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Cuba answers US cyberterrorism lies 6/17/01 |
From: Jose G. Perez
Date sent: Sun, 17 Jun 2001 22:29:54 -0400
As people know, for several years the U.S. government has been raising the threat of "cyber terrorism" to justify U.S. government research and preparations to carry out aggressions over computer networks.
Over the last couple of years, these preparations have become so intense that the U.S. Government has begun sending reps from the FBI, CIA and other spook agencies to what were once quasi-underground hacker gatherings like the annual Def Con mid-summer blow-out in Las Vegas, offering free college educations to hackers who agree to go to work for the NSA, etc.
In February, U.S. government mouthpieces went further, accusing Cuba of preparing to wage cybernetic war against the United States. The accusation is, of course, silly, and, at any rate, any nation that hooks up computers to the internet the way most computers are being hooked up to cable modems in the U.S. is its own worse internet security enemy.
It is child's play --literally, something teens and preteens do for amusement-- to turn a couple of hundred wintel boxes with cable modems into zombies that can be mustered for a DDOS attack --like the one that shut down cnn.com, yahoo.com and many other sites last year-- with a single command sent over an IRC channel.
Steve Gibson --the hacker (in the original, not sensationalist news media, sense of the word) who wrote the legendary "spinrite" tweak program-- has extensively documented this on his security web site (www.grc.com).
The charge of cyberterrorism against Cuba doesn't come out of thin air, however. It is the U.S. government's response to Cuba's campaign to spread the use of the internet and computers and transform the entire island into a university through the broadcast of various courses on television.
Cuban President Fidel Castro took up these charges last week, and this round table discussion is a follow up to his talk.
These were the concluding comments on tonight's Cuban TV "round table" talk show on U.S. charges that Cuba is preparing "Cyber Terrorism" against the U.S. This is my translation from an audio tape of the concluding comments.
I did not catch the entire program and it is unclear to me whether this was a live event or a rebroadcast of a round table discussion from the day following Fidel's speech on this matter, as part of what I quote below seems to suggest.
I did not catch the names of the commentators on the tape, however, the last part appeared to be a written statement delivered by the person that usually hosts these shows.
***
Let me start where she ended, on the literacy campaign.
I remember the literacy campaign. And when one sees these programs, that passionate desire to bring culture to everyone, when one sees the television sets, the VCR's, the solar panels in the schools no matter how remote they may be, one remembers the 1961 literacy crusade.
It was an act of justice. An act of justice. So that no one would remain an outcast, no one would remain unable to read and write and participate and make decisions.
Just like now, where no one should remain isolated from these new technologies. No one should feel themselves to be at a disadvantage. Whether they live in the hills or on the plains, in the city or the countryside. They must be able to participate, to contribute, in this expanding cultural universe which has been unleashed in Cuba, in this country, after the battle for Elián, after the Congresses of the UNEAC (National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) and of the UPC (Union of Journalists of Cuba). And after all these programs that are being carried out.
Computerization will make us more complete. It will make the economy more efficient. The computerization of society will make Cubans wealthier, both materially and spiritually. There will be more time to enjoy sports, reading, there will be more time for the family, there will be more time to take part in a society like ours.
* * *
[host]
And just as they tried in 1961 to murder the teachers who carried literacy to our people, so now are they trying to kill the new programs that our Revolution has created for our children and for our youth. But that, really, will be impossible.
Our revolution will continue advancing, and these programs for our youth will continue advancing just as strongly as they have been initiated, just as strongly as we are waging our battle of ideas.
I want to thank the journalists who have been with us this afternoon, and the guests who have been with us here in our studios, and I especialy want to thank our commander in chief for being with us in one more day of struggle of the Cuban people.
Dear Radio and TV audience:
In an orchestrated intelligence and propaganda campaign, high officials of the U.S. special services, new media of that country and mouthpieces of the Miami mafia have begun to raise the spectre of the threat of Cuban Cyber Terrorism against the United States.
This is a new pretext to justify the criminal aggression against our people.
With unheard-of shamelesness, the U.S. government, which has been unable to solve the problem of cyber-aggressions, has tried to convert this problem into the perfect pretext for whipping up U.S. public opinion against Cuba, which they have not been able to blockade nor subjugate --not even with the threat of a nuclear attack , with direct aggressions, with biological and economic warfare.
They, who spy on the world from their computers and satellites, they who spy on political leaders, empty our electronic mailboxes, and manipulate war scenarios, are trying to present our incipient development in the field of computerization as a threat to the superpower.
The empire of lies is an orphan in the field of ideas.
Our scientists do not invest their efforts or research time in creating viruses or preparing cyber attacks. They dedicate themselves, as Fidel said, to the development of the country, to the search for medicines against AIDS, cancer and other terrible illnesses. They seek, above all, for the well-being of humanity.
Cuba does not constitute in the slightest degree a cybernetic threat to the United States. But it is a moral threat. What they fear is that our people will become ever more educated, and therefore, ever more free. They fear that we will become masters in the sciences of the future and therefore will become more independent. They fear that technology, instead of being a tool of domination, will become a tool for socialization.
Their new plans against Cuba will crash against the truth of our people. As our commander in Chief said yesterday, none of this can intimidate us, it all shows how desperate the empire is, how shameless it is, how impotent it is. Because for 42 years they have been unable to destroy the Cuban revolution, and because they cringe before the reality of Cuba's example and of the level of education and culture we have already achieved.
Good evening.
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