April 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Slashdot | Europe To Adopt Strict Internet Copyright Law
by Jim Choate 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

http://slashdot.org/yro/01/04/11/1440245.shtml -- Adapt, Adopt, Improvise! - Anonymous Venimus, Vidimus, Delevimus - 1st Linux Motto, Anonymous Tivoli Certification Group, OSCT James Choate jchoate(a)tivoli.com Senior Engineer 512-436-1062

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Jim Bell Trial: Second Day
by auto211076＠hushmail.com 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

Second Day: Jim Bell trial The second day of the Jim Bell trial opened up with D.A. London making a motion to tell the jury that Bell had owned firearms in the past although he hasn't had any since the 1997 trial. According to London, the fact that Bell had had a gun in the past was a reasonable basis for federal agents' current fear of Bell. Defense attorney Leen pointed out that free speech could be a cause for fear in some people, but that nobody would reasonably constrain speech. Leen said that firearms possession is constitutionally protected, and that this was true for Bell up until 1997. The fact that he was exercising a constitutionally-protected right could not be held against him. London said that the weapons were seized in 1997. Bell designated a friend to receive the firearms when the IRS returned them in 2000, which by definition would mean that Bell was no longer in possession of them. Leen pointed out that there was absolutely no evidence of current possession by Bell or of Bell contacting his friend regarding the weapons. Bell had made no attempt to acquire firearms. London suggested that Bell should retract his essay Assassination Politics. Bell protested the suggestion, and Judge Tanner threatened to either muzzle Bell or move him downstairs to a viewing room. London claimed that AP alone was a sufficient threat to the treasury agent witnesses. The court ruled that London could introduce the firearm evidence. The court then took up the matter of Bell's remaining subpoenas for Joanne Mayita and Anne Marie Evans, both of the U.S. Attorneys Office. London moved to quash the subpoenas. Leen pointed out that in-district subpoenas don't need to go through the court. Miyeta was the prosecutor for Ryan Lund's case. Bell believe Lund received consideration from the U.S. Attorney's Office to intimidate Bell while they were both incarcerated at the Seatac facility into signing a plea agreement in 1997. Evans was a prosecutor in the 1997 Bell case, and Bell claims that she was aware of the Lund deal. Tanner ruled to quash the subpoenas. After this ruling, Bell twice banged the defense table with his hand. Tanner warned that any subsequent display would mean removal, and ordered the downstairs viewing room to be prepared. Shortly thereafter, Tanner told Bell to move over one seat to the end of the table, leaving a chair between him and his attorney. His attorney asked that Bell be cuffed with an ankle cuff instead to the chair next to him so that Bell could still conference with him. Leen pointed out that the jury would not be able to observe the cuff. Leen requested limitation on testimony regarding Bell's prior legal possession of firearms. Leen also brought up the interlocutory issue again, mentioning that it was now on the briefing calendar for the ninth. The jury was brought in, and the first witness for the day, Robert William East was sworn in. East had been Bell's friend for 15 years, and was the person that the IRS released Jim's guns to. He testified that he picked up the firearms from the IRS' downtown Portland office in 2000 and had stored them with friends of his that Bell had no access to. The firearms included 2 SKSes, a Ruger Mini-14, and an S&W 629. London introduced Exhibit 21, a set of lock picks. East testified that he had loaned Bell a tension wrench and a pick. East and Bell had used the set once to open a door at East's house, and then had never seen that wrench and pick again. (There was no evidence presented that the wrench and pick had been recovered from Bell's house in the 11/6/2000 raid.) East said that he wasn't sure when this occurred, but it was sometime before 6/24/96, the date of an email in which he and Bell mentioned the set. Leen objected based on relevancy. London pointed out that he was trying to show that because Bell could pick a lock, he was a credible threat to federal agents. On cross-examination, Leen asked if Bell had written to him while Bell was in prison. East said that Bell had, and that the letters contained requests to look up people's names. East stated that he wadded up the letters and threw them away without acting on them. In additional testimony, East said that there had been no discussion of lock picks since 1996. On re-examination, London asked East if he and Bell had discussed Sarin. He said that they had discussed