Bulletin Board #2
#1
Summer Internships, 1997
Sponsored by the Department of Social Sciences
United States Military Academy
West Point, New York
Director: Captain Guy T. Cosentino
Commercial Phone: (914) 938-2866
Fax: (914) 938-4563
E-mail: jg5962@exmail.usma.edu
The Department of Social Sciences teaches core courses in
Economic Principles, American Politics, and International Relations to all cadets, and directs majors in Economics and Political Science that are taken by roughly fifteen percent of all cadets. During the summer cadets normally participate in military training, but they also have an
opportunity in the summer before their senior year for an internship with an agency related to their major. The purpose of the internship, or Academic Individual Advanced Development (AIAD) as it is known at the Academy, is to reinforce cadets' academic preparation with actual work experience. In turn, the AIAD program helps to enrich the academic program as seniors relate their internship experiences from the previous summer to their classmates in capstone electives.
We hope the internship will give cadets an appreciation for the
operation of the entire agency and the officials that supervise it, but our goal is really to give cadets an opportunity to work on substantive
material. We ask agencies to provide positions that allow cadets to work on specific projects or to carry out the actual functions of a particular official. In many instances in the past, cadets have served with distinction in the place of officials who were on leave or were on
temporary duty elsewhere. We ask an agency to designate a supervisor who can provide direction and, at the end of the internship, a one-page
evaluation of the cadet's performance using a form we provide.
The length of an AIAD opportunity is limited to three weeks. This
year, a three-week AIAD could begin as early as June 3rd and end no later than August 9th. The actual dates depend upon the needs of the agency, the training schedule of the cadet, and the availability of appropriate billeting. In some special cases, for those cadets who have met their military summer training requirements early, a special summer program extended to eight weeks can be arranged.
Our department's summer internship director is responsible for all
the administrative arrangements for each intern, to include travel,
billeting and financial support. This year, our department will send about 65 cadets on AIADs, at an average cost of $1500 each. We do our best to minimize those costs by identifying military housing in the area. We have far more applicants for this program than we can support with our limited funds. Wherever possible, we ask agencies to assist us by covering cadet temporary duty expenses. The return for the agency is without a doubt far beyond the small cost incurred.
All cadets arrive at their AIAD position with balanced backgrounds
in mathematics, science, and engineering, as well as English, philosophy, psychology, history, economic principles, American Politics, and International Relations. They are all computer literate, and they have completed at least two semesters of a foreign language. Those majoring in political science have also completed comparative politics, political philosophy, and political science methodology. Those majoring in economics will have completed intermediate microeconomics, intermediate macroeconomics, and an introduction to econometrics. Depending on the precise sequencing of their programs, they may have completed more advance work in those fields as well. We attempt to guide our most advanced students to the most demanding positions. Most agencies report that they
are impressed with cadet communication and leadership skills.
The following list of agencies that supported the program in the
summer of 1996 suggests the scope of the program:
Agency for International Development
American Red Cross
Brookings Institution
Congressional Budget Office
Crossroads Africa International
Defense Department
Office of Management and Budget
Save the Children
State Department
U.S. Congress
Various Elements of the Intelligence Community
Office of the Drug Czar
Captain Guy T. Cosentino, our program coordinator, would be happy
to provide additional information or answer any questions you might have.
He can be reached at the numbers shown above.
Passing this on as a public service.
#2
Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 14:54:23 +0800
From: JOHN DOSSANTOS
Reply-To: JOHND1@QINET.NET
Organization: QUANTUM NETWORK INC.
Subject: Antennas
Tim,
What I need is a source to get some info on some TSCM antennas. I can't seem to find what I need here or in Hong Kong. Any help would be
appreciated. Later....Ed Kriss
#3
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 21:01:38 -0500
From: jmatk@tscm.com (James M. Atkinson, Comm-Eng)
Subject: Re: BULLETIN BOARD #1
Regarding TEMPEST,
Back in the early '80 I attended several weeks of gvt training regarding TEMPEST technology and its implications on U.S. SIGINT efforts.
In the lab at Lackland we were able to monitor computer screens and video monitors for quite some distance, but the equipment was extremely expenive.
It always tickles me when someone "demonstrates" a Van Eck receiver for the media.
