December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Zions Bancorp to offer Digital Certificates
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 10:47:01 -0800 (PST) From: William Knowles <erehwon(a)dis.org> To: DCSB <dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu> cc: DC-Stuff <dc-stuff(a)dis.org> Subject: Zions Bancorp to offer Digital Certificates Organization: Home for retired social engineers & unrepented cryptophreaks MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: William Knowles <erehwon(a)dis.org> [Techweb 1.12.98] Zions Bancorp, a $9 billion regional bank in Salt Lake City, this week will become the first financial institution to offer a service that lets organizations use digital certificates to secure internal and business-to-business communications. Digital certificates, which electronically confirm a user's identity, are generated and managed by certificate authorities. Companies can set up authorities themselves or use authorities created by third parties. Although certificate-authority services are available from technology vendors [such as GTE, IBM, and VeriSign, Zions said customers will feel more comfortable letting a bank manage their digital certificates. "Banks in the paper world already do this. They write letters of credit," said Michelle Jolicoeur, director of government implementations at Digital Signature Trust, the Zions unit that will offer the service. "Our business is trust." Digital Signature Trust has conducted pilots of its service with Utah's Department of Commerce, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and internal departments for about a year. The service uses digital certificate software from several vendors, including Certco, Entrust, GTE, VeriSign, and Xcert. Separately, Certco and Entrust will unveil new features to their certificate-authority offerings at the RSA Data Security conference in San Francisco this week. Oppenheimer Funds, which plans to implement digital certificates by midyear to bolster IT security, is investigating whether to operate its own certificate authority or to outsource. "A bank is generally going to be a more stable company," said Jim Patterson, an Oppenheimer technology vice president in Englewood, Colo. "But on the other hand, do I want a bank that I currently don't have a relationship with to know so much about me?" Still, Patterson said digital certificates will be important in business-to-business commerce and communications. "With digital certificates, I can start getting or sending requests to perform business functions over any medium I want, including the public Internet," he said. Pricing for the Digital Signature Trust service will be subscription-based and will depend on the customer's applications and number of certificates. == The information standard is more draconian than the gold standard, because the government has lost control of the marketplace. -- Walter Wriston == http://www.dis.org/erehwon/ For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

1 0

autonomous agents
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A canonical way to do implement things like remailers, eternity servers etc. is to build a distributed computation system to allow autonomous agents to be distributed across the internet. Create a market for CPU resources, bandwidth and disk-space so that the agent can pay it's way. Charge per CPU/hour, Mbit comms at given data rates and Mbyte/year storage, base it on Java as a portable network based language with code distribution support. Then let people fire off what ever they like, so long as they are paying. In this environment an eternity variant, or remailers, or anything else becomes a collection of autonomous agents which must fund their own distribution. The autonomous agents could send back profits to their creators, or use the profits to self propagate. Someone who thought up a good application, and got the economics right for their bot's buy and sell algorithms might become rich, even. I had considered that a generic perl execution system charging for resources would be useful for remailers a few years back. Java seems pretty good for this purpose also, being another portable network aware language. >From what Ryan has said his design uses markets for resources also. The question is though would you let a bot of this sort loose on your system? For agents to be able to achieve anything useful, the Java sandbox model has to be relaxed to allow the agent to make network connections to other than the machine the code was served from. Java has support for this in that signed applications are allowed to make external network connections. The problem is the flexibility would allow an autonomous agent to pay it's way in say breaking into a series of machines, and sending back obtained documents via remailer to the operator. A well funded attacker could cause lots of problems for operators. However the system as a whole is nice for our `creating lawful excuses' drive, because there are many applications which could make good use of the distributed computation system: filmatic quality image rendering computations, scientific computations, code breaking efforts, distributed web server applications. The liability questions are interesting also. If the participant in the CPU resource market is not expected to be able to vet all source code he runs, this gives the would be eternity operator a chance to distribute his risk. If the system becomes widely used, this helps protect it from attack. Adam

2 1

autonomous agents (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:25:53 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: autonomous agents > A canonical way to do implement things like remailers, eternity > servers etc. is to build a distributed computation system to allow > autonomous agents to be distributed across the internet. Create a > market for CPU resources, bandwidth and disk-space so that the agent > can pay it's way. Charge per CPU/hour, Mbit comms at given data rates > and Mbyte/year storage, base it on Java as a portable network based > language with code distribution support. Then let people fire off > what ever they like, so long as they are paying. Has anyone done any work that you are aware of under the Plan 9 os? With it's fundamental seperation of i/o, process, and file servers along with it's inherent bidding/scheduling mechanism it seems to me that a lot of this work has already been done. In addition there are programs that allow Linux boxes to participate as Plan 9 compliant file servers. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

3 2

Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This has some tangential list relevance in that it involves the Brave New World, so to speak, of the government deciding what research is legal and what is not. Clinton is asking Congress to ban research into human cloning. Importantly, this is not a proposal to cut federal funding of such efforts, as this would be unexceptionable (except to certain obscurantists). That is, the NSF or HHS or NIH or whatever is free to not fund all sorts of research projects. (Obviously many of us would cut nearly all such funding.) No, Clinton is asking for Congress to *ban* such research, regardless of where the funding came from. "Clone a cell, go to jail." "Clinton's proposal would make illegal any attempt to create a human being using the so-called somatic cell nuclear transfer technology that produced Dolly the sheep, in which an adult cell was fused with an egg. " Though I'm not a constitutional expert, this would seem to me to be a violation of various rights. A First Amendment right to speak and publish as one wishes for one, a Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure and to be secure in one's papers, and probably more general rights that have long-held that government agents cannot tell people what books they may read, what thinking they may do, and whom they may asssociate with (if the Civil Rights Act is viewed as the unconstitutional anomaly it is). Only a very few types of research are banned. And these are all ostensibly "national security" areas. Namely, chemical and biological warfare research, heavily regulated (private companies can do such research, but only with government approval, supervision, and generally _for_ the government). And nuclear weapons research (probably as part of the Atomic Energy Act). (If anyone can think of other "bans on research," besides weapons areas, let me know.) But a ban on cloning research would not be a matter of "national security," only of ethics and religious beliefs. Whatever the arguments for banning unapproved research into CBW and nuclear weapons, banning cloning research is an entirely different set of issues. Will Congress pass such a ban? Unknown. (They didn't pass the last such ban Clinton asked for.) Will the Supreme Court hear the case if such a ban is passed and then challenged? Unknown. Any implications for crypto? If Congress can successfully make certain types of science illegal, felonizing the search for truth, why not a ban on certain types of mathematics research? --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

