January 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Hiding Sensitive Data Can Be Tough in a Digital Age (fwd)
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:23:10 -0500 From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rahettinga(a)earthlink.net> To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs(a)philodox.com>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu, cryptography(a)wasabisystems.com Subject: Hiding Sensitive Data Can Be Tough in a Digital Age http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/technology/ebusiness/14DELE.html?pagewant… January 14, 2002 Hiding Sensitive Data Can Be Tough in a Digital Age By JOHN MARKOFF SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13 - The modern task of successfully destroying electronic documents has become daunting enough to give Oliver North nightmares. Mr. North is the Marine officer who became notorious during the Reagan-era Iran-contra scandal after it was discovered he had tried to delete thousands of e-mail messages, only to discover that they had been retained on backup tapes and made available to Congressional investigators. The issue of the destruction and possible retrieval of electronic data burst into the news last week after Arthur Andersen & Company, the auditors for the Enron Corporation (news/quote), said that the accounting firm had destroyed a "significant but undetermined" number of documents relating to Enron and its finances. The embarrassing acknowledgment set off new demands from Congress that Andersen produce a wide range of documents, including e-mail and other computer files for investigators. Today, Mr. North's efforts would be vastly more complicated because of changing computer technologies and the emergence of the Internet, which has ensured that there will be multiple copies of almost any electronic document. "Today documents aren't just stored. They're sent," said Mark Rasch, a former federal prosecutor who is vice president for cyberlaw at Predictive Systems (news/quote), a network security consulting firm based in Herndon, Va. Even though many companies have general procedural rules that require the periodic deletion of e- mail, he noted, messages can usually be recovered. "The sender and the recipient may have the message on their machine, in addition to the server where it was stored," he said. "Unless there is a tool used to remove it using military-grade technology, it can be recovered." Most computer-literate office workers now realize that simply deleting an e-mail message or moving a document onto the trash icon on their computer's desktop screen does not eliminate the data. That is because modern computers organize information by using file-system directories that point to physical areas on a disk drive where the data resides. "Deleting" the information usually only breaks the link between the directory and the data so that the original storage space can be reused in the future. To eliminate important data, some companies and individuals use software tools that try to "wipe" files from storage disks by writing random strings of 1's and 0's over the space where the files were stored. Others will use programs that "defragment" disks by moving information around on the surface of the disk so that data can be retrieved more efficiently, which can also write over old data. Or they can reformat the drives entirely. What most computer users do not realize, however, is that the world of computer forensics has made huge strides in recent years, and it is now remarkably difficult to hide data from a determined investigator. "Computer forensics is going to play an important role in recovering documents in the Enron case," said John Patzakis, president and general counsel of Guidance software, a company in Pasadena, Calif., that makes hardware and software used by law enforcement authorities as well as the Big Five accounting firms. Every action taken by a computer user leaves a telltale trail, he said, so the act of deleting documents can itself be revealing. "Not only can computer forensic techniques recover documents, but they can inform investigators when and how they were deleted," he said. "It is often possible to determine if a deletion is an innocent act pursuant to a corporate policy or if there is an ulterior motive." Even more remarkable, technical means exist to retrieve data that has been erased. It is possible to take a disk apart and use an electron microscope to read information from the individual magnetic spots on the surface of a disk that may have been intentionally erased, Mr. Patzakis said. Originally a tool of the intelligence world, this technique - which is costly - has been used successfully in big legal cases. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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DVD hacker Johansen indicted in Norway
by Jei 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23633.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DVD hacker Johansen indicted in Norway By Ann Harrison Posted: 10/01/2002 at 19:58 GMT Norwegian prosecutors have indicted Jon Johansen for his role in creating the DeCSS program that unlocked a DVD copy protection system and unleashed a series of lawsuits by the motion picture industry. The National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway (OKOKRIM) indicted Johansen on January 9th for violating Norwegian criminal code section 145(2), which prohibits the opening of a closed document in a way that gains access to its contents, or breaking into a locked repository. The law also prohibits the breaking of a protective device in a way that unlawfully obtains access to the data. If Johansen is found to have committed the felony for the purpose of unlawful gain, he could serve up to two years in prison. "The way we understand it, the data is the content of the DVD, what you are breaking is the encryption and what you are getting access to is the data on the disk," said Halvor Manshaus of the Oslo law firm Schjodt, which is representing Johansen. Manshaus says the law has previously been used to prosecute those who broke into bank or phone company records. But he says this is the first time that the law has been used to prosecute someone who broke an encryption system. The case is expected to go to trial before summer. "There was a Norwegian Supreme Court ruling where this regulation has beenapplied before, but that was a case where he was accessing or breaking into a system that you are not legally entitled to access," said Manshaus. "The distinction here is that he is charged with breaking a code and accessing the data that he is allowed to access. He owned the DVD disk." The indictment comes more than two years after the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) contacted OKOKRIM prosecutors and requested a criminal investigation of Johansen and his father, Per, who owned the PC on which Johansen posted DeCSS. Indictment follows US lawsuits Manshaus says the MPAA also asked OKOKRIM to charge both father and son with contributory copyright infringement. OKOKRIM did not pursue this charge against Jon Johansen, and Per Johansen has not been charged under either complaint. Neither father, nor son is accused of breaking any U.S. laws. Johansen, who just turned 18, was not available for comment. The movie industry fears that the removal of the DVD encryption could spark unauthorized copying of DVD movies. But Johansen has maintained that DeCSS was intended not to make copies, but rather to create DVD playback software for computers running the Linux operating system. Johansen is co-founder of a group called MoRE (Masters of Reverse Engineering). Two members of the group, which Johansen knew only by their screen names, helped him develop DeCSS in 1999. The group found that the Windows-based DVD player XingDVD from Xing Technology Corp. had not hidden its decryption key. MoRE used this decryption key to make DeCSS. Manshaus says Johansen never used the utility to make copies of DVDs. Jan Bing, a Norwegian legal expert who testified for the EFF in a related California civil case, concluded in a legal analysis that, "there is no legal precedent or court decision in Norway to support a claim that reverse engineering is a violation of Norwegian criminal law." He added that 145(2) could, in theory, forbid the "breaking of a protective device," to gain access to information on a disk, but he noted that there is no supporting Norwegian precedent. A spokesmen for the MPAA was not immediately available for comment on the indictment. Robin Gross, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that has supported Johansen said the motion picture industry has pushed Norwegian prosecutors to indict the young programmer. "I think they just finally succumbed to Hollywood pressure," said Gross. "The Norwegian government finally had to bow to the demands of Hollywood to prosecute Jon." In January, 2000, police entered Johansen's home and seized two personal computers, a mobile phone, and several computer disks. Johansen was taken to a police station and questioned for nearly seven hours and released. Gross says the current action against Johansen stems from two lawsuits filed in the U.S. The first lawsuit, was brought in 1999 by the DVD Copyright Control Association (DVD CCA) in California Superior Court, against Andrew Bunner and others. The suit claimed that Web publishers who posted or linked to DeCSS unlawfully misappropriated trade secrets. The suit demanded that the publishers delete the information. While he was not named in the suit, Jon Johansen decided to remove his link to DeCSS from his web site. On November 1, 2001, the California Court of Appeals reversed the court's preliminary injunction and confirmed that the publication of DeCSS is protected by the First Amendment. Bunner and his legal team have asked the court to recognize that because DeCSS is widely available on the Internet, it cannot be considered a trade secret. The second case involved a federal suit in New York court against 2600 Magazine which posted the DeCSS code on its Web site. The major movie studios sued 2600 Magazine, claiming that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) bans publication of the program. On November 30, 2001, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision banning the magazine from publishing DeCSS. The court agreed that computer programs are protected expression. But it found that when DeCSS is published on the Internet, the fact that it could be misused justified a complete ban on the program. Despite the lawsuits, Gross says that Johansen, who now works for a software company, is respected in Norway. She notes that he was awarded Norway's Karoline Prize given each year to a Norwegian student who receives top grades and makes a contribution to society. Gross says the EFF plans to coordinate protests and a letter-writing campaign similar to that which lobbied for the release of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov. Sklyarov was jailed and later released for distributing software that could be used to circumvent access restrictions on Adobe's e-book format. "We want to get the Norwegian public to come together and put some political pressure on the prosecutors to drop the charges against Johansen," said Gross. © 2001 SecurityFocus.com All rights reserved.

