan, pro-West and anti-globalist -- is named
lightheartedly for the resemblance its founder, former British M16
agent Tracey Kinchen, shares with actress Laurie Holden of "The X
Files" fame.

"Our group, of course, is totally nonviolent. That's the reason we are
fighting the oppressive and violent nature of the regimes in communist
China and Burma in the first place. Hello Kitty is perhaps the most
nonviolent symbol on the planet, at least as a symbol that has mass
market appeal in the age of consumerism," Kim said.

WorldNetDaily has reported on the atrocities the Burmese junta
committed against the pro-U.S. / UK Karen rebels and documented how
communist China is coordinating the persecution of Christians in
Southeast Asia.

Additionally, WorldNetDaily reported on the creation of the Quantum
photon key, a new encryption method that may forever change the nature
of computer hacking and espionage.

"Nonviolence is the key," says Kinchen. "We'd like to think of
ourselves as 21st century Ghandis."

A graduate of Oxford, Kinchen says the group relies in part on a trust
set up by her wealthy grandfather, whose business ties spread to Hong
Kong, Kenya, South Africa, the Isle of Man and other outposts of the
British Empire.

During the recent election in Taiwan, Kinchen and her young Thai
assistants Mini Jet and Maxi Coke traveled to Taiwan, where, working
with the Taiwanese military, they spread the Hello Kitty logo on a
multitude of PLA computers as a countermeasure to PLA attacks on
pro-independence Taiwan based websites.

While they may consider themselves to be sovereign individuals, the
new breed of computer hacker is increasingly selling his or her
services to the highest bidder -- be they rebel groups, oppressed hill
tribes or rogue governments themselves. From Burma to Beirut, from
Hong Kong to Havana, from Taiwan to Tennessee, cells like the Laurie
Holden Hackers are coming together in an effort to organize resistance
movements, network, share skills and, of course, market them.
According to the experts who track the activities of hackers,
Afrikaner enclaves in South Africa, Eastern European states like
Bulgaria and Poland, as well as Singapore and Malaysia are the top
breeding grounds for world-class hackers and groups.

These hackers, many of whom have found their genesis at third-world
universities, are becoming increasingly sophisticated. A spokesman for
the British Embassy in Jordan told WorldNetDaily that such hackers,
"while being a nuisance to the corporate world, can be a useful
intelligence tool to penetrate the cyber operations of rogue states
hostile to the West and cults, which, of course, oppose the core
social, political and religious values of the West."

So great is the newfound power of transnational hacking groups that at
the recent G-8 summit held in May, the world's richest nations
actually established a formal program to determine how best to respond
to the hackers and their increasing power. Areas where hackers are
currently active on behalf of government-sponsored asymmetrical
warfare and propaganda programs include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kashmir,
Kosovo, Taiwan and South Korea.

Nations like China, Russia, Iraq, Cuba and Iran are believed to have
assembled the best non-Western cyber-warfare programs. Cyber-warfare
control measures and agreements seem almost an impossible idea to
implement at this time, especially in a field which is growing and
changing on a daily basis. Since the U.S. boasts almost half of the
world's total computing capacity, it has the best means to wage
offensive war in this theater. It also stands to suffer the worst
consequences of such an attack.

Present Clinton recently ordered the creation of a special American
force to conduct cyber warfare and also set up a system to recruit the
very best computer students at American universities to carry out such
attacks. By the end of 2000, the U.S. military will have brought all
of its offensive cyber warfare operations under one roof at the U.S.
Space Command in Colorado.

Reflecting on the culture within her hacking organization, Kinchen
notes: "With us, everything is an open book. We are all on the same
page with clearly defined goals: oppose totalitarian regimes and the
Western transnational elites who traffic with them by using cyber
warfare."

Kichen added that she learned from her time with the Hong Kong Blondes
to set up small hacker groups in "Maoist-style cells" independent of
one another. That way, she said, "If the head gets chopped off,
another can grow in its place without the larger group being exposed
or compromised to the ruling powers."