2 3

Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 12:32:18 -0800 > From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning > (If anyone can think of other "bans on research," besides weapons areas, > let me know.) Class 1 drugs. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Sun to fight MS w/ new workstations [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > New Unix workstations, lower pricing seen as bulwark against Microsoft > NT > > January 12, 1998: 1:11 p.m. ET > > Java goes to set-top boxes - Jan. 9, 1998 > > Sun cross-pollinates Intel - Dec. 16, 1998 > > More related sites... PALO ALTO, Calif.(Reuters) - Sun Microsystems > Inc. will launch a new line of workstations Tuesday, aiming to > challenge its rivals and blunt the spread into markets for > high-powered desktop computers used by engineers of PCs using > Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT. > [INLINE] The new workstations are the result of a two-year effort by > Sun to design products that greatly reduce the cost of the computers > used by power-hungry engineers, while still providing the blistering > performance they demand. > [INLINE] "This is really big. We think we can create an alternative to > [PCs running] NT," Ed Zander, president of Sun Microsystems Computer > Co., the company's largest division, said in an interview with Reuters > ahead of the announcement. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

2 1

Re: Congratulations!
by nobody＠nsm.htp.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>To: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> >cc: cypherpunks(a)toad.com, abuse(a)MCI.Com, >hostmaster(a)cyber-dyne.com Ha, ha, ha! who CC'd the "Congratulations" thread to those addresses?? <LOL> (would they know how to smurf d00d?) This list gets fucking better!

2 1

USPS loosing business to email [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > U.S. POSTAL SERVICE LOSING BUSINESS TO COMPUTERS > > e-mail vs. snail mail January 12, 1998 > Web posted at: 3:25 p.m. EST (2025 GMT) > > NEW YORK (CNN) -- The U.S. Postal Service is facing stiff > competition from computers, according to an article in the January > 19 issue of Time Magazine. > > Electronic mail could replace 25 percent of conventional mail, or > "snail mail," by the year 2000, the article said. > > The Postal Service lags behind Federal Express and United Parcel > Service in shipping packages. The latter already moves 80 percent of > the country's packages, according to the article. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

2 1

DCSB: Michael Baum; PKI and the Commercial CA
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Digital Commerce Society of Boston Presents Michael S. Baum VeriSign, Inc. PKI Requirements from a Commercial CA's Perspective Tuesday, February 3, 1997 12 - 2 PM The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston One Federal Street, Boston, MA Requirements for the provision of commercial certification products and services are under consideration by many companies. Similarly, efforts to regulate certification authorities (CAs) and public key infrastructure (PKI) are proliferating by many domestic and foreign governments. Underlying many of these efforts is the intention to assess and assure quality and trustworthiness, and yet the nature, scope and regime to accomplish these goals remain elusive or at least have been balkanized. This presentation will consider CA and PKI requirements from the experiences and perspective of a commercial CA. It will survey current approaches to ascertaining quality and performance as well as their limitations. It will then propose a path forward. Many of these issues are present real challenges to both the CAs and the user community. A lively dialog is welcomed. Michael S. Baum is Vice President of Practices and External Affairs, VeriSign, Inc. His responsibilities include developing practices and controls under which VeriSign conducts its public Digital ID and private label certificate operations. Mr. Baum is the Chair of the Information Security Committee, and Council Member of the Section of Science and Technology, of the American Bar Association. He is Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ETERMS Working Party and a Vice Chairman of the ICC's Electronic Commerce Project, a delegate to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on behalf of the ICC. He is a member of various digital signature legislative advisory committees. Mr. Baum is co-author (with Warwick Ford) of Secure Electronic Commerce (Prentice Hall, 1997), author of Federal Certification Authority Liability and Policy - Law and Policy of Certificate-Based Public Key and Digital Signatures (NIST, 1994), co-author of Electronic Contracting, Publishing and EDI Law (Wiley Law Publications, 1991), and contributing author to EDI and the Law (Blenheim Online, 1989), and the author of diverse information security publications including the first American articles on EDI law. He was honored as an EDI Pioneer in 1993 (EDI Forum) and was the Recipient of the National Notary Association's 1995 Achievement Award. He is a member of the Massachusetts Bar. This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on Tuesday, February 3, 1997, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The price for lunch is $32.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, various A/V hardware, and the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have dress code: jackets and ties for men (and no sneakers or jeans), and "appropriate business attire" (whatever that means), for women. Fair warning: since we purchase these luncheons in advance, we will be unable to refund the price of your lunch if the Club finds you in violation of the dress code. We will attempt to record this meeting for sale on CD/R, and to put it on the web in RealAudio format, at some future date. We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday, January 31st, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back. Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", in the amount of $32.50. Please include your e-mail address, so that we can send you a confirmation If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out. Upcoming speakers for DCSB are: March Joseph Reagle "Social Protocols": Meta-data and Negotiation in Digital Commerce April Adam Shostack Digital Commerce Security: Beyond Firewalls May Jeremey Barrett Digital Bearer Certificate Protocols We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert Hettinga, <mailto: rah(a)shipwright.com>. For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send "info dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu> . If you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo(a)ai.mit.edu> . We look forward to seeing you there! Cheers, Robert Hettinga Moderator, The Digital Commerce Society of Boston -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.5.3 iQEVAwUBNLutasUCGwxmWcHhAQGiBwf6A7rhL5aztElh5nDDLgGU7vjBdXuryH+x OKnzXLE5364SLIr5KoRIfjRU0WB07jtB8bKeaE9DeiZbSC5i6QODmzK3cBfljVUx Ju5pBKeTwcvVtDXzcBjB9swL2TvNtv77x7dQLitZmziMjgX2tUR1yPhdbRnsJ0kl 8kBuWl681sh3oPEq4fGXTVDcP/vx31riZkZHhVcFHG/vyfR4eUznKe0lq1L1babb mwro6uPZ0W5Sy6F9rllqdPVbXGTh6LxlGwWbcBf9oO8+D+HAZAtjNm80WhtpN8aF Kbd115jJgkxdUlBeU44gib1r2ViV0rvNBI6sW/jwyUzYGQYhnyDJpg== =2cOQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>

