August 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Debs,in search of self.
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/08/21/5788950 http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/debs-speech.htm The Anti-war Speech That Earned Eugene Debs 10 Years in PrisonProminent labor organizer and political activist Eugene Debs delivered a speech at a Socialist Party convention in Canton, Ohio, on 16 June 1918. Because of it, he was prosecuted under the Sedition Act for interfering with the draft, leading to a 10-year prison sentence and the stripping of his US citizenship. (He ended up serving 2 years and 8 months in the slammer; President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence.) Interestingly, Debs ran for President on the Socialist Party ticket five times, with the last time occurring while he was in prison. He received almost one million votes. The Memory Hole is presenting this speech for many reasons. Besides its historical value, we believe any speech which caused its speaker to be imprisoned is worth saving. And you may notice that as the current administration bangs the drum for war against Iraq, Afghanistan, and 60 other countries, the anti-war portions of this speech are as relevant now as they were 84 years ago. Anti-war portions of Debs' speech Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and all to lose--especially their lives. They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people. And here let me emphasize the fact--and it cannot be repeated too often--that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace. Yours not to reason why; Yours but to do and die. That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation. If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace.... You need at this time especially to know that you are fit for something better than slavery and cannon fodder. You need to know that you were not created to work and produce and impoverish yourself to enrich an idle exploiter. You need to know that you have a mind to improve, a soul to develop, and a manhood to sustain.... They are continually talking about your patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches. And now among other things they are urging you to "cultivate" war gardens, while at the same time a government war report just issued shows that practically 52 percent of the arable, tillable soil is held out of use by the landlords, speculators and profiteers. They themselves do not cultivate the soil. Nor do they allow others to cultivate it. They keep it idle to enrich themselves, to pocket the millions of dollars of unearned increment.... And now for all of us to do our duty! The clarion call is ringing in our ears and we cannot falter without being convicted of treason to ourselves and to our great cause. Do not worry over the charge of treason to your masters, but be concerned about the treason that involves yourselves. Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth. ******************************* Alternative Press Review - www.altpr.org Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream PO Box 4710 - Arlington, VA 22204

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Swiss banks down- Caymans next?
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

