US Intelligence Exposed As Student Decodes Iraq Memo

news Bush pressured as Nancy Reagan pleads for stem-cell research Erika Check,Washington Almost three years after President Bush laid down a policy restricting the use of public funds in embryonic stem-cell research, calls are growing for the White House to revisit the rules. On 8 May, Nancy Reagan, former first lady and an icon of Bush’s Republican party, spoke publicly for the first time of her support for stem-cell research. She had written letters in favour of it before but her speech, at a benefit dinner in Los Angeles for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, is seen by supporters of the research as a significant public-relations breakthrough. Reagan said that she had been moved to support research using stem cells through watching her husband succumb US intelligence exposed as to Alzheimer’s disease.“Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a place student decodes Iraq memo where I can no longer reach him,”she said.“We cannot share the wonderful Declan Butler Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s memories of our 52 years together, and Armed with little more than an electronic access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.”A I think that is the hardest part. I am dictionary and text-analysis software, Claire grammatical analyser yielded just 346 of determined to do whatever I can to save Whelan, a graduate student in computer these that would make sense in English. other families from this pain.” science at Dublin City University in Ireland, A cursory human scan of the 346 removed A few days earlier, on 4 May, the has managed to decrypt words that had been unlikely contenders such as acetose, leaving majority leader in the Senate, Bill Frist blotted out from declassified documents to just seven possibilities: Ugandan, Ukrainian, (Republican, Tennessee), said he thought protect intelligence sources. Egyptian, uninvited, incursive, indebted and the time had come to review President She and one of her PhD supervisors,David unofficial. Egyptian seems most likely, says Bush’s policy. The rules let researchers Naccache, a cryptographer with Gemplus, Naccache. A similar analysis of the defence use public funds to work on embryonic which manufactures banking and security department’s memo identified South Korea stem-cell lines only if the lines were cards, tackled two high-profile documents. as the most likely anonymous supplier of derived before the day the policy was One was a memo to US President George helicopter knowledge to Iraq. announced — 9 August 2001. Bush that had been declassified in April for an Intelligence experts say the technique is “Momentum is building in the inquiry into the 11 September 2001 terrorist cause for concern, and that they may think research done, and in Congress,”says attacks. The other was a US Department of about changing procedures. One expert adds a Republican staff member for the Senate Defense memo about who helped Iraq to that rumour-mongering on probable fits Committee on Appropriations. ‘militarize’civilian Hughes helicopters. might engender as much confusion and dam- Last month, 206 members of Congress, It all started when Naccache saw the Bush age as just releasing the full,unadulterated text. including 36 Republicans, sent a letter memo on television over Easter. “I was Naccache accepts the criticism that to President Bush asking him to expand bored, and I was looking for challenges for although the technique works reasonably well his policy. Among its signatories were Claire to solve. She’s a wild problem solver, on single words,the number of candidates for members of Congress who had previously so I thought that with this one I’d get peace more than two or three consecutively blotted opposed the research, such as lawmaker for a week,” Naccache says. Whelan pro- out words would severely limit it. Many Dana Rohrabacher (Republican, duced a solution in slightly less than that. declassified documents contain whole California). Rohrabacher told reporters Demasking blotted out words was easy, paragraphs blotted out. “That’s impossible that he had changed his mind after Naccache told Nature.“Optical recognition to tackle,” he says, adding that, “the most hearing from patients who hope the easily identified the font type — in this case important conclusion of this work is that reasearch will help cure their diseases. Arial — and its size,”he says.“Knowing this, censoring text by blotting out words and A similar letter is circulating in the you can estimate the size of the word behind re-scanning is nota secure practice”. Senate, and White House officials have the blot.Then you just take every word in the Naccache and Whelan presented their indicated that the president will meet dictionary and calculate whether or not, in results at Eurocrypt 2004, a meeting of secu- with the authors of the House letter. that font, it is the right size to fit in the space, rity researchers held in Interlaken, Switzer- Although the National Institutes of plus or minus 3 pixels.” land,in early May.They did not present at the Health estimated that researchers would A computerized dictionary search yielded formal sessions, but at a Tuesday evening be able to work on 78 stem-cell lines, fewer 1,530 candidates for a blotted out word in informal ‘rump session’, where participants than 20 are actually available today. And this sentence of the Bush memo: “An Egypt- discuss work in progress. “We came away biologists have raised doubts about the ian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an with the prize for the best rump-session talk suitability of these for clinical research. ■ service at the same time that Bin — a huge cow-bell,”says Naccache. ■