December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by David Honig 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

When the American government eventually reveals the [full range of] reconnaissance systems developed by this nation, the public will learn of space achievements every bit as impressive as the Apollo Moon landings. http://www.nro.odci.gov/speeches/grab-698.html Prepared Remarks at the Naval Research Laboratory 75th Anniversary Event By Mr. Keith Hall, Director of the National Reconnaissance Office 17 June 1998

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Re: Toto, AP and Jim Bell? (Re: Space Aliens Return my Drugs!)
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Recently I speculated that Toto may have been locked up due to some connection with Jim Bell: I wrote: > I've been searching my cp archives trying to figure out if there has > been any connection between Toto and Jim Bell/AP, as Alia Johnson > said that she thought Toto was locked up due to posts about AP. someone who has been in contact with Jim Bell tells me that Jim did not know Toto. Adam

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Doing nothing wrong...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It occurred to me that a great comeback to: If you don't have anything to hide you shouldn't mind being monitored by the police. To which the responce should be: Ok, since the police don't have anything to hide they shouldn't mind being monitored by the citizens. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Mitnick wants cyphertext; gov't wants keys
by Lazlo Toth 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/politics/story/14855.html > >Wired News: >Hacker Can't Get Access >By Arik Hesseldahl > >8:35pm 4.Sep.98.PDT > >The epic legal wrangling in the Kevin Mitnick case took a new turn last >week when the accused hacker lost an appeal to access certain encrypted >data that his attorneys say could help him. >The data, seized by the FBI from Mitnick's computer when he was arrested in >1995, could contain evidence that could prove him innocent of some of the >charges against him, according to his defense. >In its encrypted form, the data is useless to prosecutors, who may have >tried to decode it and failed, said Donald C. Randolph, the Santa Monica, >California, attorney defending Mitnick. >.... >"We told the judge that giving him access to those files was like giving >someone access to a locked safe that might contain a gun," Painter said. >"[Mitnick's attorneys] claimed in court that the data might contain >exculpatory evidence but offered no further explanation." >Greg Vincent, Randolph's associate on the case, said that under federal >rules, Mitnick should be given access to all the evidence against him, and >that by denying such access, the government is opening itself up to losing >an appeal should Mitnick be convicted. >Vincent also said the government was willing to give access to the >encrypted files, provided that Mitnick hand over the password. This, said >Vincent, would violate Mitnick's Fifth Amendment rights against >self-incrimination. >Painter confirmed that the files had not been decrypted by the government.

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Spelling error...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, It's clathrate, not calthrate... Sorry. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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usa-v-cej-wc.htm (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Notice: mucho text deleted. Forwarded message: > X-within-URL: http://jya.com/usa-v-cej-wc.htm > criminal threats to kill, injure, obstruct, impede, threaten and > intimidate IRS > and other Government employees. I have also conducted numerous > investigations involving the use of computers and the Internet. Since > Western District of Washington. In the investigation of Mr. Bell, it > was discovered that he had posted a plan (titled "Assassination > Politics") on the Internet, offering users of the Internet a method > for anonymously funding the assassinations of IRS and other Government > Internet group known as the "Cypherpunks." During the investigation of This guy has experience with the Internet and doesn't know the difference between a group and a mailing list, what a maroon. > Bell I noted that Bell exchanged both private and public e-mail > messages with an unidentified person using the name "Toto." Implying Bell was under surveillance. > residence. Shortly thereafter, a member of the Cypherpunks group > stated via the Internet that he had obtained a copy of the warrant and > return, and publicly posted them on the Internet. And the point is? > Bell was arrested and charged with Corruptly Obstructing and Impeding So I can non-corruptly obstruct and impede? > 4. On June 23, 1997, an anonymous message was posted to the > Cypherpunks Internet mailing list. [A "mailing list" consists of the Well, finaly got the terms right. > 5. Based on my training and experience, I know that "Bot" is a slang > term for an automated computer program. I also know that "e$" and > "eCa$h" are slang terms for electronic or digital cash, which was a ... > maker or indorser [as written]. [By analogy, digital cash is like a > digital "poker chip" issued by a particular casino.] Oh well, I knew he couldn't keep it straight. > 6. On September 4, 1997, a second message involving "Dead Lucky" was > anonymously posted to the Cypherpunks group. This message stated in This guy keeps using 'group' instead of 'mailing list', there is the potential implication of conspiracy here...I wouldn't be surprised if just about all of us weren't under surveillance at this point. > 8. On December 9, 1997, an anonymous message was posted to the > Cypherpunks Internet mail group with the subject listed as "Encrypted > InterNet DEATH THREAT!!! / ATTN: Ninth District Judges / PASSWORD: > sog"[.] The body of the message was encrypted with the publicly > available encryption software PGP, and was initially unreadable. Using > PGP software and the password shown in the subject line of the > message, I was able to decrypt the message, which contained a > rambling, five-page statement, including the following: > I can also be tied into Jim Bell's Worldwide Conspiracy to > assassinate government authorities, through my implementation of an > Assassination Bot ..." See I told you there was a conspiracy buried in there somewhere! > 9. I noted that this message contained a PGP digital signature. From > my training and experience, I am aware that this digital signature is > used as a way to authenticate digital documents to make sure that they > are authored by the purported author and that no one has tampered with > them. When I checked the signature using only PGP software, the PGP > program was unable to identify it. > Only July 1, 1998, Royal Canadian > Mounted Police (RCMP) Investigator Steve Foster provided me with a PGP > "Secret Key Ring" which he stated he had obtained from a computer > which Canadian Customs authorities had seized from an individual by > the name of CARL EDWARD JOHNSON. [A "secret key ring" is a > user-generated code which allows for the encryption (and later > authentication) of computer-generated documents.] When I checked the > digital signature on the Internet death threat using the PGP software > and JOHNSON'S secret key ring, the computer identified the signature > as one of the signature keys stored in JOHNSON'S computer. Because > both the "private" and "public" portions of the "key" were stored on > JOHNSON'S computer, the message can be authenticated as having been > generated by the person who possessed this "secret key" and knew the > correct password. In other words, only the person possessing the > secret key found on JOHNSON'S computer could have generated the "death > threat" message. > 10. I have also spoken by phone with Special Agent Jeremy Sheridan of > the United States Secret Service. Sheridan told me that on July 31, > 1998, he located and interviewed Carl JOHNSON at 1800 West Magee, in > Tucson, Arizona. The address belongs to a Linda Reed, who, according > to Canadian police authorities, is a friend of JOHNSON'S. During this > interview JOHNSON admitted that he often wrote on the Internet and > among the names he used were Toto, C.J. Parker, and TruthMonger. > Johnson also stated that he had been using the Internet account of > Linda Reed. Sheridan showed JOHNSON a decrypted copy of the December > 9, 1997 Internet message entitled "Encrypted InterNet DEATH THREAT!!! > / ATTN: Ninth district Court Judges / PASSWORD: sog." JOHNSON > acknowledge that he wrote it. JOHNSON also stated that he had > significant psychological problems. Probably not a wise move, don't know about psychological problems but it certainly demonstrates a lack of intelligence. > bomb that was discovered in the basement of the Estevan courthouse on > June 3, 1998. Block advised me that Carl JOHNSON has been formally > charged with placing the bomb and that a warrant for his arrest has > been issued in Canada. Block advised me that he believes that JOHNSON > fled to the United States after placing the bomb in the Estevan > courthouse. That's impressive if true. > 15. On June 10, 1998, an anonymous message was posted to the > Cypherpunks Internet group. In the message, it is stated that the > bomber "placed the bomb before embarking on a middle-leg of the So that's why he came to Austin? ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Movie/Research Research
by WGKOPP＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, I'm a screenwriter in Los Angeles and I'm currently working on a psychological thriller. I'm trying to research how a particular thing could be done, and I cannot seem to find precisely what I'm looking for. You are surely highly learned individual, and I wonder if I could pick your brains for a moment. Here is the situation I need help with:- The "villians" are charging people $15 (from their credit card - or another source) to download or "watch" a video clip of highly illicit material, from a specific website. Our "protagonist" has to stop these "video's" and the people behind them, but, they cannot seem to trace them, or where the funds are going. How can this be done? How can we realistically make it so that origins and/or location & authors of the website are untraceable. Also, that the funds are untraceable. The only way our protagonist can find the villains, is by revealing a terrible secret from his past, something he's tried desperately to forget and put behind him. He eventually does catch the villains, but not electronically. He catches them, by reliving his painful past. Do you have any idea's? If so, I'd be most grateful if you could share them with me. Once the screenplay is completed and hopefully sold, I'm sure the very least I could offer is a film credit. Yours, Wayne Kopping