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Web Security Company Takes No Prisoners (fwd)
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:26:35 -0500 From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rahettinga(a)earthlink.net> To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs(a)philodox.com>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu, cryptography(a)wasabisystems.com Subject: Web Security Company Takes No Prisoners http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/technology/ebusiness/14SECU.html?pagewant… January 14, 2002 Web Security Company Takes No Prisoners By CHRISTINE BLANK s a former airborne infantry officer in the Army, Clarence Briggs was trained to protect the country from foreign enemies. Now, he is using those specialized skills to protect his company, Advanced Internet Technologies, from hackers, competitors and disgruntled employees. Surrounding the company's property in Fayetteville, N.C., is coiled razor wire atop a six-foot chain-link fence. The buildings have eight-inch- thick concrete walls and are patrolled by uniformed guards with ready access to firearms. Mr. Briggs explained that he did not want competitors to steal server computers or data - something he said he had seen at other companies that like his, serve as hosts for client's Web sites. Mr. Briggs, who founded the privately held company six years ago along with other former military people, has also installed video cameras, created password access to secured areas, locked sensitive documents in a vault and insisted on extensive employee background checks. He said such measures were necessary to protect the 32,000 Web sites the company operates for companies based in this country and abroad. "Security must absolutely pervade an organization, especially an I.T. organization," Mr. Briggs said, using an abbreviation for information technology. "Most I.T. organizations don't even know how bad they get hurt - until it's too late." He says that the company, which is generally known as A.I.T., deals with several attempted network hacker attacks a day. Fortifications include A.I.T.'s custom-made firewall software, vigilant surveillance by the staff - most of whom are military veterans with extensive technical training. "If I catch you, no expense is too great for me to come after you, and I will make your life miserable," Mr. Briggs, a former major, said. The A.I.T. team tracks down perpetrators, then either phones them or sends representatives from the company or local law enforcement agencies to warn against further attempts. "We employ a lot of little traps to track folks that access our network," Mr. Briggs said. "We use the typical ambush techniques." The company is so confident of its preparedness that it plans to offer a security service for corporations this spring. The program, Mr. Briggs said, will be modeled on A.I.T.'s mix of physical and electronic security, along with a "rapid deployment team" that can be quickly dispatched to deal with security breaches. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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a must have domain name
by Anna Morgan 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

