Word: titanically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...particular doesn't have enough top-notch computer gumshoes to track down the foreign rings and that their hands are often tied by the strict rules of engagement. That's where independents--some call them vigilantes--like Carpenter come in. After he made his first discoveries about Titan Rain in March 2004, he began taking the information to unofficial contacts he had in Army intelligence. Federal rules prohibit military-intelligence officers from working with U.S. civilians, however, and by October, the Army passed Carpenter and his late-night operation to the FBI. He says he was a confidential informant...
...Federal cyberintelligence agents use information from freelance sources like Carpenter at times but are also extremely leery about doing so, afraid that the independent trackers may jeopardize investigations by trailing foes too noisily or, even worse, may be bad guys themselves. When Carpenter deputized himself to delve into the Titan Rain group, he put his career in jeopardy. But he remains defiant, saying he's a whistle-blower whose case demonstrates the need for reforms that would enable the U.S. to respond more effectively and forcefully against the gathering storm of cyberthreats...
...TIME investigation into the case reveals how the Titan Rain attacks were uncovered, why they are considered a significant threat now under investigation by the Pentagon, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security and why the U.S. government has yet to stop them...
Carpenter thought he was making progress. When he uncovered the Titan Rain routers in Guangdong, he carefully installed a homemade bugging code in the primary router's software. It sent him an e-mail alert at an anonymous Yahoo! account every time the gang made a move on the Net. Within two weeks, his Yahoo! account was filled with almost 23,000 messages, one for each connection the Titan Rain router made in its quest for files. He estimates there were six to 10 workstations behind each of the three routers, staffed around the clock. The gang stashed its stolen...
Even if official Washington is not certain, Carpenter and other network-security analysts believe that the attacks are Chinese government spying. "It's a hard thing to prove," says a network-intrusion-detection analyst at a major U.S. defense contractor who has been studying Titan Rain since 2003, "but this has been going on so long and it's so well organized that the whole thing is state sponsored, I think." When it comes to advancing their military by stealing data, "the Chinese are more aggressive" than anyone else, David Szady, head of the FBI's counterintelligence unit, told TIME...