December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Laptop TEMPEST
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Doesn't the FCC have to test the RF emissions of all laptops as well as monitors for sale as Class A and Class B in the US? Shouldn't that material be available? I searched the main site, www.fcc.gov, but didn't find anything regarding this. I sent a request for instructions on how to obtain the emissions test results on computer monitors and laptops for commercial and non-commercial use, foia(a)fcc.gov. If anyone actualy knows of the location I would be much obliged if you would pass it along. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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time to learn chinese?
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Listened to an analyst on the radio expressing view that towards 2010 China will be leading world economic power. Anyway interesting was that the analyst expressed that in her view China was keen to avoid the mistakes of the socialist welfare state as market liberalization and prosperity grew. She considered the burden of a welfare state to be a large burden which would mean that China would outstrip growth in the west. Also she stated that she thought democracy was in decline. When interviewed asked about human rights, she opined that these would improve as the market became freer. She stated that China hopes to bypass democracy going straight to free market. China may be interesting in a few more decades... Adam

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Re: Laptop TEMPEST
by Ryan Lackey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FCC RF/EMC testing is well nigh useless for TEMPEST protection. Compliance engineering firms have some equipment which might be useful for TEMPEST experimentation, but the actual specs for Class B (Class A is basically anything that won't kill you) are pretty worthless for this application. I imagine there may be some other "dual use" technologies through for testing TEMPEST equipment. Perhaps some medical equipment has stringent stray emanation specs? I believe the equipment you'd really want is the real "TS" (technical surveillance) gear, which is 1) not available on the open market and 2) expensive. The paper seems to have involved an AM radio and an obsolete piece of British TS kit; van Eck used a modified TV. Any HAM could probably build a suitable receiver, the real problem is knowing how much attenuation is necessary to defeat the real TS gear. This is why I am fundamentally impressed by the obfuscation techniques from the paper, rather than just straight shielding. -- Ryan Lackey rdl(a)mit.edu http://mit.edu/rdl/

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re: Drivers Licenses
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: >> From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)invweb.net> >> >> A couple of times through the washer and dryer and that >> lamination seperates. Any cop that has worked traffic >> has seen plenty of DL's in this shape (heh should have >> seen my old DL when I truned it in to get it renewed <g>). > > I rather doubt that. I have had a Texas drivers license > since I was 16, I'm now 38. I have washed them innumerable > times and I have never had the lamination break or > otherwise degrade. The lamination is quite heavy. I did > have one crack at the seam one time because of a bad > lamination and was specificaly instructed by the officer > who wrote me a speeding ticket to get it replaced. I did > so immediately. "Yes SIR!" > The law here is that if the license is damaged, you move, > or otherwise make the information invalid you have 30 > days to correct it. "Yes SIR!" > I suspect quite strongly that had I shown up at the > court house to pay that ticket with the same damaged > license (required to be shown at the time of payment) > they would not have accepted the payment and might have > asked to to discuss the situation with one of the > officers they so thoughtfuly have placed about the room. "Yes SIR!" > Texas takes counterfeiting of licenses quite seriously. "Yes SIR!" > My suggestion would be don't try such juvenile tricks here, "No, SIR!" > the DPS have seen it before "Yes SIR!" > and won't be pleasant people to deal with unless you're > a juvenile. "No SIR!" This is one of the things I love so about Texas and Texans. Despite inexplicable rumors and propaganda about independence and rugged frontier indivuality, Texans are as fucking obedient to authority as the most lock-stepped fucking Germans. The People's Republic of Texas is on the leading edge of Big Brother statism. Sales tax fully as high as New York's, fingerprints at driver license renewal time, roadblocks to fish for people who have been indulging in adult beverages or who have outstanding warrants, and some of the most dumb-fuck, clueless, fuckwit people behind badges in the known universe. Texans will give anyone their SS number at any time for any reason. Many print it on their checks. Texas is without doubt the Rube State. The only reason it isn't on the bleeding foreskin of Big Brother technology is that there aren't enough clues in the state to rub together to make a spark. When you run into anyone halfway sharp or better in Texas, it's a cinch they are a refugee from the unforgiving North.

