[109166] in Cypherpunks
Mind control for animals, and espionage [fwd from Spyking@com2.com]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sunder)
Fri Mar 12 15:32:05 1999
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 15:15:39 -0500
From: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
To: cypherpunks@algebra.com
Reply-To: Sunder <sunder@brainlink.com>
[fwd from the Spyking mailing list: Spyking@con2.com]
Subject: Are you scared enough yet ...?
Compare the following two published items and draw your own conclusions.
By the year 2025 or so: "Chips will be implanted into our bodies, serving as a
combination credit card, passport, driver's license, and you name it. It might
also give us extra mental power." Edward Cornish, President of the World
Future Society, quoted in Executive Update Magazine, March 1999, page 6.
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(Following was cut for brevity but the remaining text is unedited.)
March 7 1999 BRITAIN "The Times"
Cyber-brains unleash the rats of war
by Steve Farrar and Mark Macaskill
Military scientists are developing computer technology that could, in the
future, be implanted into animals’ brains, turning them into electronically
controlled “soldiers”.
Such creatures could be used on the frontline to search contaminated
terrain unfit for human soldiers, hunt for people trapped inside collapsed
buildings and act as advance “troops” to pick out enemy positions and mines.
Chips connected directly into the animals’ brains would allow their
controllers to manipulate their movement via radio links, while cameras and
other devices mounted on their bodies would allow them to send information
back to base.
A team at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington has succeeded in
growing brain cells onto microchips which would be used to create devices that
can detect nerve gases. The research is being conducted by Dr Joel Schnur and
colleagues in the biomolecular science and engineering group at the secretive
pure research laboratory. He declined to discuss their work last week.
The technology’s potential for creating electronically controlled animals
was revealed by a recently retired associate director of the laboratory who
spoke at a defence science conference in America.
Pat Cooper, a defence expert who attended the meeting, said the director
had announced: “Once this technology [connecting neurons to microchips] is
proved, you could control a living species.” He refused to discuss details
when Cooper approached him afterwards.
Other scientists in Europe and America have also connected neurons to
microchip circuitry and a team in Japan has been able to stimulate the muscles
in a cockroach leg with electrical signals so that its movements can be
controlled.
Trial and error testing to find out which parts of the animal’s brain
needed to be stimulated to make it move in the desired direction would
probably be sufficient, said Professor Kevin Warwick, head of the cybernetics
department at Reading University.
“It is quite possible we will be able to control an animal’s movements
remotely - and there could be big advantages for the military,” he said.
END
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Subject: Eavesdropping scandal trial opens in Madrid
Spanish eavesdropping scandal trial opens in Madrid
___________________________________________________________________
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Two former top officials of Spain's spy agency
and five ex-agents went on trial Wednesday for allegedly leaking
state secrets and wiretapping the telephones of Spain's king and
other public figures.
Emilio Alonso Manglano, former director of the CESID military
intelligence service, and Col. Juan Alberto Perote, a former
clandestine operations chief, both testified in the trial's opening
day.
Manglano, Perote and five former CESID agents are accused of leaking
to the media CESID's recordings of telephone conversations made in
the 1980s of some of Spain's best-known figures, including King Juan
Carlos and ex-Real Madrid soccer team president Ramon Mendoza.
If convicted, the defendants face jail terms ranging from four months
to four years.
Perote was already convicted in 1997 of leaking documents about a
campaign against Basque separatists and was sentenced to seven years
in prison.
Perote claimed throughout his trial that then-Prime Minister Felipe
Gonzalez knew about death squads that targeted separatists but did
nothing to stop them. Gonzalez repeatedly denied his government was
behind the squads.
The spying scandal contributed to Gonzalez's 1996 electoral defeat
after nearly 14 years in office. It also led to the resignations of
Socialist Deputy Prime Minister Narcis Serra and Defense Minister
Julian Garcia Vargas.
Although Gonzalez's government denied the agency was ordered to spy
on public figures, documents confiscated from CESID by a National
Court judge showed that CESID had tapped numerous telephone
conversations of the king and others.
Excerpts of the conversations were published in 1996 in the Madrid
daily El Mundo.
More than 20 witnesses, including CESID agents, are to testify in the
trial, which is expected to last at least three months.
****************************************************************
Subject: ESPIONAGE Chinese national, companies indicted in Canada
Chinese national, companies indicted in Canada
BOSTON (AP) -- A federal grand jury has indicted a Chinese immigrant in
Canada, a Chinese national and two companies on charges they tried to
illegally export military equipment from Massachusetts to China.
Collin Xu, 33, also known as Collin Shu, a naturalized Canadian citizen
who lives in Montreal, was arrested Feb. 11 in Boston by customs agents.
He has been charged with violating the Arms Export Control Act,
conspiracy and money laundering.
Yi Yao, 33, of Beijing was arrested in San Diego on Feb. 22. Yao was
also accused of violating the export control act.
Xu conspired with Yao to ship military fiberoptic gyroscopes overseas,
according to the indictment.
``This was a concerted effort to export valuable American technology
that can be used in missiles and guidance systems to China,'' U.S.
Attorney Donald K. Stern said after the indictments were handed up
Tuesday.
Gyroscopes are used in navigational systems for, among other things,
missiles, ``smart'' munitions and aircraft guidance systems. They also
can be used to stabilize platforms for weapons systems, Stern said.
The men's companies, Lion Photonics Inc. of Beijing and Lion Photonics
Canada Inc. of Montreal, were also indicted on charges of conspiring to
violate the arms export act.
Prosecutors said the alleged scheme involved a plan to purchase the
gyroscopes, manufactured by an unidentified Massachusetts company that
did not know of the plan, and ultimately to export them to a Beijing
firm by way of Xu's Canadian company without properly notifying the
State Department.
The money laundering charges stem from Xu's alleged transfer of funds to
Massachusetts from Canada with the intent to ship munitions equipment
illegally.
Xu has been detained by order of a U.S. Magistrate Judge pending a
hearing on the grounds that he presents a flight risk. Yao is expected
to be transferred from San Diego to Boston later this week.
Xu faces a maximum penalty of 65 years in prison and $1.25 million in
fines. Yao faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000
fine.
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