Peru gets secret fortune linked to former spy chief BY LUCIEN O. CHAUVIN Special to The Herald LIMA - Switzerland on Tuesday returned to the Peruvian government $77.5 million linked to Peru's discredited former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, concluding that the money ``originated from corruption-related crimes.'' The money had been squirreled away in secret bank accounts during the past decade by Montesinos and other officials in former President Alberto Fujimori's government. The bulk of the money, $49.5 million, was in accounts belonging to the jailed Montesinos. Another $21 million was in an account held by retired Gen. Nicolás de Bari Hermoza Ríos, who headed the Joint Chiefs of Staff throughout most of the 1990s. The remaining funds were deposited in Switzerland by an unidentified arms dealer. The Peruvian government expressed satisfaction Tuesday with the decision of the Swiss Federal Office of Justice. ''This is great news. We are not only recovering money that belongs to all Peruvians, but the decision of Swiss authorities will also help us work with other countries to repatriate more funds,'' said Rep. Anel Townsend Diez Canseco, a member of congress and close ally of President Alejandro Toledo. The returned funds were transferred to an account belonging to the Peruvian National Bank at Citibank in New York. The repatriated funds represent a staggering amount of money for a relatively poor country like Peru, which is fighting to overcome an economic crisis. Earlier this year, the Swiss government agreed to return to Nigeria some $535 million held in blocked accounts in Swiss banks by the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. In terms of money returned to a Latin American government, however, the Peruvian figure is believed to be one of the highest. MORE SOUGHT In addition, the Peruvian government is working with the Swiss Federal Office of Justice to repatriate another $33 million held by Montesinos in accounts that have been blocked in that country. Montesinos was sentenced to nine years in prison in early July for illegally acting as head of Peru's National Intelligence Service. Fujimori never formally appointed him to head the intelligence service, which he ran for 10 years. He faces nearly 60 other charges, many involving arms smuggling, and has been held at a special prison on a navy base in Callao, near Lima, for more than a year. Hermoza Ríos, arrested in April 2001, also faces a long list of charges. He admitted to siphoning resources from the military budget and agreed to return the money. He has not been sentenced. ARMS DEALS Swiss authorities said Montesinos' accounts were from commissions made on at least 32 arms purchases in the 1990s. Montesinos took an 18 percent cut on transactions. Hermoza Ríos' $21 million was embezzled from the military budget during nearly seven years as head of the Peruvian army. The two are also accused of making a fortune from drug trafficking when they formed part of a three-man team that ran Peru with Fujimori from the early 1990s. Several jailed drug traffickers testifying before a congressional commission said they paid off both men. Montesinos and Hermoza Ríos deny the accusations, which would mean life sentences if shown to be true. Montesinos' accounts were first detected by Swiss authorities in November 2000, leading to the creation of a Special Prosecutor's Office and a dozen congressional commissions in Peru. Switzerland has also blocked accounts belonging to other former political brokers, including Victor Joy Way, a former congressional speaker and finance minister. Joy Way is in prison awaiting trial. The money being repatriated represents a small fraction of the total identified by the main commission investigating corruption in the Fujimori administration (1990-2000). When it finished its second report months ago, the commission had tracked $782 million belonging to more than 200 people. Townsend said she hopes the Swiss decision and tougher banking laws enacted in that country will encourage other nations to cooperate more fully with Peru. Switzerland, long considered a paradise of banking secrecy, passed stricter laws in 1998 requiring banks to report deposits suspected of coming from illicit sources. The Swiss decision comes at a key moment for the cash-strapped Peruvian government. President Toledo has set up a special fund to administer money embezzled during the Fujimori years. The fund has already received $38 million from bank accounts held by two other jailed Montesinos associates, Alberto Venero Garrido and Juan Valencia Rosas, at the Cayman Island-based Pacific Industrial Bank.