1 0

Feds to Idaho: Kiss Our Butts
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The manslaughter case against Ruby Ridge shooter Lon Horiuchi was effectively neutered today when a federal judge acquiesed to demands by Justice Department lawyers and moved the case out of Idaho's jurisdiction and into federal court. This means that Horiuchi will be tried in federal court in front of a federal jury on state manslaughter charges, and not in front of a jury from Idaho's Boundary County, where the shooting took place. This ruling, by U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge, came just six days after Boundary County Magistrate Quentin Harden ordered Horiuchi to stand trial. State manslaughter charges had been filed against Horiuchi for the death of Vicki Weaver in August. The Justice Department, which has denied that Horiuchi did anything wrong, provided the lawyers who argued that any case in which federal agents are acting in their official capacity may be transferred and tried in federal court, in front of a federal jury. The trial is scheduled to begin March 10. Horiochi has continued to work for the FBI since the charges were filed. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

3 2

Trial jurisdiction options
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ARTICLE III. Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; -- to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; -- to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; -- to Controversies between two or more States; -- between a State and Citizens of another State; -- between Citizens of different States; -- between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States; -- and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects. In all Cases, affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make. The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mad Vlad wants to know: >something most anarchists here will deny is the existence of something >that could be called *immoral science*. is there such a thing? ............................................................ No. There are, however, immoral scientists. One way to skew the interpretations of what you write, besides bringing up the subject of morality, is to describe things in ways which do not correspond to their actual manner of existence: "science" does not exist without those individuals who have set themselves to pursue it. They should bear the blame if they practice it immorally. You again have brought up several issues which can be examined separately and do not necessarily coexist: . being a scientist . pretending to be scientific . choosing to pursue science . being smart enough to pursue scientific research . being successful in the scientific pursuit of truths . giving a damn about the consequences of the effects of research as it affects humanity or other living things (as when it is imposed upon them) . responsibility in science . responsibility in science as practiced by mendicants of the State . the regulation of responsibility per se . the regulation of the methods of science . the support of irresponsible scientific methods, by slaves of the State . anarchist cypherpunkery I become exceedingly uncomfortable at the realization that I have to buy an astronomy magazine from the store, paying yet again for info, in order to find out some of what they're doing at NASA. To think that a responsible citizen like myself must go out searching for the info themselves, using whatever resources they can find or pay for, in order to become informed! There are all sorts of things that government employees do not "share" with those who pay the bills. There is a book in Objectivist literature which presents the idea of "context dropping", which is, that in order for some people to function as if things were normal and that what they're doing is consistent with moral principles, they must drop a part of their information out of sight, out of thought, so that their actions appear logically related and make sense - they eliminate elements from the given context, crucial essentials which make the difference in its character. People like these might practice secrecy in keeping information from others, but equally significant, they also hide things from themselves. So that's one thing which would explain some scientist's lack of moral principles in the pursuit of science. Then it must be explained why so many people aren't complaining about it. Are they insensitive to their mistreatment, sitting ducks for opportunists? Or maybe these taxpayers are equally immoral, thinking only about promised benefits, forgetting about the disadvantage of losing control over the quality of their life? It's possible for some people to override the boundaries of decency, even if they're otherwise smart enough to pursue science. But what would you expect cryptographers to do about it? .. Blanc

