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Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: Cryptome afloat, but was Deepwater to blame for torpedo? Cryptome afloat, but was Deepwater to blame for torpedo? Matt Hines Updated: 09 May 2007 The Deepwater defense contractor scandal has echoed from the halls of Congress across the World Wide Web, and despite being shut down by its ISP after posting documents considered central to the controversy, online resource http://Cryptome.org remains alive. On May 7, Cryptome transferred its archives to Network Solutions, a move necessitated by a termination of service notice received from its previous Internet service provider, Verio, on April 18. Since Cryptome was founded in 1999, Englewood, Colorado-based Verio had weathered a stream of complaints from people who took issue with controversial documents posted to the site's pages, yet the firm allowed the resource to remain online. But on the same date that Cryptome's operator first posted key Congressional testimony about Deepwater -- a military procurement fraud scandal currently under investigation by Congress and the Department of Justice -- Verio suddenly gave the site two weeks notice to find another home. Cryptome, founded and operated by John Young, a 72-year-old architect from New York, is an exercise in the dissemination of notorious information. Over the years the site has angered the likes of British Intelligence and the Japanese Ministry of Justice, along with stateside government and business officials, for posting declassified documents, photos, and maps that the groups weren't happy to see surfacing online. In previous instances, Young claims that Verio customer support workers went to great lengths to inform him that Cryptome was being investigated, or that the ISP had received formal requests to take it offline. But the April termination notice came with no explanation, he said, with Young's contacts at the firm turning unresponsive and the company offering no specific details of the circumstances that led to its demise. In a statement, Verio officials would give no hint of any factors that contributed to Cryptome's termination, other than stating that the site had violated its acceptable use policy. "Verio's decision to terminate Cryptome in this instance resulted from a situation, different from those presented in the past that Verio was unable to reconcile with its [use policy]," the company said. "Based on this situation, Verio made the decision that a different course of action was required. Verio is confident that it has been fair and consistent in its approach to these matters, and stands by its decision in this instance." While the ISP claims that it acted independently, and that it "respects the rights of its customers and those of third parties," Young, and others familiar with the Deepwater scandal contend that Verio folded to some form of outside pressure based on the testimony that was posted. What else would explain the sudden change of position, questions Young, who wonders why the ISP worked amicably with the site in the past to edit or delete content that was proven to be somehow inappropriate or classified, before pulling the plug with no explanation mere hours after the Deepwater testimony went live. "We typically get about a half dozen complaints per year where people make allegations or claim copyright protection, and there have been several incidents since September 11th where the government was involved, but Verio has always been very straightforward about handling things," said Young. The site administrator finds it an unlikely coincidence that the dramatic change of relations occurred on the day he posted the Deepwater content, which sharply criticizes decision makers in the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, and contractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Some of the testimony, first heard by the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure on April 18, outright blames the massive defense contractors for engaging in collusion and fraud. "The FBI has come in many times and told us that we're not illegal, but the same day we posted the Deepwater stuff, Verio first sent the letter," Young said. "I think it has to be the government or one of the contractors that are behind it, somebody who is on the hot seat because of what the documents say. But I also doubt the ISP would buckle for a commercial request so, really, it points to someone in the government telling them to shut us down." Young's claim might seem self-serving, but he has a unique ally supporting his claims of government suppression in the form of one of the very individuals who testified before Congress about one of Deepwater's biggest problems -- the same issues the testimony posted to the site had detailed. James Atkinson is the president of Granite Island Group, Gloucester, Massachusetts, and a former government intelligence officer who was hired by Congress to investigate the Deepwater procurement process and report his findings on Capitol Hill. An expert in technical surveillance counter measures (TSCMs), Atkinson found that the Coast Guard cutters outfitted by Lockheed and Northrup under Deepwater used radios whose encryption specifications failed to meet government requirements for protecting classified information. The expert also maintains that the Coast Guard and Navy knew the systems had failed certification tests for the same reasons, yet had chosen to both ignore the results and suppress them. In addition to illustrating some of the explicit problems with Deepwater, Atkinson said his testimony highlights similar problems with the radios being used in the Navy's DDX next-generation war ship program. Those radios were slated to be provided by a joint venture of the two contractors at the center of the controversy, dubbed Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS). As part of the Deepwater investigation, claims that the two firms set up the joint venture in an effort to rig the contract bidding process are also being pursued. Lockheed and Northrup officials didn't respond to calls seeking comment on Cryptome, nor did representatives with the Navy and Coast Guard. With much for the contractors, Coast Guard, and Navy to lose over the unfolding scandal -- which has already cast doubt on the Deepwater program's short-term future -- Atkinson said he believes that either the Navy or another government agency pressured Verio to take Cryptome offline. "I'm 99 percent sure that it would have been the Navy that got Cryptome taken offline. They've raised the biggest stink politically and they may have the most to lose out of anyone if Deepwater casts doubts on the DDX program," Atkinson said. "The contractors could have been involved in the takedown, as they said that the contents of my testimony were classified, but they don't have oversight as the originating authority and I don't know why the ISP would listen to them." Atkinson said that he and Young also noticed that contractors and various government entities were viewing the documents heavily on Cryptome in the immediate hours after they were first posted. In a statement published on April 19, Congressman James L. Oberstar (Democrat, Minnesota), the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, cited "serious management failings in contract execution and oversight among all the parties involved in Deepwater," and thanked Atkinson by name for his contribution to the proceedings. Committee media officials declined to comment on Cryptome's shutdown, but noted that all the documents hosted on the site were entered into the public domain during the Congressional hearings. For now, Young said Cryptome will remain on Network Solutions' systems as long as it is welcome to be there. Officials with the Herndon, Virginia.-based ISP said they have no problem with the site as long as its content doesn't violate any laws or company policies. If trouble should arise with the host, Young said he would simply move on to another large U.S.-based ISP in an unofficial test of the companies' respective tolerances. In the next several weeks, Young and Atkinson plan to post another series of telling documents gathered by the security expert during the investigation of Deepwater. "We had two or three offers from people who said that they wanted to host the site, but we want to use our case to test ISPs. It's better to find out more about these companies and their policies than it is to find someone who wants to protect us," Young said. "I'm actually surprised that it took eight years of this kind of thing for us to finally get booted."
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