Updata
Shrinking Military
Since we visited El Mirage, California, in Wired 4.03 (" Robots with the Right Stuff," page 148) to investigate a new breed of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under development, the field has evolved faster than anyone would have anticipated. The strangest new research concerns work on micro-aerial vehicles (or MAVs), some as small and agile as a hummingbird. Darpa has launched an initiative to develop these tiny craft and plans to spend US$35 million on them over the next four years. The agency foresees planes the size of your hand that can fire ammunition, survey targets, and inspect the inside of buildings. Darpa believes that practical MAVs are just a few years off. Developing them will force designers into a new régime of aerodynamics. To create vehicles that won't be blown off course by a light breeze, engineers may end up studying the birds and even the bees. As with UAVs, the first recon MAVs will likely be followed by more lethal versions.
Hacking the Great Firewall
"The Great Firewall of China" (Wired 5.06, page 138) told you how people in the People's Republic of China are embracing the Internet, while the government does its best to restrain it. But with Beijing's increasing reliance on computer networks, a threat it probably never considered has emerged to challenge its authority: hackers with a political agenda.
Since the 1989 crackdown on prodemocracy protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, a group of Chinese computer engineers, scientists, and human rights activists has been quietly probing China's government computer networks for security holes, gathering information and waiting for the right time to use it. Now that Hong Kong is back in Chinese hands, that time has come.
Operating under the name Hong Kong Blondes, the 20-member group recently introduced itself to Beijing by temporarily disabling a communications satellite. Led by a dissident astrophysicist living in Toronto under the handle Blondie Wong, the Blondes claim to have operatives stationed in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing - including three "highly placed" technicians working in Beijing, and a handful of government bureaucrats, many of whom lost family members at Tiananmen Square.
The US-based hacking troupe Cult of the Dead Cow has been advising the Blondes on network intrusion and strong encryption as part of a strategic alliance announced at the Beyond Hope Conference in New York last August.
The cult's "foreign minister," a former United Nations consultant known as Oxblood Ruffin, functions as a spokesperson for the Blondes. "Promises have been made to the people of Hong Kong, and if Beijing does not honor its commitment to the 'one China, two policies' arrangement, there will be some very serious technical consequences," Oxblood warns.
According to Oxblood, the Blondes claim to have hacked into every major Chinese government network and have already selected a handful of military and national security networks as targets of possible attacks. "Apparently, security was never really a concern on these systems," says Oxblood. "There are holes in some so big you could drive a Buick through them."
Hacking the communications satellite earlier this year "completely freaked out the high command of the People's Liberation Army," he continues. "They've never even considered a scenario for an internal network attack. It was simply beyond the scope of their thinking."
Civilian and government networks commonly used by the people have been left off the list of potential targets by the Blondes. "We don't want to keep the people from doing their business," explains Oxblood. "We won't touch things like medical records, the phone system, or social service agencies."
And while they would reveal no specific plans for the immediate future, the Hong Kong Blondes stand ready to hit their targets, warning they will escalate the severity of each successive attack if human rights issues somehow come to a head. For the moment, however, they are waiting to see how Hong Kong is integrated with mainland China. Says Oxblood, "As you know, the Chinese are known for their patience."
Hellraiser Unplugged
Our February 1995 issue ("Viruses Are Good for You," page 126) painted him as the consummate computer terrorist, but these past years have mellowed former virus writer Hellraiser. Now in his mid-20s, Hellraiser has settled into a life Ward Cleaver might envy. Living in a quiet suburb outside a major East Coast city (he asked us to be vague), Hellraiser is finishing college while working as a software designer. And he's left the computer underground far behind. "I got tired of the negativity," he says. 40Hex, the e-zine he founded, is likewise a distant memory, ceasing publication in late 1995. Hellraiser admits to missing his old life. "We were the premier virus-writing gang of the early '90s," he says. But he's still chagrined by his past antics:"The stuff we did was terribly wrong and terribly evil, and I'm probably going to Hell for it."
