BEER (possible spoilers) -- PROMIS 3

[John Bailey]

Loving your work, Thomas.

Small note: "FSB is the Federal Security Service and SVR the foreign
intelligence service. SVU is unknown."

I picked up a few points in BE where Russian names (eg that kid
rapper's song titles) are given slightly different spelling to the
names I found on the net. I got the feeling that they were Pynchon's
own translations from the original cyrillic (is that right?), maybe
just to be smart, or else he had someone else he knew do it.

So SVU could be SVR in Russian slang, or written slightly differently,
or something. Or it could be a pun on Law & Order: SVU.

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 8:38 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
<thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> Outside the passages I have quoted at length there seem to be no direct
> references to PROMIS in BE (I have not yet finished my second reading but
> done a lot of selective browsing). Still, some of the elements of the PROMIS
> epic turn up elsewhere in BE as well. In the following I will have a closer
> look at two of these corresponding themes/motifs: the Russian mob and the
> computer backdoor.
>
> As we have seen, Windust does not attach too much importance to the
> information that "'(...) the Russian mob have been selling [PROMIS] to the
> rugriders, (...)'"(BE 104)
>
> I have pointed out the significance of this detail: The "rugriders" means Al
> Qaeda. Michael Ruppert, Pynchon's source for the "Elbit chip", quotes the
> Washington Times:
>
> --"[Promis] would give bin Laden the ability to monitor U.S. efforts to
> track him down, federal law-enforcement officials say. It also gives him
> access to databases on specific targets of his choosing and the ability to
> monitor electronic-banking transactions, easing money-laundering operations
> for himself or others, according to sources."--
>
> Michael C. Ruppert, "Bin Laden'€™s Magic Carpet"
> http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/magic_carpet.html
>
> (By the way, I don't buy for a second that Al Qaeda, if it indeed had been
> sold the software by the Russians, would have been able to do with PROMIS
> what the FBI, the CIA, the NSA etc. have allegedly done with it. But perhaps
> I just do not know enough about the professional standards of the Al Qaeda
> Hackers' School.)
>
> 9/11 has not yet happened and Windust may therefore be forgiven for giving
> the Mossad's use of PROMIS priority over Al Qaeda's. For us, and the author,
> this is a piece of perhaps significant background to 9/11.
>
> And Windust knows a lot about "the Russian mob:"
>
> "'You've heard of the Civil Hackers' School in Moscow?' (...) 'According to
> some of my colleagues it was created by the KGB, it's still an arm of
> Russian espionage, its mission statement includes destroying America through
> cyberwarfare. Your new best friends Misha and Grisha are recent graduates,
> it seems.' (...) 'These days the Russian mob and the government share many
> interests.'" (BE 264)
>
> The Civil Hackers' School is real, the mission statement probably not so
> much. A quick search yielded:
>
> http://seclists.org/isn/2000/Dec/111
>
> On page 371 Misha and Grisha not very convincingly deny having attended the
> Civil Hackers' School.
>
> Consider also Maxine addressing Igor:
>
> "'Especially if it's KGB business and you and your posse are embedded
> assets.' A silence she has to categorize as amused. 'They don't say KGB
> anymore, they say FSB, they say SVU. Since Putin, KGB means old guys in
> government.'"
>
> (According to Wiki's list of intelligence services around the world, FSB is
> the Federal Security Service and SVR the foreign intelligence service. SVU
> is unknown.)
>
> In other words, there is a strong possibility that Igor, Misha and Grisha,
> who for all intents and purposes represent the Russian mob, are linked to
> the Russian intelligence services.
>
> To smoothly lead over to the second PROMIS related point I want to address,
> on page 372 and 373 (which contains several very interesting things) Grisha
> and Misha meet Justin and out themselves as fans of DeepArcher:
>
> "'You guys have been down there? Since how long?' Justin not alarmed so much
> as curious. 'Since 11 September maybe? Before then, was much harder to hack
> in. Then suddenly, day of attack, gets easier. Later gets impossible again.'
> ' But you're still getting in.' 'Can't stay away!'"
>
> Misha and Grisha certainly are brilliant hackers. It also seems they have
> programmed a backdoor into DeepArcher so that they can still get in when it
> has once more become impossible for everybody else. Remember what Windust
> said about PROMIS:
>
> "'(...) what's disturbing about this
> Promis software is that there's always a backdoor built
> in, so anytime it gets installed on a government computer
> anywhere in the world--law enforcement, intelligence,
> special ops--anybody who happens to know about this
> backdoor can just slip through it and make themselves at
> home--wherever--and all manner of secrets get
> compromised.'" (BE 104-105)
>
> Maxine also cannot stay away from DeepArcher. When she goes in there after
> 9/11 she meets two acquaintances of Eric's:
>
> "'Nice place to hang out,' sez Sandwichgrrl. 'Not to mention do business,"
> adds Promoman. 'Joint's jumpin. A lot of these folks who look like only
> virtual background? they are real users.' 'Really. There's supposed to be
> all kinds of deep encryption.' 'There's also the backdoor, you didn't know
> about that?' (...)
> So that 11 September window of vulnerability Lucas and Justin were so
> worried about, for good reason apparently, has allowed not only unwelcome
> guests to sneak in but somebody (...) to install a backdoor also." (BE 355)
>
> Might have been Misha and Grisha, might have been someone else. There might
> also be multiple backdoors...
>
> Justin explains: "'Downside of being proprietary, always guarantees a
> backdoor sooner or later.'" (BE 356)
>
> As I have explained, the various backdoors that were allegedly built into
> PROMIS were an important part of the software's charm.
>
> As an aside: Igor and Maxine first meet over the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
> Compare, er, DeepCapture:
>
> http://www.deepcapture.com/bernard-madoff-the-mafia-and-naked-short-selling/
>
> Thomas
>
>
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l