http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_sperry_news/20000809_xnspy_webporn_sc.shtml
Web-porn scandal
rocks White House
West Wingers downloaded gay, bestial,
teen sex videos, jamming firewall system
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Paul Sperry
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- A consultant hired last year to beef up security for the White House's computer network found massive pornographic video files passing through the system's Internet firewall, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Some of the downloaded files were traced back to West Wing officials as recently as the beginning of last year, during the height of the impeachment crisis, say sources who were involved in replacing the firewall system as part of Y2K security upgrades.
The real-time video files -- which came from hard-core porn sites featuring homosexual, farm-animal and teen sex acts -- were so large in byte volume that they accounted for most of the traffic coming into the firewall, sources told WorldNetDaily.
All Internet links and e-mail must first pass through the firewall before coming into the local area network for the Executive Office of the President and on to individual network users. The firewall system is designed to screen Internet traffic for messages containing network-crippling viruses.
A Y2K computer consultant in early 1999 discovered the unusually large volume of porn-site traffic coming into the White House while reviewing the firewall logs.
A White House computer specialist recalled the reaction of one of the contractors at the time.
"He started to laugh and said, 'It looks like the majority of traffic going through the firewall is pornography,'" said the White House employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Both President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have denounced cyber-porn and have pushed so-called "E-chips" to block the Internet's "purveyors of pornography," as Gore called them last year.
White House cyber-security experts have asked WorldNetDaily to withhold the name of the Y2K contractor that upgraded the firewall system, arguing that disclosing the information would tip off hackers to the security software the White House is using and make it easier for them to breach the network. WorldNetDaily agreed to reveal only that the company is based in California.
The firewall logs show the uniform resource locator, or URL (basically the Web zip code), of the porn sites from which the videos (MOVs) and still-graphics (JPEGs and GIFs) were downloaded.
"There were things that said 'teen,'" the White House computer expert said. "There was gay and bestiality stuff too."
Bestiality? "Donkeys, goats, dogs," explained the source, who later accessed some of the raunchier sites. "It's embarrassing."
Upon the discovery of the heavy XXX-rated traffic, White House security specialists undertook a "forensics" effort to ID the White House network users who were downloading -- and watching -- the videos on government computers and time.
Investigators, including White House Security Officer Charles Easley, looked at a number of variables to separate the habitual from the accidental Web-porn surfers. They scanned firewall logs over several weeks so they could see the repeat offenders. They also zeroed in on the large-byte files.
What they found was shocking.
"There were some significant names. I can say, yes, West Wing," said one White House source familiar with the investigation. "There were women too."
Many of the offenders also officed out of the Old Executive Office Building, including presidential personnel, sources say. One was in national security.
One of the worst offenders, however, was a senior White House computer-systems manager, who was reprimanded but allowed to stay in the White House after being treated for an "addiction" to porn. Sources say the porn abuser is so sensitive to the possibility of public exposure that he would likely take his own life if his name were disclosed here.
Security experts weren't just worried about the bandwidth-eating Web videos slowing down the White House computer network for legitimate business, or bringing a "Trojan horse" virus into the system. They also feared they could open up White House officials to blackmail from outsiders looking to access the network.
"It's a potential security risk," said one White House insider. "A hacker could call up an official and say, 'I have evidence you've been downloading kiddy porn. Give me your network passcode, or else.'"
The Internet-linked network is unclassified (although another, classified network exists in the White House), but most everything on it is still sensitive.
At any given time it may contain secret agendas for high-level meetings over trade and other policies, for example, or advance data from unpublished economic reports. Such information is potentially valuable to anyone from foreign diplomats looking for geopolitical leverage to stock traders looking for an edge.
By February 1999, after the California contractor had replaced the old firewall and alerted officials to the cyber-porn problem, White House computer specialists set up filters to block employee access to the porn sites.
Officials could have installed filters on the old Internet firewall, but never did -- except in the case of one site, an X-rated spoof of the official White House site. (Last year, a New Jersey man who says he accidentally logged onto the unofficial White House site in a public library, was escorted off by police and banned from the library.)
According to White House insiders, White House guidelines for proper computer use by employees prohibit using them for profit, but do not specifically restrict using them to access Internet pornography.
Last year an Internet porn policy was submitted to White House lawyers, but was not instated as part of any global policy, sources say.
In 1997, Clinton and Gore announced a "strategy for a family friendly Internet" which included proposing the distribution of "E-chip" technology for filtering cyber-porn.
"We all know and we've heard the horror stories about the inappropriate material for children that can be found on the Internet," Clinton said during the July 16, 1997, press conference.
The event's press release said: "The president emphasized that government (has) an important role to play in achieving the goal of a family friendly Internet."
"The President made clear that the administration remains committed to the vigorous enforcement of federal prohibitions against the transmission of child pornography and obscenity over the Internet," the release added, "and the use of the Internet by pedophiles to entice children to engage in sexual activity."
Last year, Gore encouraged parents to "restrict their children's e-mail contact to keep the potential predators at bay -- purveyors of pornography."
He said they must be protected from "red light districts in cyberspace."
The White House has resisted requests from Congress, a federal court and other investigators to turn over Internet firewall logs -- which are stored on emergency back-up tapes -- in response to subpoenas for missing e-mail sent to West Wing officials over the Internet. Incoming e-mail also travels through the firewall.
White House lawyers have argued that the logs don't include the contents of the e-mail, just the "to" and "from," and therefore would not be helpful to investigators. Besides, they claim, only the past several months worth of firewall logs are stored on back-up tapes; previous tapes of logs are recycled.