4 7

Federal govt. & Science - Const. limits
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Congress has *no* authority to ban *any* scientific research. In fact they are specificaly enjoined to *promote* it. Section 8. The Congress shall have Power... [text deleted] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; [remainder deleted] ARTICLE IX. The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. ARTICLE X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Re: local vs remote eternity servers (Re: (eternity) Traffic Analysis)
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thomas Womack <thomas.womack(a)merton.oxford.ac.uk> writes: > >Thomas Womack <thomas.womack(a)merton.oxford.ac.uk> writes: > >> I can imagine *use* of > >> the service becoming a felony; you're therefore committing a felony > >> merely by connecting to http://www.eternity.to, and acquiring > >> evidence for that is a trivial matter of logging connections from a > >> given user. > > > >One solution is to run eternity on a web server with SSL turned on, > >and which serves lots of other data too. > > It's not completely clear that such an object would exist; in legal terms, > it would seem to be the same as a large and well-respected department store > which happens to possess and tolerate a fence for stolen property. That is, > it's an object which handles stolen property and can be shouted at loudly, > legally, and with very large sticks. Yes, but merely being seen going into this department store is you hope not grounds for prosecution. ie The flow of the discussion being that you said "you're therefore committing a felony by connecting to www.eternity.to" .. my reply being that if we can arrange that there are any number of reasons for connecting to www.eternity.to, any of which are protected by an SSL connection, that this lessens the risks of being seen connecting to said server. We can easily arrange this by offering interesting free services. Certainly turning on SSL does not protect the server operator. There server operator in your analogy was the department store owner. But we were discussing the client (the shopper)'s risks. > >The general problem with the remote server approach is that you have > >to trust the server. You could alternatively use a local eternity > >server, which is easy to do if you have a local unix machine. > > The operating system is immaterial here! Ah, not if you are talking about my eternity prototype, because it only works on the unix platform. Same for Ryan at present I think. The overloading of "eternity service" is not helping here. My point was that talking about my eternity prototype using USENET as a distribution medium, where the `eternity server' is just a convenient way to present an apparently persistent view of transient USENET articles, using a local eternity server reduces the risk of traffic analysis attack. Now all you are doing is reading news. If you already have a full USENET feed, you have no new externally observable traffic. This process would be better termed a `local eternity proxy', in that it would effectively be acting as a local web proxy process, where the eternity virtual web pages were being fetched from a local news spool by the local web proxy. > >Ideally you would like a local news feed also, so that your local > >eternity servers NNTP traffic or file system accesses to read news are > >not available to the attacker. > > That nearly makes sense - but 'running a news feed including the eternal.* > groups' can be phrased such that any sane jury takes it as 'using/running an > eternity server'. Cross-post, and / or post to random newsgroups, threshold secret split your posts so that only N of M are required to reconstruct. If you get shouted at for SPAM, steganographically encode the eternity traffic. Pornographic images in alt.binaries.* would be suitable because there are lots of those already. Because this is a publically readable message an attacker (such as Ryan's system admin he mentioned at MIT) might recognize the message based on successful stego decoding, and purge it from the news feed. We can counter this move by encrypting the original posting, and posting the decryption key a day or two later to ensure we get the full feed before anti-eternity crusaders get to work purging the eternity traffic masquerading as images. USENET carries all sorts of materials which could potentially get you in trouble. I don't know what your news feed is like, but the one at Exeter last time I looked had a healthy selection of dodgy gifs in alt.binaries.* > >Depending on your available resources, you can either operate from a > >local news feed (people are less likely to be prosecuted for the > >contents of a normal full newsfeed IMO), or have SSL access to a > >remote ISPs NNTP server. > > I suspect that, had anyone the least intention of arresting certain of my > acquaintances on a trumped-up charge, they could persuade a jury that a > 'normal' full newsfeed is sanitised, and that a newsfeed containing *warez* > or *erotica* is clearly an Evil Perversion of the Natural Law. We can't do much about the idiotic juries, and corrupt judicial systems ... `they'd indict a ham sandwich if I told them to' -- some US judge. You're probably right too. But I think we need to keep a sense of proportion about opening ourselves to having technical actions misconstrued to a clueless jury: there are easier ways to frame someone once they have decided they don't like you. To truly retain plausible deniability you need to maintain excellent plausible deniability, you have to be squeaky clean: you need to appear to be a model citizen, to not post politically incorrect opinions to non-government approved fora, etc. You must be below the radar belt, you must be essentially invisible to the government, the spooks dossier on you must read Mr Average and be entirely wholesome. Then you must have one or more alter-egos, for your real interests. > >> How can you defend against the felonisation of 'operating an Eternity > >> Server'? > > > >Operate closed eternity servers for small group only, or a local > >server for yourself or local users only. > > But wasn't the point of the eternity service that it was massively > distributed; if you're running a server for a small group consisting of > forty-nine hackers and the deputy director of the NSA going incognito, > you'll suddenly discover that all your servers have been seized, and that > men with intimidating glasses want to ask you a number of searching > questions. The surest way is to run the eternity server for yourself only. The distribution medium is massively distributed, as the distribution medium is USENET. USENET is a broadcast medium. Possibly the most secure way to create one way anonymous communications is to broadcast the messages. Tim May's BlackNet uses this approach. Eternity is doing the same thing. Adam

1 0

load balancing web proxy and server networks
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We might also think about adding hot spot avoidance to distributed web hosting mechanisms. A distributed web space which distributed itself to meet demand would be useful. (An example of hot spots being perhaps Dan Farmer's web site after he released Satan ... he switched the web server off to stop his T1 being saturated, until the deluge subsided). An automatic load balancing distributed web server would be a kind of next generation web proxy cacheing and mirroring scheme, dynamically replicating and cacheing data to meet demand. Robustness could be improved also by the redundancy introduced. Those browsing documents would pay for their web accesses at the service rate they desired. A market in web data would then give web proxies / mirroring agents an economic incentive to automatically replicate and migrate data. Web caches already have some protection from various laws. One other idea for an eternity service host we could leach off was suggested to me by Ian Brown <I.Brown(a)cs.ucl.ac.uk>. His suggestion was that it would be nice if we could con proxy caches into cacheing eternity web space for us. One way to do this for example would be to actually host our own web pages, but to configure our web server to only serve to a list of web proxies -- anybody else would get access denied. The .htaccess mechanism would be sufficient for this purpose. Adam

