[Infowarrior] - Software fraudster 'fooled CIA' into terror alert

[Richard Forno]

Software fraudster 'fooled CIA' into terror alert

Spooks 'f*cking livid'
By Chris Williams • Get more from this author

Posted in Crime, 24th December 2009 11:58 GMT

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/24/cia_montgomery/

A con man fooled US spooks into grounding international flights by  
selling them "technology" to decode al-Qaeda messages hidden in TV  
broadcasts, it's claimed.

A long and highly entertaining Playboy article explains that in 2003,  
50-year-old Dennis Montgomery was chief technology officer at Reno,  
Nevada-based eTreppid Technologies. The firm began as a video  
compression developer, but Montgomery took it in new and bizarre  
directions.

He reportedly convinced the CIA that he had software that could detect  
and decrypt "barcodes" in broadcasts by Al Jazeera, the Qatari news  
station.

The Company was apparently impressed enough to set up its own secure  
room at the firm to do what Montgomery called "noise filtering". He  
somehow produced "reams of data" consisting of geographic coordinates  
and flight numbers.

In December 2003, it's claimed CIA director George Tenet was  
sufficiently sold on Montgomery's data to ground transatlantic  
flights, deploy heavily armed police on the streets of Manhattan and  
evacuate 5,000 people from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge told the press the terror alert  
was the result of "credible sources - about near-term attacks that  
could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11".

In fact, according to evidence from his former lawyer, Montgomery, the  
"credible source", was a "habitual liar engaged in fraud".

Montgomery worked with the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology  
- its Q Branch - engaged in exotic research and intelligence  
gathering. According to Playboy, one counter-intelligence official  
briefed on the programme said: "We were fucking livid. I was told to  
shut up. I was saying, 'This is crazy. This is embarrassing.'"

Eventually a branch of French intelligence helped the CIA prove that  
the Al Jazeera "messages" never existed. Files were handed over to  
counter-intelligence to investigate the scam.

The FBI uncovered a series of frauds by Montgomery, who was a  
compulsive gambler. As well as his "noise filtering" technology, he  
had rigged video software to convince officials it could detect weapons.

Following a dispute with eTreppid's financial backer, Montgomery took  
off with his "technology" and tried to win more government contracts  
alone. By now though, the officials he was trying to sell to were part  
of the FBI investigation. It reportedly "went nowhere", however.

By 2008, the financial dispute had come to court. Montgomery said he  
was still doing classified government work, for $3m. In June this year  
however, his gambling led to personal bankruptcy, listing his still- 
classified "technology" as a $10m asset.

Frances Townsend, a homeland security adviser to Bush, said she did  
not regret having relied on Montgomery's mysterious intelligence. "It  
didn't seem beyond the realm of possibility. We were relying on  
technical people to tell us whether or not it was feasible," she said. ®