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Online Credit Card Transactions for $39.95!!
by yourfriend8950＠psynet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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re: Drivers Licenses (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:25:55 +0100 (CET) > From: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> > Subject: re: Drivers Licenses (fwd) > On Sun, 8 Feb 1998, Jim Choate wrote: > > I have a proposal. Lucky is supposed to be in Austin for the CFP conference. > > If he is agreeable, he could ask to examine a Tx. d.l. We could leave it up > > to his opinion as to whether these would be easy to alter. > > Why me? Convenience. You seemed like the right person who would be in the right place with the right technical skills to ask for indipendent opinion. You obviously don't feel comfortable with it. I apologize for the intrusion. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Driver Licenses (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 09:00:12 +0100 (CET) > From: Lucky Green <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> > Subject: Re: Driver Licenses > The clerk at my local 7/11 assured me the information captured would not > be forwarded to a central site. Yet. It appears the stores are installing > these systems to protect themselves against police sting "test buys", in > which the authorities take persons just days shy of their 21st birthday, > put theater makeup and/or a gray beard and wig on them and thus entrap > store clerks into selling controlled substances to minors. > > As any fool can predict, the information captured will not remain local > for long. After all, the system is ideal for monitoring gun^H^H^H alcohol > purchases of parolees, tracking down deadbeat dads, etc. I have worked doing technical support for McDonalds in two of my past jobs. I assure you that when they dump the stores records each night they are dumping this as well. They dump gas sales from the automated machines as a matter of course. The real question is who besides Southland Corp. subsidies are they selling this info to? ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Laptop TEMPEST (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: Laptop TEMPEST > From: Ryan Lackey <rdl(a)mit.edu> > Date: 09 Feb 1998 02:34:15 -0500 > FCC RF/EMC testing is well nigh useless for TEMPEST protection. I disagree, it would give you a gross baseline on the total emissions between monitors and laptops. That field strenght measurement would at least allow you to calculate radiuses of equal strength to calculate approximately how far the emissions are from each class of device for equal probabilities of detection. One of the specific goals is to measure how effective the device is at effecting other co-located devices (such as seeing ghost images on other monitors or causing static in paging equipment). I suspect one could do it with a spectrum analyzer or a grid dip meter. > I imagine there may be some other "dual use" technologies through for > testing TEMPEST equipment. Perhaps some medical equipment has stringent > stray emanation specs? We're not trying to bring the individual vertical retraces out of the chaff...we're trying to calculate the total comparitive emission strengths. If that isn't high enough then trying to get individual componants of that field will be useless. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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EPIC World Crypto Survey
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The New York Times, February 9, 1998, p. D10: U.S. Losing Battle on Control of Data Encryption, Study Says By Jeri Clausing Washington -- The Clinton Administration is losing its battle to increase international controls over how reliably computer data can be scrambled to insure privacy, according to a report to be released Monday by an independent research group. ... The Electronic Privacy Information Center <http://www.epic.org> says that its survey of 243 governments showed that the United States is virtually the only democratic, industrialized nation seeling domestic regulation of strong encryption. That finding directly contradicts the Clinton Administration's assertions in Congressional hearings that it has the support of most nations on this issue. ... William Reinsch, the Under Secretary for export administration in the United States Commerce Department, denied that the study contradicted the Administration's assertions. "All the Administration has ever said is that there are more countries that go farther than we do," Mr. Reinsch said. "The study confirms that."

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Airport security cracked by flaw [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > X-within-URL: http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9802/08/security.reut/index.html > REPORT: COMPUTER DESIGN FLAW OPENS AIRPORTS TO TERRORISM > > graphic February 8, 1998 > Web posted at: 1:25 p.m. EST (1825 GMT) > > NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The computer security systems that control > access to 40 airports worldwide through electronic badges have a > design flaw that could make them vulnerable to terrorism, The New > York Times reported Sunday. > > A California computer security consulting firm, MSB Associates, > found the flaw in December in a routine audit of a large California > financial services software company, the identity of which was not > disclosed, according to the newspaper. > > Government buildings, including that of the CIA, and prisons and > industries with sensitive military, drug or financial information or > material also use the system and are also vulnerable to attack, the > Times report said. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | The most powerful passion in life is not love or hate, | | but the desire to edit somebody elses words. | | | | Sign in Ed Barsis' office | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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