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internet monitoring, UK
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 4.25:UK Police May Soon Tap Your Email & Internet Use At Will Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 01:16:50 -0700 ISPI Clips 4.25:UK Police May Soon Tap Your Email & Internet Use At Will News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Tuesday September 8, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: The Independent Network, Monday September 7, 1998 http://www.independent.co.uk The PC in your mailbox: The police may soon be allowed to read your email and check your Internet use at will. http://www.independent.co.uk/net/980907ne/index.html By Paul Lavin When you drop an envelope in a red pillar-box, you walk away confident that your mail will not be read by anyone except the addressee. However, when you send an email, it might be wise to reflect on the differences. According to the organisation Internet Freedom, an agreement being negotiated between the UK's internet service providers (ISPs) and the police will open the email of the UK's eight million Internet users to scrutiny without debate in Parliament or oversight by the courts or the Home Secretary. British police are said to be close to reaching an agreement with ISPs that will enable them to monitor customers' emails and web usage logs. Chris Ellison of Internet Freedom, says: "Following a series of meetings between the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Internet industry representatives, we understand that both groups have stated a willingness to reach a 'memorandum of understanding' about implementing police access to private data held by ISPs." According to David Kennedy, chairman of the Internet Service Providers Association, that is a serious overstatement of the discussions. However, he admits that the UK's ISPs are trying to avoid being flooded by court orders or having the police cart off critical servers for evidence. He says: "We are talking to law enforcement representatives to find a way to work with them within the legal framework that exists. All members of our association take the view that emails are private." As with the understanding between the Metropolitan Police and the ISPs over "banned" Usenet newsgroups and the closing down of web sites that may breach the law, the significance of such an agreement is that any such police activity may not be subjected to judicial review or legal constraint. Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Ackerman, chairman of the ACPO's computing crimes sub-committee, says: "We want to ensure the criminal doesn't take best advantage of the Internet, without requiring the Government to use the sledgehammer of regulation. However, we are not looking for the ability to go on fishing expeditions." The ISPs know that they are stuck in the middle, according to Keith Mitchell, chairman of Linx, a partnership of large ISPs. He says: "To divulge private email even under duress would be commercial suicide for an ISP. In some circumstances it would constitute a crime." Nonetheless, mistakes happen and there are well-known cases where the police have been persuasive. Mitchell says: "The current laws do not adequately protect ISPs or private individuals. We will be active in seeking responsive changes from Parliament." While there are undoubtedly individuals who use the Internet's email and worldwide web for nefarious purposes, the vast majority of people who use email and the web for personal and business communications have an expectation of privacy. And law-abiding citizens who wholeheartedly support the goals of law enforcement agencies may nevertheless feel uneasy about giving them carte blanche over email. America Online has been quite vocal in its opposition to opening the doors to the police short of a court order. Many ISPs agree. Julie Hatch, marketing communications director of Easynet, says:"We do not allow anyone to access our customers' email without a court order. "It makes no difference if it is an estranged wife or a suspicious business partner or anyone else, we would not divulge a subscriber's private email unless we were presented with a court order. This is in accordance with our terms and conditions. "Our business is also subject to restrictions imposed by the Data Protection Act (DPA), and in any situation we would certainly abide by those rules. So unless a subscriber's actions are illegal, you can say that email is confidential." The DPA provides scanty protection to email users, however. While the Act has aspects that protect the quality and use of information held in computer systems, disclosure can be afforded by a compliant ISP by simply including appropriate language in the small print of their terms and conditions. Data may be revealed to law enforcement officials as long as the subscriber is notified. Easynet's assurances highlight the differences between ISPs that are classified as telecoms providers, protected from feeling the long arm of the law by a regulatory framework, and those that are merely private businesses unaccountable to anyone but their owners and governed solely by their contracts with subscribers. As well as Easynet, UK ISPs that are regulated as telecoms providers include BT Internet and Demon, which is now part of Scottish Telecom. Smaller ISPs are more vulnerable to the persuasive demands of the police.They have no legally protected right of privacy and any redress for email disclosure would only be for breach of contract. Furthermore, most ISPs now include in their terms and conditions a requirement that the subscriber bear the expense of any legal costs resulting from their use of the service. This could lead to a complaining subscriber having to bear the costs of both sides of a lawsuit against an ISP even if they won. The most serious aspect of this potential agreement between the police and ISPS is, according to critics, the absence of legal safeguards. In order to tap telephones, the police need the permission of the Home Secretary and must justify violating the privacy of a suspect. It is not clear from the law whether tapping a telephone and tapping into an email exchange are the same thing. Chris Ellison says: "This is what is so dangerous about the new culture of private regulation and moral responsibility. ISPs now operate in a moral climate which insists on limitations for freedom of speech. Any material that causes offence - especially to children and ethnic minorities - is regularly removed. ISPs have now embraced this self-censorship credo and are willing to set themselves up as moral arbiters of internet content, filtering out anything that they feel may be illegal." Without public debate or scrutiny by Parliament, the police are likely to gain, as Liz Parratt from the organisation Liberty puts it, "a snoopers' charter for the Internet". Ordinary users will have little legal protection or redress against police monitoring of their communications. This trend could render the Internet less private and more regulated than any other communications medium. "If nothing else, these discussions have demonstrated what self-regulation really means: ISPs undertaking the role of publicly unaccountable instruments of law enforcement." Email is not like a letter in an envelope; it is more like a postcard. Just as you would not put some messages on a postcard, you should think before you use email for your most private communications. While the legality and desirability of the any agreement between ACPO and the ISPs is highly debatable, anyone interested in maintaining their privacy on the Internet must take responsibility for their own actions. The agreement between ACPO and ISPs will be the subject of three seminars: 22 September in Edinburgh, 8 October in London and 27 October in Manchester. Additional details can be found at http://www.linx.net/misc/acposeminar.html . - --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a daily bases (approx. 4 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you value in the ISPI Clips service or if you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Clips Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? We gratefully accept all contributions: Less than $60 ISPI Clips Supporter $60 - $99 Primary ISPI Membership (1 year) $100 - $300 Senior ISPI Membership (2 years) More than $300 Executive Council Membership (life) Your ISPI "membership" contribution entitles you to receive "The ISPI Privacy Reporter" (our bi-monthly 12 page hard-copy newsletter in multi-contributor format) for the duration of your membership. For a contribution form with postal instructions please send the following message "ISPI Contribution Form" to ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com . We maintain a strict privacy policy. Any information you divulge to ISPI is kept in strict confidence. It will not be sold, lent or given away to any third party. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ********************************************** ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Movie/Research Research (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: WGKOPP(a)aol.com > Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 21:33:54 EDT > Subject: Movie/Research Research > The "villians" are charging people $15 (from their credit card - or another > source) to download or "watch" a video clip of highly illicit material, from > a specific website. > Our "protagonist" has to stop these "video's" and the people behind them, but, > they cannot seem to trace them, or where the funds are going. > > How can this be done? How can we realistically make it so that origins and/or > location & authors of the website are untraceable. Also, that the funds are > untraceable. You'd need to use something like an eternity server or a data haven. These allow one to obtain information from an unknown 3rd party based on a distributed network of servers and search engines. All transactions of e$ would need to go through an anonymous remailer of some sort that interfaced to a suitable bank handlding EFT's via the Internet. The web surfing could be implimented via a CROWDS style mechanism. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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(fwd) ppdd - encrypted filesystem - kernel patch and support progs.
