November 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the "anti-hacking" regime has become
by Tim May 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Saw this interesting application of the new hardware copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place" http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html excerpt: "Wednesday November 7 2:20 PM ET Pet Robot Owners Mad at Sony By YURI KAGEYAMA, AP Business Writer TOKYO (AP) - Many owners of the world's most sophisticated robot pet, the cuddly Aibo, are growling at Sony Corp (news - web sites). over its demand that a Web site stop distributing free software that teaches the machine new tricks. ``It was a very stiff legal position Sony took without regard to how it will affect the Aibo community,'' said Richard Walkus, a publishing house employee from Madison, N.J., who owns two Aibo robots but is now putting any new Aibo orders on hold. ``Sony is to some degree undermining its own success.'' In a letter last month, Sony told the owner of the AiboHack site that he was violating its copyright and altering its product without a license. It demanded a long list of Aibo software - including code that taught the machine disco steps and new words - be pulled off the site. --end excerpt-- This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially computers, and the "hacks" are just new computer programs. Imagine: "Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available software for their machines that Dell did not authorize." "Ford plans to protect its intellectual property by blocking after-market sales of trailer hitches, bed liners, light bulbs, and even motor oil not sold by authorized Ford dealers. "By examining our products and determining how to make things like trailer hitches, these pirates are in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright," said Ford spokesman Jason Natter." If robots cannot be reprogrammed, then neither can all sorts of other electronic gear that people routinely reprogram, improve, take apart, etc. Adding a programmable search function to a shortwave radio, for example, would fall under the same nonsensical terms as the Sony case. ObCypherpunks: I despise the DMCA, but my faith is not in having such laws overturned. In fact, the explosion of new laws is likely unstoppable. However, using technology to thwart traceability (*) is a means of monkeywrenching such laws. (* I wonder if anonymous remailers will someday be classed as "circumvention devices"? We debated this years ago, wondering whether the laws against unauthorized (!) possession of lock-picking tools and "burglar tools" could be used to de facto illegalize remailers.) --Tim May "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -- Nietzsche

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Re: Entertainingly dangerous spam - Access and use your PC from anywhe
by Anonymous 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

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Buenos Dias
by Artcamp SC de RL 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Buenos Días. Receive greetings from our rural womens artisans cooperative in Guerrero México. Our road as women artisans in the Third World has not been easy in the past years it is hard. we do NOT mind working because it is honest, and necessary in order to support our families. It is still more difficult to sell our products sometimes, because of the costs of reaching the customers; to make a single telephone call to the United States for 20 minutes costs us what we earn in a days work. For this reason we sell mostly to wholesalers, because they purchase our products in larger quantities but we have to have orders constantly, because there is not much profit for us at the prices we sell at. Sometimes it happens that the wholesalers do not pay us at all they just refuse or wont answer our calls; this does not happen very often but it does happen and this is very costly to us and makes us go backwards. We have been trying to reach the market more directly and so we have developed a website for that purpose; but the Internet site by itself does not solve the problem of how we may sell directly to retailers in the market. Our idea is to perform the part of the wholesaler who sells our product to the stores at profit; however good may be his or her intentions there is necessity to pay salaries and overhead and U.S. taxes and travel expenses Wholesalers have to pay all these costs somehow in order to keep on in business. We are the producers; we are the producers themselves, we transform the materials into the finished product: handcrafted jewelry. the key to our success will be to get a lot of orders to keep down the shipping expense per kilo that way we can ship the product to small customers in a single large container, that is the key. We are going to make an effort to solve the problem of our isolation from the market by creating the wholesaler function at the end of our village-based production system You can be very important in helping this project to succeed; if Artcamp can make the step up to becoming our own wholesalers, then we can get stronger and make a success for everybody. THANK YOU for taking the time to read this message. You can see our pictures modeling our own creations http://www.artcamp.com.mx/XA/18.html and working in our shop http://www.artcamp.com.mx/FG/c13.html Atentamente, Areli, Luz, Yolanda, Hilaria, Tamara, María, Angelica, Esperanza, Rocio, Minerva. and the other women of our cooperative ARTCAMP SC de RL Artesanas Campesinas

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Plugging leaks
by Major Variola (ret) 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

At 01:46 PM 11/6/01 -0800, A. Melon wrote: >WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The information that prompted a warning that >terrorists might target a major Western bridge has been determined to be >"not credible," two federal law enforcement officials tell CNN, and the >FBI Tuesday is preparing to say no threat exists. > >"There just wasn't anything to it," said one official. The jihad's leak has been identified and, um, plugged. How do you say whacked in pashto? Gov Gray is a fine leak detector, don't believe it when they say soapy water is any better.