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regarding henry
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

US wasn't concerned about rights abuses in Agentina AP [ THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2002 11:15:52 AM ] BUENOS AIRES: Leaders of Argentina's past military dictatorship believed Washington was willing to look the other way at the outset of the junta's bloody efforts to stamp out political dissent, newly declassified US documents show. In a telegram signed by then-US Ambassador Robert Hill, a top Argentine official returned to Buenos Aires following a 1976 visit to Washington "convinced that there is no real problem with the US government over the issue" of human rights. Hill said the comments by Argentine Foreign Minister Admiral Guzzetti had come after meetings with US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during a two-week visit to the United Nations and Washington. "Guzzetti went to the US fully expecting to hear some strong, firm, direct warning of his government's human rights practices, rather than that, he has returned in a state of jubilation," Hill wrote. "His remarks to me since his return are not those of a man who has been impressed with the gravity of the human rights problem as seen from the US," he continued. "Guzzetti's reaction indicates little reason for concern over the human rights issue." Hill's impressions were contained in a telegram that was one of more than 4,000 documents released by the U.S. State Department this week, and posted on a government Web site Wednesday. The documents are revealing new information about Argentina's "dirty war" against suspected leftists during the 1976-83 dictatorship. During the military's six-year rule, at least 8,900 people disappeared in the junta's systematic crackdown on leftist groups, according to a government report. Human rights groups place the figure at around 30,000. The cables were released at the urging of human rights groups, Argentine families of the disappeared, and several countries investigating military officers for past abuses. Some of the documents - diplomatic cables and other memoranda from US officials sent from the US embassy in Buenos Aires to Washington - give an impression that American diplomats believed the government had not strongly stressed that the abuses were cause for concern. Another Hill cable, sent in September 1976, says a high-ranking Argentine official came away from a meeting with Kissinger in Santiago, Chile, thinking the US government approved of what the military regime was doing to supress subversives. "Their impression had been that the US government's overriding concern was not human rights but rather that the Argentine government 'get it over quickly'," he wrote. William Rogers, who served as under secretary for economic affairs during the Ford administration, said Kissinger repeatedly told Argentine officials its fight against terrorism had to be conducted within the law. He said Kissinger had instructed Ambassador Hill to stress that point in meetings with officials from the military regime. Kissinger did not return calls for comment Wednesday. "The cables are only a fraction of the total communicaton between Washington and the field," he said. "The don't capture what was being said behind closed doors." Following Argentina's dictatorship, many ranking military officers were tried on charges of abduction, torture and execution of suspected leftist opponents of the regime. They were imprisoned in 1985 but later pardoned in 1990 by then-President Carlos Menem. The human rights abuses in Argentina proved a nettlesome issue for the successive administrations of US presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, which struggled over ways to handle them. US embassy officials in Buenos Aires diligently tracked the abuses of the military government, frequently offering recommendations that provoked sharp debate in Washington over ways to stop them, experts say. Appealing for added pressure from State Department officials on the Argentine government, Hill wrote that he could not press for greater attention to the human rights issue in Argentina if it did not first emanate from Washington. The Argentine government "must now believe that if it has any problems with the US government over human rights, they are confined to certain elements of Congress and what it regards as uninformed minor segments of public opinion. While that conviction lasts it will be unrealistc and unbelievable for this embassy to press the government over human rights violations," he wrote