by demona＠demona.doldrums.dyn.ml.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-- forwarded message -- Path: nntp.net-link.net!ptdnetP!newsgate.ptd.net!newsfeed.fast.net!howland.erols.net!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!newsfeed1.funet.fi!news.helsinki.fi!not-for-mail From: Allan Latham <alatham(a)ibm.net> Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce Subject: ppdd - encrypted filesystem - kernel patch and support progs. Followup-To: comp.os.linux.misc Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 08:38:12 GMT Organization: Flexsys Lines: 48 Approved: linux-announce(a)news.ornl.gov (Mikko Rauhala) Message-ID: <pycola.905243893.18924(a)laulujoutsen.pc.helsinki.fi> Reply-To: alatham(a)flexsys-group.com NNTP-Posting-Host: laulujoutsen.pc.helsinki.fi Old-Date: Sat, 05 Sep 1998 14:43:19 +0200 X-No-Archive: yes X-Auth: PGPMoose V1.1 PGP comp.os.linux.announce iQCVAgUBNfTs+lrUI/eHXJZ5AQEL7QQAm4TJb/hig4GSK4jpwd2PhuA8IKynybEF L+5ki9aYooX3Je/LdyvHVeg9kFL0IM8qdYNK01W6jJDqscoM4Hlp8KstxmpIDn1v OTBF9AbX4HQKUKO3J1UcNn+J89WZN/lmSB9lcgnJ6YAaKWpAYPVUFaoOoTPgHTg4 ITpeWxe/v9s= =w014 Xref: nntp.net-link.net comp.os.linux.announce:1426 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ppdd is an advanced encrypted file system for i386 Linux only. It is used in a similar way to the loop device and offers simplicity and speed plus full strength encryption (128 bit). The design takes into consideration the fact that data on disc has a long lifetime and that an attacker may have the matching plaintext to much of the cyphertext. A combination of master/working pass phrases offers enhanced security for backup copies. Current status is BETA and comments on the implemenation and underlying crypography are most welcome. It consists of a kernel patch plus support programs and is intended for users with enough knowledge to compile the kernel, setup lilo, partition disks etc. It is not for absolute beginners or "non technical" users just yet. Available from: http://pweb.de.uu.net/flexsys.mtk Package is ppdd-0.4.tgz, pgp signature is also available from same url. Allan Latham <alatham(a)flexsys-group.com> - -- This article has been digitally signed by the moderator, using PGP. http://www.iki.fi/mjr/cola-public-key.asc has PGP key for validating signature. Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: linux-announce(a)news.ornl.gov PLEASE remember a short description of the software and the LOCATION. This group is archived at http://www.iki.fi/mjr/linux/cola.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 iQCVAgUBNfTs+lrUI/eHXJZ5AQEWhQP9Fd7tlWEZs/jG5Kcq/foSJBW6Me/WXS1W wRgKukImIl/DstOW9Ni1ZhfEoT4xwp0fpnVPdl+5aPG76thLv/T4iVRwVwh47hem y34x3IbvKnX6jvOqONEvrYbGL3CreMd1QWq3YuXUTZUVJVZVb6nSL4Wh5vKt/0na ijokp4QDMDk= =K4sO -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- end of forwarded message --

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Re: Tax silliness (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 19:04:02 -0700 > From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Re: Tax silliness > not issued a royal decree absolving the perpetrator of taxes, they could > have collected taxes on the guy who got the ball and then taxes on the guy > who had the ball given to him. Through the miracle of multiple taxation, > the IRS gets it all....) That isn't accurate. The tax was a 'gift tax' and the ONLY person required to pay tax on it is the person GIVING the gift. Had you actualy read the announcement by the IRS it states very clearly that the reciever is NOT responsible for any taxes. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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IP: ISPI Clips 4.25:UK Police May Soon Tap Your Email & Internet Use At Will
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 4.25:UK Police May Soon Tap Your Email & Internet Use At Will Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 01:16:50 -0700 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 4.25:UK Police May Soon Tap Your Email & Internet Use At Will News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Tuesday September 8, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: The Independent Network, Monday September 7, 1998 http://www.independent.co.uk The PC in your mailbox: The police may soon be allowed to read your email and check your Internet use at will. http://www.independent.co.uk/net/980907ne/index.html By Paul Lavin When you drop an envelope in a red pillar-box, you walk away confident that your mail will not be read by anyone except the addressee. However, when you send an email, it might be wise to reflect on the differences. According to the organisation Internet Freedom, an agreement being negotiated between the UK's internet service providers (ISPs) and the police will open the email of the UK's eight million Internet users to scrutiny without debate in Parliament or oversight by the courts or the Home Secretary. British police are said to be close to reaching an agreement with ISPs that will enable them to monitor customers' emails and web usage logs. Chris Ellison of Internet Freedom, says: "Following a series of meetings between the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) and Internet industry representatives, we understand that both groups have stated a willingness to reach a 'memorandum of understanding' about implementing police access to private data held by ISPs." According to David Kennedy, chairman of the Internet Service Providers Association, that is a serious overstatement of the discussions. However, he admits that the UK's ISPs are trying to avoid being flooded by court orders or having the police cart off critical servers for evidence. He says: "We are talking to law enforcement representatives to find a way to work with them within the legal framework that exists. All members of our association take the view that emails are private." As with the understanding between the Metropolitan Police and the ISPs over "banned" Usenet newsgroups and the closing down of web sites that may breach the law, the significance of such an agreement is that any such police activity may not be subjected to judicial review or legal constraint. Detective Chief Superintendent Keith Ackerman, chairman of the ACPO's computing crimes sub-committee, says: "We want to ensure the criminal doesn't take best advantage of the Internet, without requiring the Government to use the sledgehammer of regulation. However, we are not looking for the ability to go on fishing expeditions." The ISPs know that they are stuck in the middle, according to Keith Mitchell, chairman of Linx, a partnership of large ISPs. He says: "To divulge private email even under duress would be commercial suicide for an ISP. In some circumstances it would constitute a crime." Nonetheless, mistakes happen and there are well-known cases where the police have been persuasive. Mitchell says: "The current laws do not adequately protect ISPs or private individuals. We will be active in seeking responsive changes from Parliament." While there are undoubtedly individuals who use the Internet's email and worldwide web for nefarious purposes, the vast majority of people who use email and the web for personal and business communications have an expectation of privacy. And law-abiding citizens who wholeheartedly support the goals of law enforcement agencies may nevertheless feel uneasy about giving them carte blanche over email. America Online has been quite vocal in its opposition to opening the doors to the police short of a court order. Many ISPs agree. Julie Hatch, marketing communications director of Easynet, says:"We do not allow anyone to access our customers' email without a court order. "It makes no difference if it is an estranged wife or a suspicious business partner or anyone else, we would not divulge a subscriber's private email unless we were presented with a court order. This is in accordance with our terms and conditions. "Our business is also subject to restrictions imposed by the Data Protection Act (DPA), and in any situation we would certainly abide by those rules. So unless a subscriber's actions are illegal, you can say that email is confidential." The DPA provides scanty protection to email users, however. While the Act has aspects that protect the quality and use of information held in computer systems, disclosure can be afforded by a compliant ISP by simply including appropriate language in the small print of their terms and conditions. Data may be revealed to law enforcement officials as long as the subscriber is notified. Easynet's assurances highlight the differences between ISPs that are classified as telecoms providers, protected from feeling the long arm of the law by a regulatory framework, and those that are merely private businesses unaccountable to anyone but their owners and governed solely by their contracts with subscribers. As well as Easynet, UK ISPs that are regulated as telecoms providers include BT Internet and Demon, which is now part of Scottish Telecom. Smaller ISPs are more vulnerable to the persuasive demands of the police.They have no legally protected right of privacy and any redress for email disclosure would only be for breach of contract. Furthermore, most ISPs now include in their terms and conditions a requirement that the subscriber bear the expense of any legal costs resulting from their use of the service. This could lead to a complaining subscriber having to bear the costs of both sides of a lawsuit against an ISP even if they won. The most serious aspect of this potential agreement between the police and ISPS is, according to critics, the absence of legal safeguards. In order to tap telephones, the police need the permission of the Home Secretary and must justify violating the privacy of a suspect. It is not clear from the law whether tapping a telephone and tapping into an email exchange are the same thing. Chris Ellison says: "This is what is so dangerous about the new culture of private regulation and moral responsibility. ISPs now operate in a moral climate which insists on limitations for freedom of speech. Any material that causes offence - especially to children and ethnic minorities - is regularly removed. ISPs have now embraced this self-censorship credo and are willing to set themselves up as moral arbiters of internet content, filtering out anything that they feel may be illegal." Without public debate or scrutiny by Parliament, the police are likely to gain, as Liz Parratt from the organisation Liberty puts it, "a snoopers' charter for the Internet". Ordinary users will have little legal protection or redress against police monitoring of their communications. This trend could render the Internet less private and more regulated than any other communications medium. "If nothing else, these discussions have demonstrated what self-regulation really means: ISPs undertaking the role of publicly unaccountable instruments of law enforcement." Email is not like a letter in an envelope; it is more like a postcard. Just as you would not put some messages on a postcard, you should think before you use email for your most private communications. While the legality and desirability of the any agreement between ACPO and the ISPs is highly debatable, anyone interested in maintaining their privacy on the Internet must take responsibility for their own actions. The agreement between ACPO and ISPs will be the subject of three seminars: 22 September in Edinburgh, 8 October in London and 27 October in Manchester. Additional details can be found at http://www.linx.net/misc/acposeminar.html . --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a daily bases (approx. 4 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you value in the ISPI Clips service or if you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Clips Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? We gratefully accept all contributions: Less than $60 ISPI Clips Supporter $60 - $99 Primary ISPI Membership (1 year) $100 - $300 Senior ISPI Membership (2 years) More than $300 Executive Council Membership (life) Your ISPI "membership" contribution entitles you to receive "The ISPI Privacy Reporter" (our bi-monthly 12 page hard-copy newsletter in multi-contributor format) for the duration of your membership. For a contribution form with postal instructions please send the following message "ISPI Contribution Form" to ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com . We maintain a strict privacy policy. Any information you divulge to ISPI is kept in strict confidence. It will not be sold, lent or given away to any third party. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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IP: Machine Vision For Biometric Applications