"If it doesn't involve a torque wrench, then it's not TEMPEST"
-jma
James M. Atkinson
Granite Island Group - TSCM.COM
127 Eastern Avenue #291 http://www.tscm.com/
Gloucester, MA 01931-8008 jmatk@tscm.com
The First, The Largest, The Most Popular, and the Most
Complete TSCM Counterintelligence Site on the Internet
#4
From: rkdixon@esper.com
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 17:45:49 -0500
Subject: Certification
On the topic of certification/association, etc. I have been involved some with a few efforts at setting up certification programs and could help out if needed. It appears that the following are the basic questions which need to be resolved:
- What is the minimum educational requirement? Do you allow equivalencies for experience and/or alternative training, such as military, etc.? From my reading, it appears that there is great variance between the quality of training from organizations and government entities.
- What is the "Body of Knowledge" (BOK) that you expect those individuals to be knowledgeable and proficient in? This would be a number of topics and certain familiarity with the techniques, equipment, etc. which are involved. Typically, the BOK of information is produced and is the basic study guide for the testing.
- Are you only going to consider "bug hunters" or also include "buggers". There may be a number of individuals who have a legitimate need and legal right to do this type of electronic surveillance and you may want to include them. Actually, it shouldn't affect the BOK much because TSCM folks need to understand how to do it themselves. Properly bounding the group of people you want to include may be challenging.
- The experience requirements may be most difficult to sort out. Someone who spent several years in the military working electronic countermeasures for opposing force radar, etc. may have knowledgthat doesn't lend itself to commercial sweeps, etc. Conversely, someone with almost no experience, but a lot of knowledge through reading, etc. may be much more qualified. There are a bunch of 18 year old hackers who understand more about computer security and how it is breached or how it can be protected than most other folks. Many organizations have established very stringent experience requirements only to find that those already in the biz will not allow any others to get enough experience to do it themselves. This keeps out any new blood and will quickly cause problems.
It seems that the best alternative may be to set up a fairly detailed BOK which is very comprehensive and develop testing which fairly evaluates ones knowledge of those important areas and make that testing the bulk of the decision. I am not sure that if that was done fairly, there doesn't seem to be any need for grandfathering anyone.
The comparison to the CPP certification is reasonable, although it doesn't allow for someone to study up and get knowledgeable without having to have some specific experience which may be difficult to obtain.
One of the important considerations is to develop a Code of Ethics or
Professional Responsibility which lists all of the important ethical
requirements. That should be fairly easy to produce and would help with the image of the specialty. Obviously, the legislative lobbying would be very important, since everytime ONE individual does something stupid, our enlightened government solves it by passing laws which affect the millions of people who weren't abusing their privileges or outlaws some form of technology.
Just my $.02 worth. Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss further.
By the way, my background is that I am a licensed, professional engineer with an Electrical Engineering degree (electronics) with about 25 years experience in commercial nuclear power, DOE, etc. in areas such as security, quality assurance, environmental, etc. I have had an avid interest in TSCM topics and have read quite a bit and have acquired several toys which I have used extensively (frequency counters, scanners, cameras, transmitters, etc.) and have a fairly decent understanding of what one can do in the area and how to detect them. I would love to get into the field at least part time, but the lack of available opportunities for training and experience are a real drawback.
Rick Dixon
#5
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 21:20:10 -0500
From: jmatk@tscm.com (James M. Atkinson, Comm-Eng)
Subject: TEMPEST
James Atkinson responded to the folowing:
After conducting quite a few searches on the internet and talking to quite a few people in the security industry I've concludedthat the TSCM field is somewhat chaotic and I have yet to find a single professional association. Please tell me I'm wrong.
Your 100% right, we have no single professional association... Yet
Anyway - what I have found is the usual cross-section of people....those with monumental egos based on +30 year old credentials and those who go quietly about their work and earn a solid living performing counter-measures sweeps. Of course, there are many different types in between the two extremes from the PI who occasionally performs TSCM sweeps to the full time, former government agent who wrote the book, so to speak.
I think that most TSCM'r would agree with you, but I've seen this attempted at least six times over the last 10-12 years. Each time the group fizzled out after only a few years.
I have several rhetorical questions to pose to the TSCM community:
- Has anyone given any thought to forming a professional association that would, perhaps, standardize some of the training and provide a 'network' of subject matter experts? Yep, Ray Jarvis has been trying to do this for the last 4-5 years; without success.
- Would the TSCM experts (you know who you are - you are the ones who rely on solid training combined with years of experience) consider stepping up to the task of creating a list of training and internship requirements or recommendations?
- If an association is formed would it be appropriate to create aself-imposed certification program? The organization should test and certify thru Drake (or a related testing company), and should have a program similar to Novell or the Microsoft certification programs. Also, credit banking (like what teachers do) is a must, this will allow a permanent record to be kept (updated yearly) of technical training.