Besides incoming e-mails, the tapes of the 1998 and 1999 firewall logs also recorded the massive volume of porn traffic going into the White House network over that period, sources say.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
Web-porn scandal
rocks White House
West Wingers downloaded gay, bestial,
teen sex videos, jamming firewall system
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Paul Sperry
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- A consultant hired last year to beef up security for the White House's computer network found massive pornographic video files passing through the system's Internet firewall, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Some of the downloaded files were traced back to West Wing officials as recently as the beginning of last year, during the height of the impeachment crisis, say sources who were involved in replacing the firewall system as part of Y2K security upgrades.
The real-time video files -- which came from hard-core porn sites featuring homosexual, farm-animal and teen sex acts -- were so large in byte volume that they accounted for most of the traffic coming into the firewall, sources told WorldNetDaily.
All Internet links and e-mail must first pass through the firewall before coming into the local area network for the Executive Office of the President and on to individual network users. The firewall system is designed to screen Internet traffic for messages containing network-crippling viruses.
A Y2K computer consultant in early 1999 discovered the unusually large volume of porn-site traffic coming into the White House while reviewing the firewall logs.
A White House computer specialist recalled the reaction of one of the contractors at the time.
"He started to laugh and said, 'It looks like the majority of traffic going through the firewall is pornography,'" said the White House employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Both President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore have denounced cyber-porn and have pushed so-called "E-chips" to block the Internet's "purveyors of pornography," as Gore called them last year.
White House cyber-security experts have asked WorldNetDaily to withhold the name of the Y2K contractor that upgraded the firewall system, arguing that disclosing the information would tip off hackers to the security software the White House is using and make it easier for them to breach the network. WorldNetDaily agreed to reveal only that the company is based in California.
The firewall logs show the uniform resource locator, or URL (basically the Web zip code), of the porn sites from which the videos (MOVs) and still-graphics (JPEGs and GIFs) were downloaded.
"There were things that said 'teen,'" the White House computer expert said. "There was gay and bestiality stuff too."
Bestiality? "Donkeys, goats, dogs," explained the source, who later accessed some of the raunchier sites. "It's embarrassing."
Upon the discovery of the heavy XXX-rated traffic, White House security specialists undertook a "forensics" effort to ID the White House network users who were downloading -- and watching -- the videos on government computers and time.
Investigators, including White House Security Officer Charles Easley, looked at a number of variables to separate the habitual from the accidental Web-porn surfers. They scanned firewall logs over several weeks so they could see the repeat offenders. They also zeroed in on the large-byte files.
What they found was shocking.
"There were some significant names. I can say, yes, West Wing," said one White House source familiar with the investigation. "There were women too."
Many of the offenders also officed out of the Old Executive Office Building, including presidential personnel, sources say. One was in national security.
One of the worst offenders, however, was a senior White House computer-systems manager, who was reprimanded but allowed to stay in the White House after being treated for an "addiction" to porn. Sources say the porn abuser is so sensitive to the possibility of public exposure that he would likely take his own life if his name were disclosed here.
Security experts weren't just worried about the bandwidth-eating Web videos slowing down the White House computer network for legitimate business, or bringing a "Trojan horse" virus into the system. They also feared they could open up White House officials to blackmail from outsiders looking to access the network.
"It's a potential security risk," said one White House insider. "A hacker could call up an official and say, 'I have evidence you've been downloading kiddy porn. Give me your network passcode, or else.'"
The Internet-linked network is unclassified (although another, classified network exists in the White House), but most everything on it is still sensitive.
At any given time it may contain secret agendas for high-level meetings over trade and other policies, for example, or advance data from unpublished economic reports. Such information is potentially valuable to anyone from foreign diplomats looking for geopolitical leverage to stock traders looking for an edge.
By February 1999, after the California contractor had replaced the old firewall and alerted officials to the cyber-porn problem, White House computer specialists set up filters to block employee access to the porn sites.
Officials could have installed filters on the old Internet firewall, but never did -- except in the case of one site, an X-rated spoof of the official White House site. (Last year, a New Jersey man who says he accidentally logged onto the unofficial White House site in a public library, was escorted off by police and banned from the library.)
According to White House insiders, White House guidelines for proper computer use by employees prohibit using them for profit, but do not specifically restrict using them to access Internet pornography.
Last year an Internet porn policy was submitted to White House lawyers, but was not instated as part of any global policy, sources say.
In 1997, Clinton and Gore announced a "strategy for a family friendly Internet" which included proposing the distribution of "E-chip" technology for filtering cyber-porn.
"We all know and we've heard the horror stories about the inappropriate material for children that can be found on the Internet," Clinton said during the July 16, 1997, press conference.
The event's press release said: "The president emphasized that government (has) an important role to play in achieving the goal of a family friendly Internet."
"The President made clear that the administration remains committed to the vigorous enforcement of federal prohibitions against the transmission of child pornography and obscenity over the Internet," the release added, "and the use of the Internet by pedophiles to entice children to engage in sexual activity."
Last year, Gore encouraged parents to "restrict their children's e-mail contact to keep the potential predators at bay -- purveyors of pornography."
He said they must be protected from "red light districts in cyberspace."
The White House has resisted requests from Congress, a federal court and other investigators to turn over Internet firewall logs -- which are stored on emergency back-up tapes -- in response to subpoenas for missing e-mail sent to West Wing officials over the Internet. Incoming e-mail also travels through the firewall.
White House lawyers have argued that the logs don't include the contents of the e-mail, just the "to" and "from," and therefore would not be helpful to investigators. Besides, they claim, only the past several months worth of firewall logs are stored on back-up tapes; previous tapes of logs are recycled.
Besides incoming e-mails, the tapes of the 1998 and 1999 firewall logs also recorded the massive volume of porn traffic going into the White House network over that period, sources say.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.