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Machine Vision For Biometric Applications Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 09:07:57 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com ---------------------- NOTE: Document contains instructive images. You should go to the website and open the images. ---------------------- Source: Applied Optics Group at the University of Kent at Canterbury (U.K.) http://speke.ukc.ac.uk/physical-sciences/aog/facereco/ Machine Vision For Biometric Applications We are currently conducting research in the areas of automated facial recognition and data compression of digitised images of the human face. This work began by performing an eigenfactor analysis on a data set comprising 290 faces drawn largely from the student population at the University of Kent, Canterbury. The image below shows the first three components (eigenfaces) resulting from this analysis. It is interesting to note that eigenfaces 2 and 3 have a clear relationship to gender. Thus the addition of eigenface 2 to the average eigenface (1) results in a feminine face whereas the subtraction of face 2 produces a face having masculine characteristics. In a similar way, addition of face 3 to the average produces a masculine face and subtraction of face 3 from the average results in a face having feminine features. This approach, variously known as the Karhunen-Loeve expansion, eigenfactor analysis, principal components or the Hotelling transform has exceptional data compression properties when applied to this particular pattern class (2-D images of human faces). Below, we show the image reconstruction quality that is achievable using codes of varying lengths which describe how to reconstitute the image using the component eigenfaces as a basis. Note that the subject shown here was not included in the original data set used to generate the eigenface basis. Despite this, recognition is achieved using a very short code. This method works particularly well when conditions such as head-camera orientation and subject illumination are controlled.We are now investigating other methods (some related to the Karhunen-Loeve expansion, some not) which may be suitable for automated facial recognition under less benign conditions. In particular, we are beginning to investigate the use of illumination compensation techniques and 3-D imaging techniques which are independent of illumination conditions. The group working on facial recognition here at UKC collaborates with a number of commercial/industrial organisations in the U.K. and Europe. We currently await the outcome of a cooperative research bid (CRAFT) to the European Commission which will involve the development of facial biometrics for smart cards and other access control applications. The industrial partners are Neural Computer Sciences (U.K.), Datastripe Ltd (U.K.), Inside Technologies (France), Smartkort (Iceland) and A la Carte (Belgium). More links on Facial Recognition Staff Involved Dr. C.J. Solomon - E-mail: C.J.Solomon(a)ukc.ac.uk Jamie P. Brooker - E-mail: jpb3(a)ukc.ac.uk ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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[FP] FW: Bill to Limit Nat'l ID Plan
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> Subject: [FP] FW: Bill to Limit Nat'l ID Plan Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1998 22:09:53 -0500 To: "Scan This News Recipients List" <scan(a)efga.org> [Forwarded message from:] believer(a)telepath.com [mailto:believer@telepath.com] Sent: Monday, May 05, 1997 3:12 PM To: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: Bill to Limit Nat'l ID Plan --------------------------- NOTE TO LISTEES: Remember: LIMITING is NOT what we want. Limiting will only detail the terms and conditions under which a National ID *W*I*L*L* be required. We want no ID at all. Let's make this clear to legislators. They still don't get it. --------------------------- Source: Washington Post http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19980904/V000365-090498-idx.htm l Senate Mulls Healthcare ID Proposal By Cassandra Burrell Associated Press Writer Friday, September 4, 1998; 1:39 a.m. EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- A plan to assign every American a lifetime health-care ID number, similar to a Social Security number, could face new limits under a measure headed for Senate debate. A provision introduced Thursday by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, would prohibit the Health and Human Services Department from going forward with the plan until Congress approves its specifics. Critics say the system, being developed as part of the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, could invade privacy by opening medical histories to insurers, employers and others. The law guarantees that anyone changing or losing a job would be able to get health insurance, even with a pre-existing medical condition. ``The plan, as HHS intended to carry it forward, raises questions of excessive government involvement and control -- not to mention privacy,'' Hutchison said. The Senate Appropriations Committee added Hutchison's amendment to an $82 billion spending bill funding the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services departments as well as several related agencies for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The committee approved the overall bill with little debate and sent it to the Senate. But some members said they planned to introduce more controversial issues into the bill during floor debate, including provisions dealing with federal funding of single-sex classrooms and allowing Medicare recipients to go outside the program for care not covered by the plan. President Clinton has threatened to veto a matching bill in the House because it lacks money for some of his favorite programs, such as summer jobs for poor youth and low-income heating assistance. Also Thursday, the Senate resolved a dispute over staffing at the Federal Election Commission, clearing the way for passage of a $29.9 billion spending bill funding the Treasury Department and related agencies. The Treasury bill was pulled from the Senate floor in late July because of Democratic objections to a Republican amendment that would have made it easier to remove the FEC's staff director and general counsel. With resolution of the issue, the bill passed 91-5 Thursday without further debate. Introduced by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the disputed amendment sought to limit to four years the currently open-ended terms of the two officials and to require approval of four of the FEC's six commissioners before the terms could be extended. Each party selects three commissioners. Democrats, led by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, contended the amendment would let one party remove an official for no reason and undermine the agency's independence. Under a compromise worked out with Levin, the current general counsel and staff director would not have term limits, future service would be set at six years with votes of only three commissioners required to approve an extension. The $27 billion House bill, which passed in July, does not include language on the FEC staffers. Differences will have to be worked out in a House-Senate conference. The Senate bill, which would increase money for drug enforcement, gang resistance and customer service by the Internal Revenue Service, establishes spending at $7.85 billion for the IRS, $1.7 billion for the U.S. Customs Service and $593 million for the Secret Service. Like the House bill, it would freeze salaries for members of Congress but would allow 3.6 percent cost-of-living raises for other federal workers. It also was amended to require federal employee health plans that cover prescription drugs to provide coverage for contraceptives. © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml -----------------------

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IP: [FP] Congress's Secret Plans to Get Our Medical Records
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> Subject: IP: [FP] Congress's Secret Plans to Get Our Medical Records Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 06:47:05 -0500 To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com Congress's Secret Plans to Get Our Medical Records http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1998/aug98/98-08-19.html August 19, 1998 Americans were outraged to learn about the Federal Government's plans to assign a personal identification number to every medical patient. But Congress nevertheless passed H.R. 4250, the so-called Patient Protection Act, which allows anyone who maintains your personal medical records to gather, exchange and distribute them. The only condition on distribution is that the information be used for "health care operations," which is a vague and meaningless limitation that does not even exclude marketing. Even worse, H.R. 4250 preempts state laws that currently protect patients from unauthorized distribution of their medical records. While the sponsors of H.R. 4250 claim that they did not intend for the information to be circulated for "just anything," their spokesman confirmed that personal medical records would be used for future programs concerning health quality and disease management. When the Kennedy-Kassebaum law was passed in 1996, we were told it was to improve access to health insurance. The law became explosively controversial last month when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) began to implement the Kennedy-Kassebaum "unique health care identifiers" so that government can electronically tag, track and monitor every citizen's personal medical records. After this news broke on July 18, embarrassed Congressmen inserted a line in H.R. 4250, which passed July 24, ordering HHS not to promulgate "a final standard" without Congressional authorization. That language is a total phony; it doesn't prevent HHS from issuing proposed or interim standards (which will become de facto standards) or from collecting medical data. So much money is involved in accessing and controlling personal information that the Washington lobbyists are moving rapidly to lock in the extraordinary powers conferred by the Kennedy-Kassebaum law. That explains these sneaky eleventh-hour inserts in pending legislation. On August 4, the House passed yet another bill to protect the gathering of personal information on private citizens. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, there they go again. Just before passing H.R. 2281, a bill about copyrights on the Internet, the House quietly attached a separate and dangerous bill deceptively entitled the "Collections of Information Antipiracy Act." No one, of course, is in favor of "piracy," but the impact of this bill goes far beyond any reasonable definition of piracy. By the legerdemain of inserting it in another bill, it will go straight to a House-Senate conference committee under a procedure designed to avoid debate or amendments in the Senate. This Collections of Information bill (now part of H.R. 2281), in effect, creates a new federal property right to own, manage and control personal information about you, including your name, address, telephone number, medical records, and "any other intangible material capable of being collected and organized in a systematic way." This new property right provides a powerful incentive for corporations to build nationwide databases of the personal medical information envisioned by the Kennedy-Kassebaum law and the Patient Protection bill. Under the Collections of Information bill, any information about you can be owned and controlled by others under protection of Federal law. Your medical chart detailing your visits to your doctor, for example, would suddenly become the federally protected property of other persons or corporations, and their rights (not your rights) would be protected by Federal police power. This bill will encourage health care corporations to assign a unique national health identifier to each patient. The government can then simply agree to use a privately-assigned national identifier, and Clinton's longtime goal of government control of health care will be achieved. This bill creates a new federal crime that penalizes a first offense by a fine of up to $250,000 or imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both, for interfering with this new property right. It even authorizes Federal judges to order seizure of property before a finding of wrongdoing. H.R. 2281 grants these new Federal rights only to private databases, and pretends to exclude the government's own efforts to collect information about citizens. But a loophole in the bill permits private firms to share their Federally protected data with the government so long as the information is not collected under a specific government agency or license agreement. This loophole will encourage corporations, foundations, Washington insiders and political donors, to build massive databases of citizens' medical and other personal records, and then share that data with the government. And, under the House-passed bill cynically called the Patient Protection Act, patients would be unable to invoke state privacy laws to protect their personal records. Meanwhile, in another aspect of the Federal takeover of all Americans' health care, the Centers for Disease Control is aggressively building a national database of all children's medical records through the ruse of tracking immunizations. Tell your Congressman and Senators you won't vote for them in the upcoming elections unless they immediately stop all Federal plans to track and monitor our health or immunization records. Phyllis Schlafly column 8-19-98 [thanks to jim groom for finding this piece] [message forwarded by] ======================================================================= Reply to: <fingerprint(a)networkusa.org> ======================================================================= To subscribe to the free Scan This News newsletter, send a message to <majordomo(a)efga.org> and type "subscribe scan" in the BODY. Or, to be removed type "unsubscribe scan" in the message BODY. For additional instructions see www.efga.org/about/maillist.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Scan This News" is Sponsored by S.C.A.N. Host of the "FIGHT THE FINGERPRINT!" web page: www.networkusa.org/fingerprint.shtml ======================================================================= ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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IP: [FP] FW: Americans love a police state
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ScanThisNews" <mcdonalds(a)airnet.net> Subject: IP: [FP] FW: Americans love a police state Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 06:46:54 -0500 To: ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com [Forwarded message] [The driver's license/ID serves as the link, giving police the "authority" to set up so-called "DUI checkpoints." These are in reality ID checkpoints. That is the fact. They can stop you and ask to se the DL/ID because it actually belongs to the state and the state can demand it any time they like. The next time you hear someone talking about how great these DUI stops are, just remember, they are really ID checkpoints -- do you have your papers?] ------------------------------- WND - Letters to the editor http://www.worldnetdaily.com/e-mail/98.e-mail.html Americans love a police state I think I've said this before but I'm amazed how our society (America) has adopted like a favorite pet, the concept of DUI CHECKPOINTS. They don't even call them POLICE CHECKPOINTS but DUI CHECKPOINTS because the MAD mothers convinced America that everyone must be a drunk driver, therefore you need DUI CHECKPOINTS. Remember, it is for the children! I heard a news brief this morning telling viewers "this holiday weekend most law enforcement agencies in the city and county (San Diego) will be conducting DUI checkpoints." Then the report showed statistics of a checkpoint that was conducted last night saying 643 cars were checked and 4 drivers were arrested, three for DUI while seven cars were impounded. My math shows that only less than one half of one-percent (00.47 percent) were DUI in the checkpoint last night. This clearly should be evidence to the Beanie Baby collectors in their sport utility vehicles that people who are not intoxicated while driving are being subject to arrest for other items along with drivers having their cars towed because they missed an insurance payment or did not register their car because the new SMOG II standards caused their car to be classified as a GORE or GROSS POLLUTER. By the way, the insurance companies in America are some of the most corrupt and greedy institutions that contribute to all those politicians who require you have insurance. Talk about the oligarchs in Russia, we have them here already! As Americans we thought we had free speech and free movement but not with these checkpoints. And you know how they tell you that you can turn around before a checkpoint to avoid it? WRONG! The Supreme Court did rule that there must be a sign with a point that vehicles may do a 180 but the problem is that law enforcement actively posts a patrol vehicle or two with lights off near that turn-around point and then they follow whoever avoids the checkpoint and stop them on probable cause. When will these checkpoints seize cash if you cannot account for the $1,000 you carry? They are already doing this at the border leaving America. When will these checkpoints seize anti-government printed e-mail messages (I carry this kind of stuff in my car, sometimes books on the New World Order or Illuminati) because of a new ANTI-TERRORIST LAW? This week your friendly politicians held hearings interviewing Louis Freeh of FBI and ex-CIA Directors (most of the ex-Directors are dead now, i.e. Colby and Casey, etc., so I think they only had one to use) with an active discussion that items that were originally thrown out of the ANTI TERRORIST BILL need to be re-included to protect against those nasty Islamic terrorists. Sure! I also have a King James Bible in my car (been accident free for at least 300,000 miles) and maybe one day at the checkpoint they'll grab that and say "don't get caught with that again." "You know those Christians are dangerous people" the two cops will say to one another, "those Christians are against abortion and euthanasia, can you believe that Sam?" DARREN -----Original Message----- From: Jim Groom [mailto:gs924jfj@mon-cre.net] Sent: Tuesday, September 08, 1998 5:11 AM To: Current Events Subject: Americans love a police state ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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IP: " Will Y2K usher in TEOTWAWKI?"
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: " Will Y2K usher in TEOTWAWKI?" Date: Wed, 09 Sep 1998 12:49:38 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Dallas Morning News http://www.dallasnews.com/texas-southwest-nf/tsw1.htm Turn for the worst? 09/06/98 By Victorial Loe Hicks / The Dallas Morning News A CAVE IN ARKANSAS - Will Y2K usher in TEOTWAWKI? Bryan Elder is sure it will - so sure that he'll be deep beneath the ground on Jan. 1, 2000. "As soon as I get a cave, I'm going to live in it," Mr. Elder vowed, wending his way through one Arkansas cavern. "I'll be the world's next caveman." Y2K is the pop-culture moniker for the programming glitch that left millions of computers and other devices unable to recognize dates beyond the year 1999. The disruption will depend on how many faulty mainframes, PCs and microchips - in everything from nuclear plants to VCRs - can be detected and fixed in the next 16 months. Most people regard Y2K with mild to moderate anxiety. But a flourishing subculture insists that it portends nothing less than TEOTWAWKI (tee-OH-tawa-kee): The End of the World as We Know It. "There won't be any accidental survivors," said Mr. Elder, who believes that computer failures will short-circuit the electric grid and the transportation system, fostering severe food shortages and social anarchy. "I'm not afraid of dying," he said. "I'd prefer not to starve to death." His scenario - which also envisions nuclear war, bombardment by asteroids, incineration by solar windstorm, the flip-flop of the North and South poles, an ice age and the second coming of Jesus Christ - is one of the more dramatic, even among Y2K alarmists. But he isn't alone in hunkering down. Merchants of survival goods say business is booming, primarily driven by new customers who are girding for Y2K. Anecdotes abound of city dwellers, including some computer jocks, who are poised to flee to the boonies, where they can store and grow food without having to fend off rapacious neighbors. Dallas systems analyst Steve Watson told Wired magazine that he bought 500 remote Oklahoma acres and several guns after recognizing the full ramifications of the Y2K crisis. Mr. Watson did not respond to interview requests from The Dallas Morning News. A vice president of the firm he works for, DMR Consulting, said Mr. Watson had come to regret his public stance, which "the company doesn't share." But in one respect, every cautionary voice is right. Y2K is absolutely guaranteed to happen. In a mounting wave that will crest powerfully on Jan. 1, 2000, computers will encounter dates in which the two-digit year field reads 00, which "noncompliant" computers will read as 1900. Depending on whether a particular computer needs to know what year it is - to calculate accrued interest, for example, or to track maintenance schedules of industrial machinery - it may go on working normally, produce bad data or simply freeze up. If enough computers fail - say, at banks or telephone companies - the whole country, perhaps the world, could wake up with a whale of a New Year's hangover. By some estimates, industries and governments will spend as much as $600 billion to make things right. Even so, the Gartner Group, a research firm that has studied the issue since 1989, forecasts that half of the companies around the world will experience some disruption of their operations, further sapping an already woozy global economy. Precisely who will get hurt, how badly and for how long is the question - a question impossible to answer. "The uncertainty factor is immense. That's what makes this prophetic material," said