methylphosphodiflouride and isopropyl alchohol as precursors. London brought up the Tokyo subway incident again, implying that Bell would use Sarin to gas federal agents. East replied that they had only discussed it in relation to the Tokyo incident and that they had researched it purely out of curiosity about current events. The next witness was Christopher John Groener, who lives in Mike McNall's former house. McNall is an IRS agent who Bell had been researching. Bell visited Groener's house in October, looking for McNall. While at Groener's house, Bell recorded the license plate numbers of cars on the property before leaving. On cross-examination, Groener stated that McNall hadn't lived at the residence for about four years. Groener stated that Bell had not been threatening, nor had any weapons. The jury was sent out for a recess. Leen motioned for mistrial, based on London's mention of the Tokyo subway attack and the transparent attempt to link Bell to it. Tanner declined to declare a mistrial, saying that he had already instructed the jury to ignore it. London pointed out that because of Tokyo, agents had reason to be afraid. Lean countered that any fear that the agents had, no matter how unreasonable, they could attribute to Bell. "If Bell were Japanese, they would bring up World War II [as a reason to be afraid]." The jury returned to the courtroom. The next witness was Hilda Wong Muramoto who is a subpoena manager for @Home Corporation. In direct testimony she stated that Bell had a cable modem account, that the "DNS designation and sub-domain" as well as the IP address were hard-wired, and that the account did not cover dial-up connections. She said that the IP address was 24.16.209.166 and that the DNS number was C1099371-A. The DNS name that was captured in the e-mail that Bell allegedly sent to cypherpunks was encrv1.wa.home.com. She claimed that those "numbers" could not appear on anyone else's e-mail. Leen failed to explore the issue of e-mail header spoofing at cross-examination. The next witness was John Young. London started asking him about an email that he wrote on 10/25/2000 to the cypherpunks list. Young said that it was just a request for information in relation to the Cryptome web site, which publishes documents involved with cryptology, intelligence, and dual- use technologies. In an almost-professorial manner, John explained how he had come across the information concerning an ISTAC office of the CIA in Bend, Oregon. By consulting the .gov domain database for web sites that the CIA owned, he noticed the ISTAC web site and tried to find further information on it. As part of his research, he said that he sent out a general request to the cypherpunks list because it was sometimes a good source of information. Young published the domain name lookup info, which included the name Deforest X. Mueller, to the cypherpunks list. Bell, among others, had responded to the discussion about a CIA presence in Bend. However, it became apparent that London did not understand the difference between a contribution to a mailing list and direct correspondence. He tried, briefly, to characterize Bell's contribution as direct communication. Young pointed out that there are hundreds of subscribers to cypherpunks and that anyone can contribute. On cross-examination, Leen asked Young if he published names of CIA agents as "public information." "Potentially, they could be injured or killed as a result?" "We don't think so." Young stated that numerous such allegations had been made, but that such a scenario had never materialized. "Do you feel that Mr. Bell's technology is feasible to implement?" "No." "Is there anything of value in his essay?" "Yes indeed?. It's a good essay to envision how new technologies are deployed." Young further characterized Bell's AP essay as being one of many such papers that explore potential outcomes of new technologies. On re-examination, London claimed that Assassination Politics, contrary to Young's claim, had already been implemented by one person-C.J. Parker. He claimed Parker had developed a working system. Young said that Parker's system was a spoof, but London stuck to his claim that it was real because people could enter a name, which was forwarded to Parker. Young was then excused as a witness for the rest of the trial. The next witness was Jay Brian Goold, a special agent for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. He said that his job was to investigate assaults on IRS agents and their families. He was present at the 11/6/2000 raid on Bell's home. Among other items that he found were: 1) a floppy with the label "ATF thug hunt" and Bell's name and address 2) a spiral notebook (previously referred to as "the diary") of names, addresses, phone numbers, and license plate numbers 3) the original of the "Joshua" fax 4) several CDROMs of the Oregon DMV database, sorted by different criteria By the time that