Security

US tells Russia to leave Georgia, sends own troops

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At the same time that the US is telling the world it will keep a military presence indefinately in Iraq, it has backed demands for the withdrawl of Russian forces from Georgia. In 2005, after three years of US military presence in the region, Bush gave an optimistic prediction:

Mr Bush said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin about Georgia’s demand for the closure of two Russian bases on its territory, expressing confidence that the two sides could agree a timetable.

Things have not quite worked out that way, of course (has anything that Bush has been confident about ever come true?) and sabres are starting to rattle just as the US has scaled up its military training and armament of Georgia under the pretense of preparing them for joining American forces in Iraq:

Russia cut transport and postal links with Georgia and expelled hundreds of Georgians after the authorities in Tbilisi briefly detained four Russian officers last month, accusing them of spying.

[…]

Mr Putin on Wednesday accused the Georgian leadership of preparing to retake the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by force.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili says his country has been punished by Moscow for its efforts to forge closer ties with the West and Nato.

So while the US is trying to embrace Georgia and provide essential military “assistance” (to help with the “international” presence in Iraq, to hunt for al Qaeda rebels in/around Chechnya, and perhaps even to secure access to Causcasus oilfields), the Russians are showing signs of wanting to maintain their influence over the region as well. Why did Bush think a timetable would be so agreeable to the Russians when he and his administration have expressed their opposition to the very concept of timetables?

Leading the charge for a timetable is Sen. Ted Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, who complained Sunday that Rumsfeld “indicated that they really didn’t have a plan to win the peace after winning the war.”

Kennedy told reporters he believes the Bush administration should be in a position to set a timetable after last Sunday’s elections.

But Cheney reiterated the administration’s position against setting deadlines.

Actually, that should read “against setting deadlines for themselves”. In other words the Bush administration holds strong a position against being accountable, although they are pro-accountability for everyone else, especially people they disagree with. Makes sense, no?

Oh, and when will the US troops be allowed to leave Georgia? The policy of indefinite presence of US troops was explained back in 2003:

Of even more importance to GTEP’s long-term success, the Georgian Ministry of Defense has yet to develop a blueprint to govern military training following the departure of US military advisers. Thus, a schedule of training exercises, the maintenance of existing facilities, and ensuring timely pay for GTEP troops remain uncertain. At the same time, senior Defense Ministry officials continue to request additional equipment. US military officials in Tbilisi stated that, although discussions on these issues are ongoing, they are reluctant to fulfill these requests until Tbilisi develops plans for sustaining the equipment and training it already has.

Sounds all too familiar…

Security

P903i: something you have for something you have

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In discussions about how to secure information assets, the mobile phone is often an elegant solution. If you can tie the phone into the authentication process, as something you must physically have in your possession before you will be granted access, then you have an advantage over just using a PIN or password (something you know) alone.

However, at least two problems jump to mind with the mobile phone approach of using “something you have”. First, since many phones are valuable enough on their own that they are likely to be stolen. Second, many people seem to have a nasty habit of losing or damaging their cell-phones — they tend to toss them around a fair bit and the expensive devices are often, well, cheap.

A new phone in Japan has been announced by NTTDoCoMo that attempts to deal with the former issue, by introducing…another “something you have”. I’m not just talking about a battery that lasts more than a few hours, users are told to carry a separate chip that has to be near their phone for it to work. This would be a clever approach except the second issue mentioned above is still unsolved.

Anyone want to bet some users will tape the extra access device to the cell phone to make sure it is always there when they need it? I have seen so many RSA tokens glued and taped to laptops I stopped counting, so I won’t be surprised if someone releases a case for the P903i that allows you to put your token and phone together for convenience.

After all, can you imagine grabbing your phone and a new pair of pants in an emergency and then realizing that your access token is lost somewhere behind in an old pair? And if you put the token in an important place like your purse or wallet, or if you make the token desireable enough to be worn like jewelry, you have just increased the chances for the first problem (being stolen).

Where would you hide the token that would be both safe from loss, and yet easy to keep with you? Implanted under your skin? Maybe retina scans, or ear canal scans, to unlock a cell phone aren’t far away…especially considering that these phones are increasingly carrying identity/biometric and financial data.