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Slashdot | History of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://slashdot.org/yro/02/01/14/0020207.shtml -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Slashdot | Lawsuits Against Spammers
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://slashdot.org/articles/02/01/13/1734258.shtml -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Swarms Of Tiny Robots To Monitor Water Pollution
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://unisci.com/stories/20021/0114026.htm -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Slashdot | Why 'rm -R star' Isn't Enough
by Jim Choate 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://slashdot.org/yro/02/01/14/1328244.shtml -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Email postage redux
by Roy M. Silvernail 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

The email postage meme seems to be spreading a bit. http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2838340,00.html It's a reader's letter suggesting a plan for e-postage. The interesting point is that it doesn't suggest is-a-person credentials are a necessity, and even mentions techniques for anonymous email. -- Roy M. Silvernail Proprietor, scytale.com roy(a)scytale.com

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info restriction: reclassifying declassified docs
by lcs Mixmaster Remailer 14 Jan '02

14 Jan '02

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020113/ts/us_germ_weapons_1.html Bush May Limit Germ Weapons Info By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is considering whether to restrict distribution of government documents that describe how to make germ weapons, White House officials said Sunday. U.S. stockpiles of offensive germ warfare agents were destroyed nearly three decades ago as part of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. But the government kept the blueprints for manufacturing such weapons, and continues to sell them. ``The administration is generally conscious of this issue,'' John H. Marburger III, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a telephone interview Sunday. ``There are obviously people thinking about what to do about it.'' The administration is likely to take action on the matter, Marburger said, adding that he did not know what action would be taken nor when. Homeland Security director Tom Ridge hinted that the administration is strongly considering placing new restrictions on the information. ``We are a very open society and we're very much an information society, and there are a lot of us that think that some of the information we share with the public probably should be restricted in some fashion,'' Ridge said on CNN's ``Late Edition.'' Marburger and other administration officials are ``looking to see what kind of information should be so easily available in the public domain,'' Ridge said. Members of Congress have also aired concerns about the issue, he said. ``We are open, we are trusting, but we have to be a little bit more careful and a little bit more vigilant,'' Ridge said. ``And we may have to take a look at these kinds of issues from a different perspective because of the tragedy of September 11 and the follow-on incidents that we've had to deal with.'' Several agencies are weighing the level of danger and possible action, Marburger said. A spokeswoman for the Defense Department said Sunday she could not comment, as did a White House spokesman. Representatives of the Justice Department (news - web sites) and the White House Office of Homeland Security did not return calls. Marburger said he had not personally seen the documents on assembling such weapons. Among the questions is how dangerous they are, he said. ``It is clear that they are based on a picture of biology that's almost 50 years old,'' he said. ``It's not clear to me how useful they are.'' The New York Times first reported on the documents and the debate in Sunday editions, and said despite their age, the manuals contain information that could help produce the kind of anthrax powder infected at least 18 people and killed five in the United States last year. According to the newspaper, federal agencies routinely sell the now-declassified documents to historians and researchers. The government provides more sensitive papers on the subject after Freedom of Information Act requests. Dr. Harry G. Dangerfield, a retired Army colonel, is preparing a report for the military that will call for the reclassification of more than 200 reports that he told the newspaper are cookbooks for turning germs into weapons. Any such move to reclassify the manuals would run into resistance from advocates of public access to government documents. Moreover, an executive order signed by then-President Clinton (news - web sites) in 1995 bars reclassification, the Times said. The Bush administration is considering its own order allowing the documents to once again be kept from public view, it reported. Marburger said Sunday he did not know about any such move. ........ I found http://www.oie.int/eng/normes/mcode/A_00044.htm to have enough info to culture and sporulate, though you'd have to look elsewhere for freeze drying and milling tech.

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