Goold had described the contents of five CDROMs, most of the jury, who had paid rapt attention to Young's testimony, appeared districted and bored. At one point, Goold tried to introduce a CDROM into evidence that was labeled "DMV 2000". On cross-examination, he admitted that he hadn't looked at the CDROM, and didn't really know what was on it. At this point, the judge granted a recess for lunch, and Goold stated that he would look at the CDROM during lunch. Before the court reconvened, London joked to bystanders: "Bell should feel that he's already got revenge on the system, because I've had to stay in Tacoma during all of this." On re-convening, but before the jury was brought back in, Leen asked the judge for permission for Bell to move back from the end of the table and said that Bell would "behave himself." Tanner took a long look at Bell and said, grudgingly, "Oh, alright." The jury returned and Goold took the stand. He confirmed that the exhibit was indeed as labeled. Goold then described the next exhibits to be introduced: 1) a residential phone disk for the eastern U.S. 2) a residential phone disk for the western U.S. 3) "Digital Directory Assistance" for the western U.S. 4) "CD Phone Disk Business Pro" 5) user guide for phone disks Goold then introduced some printouts from those CDROMs, including lookups of addresses and names for the people he was researching. On cross-examination, Leen asked Goold if the printouts that were seized were the only ones found at Bell's house of if there were many other printouts. Goold said that there were others, but that the warrant only allowed seizure of relevant items. "There were other printouts, but they weren't relevant so I didn't take them." One of the warrant items was for copies of AP. During the raid, no copies of AP were seized. On re-examination, London asked Goold if the search team discussed before, during, or after the search if they had any discussion about seizing documents related to the free expression of political opinion. Goold stated that the agents did not. The next witness was John Michael Copp of Portland, a friend of Jim Bell's for 15 years. Copp had driven Bell around on a couple of his trips to check out houses of suspected federal agents. Copp said that Bell had gotten the addresses "from the internet." When they arrived at the destination, Copp said that he had warned Bell just to look and not to get out of the car, "or it was going to be a long walk home." Bell stayed in the car and took a picture at each location. Copp tried to tell Bell that he might be on shaky grounds: "I communicated to him on several occasions that I really didn't think it was a really good idea." Leen asked Copp if he took many road trips with Bell. He had. Copp stated that Bell believed that he was being spied on by neighbors, followed by airplanes at night. Copp said that he was sure that he was being followed by a Cessna 172 with government markings. On a trip to Rocky Butte, he and Bell had stopped at the Butte, and watched a plane that had apparently been following them go into a pattern of "lazily circling" around the Butte area until they left. Copp revealed that he had once been a Portland police officer. Copp testified that Bell had never confronted anyone. When asked about weapons, he said that "none seen none inferred." "Any chemicals?" "None." Copp said that Bell believed that Gordon was following him around. "[Bell] thoroughly believed that Mr. Lund was an agent or instrument of the government of the U.S." Jim believed that Jeff had put Mr. Lund up to assaulting him. On re-examination, Copp stated that after Bell's arrest in 1997, he had told Gordon that he had actually thought about calling authorities about Bell's behavior. On re-cross, Leen asked Copp about Bell's state of mind. "Over years, he became more and more concerned and worried about being followed and spied on? paranoid, maybe." Copp added that Bell had plans to sue the federal government and specifically special agent Gordon. The next witness was Scott Deforest Mueller. He stated that he was a real estate agent, denied working for the CIA or any national security organization, and had never heard of ISTAC. He had resided at the address on Dionne Way in Bend that had been listed in the domain name record for ISTAC until about two years ago. Mueller's answers were delivered in a nearly monotone staccato. He exhibited no change in facial expression as he answered the questions. When asked by London why his address was listed on the record, he claimed that "he had no idea how it got there." Mueller felt threatened because Bell had sent letters to the Vancouver Columbian and the Portland Oregonian outing him as a CIA agent. He said that he had to buy three firearms to protect himself and his family, and that previously he hadn't owned any firearms. On cross-examination, Mueller admitted that Bell had never contacted him. Mueller further