Dr. Richard Landes, director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University. "Back when I first heard about Y2K, I immediately realized that this would be grist for the apocalyptic prophets' mills." At a vigorous 32, Mr. Elder hardly fits the hoary image of a prophet. A marketing major from the University of Arkansas, he ran his own hydraulic service company until a couple of years ago, when he began devoting himself to studies of biblical prophecies and other spiritual texts. "The angel of death, that's how I feel," he said. He wants urgently for others to heed his warning, to believe, as he does, that anyone who remains above ground faces certain annihilation. Once the power grid goes dark, as he is sure it will, the financial system will collapse, he said. "Then we're back to the barter system and 'How much food do you have?' " That's only a prelude however. On May 5, 2000, Mr. Elder said, most of the planets in the solar system will align themselves on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. That will trigger the solar gales and the asteroid shower, which will precipitate still further catastrophes. "The computer problem will weed out a lot, and the solar wind will get the rest," he said. "The time to prepare is right now." For prepare, read: find a cave. Mr. Elder has his sights on one near Cassville, Mo., that he figures can accommodate 125 people. If he can reach a deal with the present owners, he plans to add plumbing, ventilation, diesel-fired generators, grow lights and enough basic supplies to sustain life for as long as seven years. Everyone will share the costs - $11,743 per person, he calculates. Byron Kirkwood isn't ready to live in a cave, but he does plan to be prepared for Y2K. Which in his case is easy, since he runs a mail-order survival products business from his rural Oklahoma home. He started the company six years ago, after his wife, Annie, said she received messages from the Virgin Mary - which she passed on in a series of books - warning that cataclysmic "earth changes" were imminent. These days, though, most of Mr. Kirkwood's customers are more worried about whether Y2K will cripple the U.S. economy than whether the Earth is about to turn on its side and acquire a second sun. Mrs. Kirkwood said Mary has not explicitly addressed Y2K, although she did warn recently that "major changes . . . will come about through government, banking institutions and telecommunications. Your power sources will be interrupted, and your life will change drastically." "That sure fits Y2K," Mr. Kirkwood said, "but she didn't come right out and say, 'The computers will fail.' " In any case, he said, sales of his survival products are up five-fold over last year, with water filters, hand-cranked radios and long-shelf-life foods leading the list. A rack in his office displays freeze-dried entrees - pepper steak, cheese ravioli and chili - packaged with individual chemical heating units. Some orders have come from as far away as Hong Kong and Austria. Like many Y2K pessimists, he gets much of his information and does much of his business via the Internet - using computers to bewail humankind's impending betrayal by computers. "I'm not trying to be a doomsayer," Mr. Kirkwood said. "I only give TEOTWAWKI a 10 percent chance of happening." However, he said, if food becomes scarce, "there's not enough police, not enough national guard, not enough military to go around." Those who stockpile food, water and cash - or who head for the hills - may look foolish to those who don't, he said, but only time will tell who are the real fools. "Some of us will look stupid one way, or some of us will look stupid the other way," he said. "You just don't know which side of stupid you're going to be on." Although Y2K is a purely technological, secular problem, there is a strong nexus between Y2K anxieties and religious millennialism, which predicts a catastrophic cleansing as the precursor to a new paradise. Like the Kirkwoods and Mr. Elder, the Dallas Area Y2K Community Preparedness Group is overtly Christian. The Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has extensive Y2K links on its Web site. And Dr. Gary North, whom some regard as the Paul Revere of the Y2K crisis, is prominent in the Religious Reconstruction movement, which advocates replacing the Constitution with biblical law. Dr. North used to live in Tyler, Texas, but he has moved to northern Arkansas, which, like eastern Oklahoma, offers solitude to separatists of various persuasions. "The millennial myth can take secular or religious forms," said Dr. Philip Lamy, a sociologist at Castleton State College in Vermont who studies millennial movements. Regardless of the form, he said, the driving force is angst about today's rapid social change - change as momentous as that experienced during the Industrial Revolution. "What a lot of millennial groups are trying to do is hold onto the past," Dr. Lamy said. "They are merely saying that they're afraid." Of course, fear is not an unreasonable response. "This is not a false issue," said Bill Wachel, a computer consultant who founded DFW Prep 2000, a forum in which industry representatives share information on the issue. "It's possible, yeah, that the whole world could come apart. Is it probable? No." Dr. Leon Kappelman of the University of North Texas is leading the charge for government to pressure crucial industries such as electric utilities, telecommunications and medicine to fix Y2K problems. He isn't anticipating doom, but he doubts that many Americans will escape unscathed. "I don't really know what the future is. I know there are serious risks," he said. "I expect life to be a little more difficult for awhile." He has no use for those who choose to flee. "Cowards would be a good word [for them]," he said. "Deserters." Dr. Landes, too, urges Americans to hang together rather than hang separately. "Y2K can be a gift," he said. "It's a test. How do we as a culture handle this - not only the problem, but the rhetoric surrounding the problem?" As Mr. Elder explored the cave he had chosen to demonstrate to a visitor the wisdom of his plan, he came upon artifacts of a earlier era's doomsday fears. Next to a sign designating the cavern as an official fallout shelter lay tins of 1950s-vintage survival rations. The tins were unopened and pocked with rust. © 1998 The Dallas Morning News ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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IP: Industrial Espionage Increases as Firms Seek Competitive Edge
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Richard Sampson <rjsa(a)sprintmail.com> Subject: IP: Industrial Espionage Increases as Firms Seek Competitive Edge Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 12:52:43 -0400 To: "ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com" <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> Industrial Espionage Increases as Firms Seek Competitive Edge Sep. 6 (The Record/KRTBN)--The place: the Four Seasons Hotel, Philadelphia. The date: June 14, 1997. On one side of the table, two men from a Taiwanese company hoping to expand into biotechnology. On the other, an FBI agent posing as an information broker, and a researcher from Princeton-based Bristol-Myers Squibb posing as a corrupt scientist preparing to sell a piece of his company's soul. On the table: a sheaf of papers -- stamped "confidential" in big, black letters -- representing the company's investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in Taxol, the blockbuster anti-cancer drug. The asking price, according to the FBI: $200,000 and a percentage of sales. The drama played out in that hotel room -- which ended when additional FBI agents burst through the door and arrested the Taiwanese -- marked the first federal sting operation against alleged spies for a foreign corporation. But industrial espionage today is far from unusual. U.S. companies are increasingly being looted of some of their most precious technical secrets by competitors -- both foreign and domestic -- using legal and illegal methods. And New Jersey's research labs and high-tech companies -- particularly pharmaceutical companies -- are prime targets. >From 1992 to 1996, according to one study, the number of cases of industrial espionage at the nation's 1,300 largest companies nearly doubled to about 1,100. The potential commercial value of the stolen information was pegged at $300 billion. Richard Heffernan, a Branford, Conn., consultant who conducted the study for the American Society of Industrial Security of Alexandria, Va., said New Jersey pharmaceutical companies -- including Merck & Co., Schering-Plough, Warner-Lambert, and Johnson & Johnson -- have all been targeted by corporate spies. The reason: the hundreds of new products in their research and development pipelines -- products that require huge investments in time and money. Those pipelines hold the potential for billions of dollars in profits. "New Jersey is one of the top 10 areas for corporate espionage," said Heffernan, who has advised a number of New Jersey drug companies on ways to protect their secrets. "This is not a new thing for pharmaceutical companies, and it's become progressively worse. There's so much money to be made from the theft of their information. That pipeline is a very deep, rich vein of gold." In addition to illegal intrusions -- which can include anything from hacking into a private computer to buying trade secrets from a company insider -- more companies are targeting competitors' secrets using legal -- but in some cases, unethical, or highly intrusive -- methods. Membership in the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals -- an Alexandria, Va., group that advocates the use of legal methods to gather business intelligence on competitors -- has skyrocketed in recent years, more than quadrupling since 1990. For the most part, competitive intelligence professionals analyze data from public sources -- news reports, databases, trade shows, and the like. But they also tap more questionable sources, such as satellite photos. And they have indicated a widespread willingness to step over ethical lines to obtain information on business rivals. In a survey published in April by the competitive intelligence group, participants -- all corporate spies -- were given several scenarios and asked to choose from various options on how to proceed. Nearly half said they were willing to misrepresent the purpose of their research, 30 percent were prepared to read a marketing report left on an adjacent airplane seat, more than 70 percent said it was permissible to pump a new hire for confidential information about her previous employer, and 20 percent were willing to read and use a competitor's proprietary product data. All of those tactics violate the competitive intelligence group's own code of ethics, and the last might step over legal lines as well, according to the survey's authors. "I think there is room for some very legitimate information gathering that's important for companies to do," said Gayle Porter, an authority on business ethics at Rutgers University. "But I think there are probably many, many, many examples of people taking it too far." In New Jersey, there are abundant examples of companies alleging that they have been targets of industrial espionage -- or who have been accused of targeting others. In 1996, Boehringer Mannheim Corp., a German drug company competing against New Brunswick-based Johnson & Johnson in the $1.75 billion market for blood-monitoring devices, sued J&J and its LifeScan subsidiary in federal court. Boehringer alleged that LifeScan offered employees incentives for spying on its archrival, and that LifeScan employees sneaked into Boehringer sales