1 0

Tales of the Crypto
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tales of the Crypto U.S. government works to replace Data Encryption Standard By Jim Kerstetter, PC Week Online 01.12.98 10:00 am ET The days of DES, which for the past 20 years has been the foundation for government and commercial cryptography around the world, are numbered. The U.S. government has embarked on an expansive project to replace the Data Encryption Standard. By the end of this year, a panel of cryptographers, headed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is expected to pick a new cryptographic algorithm to replace DES as the government's standard. The changeover to the new algorithm, to be called the Advanced Encryption Standard, won't happen overnight. In fact, the selection process could end up taking years. But whatever AES ultimately becomes, one thing is clear: The new standard will force major change for both the IT and developer communities. Anyone selling the government software that uses encryption for security will have to support the AES algorithm, which could become the standard for decades to come. Corporations conducting secure transactions with the government over the Internet will also have to rely on software that supports AES. And, in several years, AES could replace DES for private-key encryption in most commercial security algorithms. "Right now, I'm using PGP [Pretty Good Privacy] for some things. But the bulk of what we use here is with DES," said Paul O'Donnell, security manager at an Illinois manufacturer. "Should I be paying attention to what they [NIST] are doing? I suppose so." It's a change many say is overdue. DES was developed by IBM and the government in the 1970s. It was intended to last five to 10 years, said Dennis Branstad, an early DES developer for NIST's forerunner, the Institute of Computer Sciences and Technology. "It was a good algorithm. It turned out to be better than we thought," said Branstad, now director of cryptographic technologies at Trusted Information Systems Inc., in Glenwood, Md. "But it took longer to be accepted than we thought it would. There was no demand for it." DES is a symmetric, or private, key algorithm in which both the sender and receiver of a message must have a copy of the private key. It also can be used to encrypt data on a hard disk. It is found in an array of security protocols in the corporate world, ranging from secure E-mail software to virtual private network technology. DES' 56-bit private keys were unhackable until last year, when a nationwide network of computer users broke a DES key in 140 days--hardly an easy effort, but a harbinger of things to come as processing speed increases. Some experts now argue that it could take less than a week to break DES, with less than $100,000 worth of hardware. According to John Callas, chief technology officer of the Total Network Security Division of Network Associates Inc., a good hacker, with about $50,000 worth of specialty hardware, could crack a DES key in an hour. "Anybody who can afford a BMW can afford a DES cracker," said Callas, whose hypothesis will be tested in DES Challenge II this week at the RSA Data Security Conference, in San Francisco. Since most experts agree it's time to replace DES, the question becomes, Just what will AES be? Last summer, NIST released a 30-page document outlining its recommendations for a DES replacement and asking for submissions. There are three minimum technical criteria: The algorithm must be symmetric, or private, key. Public algorithms, such as elliptic curve (see related story) and Diffie-Hellman, though useful for authentication and the initial handshake between users, are considered too slow. The algorithm must be a "block cipher." Within the realm of symmetric keys there are two basic types of ciphers, block and stream. A block cipher, like DES, encrypts specific chunks of data. A stream cipher, like RSA Data Security Inc.'s RC4 algorithm, encrypts a steady flow of information. RC4 is the base encryption engine for Secure Sockets Layer, the security technology used in browsers. Some cryptographers are pushing NIST to consider stream ciphers because of their growing popularity. The algorithm has to be capable of supporting key lengths ranging from 128 bits to 256 bits and variable blocks of data. AES must also be efficient. Triple DES, a later version of the government's algorithm also developed by IBM, is far more secure than DES, running the 56-bit encryption three times. But that strength is also its weakness, because the repetition cycle slows it down considerably. Finally, the AES algorithm has to be made public and royalty-free. That could prove to be a sticking point for RSA, of Redwood City, Calif., which has traditionally held on to the royalties of its cryptographic creations. A conference at which cryptographers will present their algorithms is scheduled for this summer. And although NIST officials hope their analysis will be completed in 1998, many think it may take years to review the submittals, which are due by April 15. Major security vendors are noncommittal on proposing an algorithm. IBM, which created DES, with help from the National Security Agency, is hedging on whether it will participate. Triple DES is considered a likely entry, but its inefficiency could make it a difficult sell. Another IBM algorithm, DES/SK, could be in the running. RSA, if it decides to enter, could submit either its RC4 algorithm (the stream cipher) or RC5, which is a block cipher. Other likely competitors include Cast, a royalty-free algorithm controlled by Entrust Technologies Inc., or the unpatented Blowfish algorithm, created by Bruce Schneier. "It will be a standard for 20 to 30 years, in legacy systems for at least another 10, securing data that might need to be secured for at least another 20," Schneier wrote in a letter to NIST. "This means we are trying to estimate security in the year 2060. I can't estimate security 10 years from now, let alone 60. The only wise option is to be very conservative." A Data Encryption Standard primer What is DES? It was designed by IBM and endorsed by the U.S. government in 1977. What kind of encryption key does DES use? A symmetric, or private, key in which both the sender and the receiver know the key. It can also be used to encrypt data on a hard disk. What key length does DES use? 56 bits. Is DES safe? For most purposes, yes. But DES was hacked for the first time last year, and cryptographers worry that improved processing speeds will spell its demise.

1 0

HP BBS's? Telnet?
by Wardemon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any elite HP BBS's that I could telnet to ???? Thanks wardemon(a)erols.com

1 0

Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 19:14:05 -0800 > From: Blanc <blancw(a)cnw.com> > Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality > >something most anarchists here will deny is the existence of something > >that could be called *immoral science*. is there such a thing? > ............................................................ > > No. There are, however, immoral scientists. According to who? The scientist who is supposedly immoral? Obviously their actions aren't against their beliefs. The observer who is claiming it is immoral because they *believe* it to be immoral? Morality is a function of human psychology and not a fundamental result of existance. The relationship is similar to that between A, T, C, G, U and the genome. > actual manner of existence: "science" does not exist without those > individuals who have set themselves to pursue it. They should bear the > blame if they practice it immorally. Who is so moral that they may decide what is immoral? If you're a Christian the answer is simple 'judge not lest ye be judged'. Jesus stopped the stonning of an adulteress by saying that he who was without sin could throw the first stone. Since he was the only one without sin (by defintion in Christianity) he should have been the one to throw the first stone. What did he do? He sent everyone home with the admonishment to sin no more. > . being smart enough to pursue scientific research It doesn't necessarily take smarts. > . being successful in the scientific pursuit of truths What truths? Science isn't involved in 'truth' let alone 'Truth'. > . giving a damn about the consequences of the effects of research as it > affects humanity or other living things (as when it is imposed upon them) So you propose that ignorance of the consequences will some how protect us? > . responsibility in science Responsibility to who? The person(s) paying the bill, your fellow scientist, the society you live in, the world you inhabit, the generations to follow? > . responsibility in science as practiced by mendicants of the State Don't confuse working for the state as something that somehow mediates the basic tenents of science. If to get the job you may have to give up some scientific practices then at that point you aren't practicing science anymore. > . the regulation of the methods of science That's easy, the theories work when applied in experiments. > I become exceedingly uncomfortable at the realization that I have to buy an > astronomy magazine from the store, paying yet again for info, in order to > find out some of what they're doing at NASA. Try: www.nasa.gov jpl.nasa.gov or simply send email to Ron Baalke at JPL (you could call him on the phone if you don't mind paying the bill) > To think that a responsible > citizen like myself must go out searching for the info themselves, using > whatever resources they can find or pay for, in order to become informed! Why do they have a responsibility to drop it on your doorstep? > There is a book in Objectivist literature which presents the idea of What book? > "context dropping", which is, that in order for some people to function as > if things were normal and that what they're doing is consistent with moral > principles, they must drop a part of their information out of sight, out of > thought, so that their actions appear logically related and make sense - > they eliminate elements from the given context, crucial essentials which > make the difference in its character. People like these might practice > secrecy in keeping information from others, but equally significant, they > also hide things from themselves. Everyone is like that. It is one of the reasons science requires public dialog on its results. You can fool some of the people most of the time, most of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Sooner or later somebody will notice the king (theory) is butt naked (doesn't work when applied in experiment). > It's possible for some people to override the boundaries of decency, even > if they're otherwise smart enough to pursue science. But what would you > expect cryptographers to do about it? Cryptographers are scientist also. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

