The Israeli Code on U.S. Government Computers
16 June 2006
The most critical computer and communication networks used by the U.S.
government and military are secured by encryption software written by an Israeli
"code breaker" tied to an Israeli state-run scientific institution.
The National Security Agency (NSA), the U.S. intelligence agency with the
mandate to protect government and military computer networks and provide secure
communications for all branches of the U.S. government uses security software
written by an Israeli code breaker whose home office is located at the Weizmann
Institute in Israel.
A Bedford, Massachusetts-based company called RSA Security, Inc. issued a press
release on March 28, 2006, which revealed that the NSA would be using its
security software. "U.S. Department of Defense Agency Selects RSA Security
Encryption Software" was the headline of the company's press release which
announced that the National Security Agency had selected its encryption software
to be used in the agency's "classified communications project." RSA stands for
the names of the founders of the company: Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir, and
Leonard M. Adleman. Adi Shamir, the lead theoretician, is an Israeli citizen and
a professor at the Weizmann Institute, a scientific institution tied to the
Israeli defense establishment.
"My main area of research is cryptography, making and breaking codes," Shamir's
webpage at the Weizmann Institute says. "It is motivated by the explosive growth
of computer networks and wireless communication. Without cryptographic
protection, confidential information can be exposed to eavesdroppers, modified
by hackers, or forged by criminals."
The NSA/Central Security Service defines itself as America's cryptologic
organization, which "coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized
activities to protect U.S. government information systems and produce foreign
signals intelligence information." The fact that the federal intelligence
agency responsible for protecting the most critical computer systems and
communications networks used by all branches of the U.S. government and military
is using Israeli-made encryption software should come as no surprise. The RSA
press release is just the icing on the cake; the keys to the most critical
computer networks in the United States have long been held in Israeli hands.
I inquired with the NSA about its use of Israeli-made security software for
classified communications projects and asked why such outsourcing was not seen
as a national security threat. Why is "America's cryptologic organization" using
Israeli encryption codes? NSA spokesman Ken White said that the agency is
"researching" the matter and would respond in the coming week.
Previously, I have reported that scores of "security software" companies spawned
and funded by the Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence agency, have
proliferated in the United States. The "security" software products of many of
these usually short-lived Israeli-run companies have been integrated into the
computer products which are provided to the U.S. government by leading suppliers
such as Unisys.
Unisys integrated Israeli security software, provided by the Israel-based Check
Point Software Technologies and Eurekify, into its own software, so that Israeli
software, written by Mossad-linked companies, now "secures" the most sensitive
computers in the U.S. government and commercial sector.
The Mossad-spawned computer security firms typically have an office in the U.S.
while their research and development is done in Israel. The Mossad start-up
firms usually have short lives before they are acquired for exaggerated sums of
money by a larger company, enriching their Israeli owners in the process and
integrating the Israeli directors and their Mossad-produced software into the
parent company.
RSA, for example, an older security software company, acquired an Israeli-run
security software company, named Cyota, at the end of 2005 for $145 million. In
January 2005, Cyota, "the leading provider of online security and anti-fraud
solutions for financial institutions" had announced that "security expert" Amit
Yoran, had joined the company's board of directors. Prior to becoming a director
at Cyota, Yoran, a 34-year old Israeli, had already been the national "Cyber
Czar," having served as director of the Department of Homeland Security's
National Cyber Security Division. Yoran had been appointed "Cyber Czar" at age
32 by President George W. Bush in September 2003.
Before joining DHS, Yoran had been vice president for worldwide managed security
services at Symantec. Prior to that, he had been the founder, president and CEO
of Riptech, Inc., an information security management and monitoring firm, which
Symantec acquired in 2002 for $145 million.
Yoran and his brother Naftali Elad Yoran are graduates of the U.S. Military
Academy at Westpoint. Elad graduated in 1991 and Amit in 1993. Along with their
brother Dov, the Yoran brothers are key players in the security software market.
Amit has also held critical positions in the U.S. government overseeing computer
security for the very systems that apparently failed on 9-11.
Before founding Riptech in 1998, Amit Yoran directed the
vulnerability-assessment program within the computer emergency response team at
the US Department of Defense. Yoran previously served as an officer in the
United States Air Force as the Director of Vulnerability Programs for the
Department of Defense's Computer Emergency Response Team and in support of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense's Office.
In June 2005, Yoran joined the board of directors of Guardium, Inc., another
Mossad-spawned "provider of database security solutions" based in Waltham,
Massachusetts. Guardium is linked with Ptech, an apparent Mossad "cut out"
computer security company linked with the 9-11 attacks.
Ptech, a computer software company in Quincy, Mass., was supposedly a small
start-up company founded by a Lebanese Muslim and funded by a Saudi millionaire.
Yet Ptech's clients included all the key federal governmental agencies,
including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Naval Air Command,
Congress, the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, the
Internal Revenue Service, NATO, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret
Service and even the White House.
The marketing manager at Ptech, Inc. when the company started in the mid-1990s,
however, was not a Muslim or an Arab, but an American Jewish lawyer named
Michael S. Goff who had suddenly quit his law firm for no apparent reason and
joined the Arab-run start-up company. Goff was the company's information systems
manager and had single-handedly managed the company's marketing and "all
procurement" of software, systems and peripherals. He also trained the
employees. Goff was obviously the key person at Ptech.
In the wake of 9-11, during the Citizens' Commission hearings in New York,
Indira Singh, a consultant who had worked on a Defense Advanced Research
Project, pointed to Ptech and MITRE Corp. being involved in computer
"interoperability issues" between the FAA and NORAD. At this time Ptech's ties
to Arabs was the focus, and Goff was out of the picture.
"Ptech was with MITRE Corporation in the basement of the FAA for two years prior
to 9-11," Singh said. "Their specific job is to look at interoperability issues
the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force in the case of an emergency. If anyone
was in a position to know that the FAA -- that there was a window of opportunity
or to insert software or to change anything, it would have been Ptech along with
MITRE."
The Mossad-run Guardium company is linked with Ptech through Goff
Communications, the Holliston, Mass.-based public relations firm previously run
by Michael S. Goff and his wife Marcia, which represents Guardium. Since being
exposed in 2005, however, Michael's name no longer appears on the company
website.
Photo: Amit Yoran, the Israeli "Cyber Security Czar" appointed by President
George W. Bush in 2003. Yoran has held various positions since the 1990s in
which he oversaw computer security for the Dept. of Defense computers.