admitted that he was unaware of any threat until Jeff Gordon contacted him in September or October, 2000, "after the raid." (The raid was in November.) Mueller said that he'd never had any mail stolen, nor had his house been broken into, nor had anyone trespassed on his property. Leen: "If Jeff Gordon hadn't told you about this, you'd never know any of this, presumably?" "Presumably." The next witness was Philip Scott, special agent of the U.S. Treasury Office of Inspector General for Tax Administration, who was present at the November raid. He introduced a couple of printouts of maps, both to the Dionne Way address that was pointed to by the .gov ISTAC domain name record. Leen objected that warrant didn't include seizing anything having to do with Dionne Way. It turns out that the search warrant that was given to the defense by the D.A. did not include the search warrant for the house, but only for Bell's car. London pointed out that his office had mistakenly put in the wrong warrant. At this point the jury left the courtroom, and Leen argued that Scott had seized items not on the search warrant. His objection was denied. After recess, but before the jury returned to the courtroom, the judge asked if there were any outstanding subpoenas? The defense said no. Although he had disposed of the remaining subpoenas early the same day, 82-year-old Tanner did not remember disposing of the last of them. Leen brought up that they would like to subpoena Ryan Lund. London argued against it, and Tanner seemed to be quite confused by the whole argument and unable to follow which attorney was saying what. Leen pointed out that a number of documents concerning Ryan Lund had been seized in the November raid and that Lund would be able to provide information relevant to Jeff Gordon and Mike McNall. The judge refused to allow Lund to be subpoenaed. After the jury returned, the prosecution next called Brian Timothy Kenney, an operations manager for Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama. BCBS is the insurer for Joshua Gordon, son of one Jeffrey and Barbara Gordon (not related to the Jeff Gordon in this case). Bell had mistakenly thought that he had located the Jeff Gordon that he was looking for, and had somehow managed to find out the name of their son. The prosecution has tried to establish that Bell stole a statement from BCBS from the Gordon's mail that covered Joshua's medical payments. Kenney testified that the item in question was sent out in mid-October. Kenney testified that a check had been enclosed, but that he didn't know if it had been cashed. Leen asked if Kenney knew if his server had been hacked, indirectly implying that the Gordon's son's name could have been obtained by other means. (The jury probably didn't catch on to this inference.) Kenney said that he was not really knowledgeable about it, that he possibly might have been informed. Upon further examination of a replica of the insurance statement, Kenney said that it was just a statement of what the provider had been paid, and that no check had been enclosed. The next witness was John Rabatin, special agent of the Office of the Inspector General Tax Enforcement Division. Rabitin is a computer forensics specialist. When asked to identify the three computers that had been seized from Bell's house 5 months before, he barely glanced at them and said that they were the same computers. Rabatin identified more documents seized from Bell's house, mainly assessment records of the addresses that Bell had been interested in, and search results listings for Gordon. Rabitin also produced an e-mail that Bell authored calling for publishing the names and addresses of agents involved in Waco, Ruby Ridge and other incidents. Bell also suggested that people in other states buy up and publish DMV databases similar to what had happened in Oregon. Rabitin described how he performed forensics on Bell's machines: he removed the hard drive from each machine, put them in a lab computer, and performed a bit copy from the source drive. After removing the source drive, he used "various forensic software and techniques on the image." More emails recovered from the computers were produced including an email from Bell mentioning that he had voter registration records. By this time, Tanner is clearly napping. But he's not alone; one of the jurors has slumped over, eyes closed, head to the side. Rabitin further talks about emails where Bell describes the surveillance he's under, and discusses how to get back the items that were seized in the 1997 raid. The jury then recessed for the day. After the jury left. London moved to seal all documents containing personal information, including addresses, so that they would "not be splashed all over the internet." Leen argued against a sealing order based on first and sixth amendments. No ruling was made at the time. Free, encrypted, secure Web-based email at www.hushmail.com