HP BBS's? Telnet? (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: "Wardemon" <Wardemon(a)erols.com> > Subject: HP BBS's? Telnet? > Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 22:37:34 -0500 > Does anyone have any elite HP BBS's that I could telnet to ???? > Thanks I usualy use ftp.hp.com What version of HP/UX are you running? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 1/12/98 3:32 PM, Tim May (tcmay(a)got.net) passed this wisdom: >Any implications for crypto? If Congress can successfully make >certain types of science illegal, felonizing the search for truth, >why not a ban on certain types of mathematics research? I think many of us are understandably nervous about the mistakes that could be made in the process of perfecting human cloning. But Tim's point is well taken, yet another potential 'slippery slope.' It also begs the question again of 'are we getting too paranoid?' I think the nanswer is still "no, not yet", as the Klinton administration proves to us almost every day it seems. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNLroFD7r4fUXwraZAQF9Cwf6AtGeZgKDN3nwY0FMsxoTgwXgalRmjGJT gqliyEIdYfqcQK/kGTFYvBbcGd0xl1dr+XpmJXvr7ItQ8lrsyyqEozGC2KJGYpJe 7C8nMl/nf49Pd4UcJRNZb86qAdwAB7wERW7nL8aGB5Bzm46tKEeaAS2jrzxVOgIt z7ysxDd+VNoU2czWrergrhvDjbtnXKjPVcIfwkN0M57SJgdWqIlX/fo5HLuiw8IZ i/Qg8JsLXJgnWr5ZDgrSRSNgVqmwAaV8980piBGyqY0X9ytOcYdjV197+rz55Hkh iqzIQm6aQa5BJuDy3p8B44LlICtxFB0XZP1UdgvRCbFWO3YD8P3mOA== =O6Dk -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts" John Wooden

2 1

Crypto Jokes
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Inspired by "Crypto Kong," contributions of crypto jokes >are requested, to enliven our Web site, which is pretty >gray these days without congressional buffoonery. Just post the contents of http://www.meganet.com/explain.htm. Those people are just plain stupid.