- Could an association benefit the trade by forming a legislative action committee? (This one hurts to ask but it is probably one of those necessary evils - I've found that skilled TSCM Operators are often grouped with body guards, security guards and Alarm Monitoring Agencies.....I findthat very strange and attribute it to a high fiber diet (government and paperwork)).
Look what happened in NC's (it's become a bit of a joke...)
TSCM is a TECHNICAL TRADE not a security trade... and should be handled as such.
How about starting a ASIS or IAI sub group??? IAI would be best.
That about does it. Anyone out there have any thoughts?
Tim Johnson responded as follows:
That subject is being considered, even as we speak. I am working with
others to get something set up in which a certification program will be established. It aint' gonna be easy to get certified as we will establish training, experience, recent experience, ongoing training, etc. criteria, somewhat similar to the CPP program.
Be sure to look for technical background... STRONG TECHNICAL BACKGROUNDS
The certification will be for an individual only, not an organization and we will be soliciting feedback from a members clients to insure quality.
Outstanding IDEA
This will also assist corporate security personnel in determining some
level of competence of the providers of this type service.
Then why not associate it with ASIS??
James M. Atkinson
One additional item,
To be taken seriously the organization MUST have some type of formal
training program. Program should consist of multiple two week blocks, a full program would be a min of 6-8 weeks (on top of Basic Electronics classes). The program needs to exceed all DOD/DOE programs to be taken seriously, and to be an asset to the industry.
James M. Atkinson
Jim,
We are even looking at that for future areas of consideration.
Hopefully the existing schools will meet those standards. As it presently stands, some are just teaching equipment or state mandated curiculums.
TimJohnson
#6
From: gremlin@interserv.com
Date: Sun, 9 Feb 1997 19:52:22 -0800
MIME-Version: 1.0
Subject: Remember When
Gary Bunker wrote:
Do you remember when:
The spy band was from 100-300 MHz?
Zenith Transoceanic receivers were used for RF sweeps?
Kaiser RF4 field strength meters and 1059 audio amps were a hot item? If you mentioned spread spectrum frequency hoppers you would likely end up in prison?
Transistors didn't operate above 300 MHz?
All telephones were made by Western Electric?
All phones were analog and had a dial?
WECO 1A2 key systems with Sanbar cards were state-of-the-art?
G10F handsets were the in thing?
All land lines were copper wire?
A portable video system was a reel-to-reel recorder and a huge camera?
All video cameras used videcon tubes?
Javelin LL-863's were the best video cameras available?
VCRs weighed about 50 lbs and used U-Matic 60 minute cassettes?
Kodak Tri X Pan film pushed to ASA 800 was the best surveillance film available?
A clock speed of 4 MHz was considered fast for a computer?
A 5 1/4 inch floppy disk would store 180K of data or 360K if it was double sided?
No one could possibly fill a 10Mb hard drive?
A 300 baud modem was pretty hot?
TRS-80's, Apple II's and Commodore VIC-20's were the home computers?
Batteries were carbon/zinc, didn't last long, and leaked a lot?
Frequencies above 1 GHz were theoretical?
Cycles was used instead of Hertz?
PT-400 FM 2-way radios were the size of a lunch box?
Integrated circuits had two transistors, and four resistors in an epoxy cube?
No one could imagine a CM receiver with more features than a Mason A-3?
Comb filters weighed 60 lbs?
Frequency counters used Nixi tubes?
A PSM-6 VOM, TV-7 tube tester, A model 555 o'scope could trouble shoot anything?
GE-47 light bulbs were used instead of LEDs?
If you remembered more than 20, you are truly an Old Fart TSCM Technician (OFTSCMT). If not, some of us OFTSCMT's probably forgot more about counter measures than youíll ever know.
#7
Carolyn Tulloh at High Technology Consultants, an executive search firm specializing in intelligence information systems, has several urgent requirements for cleared networks engineers (Windows NT), Unix system administrators and Web-site managers for Intelink. For more detailed information, visit Web site or e-mail to , Voice: 703.218.2801.
Dear Friends,
Please bear with me for a few issues until I get this thing set up in some kind of format. It was done on the spur of the moment (I lied again, Kevin) with just a little thought as to the format. It looks so easy when I look at what others are doing.
Also, to be fair to everyone, I will be posting my responses the same as everyone else from this point on, although there will be some direct interaction, especially from those just seeking info and not wishing to make a statement or response.
For the sake of space/brevity, I will occasionally edit out the signature block when it has appeared in an earlier comment, leaving just the name of the responder/presenter.
Tim Johnson