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Osama Says
by FogStorm 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Full text (translated into English) of his latest communication: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/monitoring/media_reports/newsid_1636… 1636782.stm

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Re: Sony and Robots...shows how crazy the "anti-hacking" regime has become
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote : >Saw this interesting application of the new hardware >copyright/anti-tampering/anti-reverse-engineering regime in place" > >http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011107/tc/sony_robot_hack_1.html > >This shows how crazy the laws have gotten. These robots are essentially >computers, and the "hacks" are just new computer programs. > >Imagine: > >"Dell has announced they are are suing anyone who makes available >software for their machines that Dell did not authorize." > > >--Tim May > I have my own gripe about this and related items. We've all read about MS's nasty license agreements and how they affect the spread of alternative operating systems. Well, I wanted to pick a decent graphics card that would be well supported under Linux. ATI has a lot of hooplah on their site about how they are Linux-friendly so I started there. The card I tentatively chose was the All-in-Wonder Radeon. It has MPEG2 HW, TV Tuner, Graphics engine, TV out. There is XFREE86 support and there is a project that has video capture working but no matter where I looked I couldn't find technical docs for the thing. Isn't that where most driver projects begin? It's what I've always stared with anyway. So I called their Developer Support number and was told, in spite of the talk about Linux support on the website, that they don't give that technical reference out to just anyone but that some information had been released to the Linux community. I have yet to locate exactly what was released. I know it does not include the register set description for the TVout portion and having seen SW DCT code in project sources I wonder if the HW is being put fully to use. A HW DCT makes a huge difference in performance. The net effect is that Linux development is hobbled. Is this because ATI is protecting some sort of IP? Anyway it kind of ticks me off. So there's more, I'm pretty suspicious of BIOS and MS OS snoopiness. Wouldn't it be nice to have open source BIOS? There is a Sourceforge project called FreeBIOS and a cousin called LinuxBIOS. Again, I like to start with documentation. Well the motherboard mfr offers little in the way of technical info. Same for the chipset mfr. Unless you're a corporate customer. I don't really have a lot of time to reverse engineer this shit but I'm just about mad enough to make time. Mike

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Re: All your mentally ill children are belong to us
by mattd 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Subject: ratted out "A CONFIDENTIAL FBI list of 370 people suspected of > helping Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has > leaked out. > > The names, addresses, telephone numbers, e-mail, > and social security codes of the suspects were > posted on the internet by Finland's Financial > Supervision Authority (RATA)." On the bright side the Hannsen files are being prepared for online release soon and reports of TMs death seem slightly premature.Also as psychiatrists tape evidence for clients trials and lawyers give their clients up,its comforting to have the ROCK of journalism to fall back on.(not sure about confessionals but they are looking better as an interview space.

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Re: [CNN] FBI: Threat against Western bridges 'not credible'
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