1 0

news from spyking list...
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: GPS Jamming *New Scientist* (8 Jan 1998, http://www.newscientist.com) included an article saying that a Russian company called Aviaconversia was offering a 4-watt GPS/Glonass jammer for less than $4000 at the September Moscow Air Show. It says that it could stop civilian aircraft locking onto GPS signals over a 200 Km radius; military aircraft would be harder to jam, but a more powerful unit could be built. The risks (terrorism etc.) are fairly obvious, and it's mentioned that it would probably be easy to build one even if this company's product is somehow removed from the market. ************************************************************************** 21)From: SpyKing(a)thecodex.com Subject: Spying around the world Corporate Spying On The Rise In India Corporate espionage is big business in India, and because of this, Indian corporations are busy installing internal information security programs that include paper shredders, computer database password-protection, and careful security checks of new employees. Indian analysts predict that corporate counter-espionage will become mandatory at many big companies as competition among the major players heats up, even between regional businesses. NSA Monitoring Sales Of Encryption Software In July, 1995, the National Security Agency (NSA) wrote "A Study of the International Market for Encryption" which NSA official Jon A. Goldsmith declared in sworn testimony should remain secret because "in developing its portion of the study, NSA sought and received information from the Department of State, the CIA and from foreign sources." NSA acquired data for their portion of the report from its global spying programs. But in some cases, the information was obtained by the CIA and passed onto the NSA. Goldsmith noted one section of the report involved the "Proposed Netherlands Telecommunications Service Act in 1993." Goldsmith testified "The first sentence of this paragraph was supplied by the CIA and is protected." The Netherlands is a major encryption hardware and software exporter (particularly Philips). Apparently the CIA spent some monitoring the Dutch legislature to find out what kind of laws it intended to pass regarding encryption technologies. Those details found their way into the NSA's secret report. Another section of this report details the close cooperation between the NSA and foreign intelligence services. Goldsmith testified the report "References discussions between Italian officials and members of the National Security Authority regarding Law Number 222 of February 27, 1992 and is protected in its entirety..." The NSA for some time has routinely monitored foreign-produced encryption technologies and has performed daily reports on these products, in addition to how fast and how economically it can crack these products, which so far the NSA has been able to do. But, NSA officials have testified before Congress, foreign encryption software is getting increasingly more sophisticated and thus harder and more costly to break in a timely manner. Domestically, the NSA appears to be secretly keeping tabs on U.S. sales of encryption software. In the secret 1995 report there's a section titled, "Software Outlets/Computer Stores" which "Refers to a internal NSA document control number and project name..." Observers believe this project involves domestic surveillance of US retail sales of encryption software. What, how, and who is being monitored, though, is a secret. FBI Finds Files On Chinese Influence, Counterintelligence Sources Worried The FBI recently discovered new and heretofore unknown counterintelligence files in its investigation of a possible Chinese plot to influence U.S. elections. The material was found following a search FBI Director Louis Freeh ordered in September "when it became apparent the FBI was in possession of certain counterintelligence information" an FBI statement said. Sources at other agencies say they are appalled that the FBI could misplace or overlook such vital information in a major counterintelligence probe. Particularly when the probe is of a government like that of China, which is well known for spying on America and is notorious for stealing details on advanced American technologies. "Either the Bureau is inept, or something else happened here," said one counterintelligence source, who was alluding to the files possibly being been alleged in relation to White House campaign fund-raising activities). China Grooming More Spies? About 100 elite Hong Kong schools, headed by the territory's Catholic institutions, are allowed to teach all classes in English, despite the territory's return to Chinese rule. Starting with the new school term, a total of 307 of the territory's 400 schools must teach all subjects in Chinese. However, believing that their children will have better job opportunities, most parents still want English instruction for them. By the year 2000, all students will study Mandarin Chinese, the basis for nation-wide university entrance exams. Western intelligence experts believe the elite school language leniency stems from the mainland government's desire to continue the English language program to groom economic and political spies. The US State Department has identified China as the country which sends the largest number of spies to the United States and has uncovered a Chinese spy within its own ranks during 1997. Iraq's Intelligence Service Spies On UN WMD Observers Utilizing sophisticated electronic eavesdropping and other SIGINT resources, Iraqi intelligence agents have been spying on UN weapons inspectors (whose ranks reportedly include individuals collecting particular intelligence for the U.S.) and have been able to learn in advance of the UN inspection team's targets. Consequently, Iraq has been able to quickly secrete both their weapons of mass destruction and their records of manufacturing, U.S. military and intelligence officials have said. These officials suspect that some of the SIGINT capabilities of Iraq have been provided through black market channels from the Former Soviet Republics (FSR). U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen has publicly acknowledged that the U.S. believes the Iraqis have the ability to eavesdrop electronically on the UN inspectors. In addition, Iraqi agents are suspected of conducting physical and electronic surveillance of individual UN inspection team members, including monitoring their homes. Ewen Buchanan, the spokesman for the inspection commission at UN headquarters in New York, is quoted saying "we are obviously aware that the Iraqis try their damnedest to monitor us, our planning, our thoughts, even in New York, and to develop an early warning system -- what we want, where we're going, what we are trying to inspect. They must use every means at their disposal." Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said intelligence authorities do not believe that Saddam Hussein has managed to penetrate the UN Special Commission of weapons inspectors, known as UNSCOM, but rather they believe that "Iraq has found ways to learn ahead of time some of UNSCOM's plans," using SIGINT and other technical means. Counterintelligence Searches For North Korean Spies The Agency for National Security Planning (NSP) believes North Korea has targeted 1,500 South Koreans to establish new spy networks within South Korea. Evidence of this effort has been obtained through the investigations and arrests of alleged spies. That North Korea is bankrolling a massive spy operation against the South bolsters intelligence findings by U.S. counterintelligence sources, who say North Korea is aggressively recruiting spies in South Korea, targeting infrastructure, commerce, and technology in particular. Details on the North Korean spying activities began to emerge following the recent arrest of 69-year-old Ko Young-bok, a noted sociology professor who once worked for Seoul National University. Ko stands accused of spying for North Korea for 36 years. He was arrested after having been linked to a North Korean spy couple. During its investigation, the NSP intercepted a telephone communication Ko had received from an unidentified source immediately before his Ko had received from an unidentified source immediately before his arrest urging him to fly to Beijing and take shelter at the North Korean embassy there. The caller is believed by the NSP to be in charge of North Korean spy rings in South Korea. According to intelligence sources, few people, except for ranking North Korean spy officials, know who all the spies are in South Korea. Intelligence officials said all North Korean spies form small separate rings and contact between the different rings is limited. Earlier, Shim Jong-ung, 55, was arrested on charges of spying for North Korea. A Seoul subway official, Shim is accused of providing North Korea with information which could be used to destroy subway systems. Bok is an eminent scholar known as the father of sociology studies in South Korea, who served as director of a government research center and who made two official trips to North Korea in 1973 as a South Korean adviser. South Korean authorities assert that on those occasions he actually briefed North Korea on the South's bargaining position. The alleged spy ring was broken up when a leftist reported to South Korean authorities that he had been approached by two North Koreans and asked to spy for the North. That led counterintelligence officials to detain the two North Koreans, Choi Chung Nam, 35, and his wife, Kang Yun Jung, 28. Kang committed suicide a day later. The police had searched the two carefully for any suicide capsules, X-raying them and examining their mouths, but when Kang went to the bathroom with an escort she removed a cyanide capsule she had hidden in her vagina and killed herself with it. Choi, however, confessed and apparently led the counterintelligence agents to the North Korean spies with whom he had been in contact. He also showed them drop-off places around Seoul used to hide guns, radio transmitters and ball-point pens that shoot lethal poison Choi allegedly confessed that their mission was to recruit agents, future infiltrations, and obtain information about a new, highly productive strain of corn developed in the South. Have Pakistan Intelligence Agents Penetrated U.S. Agencies? According to fundamental Pakistani sources monitored by U.S. intelligence analysts, "trusted" "brothers" have managed to rise to crucial positions in U.S. military intelligence, and have access to details about CIA operations in the Middle East. English NSA Facility Comes Under Fire An NSA facility in Menwith Hill, England, the biggest spy station in the world capable of monitoring the communications spectrum throughout Europe, has come under British scrutiny. The European Commission has issued a report, "Assessing the Technologies of Political Control," that says the spying system, known as "Echelon," is a threat to European privacy rights and laws. European Commission spokesman, Simon Davies, said the report warns that the system can "eavesdrop on every telephone, email, and telex communication around the world." According to the report, "the Echelon system forms part of the UKUSA system but unlike many of the electronic spy systems developed during the Cold War, Echelon is designed primarily for non- military targets: governments, organizations and businesses in virtually every country. "The Echelon system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable using artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX to find key words." Echelon uses a number of national dictionaries containing key words of interest to each country. The Commission report was requested last year by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. It contains details of a network of American-controlled spy stations on British soil and around the world that "routinely and indiscriminately" monitor "countless phone, fax and email messages." It states "within Europe all email telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency transferring all target information from the European mainland via the strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via the crucial hub at Menwith Hill" in Yorkshire. The report recommends a variety of measures for dealing with the NSA facility at Menwith Hill and other centers including that "the European Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making private messages via the global communications network Internet) accessible to US intelligence agencies. The report also urges a fundamental review of the involvement of the American NSA in Europe, suggesting that the activities be scaled down, or become more open and accountable. The report was the subject of discussion on Dec. 21 by the committee of the office of Science and Technology Assessment in Luxembourg. They confirmed that the citizens of Britain and other European states are subject to an intensity of surveillance far in excess of that imagined by most parliaments. The report was developed due to pressure by Glyn Ford. Labour MEP for Greater Manchester East, England. He says "there are times in history when technology helps democratize, and times when it helps centralize. This is a time of centralization. The justice and home affairs pillar of Europe has become more powerful without corresponding strengthening of civil liberties." The reaction of the members was one of shock and "deep concern" for the rights of European citizens even though the UK facility has been in place for over 15 years and the technology there has been an "open secret" for most of that period. Thus, the question becomes have the European governments dismissed information from their own intelligence personnel as impossible, or does this signal a new coldness in European/US relations. According to the London Telegraph, the real concern is not so much civil liberties as industrial espionage. In a Dec. 16 report it stated that "the principal motivation for this rush of development is the US interest in commercial espionage." The report pointed out that several of the facilities have been in place since the Nineteen-Fifties. The role of these NSA sites was to provide military, diplomatic and economic intelligence by intercepting communications from throughout the Northern Hemisphere. When the British Parliament has questioned new eavesdropping developments over the past 40 years, secrecy issues have generally been invoked. With treaties and agreements with other European countries, these concerns are not likely to block future investigations by the European Parliament and other E. U. groups. France and Germany are particularly expected to pursue the issues raised based on concerns about industrials spying. Last year, several American agents were expelled from France on charges of economic espionage. Whether the impetus for the European report was concern for civil rights or over trade secrets, the results may be that we in the US will be better informed of what the NSA is doing at home and how our own rights have been treated by an organization which has the motto: "We don't talk, we listen."