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Ratical Hirstory.
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

AUSTRALIAN RADICAL HISTORY THE EUREKA SERIES NO. 29 ONE MORE TIME Carboni¹s acquittal twenty minutes after the jury retired, should have culminated in the end of the treason trials. Governor Hotham and his Attorney-General William Foster Stawell, rightly believed their credibility with the Home Office in London rested on a conviction, so they insisted that the farce go on, hoping they could record one conviction. Jan Vannick a "foreign" from Holland, one of the "mongrel crew" took his turn on the stand. After a trial that lasted less than a day he was acquitted in record time. James Beattie was the next miner to face the court. Evidence was given that trooper Rivell from the 40th Regiment, confronted Beattie as he clambered back into the stockade with a pistol in his hand. Beattie dropped his pistol, dropped to his knees and screamed "Mercy! Save Me! Don¹t Shoot! I am beaten! I will give in!" as trooper William Rivell aimed his carbine at him. Fortunately for Beattie, Sergeant Patrick Riley of the same regiment saw Beattie beg for mercy and told trooper Rivell to take him prisoner. Beattie was acquitted once again in record time. Michael Touhey took the stand the following day. Evidence was given that Touhey was caught escaping from the stockade. Once again another one of the magnificent thirteen was acquitted of the charge High Treason. Michael Touhey was born in Scariff, Ireland in 1830. He survived the Irish famine, burying many family members and friends. He never forgot that food was being exported from Ireland to line the pockets of English absentee landlords, while a million Irish men, women and children died and a further million were forced to immigrate. On the morning of December 3rd 1854, Touhey was prepared to fight and die if necessary. Although he had traveled 12,000 miles to escape the tyranny of the British government, once again he faced the same tyrants. Luck seemed to be with Touhey, after side swiping a bayonet that ripped through his clothes, he was arrested and marched to the police camp. On the way to the camp, a soldier tried to cut off his head with a sabre. Touhey¹s nimble feet saved him once again. After his acquittal he returned to the alluvial diggings at Ballarat. Once the gold ran out, he took up a farm in the Ballarat district between Melbourne and Ballarat. He took part in the 50th anniversary celebrations at Ballarat in 1904 and continued farming till he died at the age of 85 from pneumonia at the Ballarat Hospital in September 1915. He was the last survivor of the thirteen who stood trial for High Treason in Melbourne in 1855. NEXT WEEK: THE FINAL SIX.