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bit disturbance
by Morlock Elloi 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

There is something deeply disturbing here (3 hat thing) http://channel.NYTimes.com/2001/04/10/science/10MATH.html that will possibly lead to a generic solution for Feistel nets. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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ICC still looking for recruits?
by Brainteaser 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

To: cypherpunks(a)ssz.com From: Brainteaser I thought you might be interested in this job. It's just one of the more than 250,000 great jobs on Headhunter.net: http://www.headhunter.net/share/det.asp?d=J26K66D0YJBB4DWPWJ Comments: And no, I didnt put that there.

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A Chinese Call to Hack U.S.
by Jim Choate 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42982,00.html -- Adapt, Adopt, Improvise! - Anonymous Venimus, Vidimus, Delevimus - 1st Linux Motto, Anonymous Tivoli Certification Group, OSCT James Choate jchoate(a)tivoli.com Senior Engineer 512-436-1062

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Cracks Happen; Protect Thyself
by Jim Choate 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,42984,00.html -- Adapt, Adopt, Improvise! - Anonymous Venimus, Vidimus, Delevimus - 1st Linux Motto, Anonymous Tivoli Certification Group, OSCT James Choate jchoate(a)tivoli.com Senior Engineer 512-436-1062

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Jeff Gordon: Agent, investigator, witness, "stalkee"
by Declan McCullagh 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42962,00.html Bell Trial: Victim as Prosecutor by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)wired.com) 10:35 a.m. Apr. 10, 2001 PDT TACOMA, Washington -- The government's prosecution of an Internet essayist accused of stalking federal agents raises unusual ethical questions because the alleged victim is also the chief investigator, experts say. Jim Bell is charged with two counts of trying to intimidate Jeff Gordon, an agent in the Treasury Department's tax administration office. Gordon conducted repeated investigations of Bell, including the current one, and is the government's chief witness and courtroom technical expert. Legal ethicists say that Gordon's deep involvement in a case in which he claims he feared for his life -- and the fact that as a prosecution witness he was not sequestered -- is uncommon during criminal trials. "It sounds very odd to me," said Robert Drinan, a professor of law and ethics at Georgetown University. "It sounds awful." "It doesn't quite add up.... It reminds me of a police officer suing his superiors, and getting himself assigned to the case," Drinan said. [...]

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OPT: UCITA & Cypherpunks - We got a plan...
by Jim Choate 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

Well, actually it's a plan to make a plan ;) We intend the following: - Identify the several bills (UCITA, UEITA, etc.) that are currently in the Texas legislature for consideration. We believe this count is currently at five (5). - Identify pro and con sources of information. - Identify pro and con members of the legislature. - Compare and contrast the various 'positions' and develop an appropriate 'cypherpunk' responce. - Begin an information campaign that will hit both the traditional and alternative media in Texas, in particular in the major cities (ie Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and El Paso). We discussed letters to media as well as a potential video. - Identify each of the steps that the bills will need to go through in their consideration in the legislature. The intent is to identify 'key players' who can be contacted for maximum 'bang for the buck' so to speak. - Develop a presentation and arrange appointments with legislators to attempt an 'education campaign'. - Pray for deliverance from the pestilence of God-$ (not that Cypherpunks have any objection to making money, it's the now) To help resolve these issues, in addition to the monthly Cypherpunk get together, we will institute a bi-weekly meeting to work further on these goals. I will be making the meeting location and time announcements on the Austin Cypherpunks and ucita-tx mailing lists only!!!!! We also intend to 'beef up' the SSZ homepage. One idea was to create a 'bulletin board' (eg WWWBoard) so that interested parties could participate in a more long-lived manner than a simple mailing list. We also intend to re-write the 'form letter' on the 'Fight UCITA in Texas!' webpage. The feeling was that it was too long and not as well worded as it needed to be. Currently the mailing lists and resources are: Austin Cypherpunks http://einstein.ssz.com/cdr austin-cpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com (closed to outside submissions) UCITA-TX Mailing List http://einstein.ssz.com/ucita ucita-tx(a)einstein.ssz.com (closed to outside submissions) Note that the mailing list itself is non-partisan. The same can't be said for the webpage and most certainly not the cpunks. Ta ta. ____________________________________________________________________ To speak algebraically, Mr. M. is execrable, but Mr. G. is (x+1)-ecrable. Edgar Allan Poe The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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The Deconstruction of James Dalton Bell
by Eric Cordian 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