And we have not even begun to look at the issue of securing the signal between the token and phone to prevent replay attacks…

History, Security

US votes against control of illegal arms

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Apparently the illegal trade in arms is linked to 1,000 deaths per day. But that number does not impress the US National Rifle Association, as they apparently were upset by 2,000 international UN delegates working together last June to stem illegal trade in small arms:

The conference has drawn the ire of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the powerful lobby of US gun owners which views it as a first step toward a global treaty to outlaw gun ownership by civilians.

Addressing those concerns, Annan stressed that there was no question of negotiating a global ban.

“Our energy, our emphasis and our anger is directed against illegal weapons, not legal weapons,” he said. “Our targets remain unscrupulous arms brokers, corrupt officials, drug trafficking syndicates, criminals and others who bring death and mayhem into our communities.”

The faces on the petition handed to Annan represented the million people who have been killed by small arms since 2003.

640 million illegal small arms floating around the world today and the NRA is worried about the impact to legal access? Who needs legal access when illegal is so prevalent? Besides, is the slope that slippery? If the NRA applied their argument to logging they would argue against someone being banned from cutting down protected species in the Amazon because it would somehow threaten the business of Christmas tree farms in the US.

Interesting to note who is at the top of the list of arms sale and what is defined as small arms:

Most deaths in conflicts around the world are caused by small arms, which are mainly exported by the United States, Italy, Brazil, Germany, and Belgium, according to a survey released by Small Arms Survey, the brainchild of a Geneva-based independent research project.

“Small arms” include handguns, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, mortars, grenades and light missiles. “Light weapons” comprise heavy machine-guns, mounted grenade launchers, anti-tank guns and portable anti-aircraft guns.

Sub-machine guns, mortars, and light missiles are the mainstay of the Taleban, Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda forces (to name a few in recent news). And 200,000 people per year are shot in homicides, with another 50,000 dead by gun suicide, as reported in the Guardian. So one would think that the US would favor trade restrictions that reduce the flow of illegal weapons, right? Actually, the BBC reports that the opposite appears to be the case:

The measure would close loopholes in existing laws which mean guns still end up in conflict zones despite arms embargoes and export controls.

It could also stop the supply of weapons to countries whose development is being hampered by arms spending.

Only the US – a major arms manufacturer – voted against the treaty, saying it wanted to rely on existing agreements.

It is probably less relevant that the US is an arms manufacturer than the fact it is interested in supplying arms to whomever it wants to. So the control of manufacturing is a good start, but the negative vote by the US as well as the abstentions by Russia and China, show that the bigger issue is controlling the countries who wish to proliferate arms to achieve geo-political ambitions. The BBC points out several countries manufacturing the arms actually voted for the measure:

Major weapons manufacturers such as Britain, France and Germany voted to begin work on the treaty, as did major emerging arms exporters Bulgaria and Ukraine.

This supports the point above that these countries have less national or political cause for trade in illegal arms. In fact, there may be room for disassociation between the arms companies and the government in these other states, unlike the US, Russia and China. That is to say, the US developed, armed and trained the Taleban in Afghanistan to fight a large conventional army (USSR) not because they wanted to profit on stinger missle sales but because they believed that destabilization of the region by militant extremists would serve their short-term political objectives. Were those light missles illegal then? Would they be illegal today? CBS news reveals that the NRA has been informing people that there is no need to waste time on such a distinction between legal and illegal arms and to oppose the control measure by the UN:

Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the NRA, said in a message on the NRA Web site that the conference seeks to draft a treaty that would “pass a global treaty banning ownership of firearms.”

That bit of hyperbole and misinformation (e.g. lie) resulted in hundreds of thousands of letters (approximately 4,000/day) sent to the president-designate of the UN by NRA members, with many of the letters based on a form from the NRA website. One can only hope, since these letters were based on pure fiction, that the US position was not influenced by them. Then again, the US did impatiently blow-off the UN and invade Iraq on the premise of imminent danger from WMD. The Bush administration pandering to highly partisan extremists and wearing reality blinders should not be a surprise to anyone:

All three of the public delegates chosen by the U.S. government are strong NRA supporters. In fact, two of the three delegates (Keene and Gilmore) are current board members of the NRA. The third, former Congressman John, received an “A+â€? rating by the NRA while in office. […] The appointment of the three public delegates is a symbolic reminder of the U.S. attitude towards the UN process – that the views of one interest group dominate the agenda.

Sure...