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Californication.
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

National Guard Anti-Pot Helicopter Caused 50,000 Acre CA Fire By Preston Peet For High Times 8-19-2 "This has got to be the very worst marijuana-related damage done in this state in my entire lifetime." -- Dale Gieringer, California NORML A forest fire that burned out of control for almost two weeks and devastated over 50,000 acres near San Diego was caused by a helicopter looking for pot farms, a California Department of Forestry investigation has concluded. http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/08/19/8199988 Support long beach anarchs By Lorenzo Komboa Ervin Recently I visited Los Angeles for a speaking tour, and learned of the harassment and frame-ups of Anarchists in Long Beach/Los Angeles county, California. It seems that repressive police And FBI terrorism is being used to crush the Anarchist movement there. During May Day protests against capitalism held in Long Beach, police without provocation attacked a street demonstration with brutal violence, arresting about 100 persons, and physically injuring several others. People were shot with rubber bullets, beaten with baton, and sprayed with chemical Mace. http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/08/20/4614088

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Saudi billionaires bail.
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

Dollar declines as Saudis withdraw billions from US By Javid Hassan & Omar Al-Zobaidy RIYADH, 22 August The US dollar yesterday fell from recent highs against the euro and yen following a report that Saudi investors were pulling billions of dollars out of the United States. Londons Financial Times earlier said Saudi investors have withdrawn the funds from the United States because of concerns their assets might be frozen. The paper quoted Youssef Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the US-based Council on Foreign Relations, as saying Saudis have pulled out at least $200 billion from the United States in recent months. A high-ranking official of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency confirmed that $200 billion have been withdrawn by Saudi businessmen from the United States. But he denied that the money has been deposited in Saudi banks. The Financial Times quoted Ibrahim as saying the withdrawal had been fueled by calls from some hard-liners in the United States for a freezing of assets held by investors from Saudi Arabia. He said the outflows could pick up in response to the legal action launched last week in the United States against Saudi citizens and organizations, Sudan and several Gulf banks and charities by relatives of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. The suit accuses them of covertly financing the Al-Qaeda network and seeks $1,000 to $3,000 billion in punitive damages for each of the 14 counts from 99 organizations or individuals. It also seeks $100 trillion in damages from Sudan. According to the Financial Times report, investors are believed to be shifting funds out of US private equity, stocks, bonds and real estate into European accounts. But it added that some bankers in London said the largest established Saudi investors did not yet appear to be shifting money out of the United States. It quoted one unnamed banker as saying: "Im skeptical about a mass exodus. But there was a lot of Saudi money with American banks that was not diversified, now they (the Saudis) are spreading their wings. Perhaps 30 percent to 50 percent of the money that was with US banks is seeking diversification." Saudi investors have registered their concerns over the campaign of criticism against Saudi Arabia in the United States. "It is making our customers paranoid," said a senior banker with a US bank overseeing billions in Saudi assets mainly in the United States. A cross section of Saudi businessmen, investors and financial advisers welcomed the withdrawal and said European banks could be the major beneficiaries of this huge repatriation of funds unless the Gulf and Arab states streamlined their own economies and created an environment conducive to the inflow of overseas funds. Commenting on the unprecedented step taken by Saudi investors, Bishr Bakheet, well-known financial adviser, told Arab News that it is estimated that Arabs had invested $1.3 trillion outside the Arab world. "This figure is based on the analysis conducted by Merrill Lynch/Gemini Consultancy. According to them, it is estimated that Saudis have invested more than $700 billion in the United States." Bakheet said that of late the US economy had been showing signs of weakness which had been mirrored in its negative performance even prior to Sept. 11. "It is for this reason that many institutions had started to reduce their investments in the US market, especially after Sept. 11." The situation, he said, was compounded by the onslaught on Arabs and Muslims in the US in the wake of Sept. 11 which, together with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom and other US corporations, jolted the Saudi investor confidence. http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=17989