meetings in Indiana, Florida, Turkey, and Germany to obtain proprietary product information. J&J denied the charges and in a countersuit said Boehringer hired detectives to obtain secrets and had workers pose as customers. Boehringer acknowledged some of J&J's charges, including that it had reprimanded an executive for posing as an importer to obtain a demonstration of a product not yet on the market, and that it had maintained a "competitive kill team" targeted at LifeScan. But the two companies reached an out-of-court settlement in 1997, agreeing to keep the terms of the settlement secret. J&J spokesman Jeffrey Leebaw declined to comment. Boehringer did not return calls. Heffernan and others say industrial espionage is on the rise because of tougher competition in domestic markets, the targeting of U.S. trade secrets by foreign economic and industrial interests, and the combination of computer hackers with increasing technical sophistication and companies that are woefully unprepared to stop them. And they say one of the times companies become vulnerable is when high-level employees leave. Executives with knowledge of marketing plans for new products and researchers responsible for developing the next big scientific breakthrough are often exploited by their new employers to obtain a competitive edge. That is what Warner-Lambert of Morris Plains charged in a 1997 lawsuit that was subsequently dropped. The company spent 12 years and $17 million developing Procan SR, a sustained-release drug used to treat heart rhythm irregularities. The product won Food and Drug Administration approval in 1982. Warner-Lambert accused a former employee of giving the top-secret formulas for the drug to Copley Pharmaceutical Inc., a Canton, Mass., generic drug manufacturer she went to work for in 1984. Seven months after she joined the company, Copley asked the FDA to approve a generic version of the drug, which Copley eventually brought to market. Neither company would comment on the settlement that ended the matter, but Jason Ford, a Warner-Lambert spokesman, said the drug -- which was discontinued several years ago by the company -- was never a blockbuster. "It wasn't so much the stealing of the product," Ford said. "The main reason why we filed the lawsuit was to make it clear that we vigorously defend our intellectual property. It sends a loud and clear message that this is something we take very seriously." Another North Jersey company, the Wormser Corp. of Englewood Cliffs, also played a key role in an industrial espionage case involving a former employee -- not as the victim, but as the accused. The case centered on Frederick Marks III, a production manager employed by Powell Products Inc. of Colorado Springs, Colo., until 1993. According to a lawsuit filed by Powell in 1995, Marks took with him top-secret blueprints for a machine developed by Powell to mass-produce foam-tipped swabs more quickly and cheaply than any other machine then available. Powell accused the Wormser Corp. of bankrolling a plan to use the stolen blueprints to create a prototype of the Powell machine, and using the machine to compete against Powell. After two years of litigation, a Denver jury awarded Powell $2.7 million in damages and legal fees, but Powell settled with the Wormser Corp. for $1.7 million. Marks pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft in February in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI. The Wormsers -- company president Stephen, and his sons, Alan and David -- have not been charged. David Wormser referred questions to Bill Meyer, a Boulder, Colo., lawyer who denied the allegations, saying the Wormsers settled with Powell to avoid "years and years" of legal wrangling. Powell President Stephen Robards said the Wormsers are the true culprits. "There's no question about it," he said. "The blueprints Marks stole would not have damaged us without the Wormsers' money. He didn't have the resources to start a business without them." Since the passage of the 1996 Economic Espionage Act (EEA) making the theft of trade secrets a felony, the FBI has become more involved in industrial espionage cases in which U.S. companies have been targeted by foreign or domestic interests. To date, five cases have been brought under the act, including one in July in which a Piscataway man -- a former scientist for Roche Diagnostics, a Branchburg division of Nutley-based Hoffmann-La Roche -- was charged with attempted theft of trade secrets from the company. According to the complaint, Huang Dao Pei tried to obtain secrets from a current Roche scientist about the company's hepatitis C diagnostic kit, hoping to market a similar kit in China. William Megary, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, said individuals trying to steal American trade secrets are not "street thugs," but high-tech thieves who are "educated, resourceful, and elusive." "Our cases illustrate the complexity of not only how diverse the criminals are, but how diverse the crimes are, as well," he said. "The FBI is committed to enforcing the EEA. Our message is clear -- it is no longer open season on American technology." Even before the act became law, federal stings were not unheard of. In the Bristol-Myers Squibb case, FBI agent John Hartmann established himself as a technology information broker in 1995 and began laying a paper trail of more than 135 faxes, e-mail messages, telephone calls, and letters with the representatives of the Yuen Foong Paper Co., which would eventually lead to the fateful meeting at the Philadelphia hotel. Jane Kramer, a spokeswoman for Bristol-Myers Squibb, said the company uses "the most sophisticated techniques" for safeguarding its trade secrets, but she would not elaborate. When security is breached, she added, it is important for a company to fight the intruder with every weapon in its arsenal. "Taxol is a major advance in cancer treatment," she said, adding that the company's multimillion-dollar investment in research on the drug is more than repaid by its $1 billion in annual sales. "You have a dramatic investment in research and development that's the lifeblood of a company like ours. The ramifications are huge for our present and our future." In what authorities described as the largest industrial espionage case in U.S. history, a 1990 FBI sting led to charges against two men for stealing secrets valued at $1 billion from Merck & Co. in Whitehouse Station and Schering-Plough Corp. in Madison. Biochemist Bernard Mayles, a former employee of the two companies, and a confederate, Mario Miscio, were ultimately convicted of trying to sell the secret formulas for Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug marketed by Merck, and Interferon, a cancer and hepatitis treatment sold by Schering-Plough. An FBI agent posing as a Chinese investor who wanted to convert an idle factory for Ivermectin production agreed to pay $1.5 million for the formula and the microorganism used to produce the drug. He promised to arrange the sale of the Interferon formula to a Polish investor for $10 million. Schering-Plough spokesman Ronald Asinari declined to comment, but Merck spokeswoman Maggie Beute said her company has taken additional steps to safeguard secrets in recent years, including beefing up computer security and being more vigilant about getting vendors to sign confidentiality agreements. "There's so much at stake here," she said. "Anything that shortens the life of any of our products is going to have detrimental effects on our ability to recoup our investment in R&D. As an industry, we're very focused on making sure our intellectual property rights aren't violated." Illegal intrusions such as those against Merck, Schering-Plough, and Bristol-Myers Squibb have created a cottage industry for consultants who advise companies on how to keep their secrets safe. Andy Welch, a senior consultant at KPMG Peat Marwick's risk-management practice, said business has increased tenfold in two years. Two out of three companies who come to him for help are taking preventive measures, but the others have already suffered security breaches. Welch examines personnel policies to make sure there are procedures for deactivating computer passwords when employees leave. And he attempts to hack into the company's system from the outside to find its weak links, such as the ability to dial in to a company's computer system without a password. He said many companies are not prepared to deal with the threat of corporate espionage, especially intrusions into their computer systems, where many of their most valuable secrets reside. "The indication is that there is a large degree of unpreparedness out there," Welch said. "It needs to be taken seriously. I can't tell you with a straight face that everything is warm and fuzzy out there." By Louis Lavelle -0- Visit The Record, Hackensack, N.J., on the World Wide Web at http://www.bergen.com (c) 1998, The Record, Hackensack, N.J. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. BMY, MRK, SGP, WLA, JNJ, CPLY, END!A$9?HK-BIZ-ESPIONAGE News provided by COMTEX. [!BUSINESS] [!COMMUNITY] [!HEALTHCARE] [!WALL+STREET] [BIOTECHNOLOGY] [BUSINESS] [CANCER] [CHINA] [COLORADO] [COMPUTER] [CORPORATE] [DOLLAR] [E-MAIL] [ESPIONAGE] [FDA] [FLORIDA] [FOOD] [GERMANY] [GOLD] [INDIANA] [INVESTMENT] [KRT] [LAWSUIT] [MARKET] [MARKETING] [MEN] [MONEY] [NEW+BRUNSWICK] [NEW+JERSEY] [NEWS] [NEWSGRID] [PIPELINE] [PRODUCTS] [PROPERTY] [RESEARCH] [SALES] [TECHNOLOGY] [TRADE] [TURKEY] [USA] -- ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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IP: [Fwd: Govt.Storing MRE's In Caves]
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: me <bucsplace(a)cchat.com> Subject: IP: [Fwd: Govt.Storing MRE's In Caves] Date: Tue, 08 Sep 1998 08:45:42 -0400 To: IP <ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com> This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------08FDE2A053FE721F529722FE Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit --------------08FDE2A053FE721F529722FE Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Path: news.dx.net!uunet!in5.uu.net!xmission!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!pln-w!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!enews3 From: "Steve" <peach2(a)rocketmail.com> Newsgroups: misc.survivalism Subject: Re: Govt.Storing MRE's In Caves Date: 7 Sep 1998 23:00:31 GMT Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Message-ID: <01bddab3$a25f5600$d34ae5d0(a)maddog1.camalott.com> References: <1998090721534800.RAA12052(a)ladder01.news.aol.com> Reply-To: "Steve" <maddog1(a)camalott.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-499.