UPDATE: The Archive’s latest EBB from Jeffrey T. Richelson shows that since at least 1997, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been responsible for developing ways to attack hostile computer networks as part of the growing field of Information Warfare (IW), according to a recently declassified internal NSA publication. The NSA’s Computer Network Attack (CNA), comprises “operations to disrupt, deny, degrade or destroy” information in target computers or networks, “or the computers and networks themselves,” according to the NSA document, which is one of 98 items the Archive is posting today that provide wide-ranging background on the nature and scope of U.S. cyber activities. Check out the EBB on the Archive’s website for a detailed overview of U.S. cyber concerns, and for an interesting precursor to cyber warfare get reacquainted with Agent Farewell, the CIA’s modification of Soviet computer technology, and the subsequent Siberian Pipeline explosion.
Agent Farewell and the Siberian Pipeline Explosion
Around Halloween 1982, an explosion occurred in the middle of Siberia, vaporizing a large segment of the newly-built trans-Siberian pipeline. The explosion –which was reported to be 1/7 the magnitude of the nuclear weapons dropped on Japan during WWII– severely damaged the pipeline, which was set to produce $8 Billion in petroleum revenue annually for the USSR. Only recently has this silently successful CIA operation been disclosed to the public.
The tale begins with agent “Farewell,” Vladimir Vetrov, a Colonel who served as one of the heads of the KGB Directorate tasked with stealing Western technology. In 1981, disillusioned by Soviet life, Vetrov suddenly sent French Intelligence, la Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST) – a collection of over 4,000 pages of highly classified Soviet documents pertaining to industrial espionage ventures. It was immediately clear that the intelligence was vital. The data included the names of 250 KGB agents (located abroad and well covered), tasked with stealing Western technology, but the most useful item was a “wish list:” the technologies most sought by the Soviet intelligence. (more…)
