CovertHistory.com - 8/11/2012

Main Core (AKA MAINCORE) is a database very similar to what Wikipedia described, except we knew about Main Core in 1995, thanks to Chuck Hayes, who should be something of a folk hero to the hacking group Anonymous.

Before we go back to what we knew and ignored in 1995, let’s review what we know about Main Core.

The origins of Main Core lies with FEMA and Oliver North, the Nicaraguan Contras, the Cabazon Indians, and a program called PROMIS.

PROMIS, designed to interface with innumerable database and extract relevant data regardless of the language or system used with the database. Its earliest roots were developed by William Hamilton while working for the NSA, and when Hamilton went private with Inslaw, some in the NSA felt cheated. In fact, any version made before 1978 was in the public domain, as it had been developed with public fund, but Inslaw’s Enhanced version of PROMIS was made in 1981, and the government wanted it.

Edwin Meese, Earl Brian and Peter Videnieks conspired with others to steal PROMIS in a scheme that would become entangled with American tech firms, and the Iran-Contra Affair. Modifications were made to PROMIS, creating a backdoor in any system it was installed on. The modified software was sold to foreign and global banks as a way to give the NSA secret “backdoor” access to the electronic flow of money around the world, as well as being sold or traded to foreign governments and intelligence agencies through a series of cutouts. The full extent of PROMIS’s reach and the depth of the scandal is staggering, and beyond the scope of this article.

Full story