Ah, I see Declan has posted his impressions of Day 5 on Wired News. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,42951,00.html > Jim Bell's Strange Day in Court > by Declan McCullagh > Bell's lawyer, Robert Leen, twice asked U.S. District Judge Jack > Tanner to halt the proceedings because his client had a "major mental > disorder." Gosh, don't you just love how federal public defenders "help" their clients, by calling them crazy in front of the jury. Reminds me of all those patronizing press conferences given by Tim McVeigh's lawyer during the trial, in which he coyly explained that even human refuse like McVeigh deserved the rubber stamp of due process, all the while holding his nose, and acting like it pained him greatly to even be near the guy. Until Leen gets his MD, and Bell is his patient, he's not qualified to diagnose anyone. > He said that his attorney "communicated a threat" against Bell and > Bell's family during the meeting, and "threatened to cut me off after > 30 minutes if I mentioned" accusations against fellow prisoners. One wonders why the article describes Bell as "Agitated," "Embittered," and "Combative," rather than by a more value-neutral term like "Angry," unless the reporter is also playing the diagnosis game here. > During cross-examination, Bell invoked his Fifth Amendment right against > self-incrimination when asked about $2,000 a month in trust fund income > not reported on a statement that he signed in November 2000 to qualify > for a court-appointed lawyer. Why was this line of questioning even permitted? It is a meta-issue, has nothing to do with the charges, and seems only a shameless attempt to further poison the jury. > The Vancouver, Washington resident said he was coerced into taking a > plea agreement on July 18, 1997, in which he admitted to obstructing IRS > agents, writing "Assassination Politics" and stink-bombing the carpet > outside an IRS office. It would seem to me that since writing "Assassination Politics" was not illegal, it should not be mischaracterized as a crime confessed to on a plea agreement. The press does this all the time of course, reporting that defendants "admitted" things in their plea agreements, which were not the subject of any criminal charges, thus juxtiposing certain acts and illegality in the mind of the reader. Statements of fact in a plea agreement which are only background should not be deliberately confused with the crimes being confessed to. Would we say Bell "admitted" to having a chemistry diploma, or "admitted" to living at a certain address? I think not. > London suggested that there were two types of U.S. citizens: Those who > were federal agents and those who are not. Some animals are more equal than others, I guess. > Because Bell repeatedly said he would not violate the law, Leen had > hoped to raise a First Amendment defense -- essentially saying that > because the law protects advocacy of violent acts, the jury can find > Bell to be not guilty as charged. Of course, the point that is missed here is that "Assassination Politics" and Bell's attempt to document federal harrassment of him after his release, are two completely unrelated things. This is a big trend in prosecutions these days, so much so that if one is outspoken in ones beliefs, one cannot commit any acts that seem to support those beliefs, and vice versa. Someone who advocates government overthrow and plays paintball on the weekends, is looking at a long prison sentence. It is safe to do either, but not both. The "threats" and "acts in support of the threats" can be completely unrelated, and the government will still win the case. > Leen asked the judge to incorporate a First Amendment defense in > instructions to the jury. But Tanner nixed that idea. He said he did not > believe Bell was engaged in political speech. Hmmmm. Is it "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of political speech...?" Obviously Judge Tanner has a different version of the US Constitution than I do. > Bell has complained that the media was "boycotting" his trial. Well, at least what media is not manufacturing consent for his conviction is boycotting his trial. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Jim Bell verdict is in
by Declan McCullagh 11 Apr '01

11 Apr '01

The jury convicted Jim Bell on two counts of stalking cypherpunk Jeff Gordon, and hung 11-1 on the three other counts, which the judge dismissed without prejudice. See my Wired article soon. -Declan

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