Anonymous <cripto(a)ecn.org> wrote : > >>Form over function. Same as airport security. Psyops. Like the warnings >>to keep people off balance. Should we start a pool to see who can guess >>when ashcruft will put everyone 'on highest alert' next? It'll probably > >The airport security show is clearly designed to intimidate >sheeple. > >From what I saw, the security consists of asking for photo ID 3 >times instead of once (used to be at the check-in counter, now >also when entering security check and at the gate). Mind boggles >trying to understand how these two extra checks help. > >Is there a single documented case of a terrorist *not* having a >proper ID ? Or losing the ID *after* the check-in ? > >The carry-on bagage X-raying and personal inductive test still >fail to detect non-metallic knives, perhaps hidden in the shoes. > >Restaurants at airports still offer metal knives. After the >security check. There are *so* many armed people at airports and >so much more guns that inside jobs become much simpler than >before. No one is going to ID armed man in military fatigue. > >Cockpit doors have better locks now, but I wonder where do pilots >urinate during long flights ? > That Depends... Brings to mind some NYC burglars...you know how you see NYC apartments in movies where there are multiple locks on the door? It's true. Ever seen one of those four-edged keys? Looks like it would be living hell to pick. Well, some burglars found a way around it - they just smashed through the wallboard next to the door. Now I'm not saying that this is exactly what will happen next on an airliner but how much good will all this show of force, new doors, sky marshals and ID checking do if these bastards choose to launch one of those unaccounted-for stingers from somewhere near a flight path over a densely populated area? And before you say it's too tough to get one of those into the country - I think customs checks <5% of incoming containers. And who knows, maybe just a hail of bullets could knock out the turbines... That's the problem with the "homeland security" gig - there are not enough trillions to plug all of the holes in the dike. So what to do? Well, the last four weeks of bombing and money hunting are something. Not much, but something. And before it's labeled prejudice I'm reasonably convinced that the guys who hijacked those flights on 911 were not named smith, schmidt, o'malley, kowalski, suzuki, xing, leclerc, rojas, or running bear. Mainlining petroleum has helped put us at risk. Allowing automotive and petroleum interests to run our country has prevented us from pursuing conservation measures and alternative energy as aggressively as we should have. Were we less dependent on petroleum in general and imported petroleum in particular we would be at lower risk and in a stronger position today. Consumption is just too much fun - until the bill arrives. Management by crisis is always costly. Everyone talks about our being "engaged" in the Middle East - they're wrong - we're bloody well married to it and it's going to be one mother of an expensive divorce. Fuck^H^H^H^HThank you GM, Ford, Chrysler, Exxon, Mobil, BP, reagan, bush, clinton, bush, congress and, most of all, all of us. Mike

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All your mentally ill children are belong to us
by Khoder bin Hakkin 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