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RENKLI FAKSINIZ VAR MI?
by Canon B�lge Bayii 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

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In Solidarity...
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

for a free Palestine By Steven Salaita (YellowTimes.org) - For the first time in my life, I was disgusted to receive messages in support of the Palestinian people. It wasn't, of course, the support itself that irritated me; it is always uplifting and inspiring to hear from folks who covet justice and advocate the implementation of international law. Rather, it was the context in which the purported support was expressed. Let me offer an example. One reader signed off with the line, "In solidarity for a free Palestine." A nice sentiment, right? Absolutely not. The previous sentence announced that "[i]f they don't soon clean up their act - in Palestine and everywhere else - these Zionists will suffer a fate that will make the supposed 'death of the six million' (unfortunately, that number seems far too small) look like a tea party!" I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. The subject line, after all, read, "Those Fucking Jews!" Sadly, this way of thinking still exists in our world. It is gruesome and frightening, but not wholly anachronistic. I deplore it, though I don't like to publicly condemn it because, thanks to organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and Simon Wiesenthal Center, condemnation of anti-Semitism is parlayed into uncritical support for Israel's ethnic cleansing. I refuse to oppose one form of racism in order to maintain another. What spurs me to action is the statement, "In solidarity for a free Palestine." Wishing death on world Jewry will not save Palestine. Ridiculing the millions who died in the Holocaust will not, in any possible way, benefit humanity. It will perpetuate the hatred that affected ethnic cleansing in the first place. I'd like to remind readers that Zionist colonization is part of this continuum, not a movement in response to it. This is all, in any case, beside the point. Articulating a desire to exterminate an entire ethnicity is pernicious beyond comprehension. It is counterproductive. It is despicable. It is terrifying. It is idiotic. And it has no place in the free Palestine movement, either in the West or Middle East. Such idiocy was never part of Arab culture. It was invented and developed in Europe. Let them have it. When has an indigenous people ever benefited from mimicking Europeans? As an ardent supporter of the Palestinian people, I would like to avoid statements like the one I received from a polite and otherwise perfectly reasonable reader in West Virginia: "I do recognize the double standard and hateful nature of the Yehudi." Or this one from another concerned citizen: "A truly frightening, evil race of people." My inbox is littered with similar observations. It provides me a semblance of relief that Arabs and Muslims have never offered feedback of this nature. It would be dishonest, however, to suggest that anti-Semitism does not exist in the Arab world. It is expressed on the street, in newspapers, and at the government level. It needs to cease for obvious reasons, mainly moral but also strategic. Another rarely mentioned reason it should stop is because it diverts Arabs from their cultural traditions. We have always been warm and generous. Our culture is unceasingly hospitable. Nowhere are guests treated more kindly than in the Arab world. We have an extraordinary history of tolerance and scientific inquiry. But if we appropriate the philosophical underpinnings of colonialism, then we become colonialists. We will be no better than the Europeans who came and carved our borders. We will be worse than Zionists. Arabs have serious problems to solve before we set our sights on liberating Palestine. There is a vibrant slave trade in Mauritania and the Sudan. There is political repression in Syria and Jordan. There is violent extremism in Algeria. (I wonder what became of Frantz Fanon's hope that the Algerian decolonial struggle wouldn't replace a French policeman with an Algerian policeman.) There is indentured servitude all over the Gulf. There is severe religious tension in Lebanon. With all this, we expect to liberate Palestine? I don't think so. Please, let's not add Nazism to the list of impediments. Relying on our own brilliant social and intellectual heritage will suffice. The messages I receive from domestic readers connote a different problem altogether. They are part of a recent phenomenon that has the potential to destabilize and discredit Arab America: The convergence of extreme-right logic with anti-occupation activity, a central feature of Arab American political culture. A number of far-right racists, David Duke foremost among them, now invoke Israel's behavior as "proof" of inherent Jewish depravity. Extremist websites post articles critical of Israel from respectable publications, many with Jewish authors. The organizations' hatred of Jews is so strong that they are willing to employ Jewish voices in order to promote their agenda. Their naïveté is as striking as their stupidity. Unfortunately, it gives credence to the Zionist assertion that Jews opposed to Israel's occupation are "self-hating." When Arab authors are used, it incites the notion that unprovoked anti-Semitism underlies our work. How are supporters of Palestine ever to make headway when the asinine claims made against our discourse by the Zionist mainstream are corroborated - without our knowledge or permission - by right-wing ideologues? Zionists whore themselves to the religious right in order to receive their money and support, even though they know damn well what Protestant taxonomy has in store for the Jews. It is shameful. Now, they rely on the exploits of those who want them exterminated in order to justify their claim that criticism of Israel is an offshoot of Nazism. We know this approach is dimwitted; but when we allow the extreme right to expropriate and employ our discourse, the approach works. We are, yet again, put in a position where we ignore the real issues because we are trying to convince everybody that we aren't anti-Semitic. This is all in addition to the most crucial point: Duke's brand of anti-Semitism is in itself horrific. It has no place in any decent public forum. It has caused humanity unspeakable pain. We shouldn't think that it could never happen again. As long as dangerous ideas exist, there is potential for danger. I therefore have two messages, one for Arab Americans and the other for anti-Semites who hitch their bigotry to my articles: 1) It is prudent for us to monitor what is said on our behalf and where our work is displayed when it is put into transit. We are already amid a public relations disaster in the United States. Zionists love exploiting that disaster; indeed, they helped create it. John Ashcroft is trying to eliminate the few civil liberties we have left. The Patriot Act is perilous to all Americans, but aimed primarily at Arabs and Muslims. We don't need more reason to induce suspicion in fellow Americans. And we can't afford to have our good work hijacked by racists who despise us, but who abhor the Jews enough to use that work to supplement their abhorrence. Let us then remain aware of the consequences of speaking. I am not merely paranoid. This problem is potentially serious. 2) It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. It is noble and necessary. It is anti-Semitic, however, to claim that Israel is the result of degenerate Jewry. This is what you do. I deplore that claim. I want nothing to do with it. I would rather embrace Zionism. I repeat emphatically: I do not work on behalf of Palestine in order to antagonize or destroy the Jews. The Jews are my cousins. I have productive relationships and warm friendships with Jews. The Israeli government is my enemy. This fact does not give you the right to attach your hateful ideology to Arab America and attribute your insanity to us. Your attitude nullifies humanity's potential for rapprochement. Your false support is transparent. Your incompetence is ubiquitous. Come to think of it, the only symbiosis among Jews and Arabs is the fact that our common enemy is you. [Steven Salaita is completing an English doctorate at the University of Oklahoma, with emphasis on Native, Palestinian, and Arab American literatures. A West Virginian with Palestinian and Jordanian parents, he splits his time between the United States and the Middle East. He encourages your comments: ssalaita(a)YellowTimes.org ] http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=18002

