Colonel Steven Boylan’s Email Mystery
A bizarre, unsolicited email from Gen. Petraeus’ spokesman – Glenn Greenwald, an author and blogger for Salon.com, received the linked email from Colonel Steven Boylan, the US Army spokesman for General David Petraeus in Iraq. It was sent in response to an article about the growing politicization of the Army in Iraq. It is striking that while the Marines are pressing to be redeployed outside of Iraq and all types of retired brass is urging withdrawl, the US Army command in Iraq is in lock-step with President Bush. Not just total agreement, but the same debatable talking points and semantic nonsense.
What is really interesting about General Petraeus’ spokesman’s email is that he follows it up by denying he sent it. Of course, it is simple to track the route email takes from sender to recipient. It is possible to fake email routing information, but I think it absolutely defies credulity that the US Army central communications offices in Iraq has such lax security that it is possible that this email is fake. I’ve studied network security and implemented security measures for communication protocols, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol used for sending email. Fake emails are easily prevented at this point in time.
Based on the evidence available, there are three possibilities:
1) The US Army computer network in Iraq has been compromised from the outside. The Army’s network security is virtually non-existent and at any moment someone may fake, or spoof, an email to FoxNews from Gen. Petraeus stating “In ten minutes, we start bombing Iran. I love the smell of napalm in the morning! Love, DP”.
2) The Army computer network was compromised from within Central Command offices. The Army and/or the spokesman failed to take the basic security precautions necessary to prevent unauthorized communications attributable to the highest ranking commander in Iraq. While it is an obvious or blatant lapse of security, this is more believable then the first possibility. Either the actual sender will be easily found or FoxNews can still expect the good news (for ratings).
3) Col. Steven Boylan, the personal spokesman for Gen. Petraeus, is a moron and lying.
I know which one I suspect. But whichever one it turns out to be, this incident seems to explain perfectly why the US is losing in Iraq. That is: wishful thinking (#1), poor planning (#2), and dishonesty (#3).
foreign affairs &technology posted by: dan @ 28 Oct 2007 21:14