I think people have not quite gotten their hands around the speed at which information can be disseminated online. -Monica Lewinsky, LATimes 9 may 01 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-110701private.story November 7, 2001 Web Mishap: Kids' Psychological Files Posted By CHARLES PILLER, Times Staff Writer Detailed psychological records containing the innermost secrets of at least 62 children and teenagers were accidentally posted on the University of Montana Web site last week in one of the most glaring violations of privacy over the Internet. The 400 pages of documents describe patient visits and offer diagnoses by therapists of mental retardation, depression, schizophrenia and other serious conditions. In nearly all cases, they contain complete names, dates of birth and sometimes home addresses and schools attended, along with results of psychological testing. Unlike a medical file left open on a counter in a doctor's office, these electronic medical records, once placed on the Internet, were exposed to a potentially vast audience. "You're talking about sensitive information that could scar a child for life being available to anyone for any purpose," said Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times newsletter. The mother of an 11-year-old, whose records of an attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder were posted on the university's Web site, was appalled. "He's just a kid, and he shouldn't have his whole life splattered around for the whole world to know. It makes me sick," she said. The mother declined to be identified. She recalled attending her son's therapy sessions and watched the therapist "taking notes in her book, and [I] thought maybe that was the extent of it. I guess I was kind of naive about that." The medical files were placed on the University of Montana Web site Oct. 29 and were available for eight days. The files were removed Monday after a local paper, the Missoulian, reported the story, university officials said. The records were for patients at clinics mainly in Minnesota, as well as in Montana and other states. A University of Montana student or technical employee may have accidentally placed these private files on the Web site, officials said. It is unclear how many people viewed these records. The Montana case is the latest in a series of unauthorized disclosures of medical data over the Internet. Earlier this year, Eli Lilly & Co., maker of the antidepressant Prozac, inadvertently divulged the names and e-mail addresses of 600 psychiatric patients in a mass e-mail. Similarly, Kaiser Permanente last year sent e-mails with confidential medical information to the wrong Kaiser members. "That's the danger with having all of these electronic records," said Daniel B. Borenstein, a former president of the American Psychiatric Assn. and a UCLA professor. "If you push the wrong button or put something in the wrong spot on your Web site, it [can mean] immediate distribution of a massive amount of private medical information," Borenstein said. Last year, a Nevada woman bought a used computer only to find that its previous owner, a drugstore, had left the pharmacy records of thousands of patients on the machine's storage drive. But the buyer did not publicly disclose the records. Also last year, a computer hacker broke into the medical records system at the University of Washington Medical Center and gained access to some 4,000 patient records--although these were not made public. What sets the Montana incident apart is the youth of the patients, the amount of detail disclosed and its placement on a public Web site that allowed complete access to private records. The detailed accounts by therapists reveal children suffering from all manner of emotional problems: "[She] has 'extreme mood swings' and is very aggressive with her sisters and other children," read one file about an 8-year-old girl diagnosed with autism and mental retardation. "She has been cruel to animals, . . . often refuses to eat and will make herself vomit." An 8-year-old boy was described as suffering from "anger outbursts, gender identity issues" and bed-wetting. Raymond Ford, the University of Montana technology manager, said the incident is under investigation. "We have no evidence that this was malicious--all the evidence that we have suggests that the person who uploaded [the patient files] probably had no idea what [he was] doing," he said. But once the records were placed on the school's Web server, a computer that manages its online files, they became available to Internet search engines and were visible to casual Web surfers who requested a keyword contained in a patient's record. For example, a search for "confidential" or "neuropsychological" turned up dozens of these medical records. Those files could then be copied to the computer of any visitor. Therapists whose patients were involved were stunned by the lapse. "I'm shocked. I have no idea how this can happen. Obviously, this information is confidential, and we go to great lengths to keep it confidential," said Bonnie Carlson-Green, a psychologist at Children's Hospital in St. Paul, Minn., the source of some of the patient records. Ford said the university will attempt to tighten its Web security, but that it must depend on users' vigilance and care to restrict private materials. Medical records experts said the university has an ethical obligation to inform the patients' parents. "The least the [university] can do is contact the families and let them know that there was this error and the steps they've taken to correct it," Borenstein said. "There should be special privacy protections for all medical records, even more special protections for disclosure of any psychiatric records," because of a real threat of discrimination against people whose treatment for mental illness becomes known, Borenstein said. Borenstein fears that fewer people will seek treatment if they think their private information may be accidentally disclosed. Many psychiatrists are so concerned about inappropriate electronic disclosure of medical reports that they write only cryptic comments in patient records, trusting the rest to memory, Borenstein said. David Aronofsky, the University of Montana's attorney, said accidental online releases of private legal or medical information are not unusual and are corrected quickly. Patients and medical institutions have not been contacted about the release of these records. They will be contacted if it seems necessary, after the internal investigation is concluded, Aronofsky said. "We're not understating the significance of what happened here, nor are we trying to cover it up," he said. Fiona Anderson, a University of Minnesota psychologist whose patient records were among those released online, said the records may have been removed against her institution's rules. "As things become more electronic and more easily accessed . . . edited and altered, it's difficult for our ethical rules and guidelines to keep up with the technology," she said. But such victims of accidental disclosures face steep legal challenges to gain compensation, said Peter Swire, a law professor who was chief privacy counselor for the Clinton administration. Part of the problem is new, more stringent federal standards for medical records privacy will not take effect until 2003, and state regulations vary widely. Posting a private document online--no matter how injurious it may appear--can cause legal liability only if the victim can prove damages in court. "What if one of the patients has something bad happen to him or her as a result of this disclosure--if they are turned down for a job later in life?" Swire said. "This is where you are open to a [legal] suit." As more medical records are stored digitally, routine electronic disclosure to insurers and health maintenance organizations has increasingly troubled some clinicians and privacy advocates, although such transfers are legal and often required for provider reimbursement. Paul Appelbaum, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Assn., said patients should be given the option of having their information kept on paper. A few health-care providers, such as the Harvard Pilgrim HMO, offer such an option. The alternative for patients may be decreasing control over their medical histories. Appelbaum added: "The mobility of electronic information is almost unlimited."

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Re: URL for William Cooper death story
by Major Variola (ret) 07 Nov '01

07 Nov '01

At 10:20 AM 11/7/01 -0500, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Here's another article with more detail. Gotta love the SPLC: > >http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/1107cooper07.html "former Marine and Persian Gulf War veteran, was shot twice in the head by what was believed to be a .45-caliber pistol. The officer was expected to survive" Geez that kinda blows the large-caliber theory... should have used a rifle..

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