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Infowar skirmish as armies circle.e-armageddon looms.
by Matthew X 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer NEW YORK (August 21, 2002 6:34 a.m. EDT) - Upset by legislation that would give the entertainment industry broad technical powers to smother online copyright infringement, a small Internet service provider has decided to fight back. Omachonu Ogali, owner of Information Wave Technologies, said he would use techniques similar to a honeypot meant to attract pests. The method would involve placing fake music files on the Gnutella file-sharing network to identify computers that attempt to disrupt that network. Those computers, presumably working on behalf of the movie and music industries, would later be blocked from reaching the Information Wave Technologies network. Ogali also began blocking customers Monday from accessing the Recording Industry Association of America's Web site. The effect will be mostly symbolic. Information Wave has only about 25 customers, mostly business, in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and it's unlikely any blocks to his network would stop the industry's efforts elsewhere. A bill proposed by Rep. Howard L. Berman, D-Calif., would give the entertainment industry broad new powers - including deliberately interfering with only file-sharing programs - to try to stop people from swapping pirated music and movies. Berman has said the bill would not allow industry to spread viruses across file-trading networks or destroy files. But Ogali said mistakes could occur and if a customer is pirating music, "it's up to the ISP to terminate the customer's access, not the RIAA to come in as the law-enforcement agency." In a statement on Ogali's initiative, the RIAA said "games like this neither serve the interests of music fans nor protect Internet service providers from their legal obligations." ISPs lose exemption from copyright lawsuits if they actively or knowingly contribute to violations or fail to stop them upon notice, such as by terminating a customer's account. On Friday, several recording companies sued four Internet service providers - Ogali's was not one of them - seeking an immediate court order forcing them to block access to a Chinese Web site accused of distributing pirated music. Ogali said the lawsuit, for him, was the last straw.END Don't shoot till you see the pinkrim of their eyes."