1 0

Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 06:10:14 +0100 (MET) > Subject: Re: Talk of Banning Research into Human Cloning > From: nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) > > Though I'm not a constitutional expert, this would seem to me to be a > > violation of various rights. A First Amendment right to speak and publish > > as one wishes for one, a Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure > > Actually, not at all. > > There is no ban on publishing information on cloning, "just" a ban on the > activity. Spin doctor bullshit. Without the research there isn't anything to publish. By banning the basic research we would in fact be banning the publishing of the results of that scientific research. > Hence the first amendment is not implicated. If it were the > case the every action (as opposed to speech/publication) were protected by > the 1st Am. then every statute making robbery a crime would be > unconstitutional too. Not at all. Equating swinging of ones fist in a empty field and swinging it into somebodies nose and then taking that supposition as justification to ban fist swinging *is* most certainly unconstitutional. Furthermore, robbery isn't illegal under the Constitution unless its the federal government taking the material and refusing to follow the Constitutional directive to pay for *all* property, irrespective of how it was gained, for public use as those duties are relegated per the 10th to the purvue of the states. > Similarly, the 4th Am. is not implicated. The right to be secure against > UNREASONABLE search and seizure is not violated when and if congress > passes a law defining a new crime, or you are arrested for committing it. The question here is whether Congress even *has* the power to regulate those sorts of behaviours without an amendment being passed by the states to surrender their authority per the 9th and 10th to the federal government. > > and to be secure in one's papers, and probably more general rights that > > have long-held that government agents cannot tell people what books they > > again, note that the ban is on CLONING, not THINKING OR WRITING OR READING > about cloning. It's not the same thing. Without doing the research it isn't possible to think very much about cloning except in a *very* abstract manner. That forcing of abstraction against ones will may very well infact be unconstitutional. > > may read, what thinking they may do, and whom they may asssociate with (if > > the Civil Rights Act is viewed as the unconstitutional anomaly it is). > > This is an aside, but the CRA is in no way anomalous given the 13th, 14th > and 15th Amendments. It is only "anomalous" if one sticks to the > Constitution as written in the 18th century... and ignores the articles > written in that same century that clearly contemplate amendments.... The articles contemplating the amendments are irrelevant to this issue. Only the actual amendments are relevant. What people might *want* to do has nothing to do with what they *can* do under the limiting documents of this country. > > But a ban on cloning research would not be a matter of "national security," > > only of ethics and religious beliefs. Whatever the arguments for banning > > unapproved research into CBW and nuclear weapons, banning cloning research > > is an entirely different set of issues. > > > > Arguably, many of the legal bans in force today are due to ethics, e.g.: No, they are a result of political wrangling by small groups to gain political power and the economic and social conseuences thereof. They also result from a clearly premeditated absolution of the Constitution that these self same 'representatives' gave an oath to uphold with their lives. The justification that is profered is the ethics of the constituents. > A. Michael Froomkin +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) > Associate Professor of Law > U. Miami School of Law froomkin(a)law.miami.edu > P.O. Box 248087 http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/ > Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA It's warm here. Your a law professor and your logic, respect for the Constitution, and basic scientific comprehension is this bad? No damn wonder we're in the shit hole we're in now... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

7 6

Congress' *real* job...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Congress' real job should not be passing laws providing funding, prohibiting activities, etc. It *should* be in creating and passing Constitutional amendments per the 10th that re-define the responsibilities and duties of the federal government within the changing millieu of the current society. This way the people via their state representatives have a much closer input into what the feds are actualy enpowered to do and to who. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0

MS presents technical defence [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > MICROSOFT TO PRESENT LENGTHY TECHNICAL DEFENSE > > graphic January 12, 1998 > Web posted at: 11:14 p.m. EST (0414 GMT) > > WASHINGTON (AP) -- Microsoft Corp., attempting to fend off contempt > of court charges, plans to make a detailed defense in court that its > Internet Explorer software is interwoven with its popular Windows 95 > program and the two can't be separated without debilitating the > Windows program. > > Attorneys for Microsoft and the Justice Department are scheduled to > face off in federal court again Tuesday in the latest chapter of the > bitter antitrust lawsuit. The Justice Department has asked U.S. > District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson to find Microsoft in contempt > of his December 11 order that it separate its Internet browser > software from Windows. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

1 0