In their recent "attack" on the PLA websites, the Laurie Holden
Hackers, using an idea conjured by Kim, spread this sophomoric
message, littered with Korean characters, which poked fun at the
amount of makeup South Korean women wear:

Yo Bow Sayo, [Hello] Go-yang-e, [Kitty] Yo Bow Sayo. I've got a
toolbox full of makeup. My boyfriend didn't call me. I've got a brand
new cell phone covered with stickers from Hello Kitty. In explaining
why they continue to fight against the Burmese junta and communist
Chinese, group member Mini Jet told WorldNetDaily: "There are very few
jobs available in Bangkok now because of our economic problems. When
the people no longer have any virtue, they don't care who rules them.
Look at the popularity in South Korea of the North Korean dictator,
despite all of his crimes. We've got to keep spreading the message of
freedom and try and awaken the masses from their slumber."

Among the group's recent missions is to monitor attacks on the
websites of Falun Gong -- the Chinese martial arts / spiritual group
-- as well as the recruitment activities of the North Korean hacker
ace "Kuji" who, not long ago, hacked into the top-secret files of the
Rome Air Force base in upstate New York.

Additionally, the hackers have worked for Japanese corporations
seeking to gather intelligence on Japan's Om Shin Rikyo cult, which
has raised its own army of computer programmers who have installed
computer systems in almost 100 top Japanese corporations. No one knows
what's been installed along with the assigned data. Bugs? Root-access
privileges? Remote transmitters and monitors perhaps? The cult has
stolen, through backdoors it set up at various outposts in Japan's
military industrial complex, secrets from the nation's top programs in
the fields of lasers, nuclear warfare, counter-intelligence and space
flight operations.

Om's cult is best known for its 1995 Sarin nerve-gas attack on the
Tokyo subway which injured more than 5,000 Japanese citizens. Om's
group is home to some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the
world. It has raised over $1 billion in legitimate computer sales
within the nation. Moreover, its "M" division has done work for
Japan's version of the Pentagon, the national phone system and many
top corporations. The leader of the group, Shoko Asahara, has learned
to cruise Japan's top universities to find new recruits to head his
ambitious chemical, computer and other scientific projects.

The Laurie Holden Hackers, however, continue to focus most of their
attention on the cyber operations of China's People's Liberation Army.
Those operations aimed at cracking down on Internet freedom "have
grown more bold since China was allowed permanent trade status by the
U.S. Congress," said Kinchen.

Internet use in China has doubled in the year 2000, climbing to a
total of almost 17 million users. As the numbers of users increase,
however, so do the measures to crack down on the Internet inside the
communist nation.

* China's state security police pulled down the PRC's "first ever"
  pro-democracy website and began a manhunt for Xin Wenming, who
  allegedly posted "counter-revolutionary" content on the
  www.xinwenming.net website, attracting a large swath of China's
  dissident community.

* Huang Qi, a man from Sichuan who published information on the
  Internet about the 1989 military crackdown at Tiananmen Square,
  faces trial for subversion. Huang faces life in prison if convicted
  on charges of "subverting state power."

* China has set up an Internet police force in central Anhui province
  and has said that similar task groups would be set up in over 20
  other provinces. Internet cops will work to help local banks
  identify and close loopholes in their electronic information
  networks and train volunteer "electronic security guards."

* China arrested a high-school teacher for posting articles on the
  Internet critical of the communist authorities. Jiang Shihua, a
  27-year-old computer-science teacher was arrested for articles
  published under the penname "Shumin," meaning "common citizen" in
  the Chinese language. He faces a 10-year prison sentence if
  convicted.

* In a page from George Orwell's "1984," the PLA forbids increasingly
  popular local portals from posting news reports from sources other
  than state-controlled media.

* On Aug. 22, Chinese President Jiang Zemin expressed alarm over the
  free flow of "uncensored information on the Internet" and called for
  an international treaty to "police" the World Wide Web.

"There is no stopping the information age. There are no 'electronic
security guards.' The Internet is Gutenberg all over again. The ice is
melting around the feet of the butchers currently ruling in Beijing,"
concluded Kinchen. "It's only a matter of time before they fall into
the pond -- and no one's going to care if they drown."



*==============================================================*
"Communications without intelligence is noise;  Intelligence
without communications is irrelevant." Gen Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
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