A group is hoping to raise awareness of a communications
monitoring system known as Echelon which many believe is being
operated by the US government. Although the US government has never
admitted to its existence, the EU Parliament recently said that it
believed Echelon is operating and warned e-mail users to encrypt
confidential messages.
According to many reports, Echelon can track all internet
communications. When certain words such as “espionage” or “hacker”
are used in e-mail messages, some believe that the messages are
automatically brought to the attention of US authorities.
The plan to raise public awareness of Echelon is being promoted
by Cipherwar.com, a tech-news web site. It has urged all
individuals who use any form of global communication to take part
in the "JAM ECHELON DAY" on 21st October. On that day, users are
encouraged to send vast numbers of e-mail messages containing as
many “trigger words” as possible in an attempt to flood the Echelon
system. In effect, it would be a denial of service attack.
The Cipherwar.com web site lists about 1,700 trigger words. The
site acknowledges that the planned attack is unlikely to disable
Echelon but explains that its primary intention is to educate
members of the public on the threat to individual privacy posed by
Echelon.