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1161 I can vouch for the existance of these caves in KC.....been by there many times in the days of my youth( lived there '56-'88). The interesting thing is the government(FED) kicked the private business's that were using them for warehousing/storage out....declaring that the caves were unsafe and dangerous. Funny thing is.....they weren't unsafe enough for the FED's to use. Steve West Texas -- "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --- Abraham Lincoln "You know, of course, that this means war..." Bugs Bunny to Elmer Fudd: 1942 PAPACHUBY2 <papachuby2(a)aol.com> wrote in article <1998090721534800.RAA12052(a)ladder01.news.aol.com>... Hi, This is off the Ark list. Interesting. S. Below are two differnet notes that I received today. I took all the return paths off of these so that they can be passed around. I personally know both sources and they are EXTREMELY credible. Perhaps we can locate a source near Kansas City..to look into this (with pictures)......I am MOST curious... marie - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - name Here's the post I received yesterday from a Y2K chat friend regarding the situation. The second message is one I received today from him. He'll be keeping me posted on what else he learns. Jeff > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Yesterday's Post------- Dear friends, As some of you know, I live in a poor and working class neighborhood in kansas city, and am involved with various activities that help poor people become less poor. As part of this, I often take in people who are homeless, or would be if not for a safe harbor. One of my housemates just got a four month temporary job unloading trucks at an underground storage center located near my neighborhood (KC has a lot of underground limestone caves that are used for storage). Anyway, this particular contract is a government contract, and the product being unloaded and stored is MRE's. that is, "meal ready to eat", which i believe is the current incarnation of the old army c rations. how many mre's are on a truck? all day, 8 hours a day, for four months. that is a LOT of meals ready to eat. Note that I didn't hear this from somebody who heard from somebody, i heard this from somebody in my own household who is unloading the mres, beginning at 7:30 in the am. Three things: First, I am comforted to know that this large amount of food is being stored here locally. Second, if you have any fiends or acquaintances who do temporary labor or casual jobs, you might ask around and see if any such operations are going on in your city.Three, somebody is taking this really seriously. mre's aren't cheap. Today's Post -------------- Dear Jeff and everybody, Today they unloaded nine trucks, and then were let go early because some additional expected trucks didn't show. It takes two guys about 1-1/2 hours to unload a truck, and each gets $35. Don't know if this space has been used to store mre's before, but that's on the list of questions to scope out. It does seem to be a government contract, the supervisors seem sure of that. It has been confirmed that this is new, that is, it isn't the regular cold storage location for Ft. Leonard Wood, etc. One of the other laborers said that each truck had 3500 cases, so today there were nine trucks times 3500 cases equals 31,500 cases. Anybody know how many mre's are in a case? This would seem to be literally an enormous amount of food, as if there were six mre's in each case, that would mean 189,000 means were unloaded today alone, and today was a short day. He was called back to work at 3:30 in the afternoon, but the expected trucks still didn't arrive. Note that the laborers apparently have to +spc- a certain amount of time sitting around and waiting. Since the contract is for four months, 22 work days a month, and if today's unloading was an average work day, and there are at least six mre's per case, then we're talking a minimum of 16,632,000 mres. Any way you look at that, it is a large amount of prepared food, being tucked securely away in a limestone cavern in KCMO. It's three meals a day for 500,000 people for 11 days, and that's the low estimate, since today was deemed a slack day by those doing the labor. - - - - -- Note: this is from another source... came in after the top portion.... > >>>>>>>>>>>> I researched MRE's just this evening to learn more about them. The full meal type MRE comes 12 per case, and the case weighs 17 pounds. So, for doing some math, double the figures you were dealing with. Using Robert's math that would come to 33,264,000 meals - using 22 work days per month, for 4 months, and the light work load experienced by Robert's friend that particular day. Assuming 12 per case, that's 2,772,000 cases at 17 pounds per case equals 47,124,000 pounds of food, or 23,562 tons. That would mean you could feed 500,000 people 3 meals per day for 22.17 days or roughly 100,000 people for just over 3 months (about 111 days actually). These are large numbers indeed and we can all look forward to learning more about this. Robert, can you put the local news people on it to open it up? Would that be wise or not? I don't know, but if appropriate, it's one heck of a story they may wish to track down. God bless all of you, << End of Forwarded message >> [snip] Local Y2K Update: I received a telephone call from a highly credible source. This informant told me that government employees recently attended a Y2K meeting in Orange County. At this meeting, one of the handouts was a listing of all the Mormon Canneries. Even more disturbing was the fact, these employees were casually told not to make this public so that they could have the necessary time to acquire their long-term storage food first. --------------08FDE2A053FE721F529722FE-- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

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Taxes & baseball...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, It occurs to me that if the fan who caught the ball and then gave it to McGyer had to pay a gift tax then so would the NLB, after all it was their ball until it left the field at which point they give it to the fan who catches it. I wonder what made the IRS back down from a cool 1.2M...? ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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WebSite Professional 2.3
by techsales＠oreilly.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello! Thank you for downloading O'Reilly's WebSite Professional 2.3. There's a ton of great stuff wrapped up in that one package, so I hope you'll invest a little time to play with it thoroughly. I'm confident you'll consider it time well spent. In fact, before long, you may just find yourself among WebSite's growing ranks of raving fans. Just like these corporations and institutions: AT&T National Cancer Institute Bear Stearns Siemens Nixdorf Boeing North America Smithsonian Institution County of Los Angeles Snap-on Tools, Inc. Hewlett-Packard Sprint Indiana University Union Pacific Railroad Intel United States Geological Survey JCPenny University of Miami Lucent Technologies Warner Brothers Motorola Yamaha Corporation If, during your trial of WebSite Pro, you have any questions about its capabilities or functionality, please contact me directly at techsales(a)oreilly.com or call 1-800-998-9938 (707-829-0515) ext. 351. To download other WebSite Professional 2.3 components you can go to: http://software.oreilly.com/download/wsp23demo_download.html To access our Knowledge Base: http://software.oreilly.com/techsupport/index_ws.html Thanks again, and have a great day! -- Michelle Koff, techsales(a)oreilly.com Technical Sales Associate O'Reilly & Associates (http://software.oreilly.com)

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Re: Any good hacking sites?
by HyperReal-Anon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, M I T Flunky wrote: > > hey all, Hey, d00d! What be happenin'? My homies and my bro's are just a hangin', man! We be k-rad kool, d00d! > > any1 know of any good hacking sites that teach u the basics and stuff? Find somebody who has been the attacker in a recent axe murder. He'll be more than happy to teach you the basics and stuff, I'm sure, particularly if you lock yourself in stocks first. > also, any1 here into AOL hacking??? I prefer a chainsaw, myself. It does cause a bit of a mess, but the mess is still preferable to the AOLholes like yourself. > > thanx, > ~Fallen Angel No pro', bro', ~LamenessMonger > > _____________________________________________________________________ > You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Apparently you don't need a clue either. > Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Well, they don't punctuate the end of the sentence, but at least they put the protocol specifier on. > Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] Or at (800) 6NO-CLUE. LamenessMonger

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Austin: Meet on Wed. Sept. 16, 1998 (new location)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, The next physical meet will be held on Wed. Sept. 16, 1998 from 7-8pm (or later). We are meeting at the Korea House across the street from The Yellow Rose on N. Lamar. If you need directions please send a request to austin-cpunks(a)ssz.com. I am sure there will be some discussion about Toto as well as the database project we've been half-heartedly working on (if only work didn't take so much time). ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Netly News on Nutly News (resend)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1998 05:42:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: politech(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: The Arrest of the Nutly Bomber http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/0,2326,201980909-14593,00.html TIME Digital Daily September 9, 1998 The Arrest of the Nutly Bomber By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) [Part I of a Series For two years a pair of anonymous Net crackpots have been posting angry tirades to a cryptography discussion list under a takeoff of Netly called "Nutly News." Now the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police say that a digital signature connects them to a bomb discovered last June in a Canadian courthouse.] It was about 5 p.m. on August 18. Carl Johnson, 49, was beating the heat inside the Rialto Theater in what passes for downtown Tuscon, Ariz. That morning a friend had tipped off Johnson that the police were trying to find him, but for now he had something else on his mind: his music. The itinerant musician and writer had spent the last month furiously scribbling lyrics, friends say, and he wanted a loan from someone he knew who worked at the theater. It was for some recording work, Johnson explained. This was going be his third album, after "My Way or the Highway" and "Please! Stop Me Before I Sing Again." But when Johnson left the Rialto, his musical career was cut short by two federal agents from the IRS's internal security division. They arrested him on charges of Internet threats against federal judges and police. The Canadians wanted Johnson, too, on charges of planting a bomb in a Saskatchewan courthouse.

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Netly News on Nutly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/0,2326,201980909-14593,00.html The Arrest of the Nutly Bomber By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) [Part I of a Series For two years a pair of anonymous Net crackpots have been posting angry tirades to a cryptography discussion list under a takeoff of Netly called "Nutly News." Now the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police say that a digital signature connects them to a bomb discovered last June in a Canadian courthouse.] It was about 5 p.m. on August 18. Carl Johnson, 49, was beating the heat inside the Rialto Theater in what passes for downtown Tuscon, Ariz. That morning a friend had tipped off Johnson that the police were trying to find him, but for now he had something else on his mind: his music. The itinerant musician and writer had spent the last month furiously scribbling lyrics, friends say, and he wanted a loan from someone he knew who worked at the theater. It was for some recording work, Johnson explained. This was going be his third album, after "My Way or the Highway" and "Please! Stop Me Before I Sing Again." But when Johnson left the Rialto, his musical career was cut short by two federal agents from the IRS's internal security division. They arrested him on charges of Internet threats against federal judges and police. The Canadians wanted Johnson, too, on charges of planting a bomb in a Saskatchewan courthouse. [...]

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