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the underground software vulnerability marketplace and its hazards (fwd)
by Eugen Leitl 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

-- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://eugen.leitl.org 83E5CA02: EDE4 7193 0833 A96B 07A7 1A88 AA58 0E89 83E5 CA02 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 00:24:54 -0400 (EDT) From: Kragen Sitaker <kragen(a)pobox.com> To: fork(a)xent.com Subject: the underground software vulnerability marketplace and its hazards On August 7th, an entity known as "iDEFENSE" sent out an announcement, which is appended to this email. Briefly, "iDEFENSE", which bills itself as "a global security intelligence company", is offering cash for information about security vulnerabilities in computer software that are not publicly known, especially if you promise not to tell anyone else. If this kind of secret traffic is allowed to continue, it will pose a very serious threat to our computer communications infrastructure. At the moment, the dominant paradigm for computer security research known as "full disclosure"; people who discover security vulnerabilities in software tell the vendor about them, and a short while later --- after the vendor has had a chance to fix the problem --- they publish the information, including code to exploit the vulnerability, if possible. This method has proven far superior to the old paradigm established by CERT in the late 1980s, which its proponents might call "responsible disclosure" --- never release working exploit code, and never release any information on the vulnerability before all vendors have released a patch. This procedure often left hundreds of thousands of computers vulnerable to known bugs for months or years while the vendors worked on features, and often, even after the patches were released, people wouldn't apply them because they didn't know how serious the problem was. The underground computer criminal community would often discover and exploit these same holes for months or years while the "responsible disclosure" process kept their victims, who had no connections in the underground, vulnerable. The problem with this is that vulnerabilities that are widely known are much less dangerous, because their victims can take steps to reduce their potential impact --- including disabling software, turning off vulnerable features, filtering traffic in transit, and detecting and responding to intrusions. They are therefore much less useful to would-be intruders. Also, software companies usually see security vulnerabilities in their software as PR problems, and so prefer to delay publication (and the expense of fixing the bugs) as long as possible. iDEFENSE is offering a new alternative that appears far more dangerous than either of the two previous paradigms. They want to be a buyer in a marketplace for secret software vulnerability information, rewarding discoverers of vulnerabilities with cash. Not long before, Snosoft, a group of security researchers evidently including some criminal elements, apparently made an offer to sell the secrecy of some software vulnerability information to the software vendor; specifically, they apparently made a private offer to Hewlett-Packard to keep a vulnerability in HP's Tru64 Unix secret if HP retained Snosoft's "consulting services". HP considered this extortion and responded with legal threats, and Snosoft published the information. If this is allowed to happen, it will cause two problems which, together, add up to a catastrophe. First, secret software vulnerability information will be available to the highest bidder, and to nobody else. For reasons explained later, I think the highest bidders will generally be organized crime syndicates, although that will not be obvious to the sellers. Second, finding software vulnerabilities and keeping them secret will become lucrative for many more talented people. The result will be --- just as in the "responsible disclosure" days --- that the good guys will remain vulnerable for months and years, while the majority of current vulnerabilities are kept secret. I've heard it argued that the highest bidders will generally be the vendors of the vulnerable software, but I don't think that's plausible. If someone can steal $20 000 because a software bug lets them, the software vendor is never held liable; often, in fact, the people who administer the software aren't liable, either --- when credit card data are stolen from an e-commerce site, for example. Knowing about a vulnerability before anyone else might save a web-site administrator some time, and it might save the software vendor some negative PR, but it can net the thief thousands of dollars. I think the highest bidders will be those for whom early vulnerability information is most lucrative --- the thieves who can use it to execute the largest heists without getting caught. Inevitably, that means organized crime syndicates, although the particular gangs who are good at networked theft may not yet exist. There might be the occasional case where a market leader, such as Microsoft, could make more money by giving their competitors bad PR than a gang could make by theft. Think of a remote-root hole in Samba, for example. Right now, people who know how to find security exploits are either motivated by personal interest in the subject, motivated by the public interest, motivated by a desire for individual recognition, or personally know criminals that benefit from their exploits. Creating a marketplace in secret vulnerability information would vastly increase the availability of that information to the people who can afford to pay the most for it: spies, terrorists, and organized crime. Let's not let that happen. This is the original iDEFENSE announcement: From: Sunil James [mailto:SJames@iDefense.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 12:32 PM Subject: Introducing iDEFENSE's Vulnerability Contributor Program Greetings, iDEFENSE is pleased to announce the official launch of its Vulnerability Contributor Program (VCP). The VCP pays contributors for the advance notification of vulnerabilities, exploit code and malicious code. iDEFENSE hopes you might consider contributing to the VCP. The following provides answers to some basic questions about the program: Q. How will it work? A. iDEFENSE understands the majority of security researchers do not publish security research for compensation; rather, it could be for any of a number of motivations, including the following: * Pure love of security research * The desire to protect against harm to targeted networks * The desire to urge vendors to fix their products * The publicity that often accompanies disclosure The VCP is for those who want to have their research made public to the Internet community, but who would also like to be paid for doing the work.The compensation will depend, among other things, on the following items: * The kind of information being shared (i.e. vulnerability or exploit) * The amount of detail and analysis provided * The potential severity level for the information shared * The types of applications, operating systems, and other software and hardware potentially affected * Verification by iDEFENSE Labs * The level of exclusivity, if any, for data granted to iDEFENSE Q. Who should contribute to the VCP? A. The VCP is open to any individual, security research group or other entity. Q. Why are you launching this program? A. Timeliness remains a key aspect in security intelligence. Contributions to some lists take time before publication to the public at large. More often, many of these services charge clients for access without paying the original contributor. Under the iDEFENSE program, the contributor is compensated, iDEFENSE Labs verifies the issue, and iDEFENSE clients and the public at large are warned in a timely manner. Q. Who gets the credit? A. The contributor is always credited for discovering the vulnerability or exploit information. Q. When can I contribute? The VCP is active. You are welcome to begin contributing today. To learn more, go to http://www.idefense.com/contributor.html. If you have questions or would like to sign up as a contributor to the VCP, please contact us at contributor(a)idefense.com. Regards, Sunil James Technical Analyst iDEFENSE "iDEFENSE is a global security intelligence company that proactively monitors sources throughout the world -- from technical vulnerabilities and hacker profiling to the global spread of viruses and other malicious code. The iALERT security intelligence service provides decision-makers, frontline security professionals and network administrators with timely access to actionable intelligence and decision support on cyber-related threats. iDEFENSE Labs is the research wing that verifies vulnerabilities, examines the behavior of exploits and other malicious code and discovers new software/hardware weaknesses in a controlled lab environment." http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork

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