December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Real-time surveillance of the police
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Michael Crawford wrote about my article in the December '94 issue of Wired, ("Watching the Detectives", p. 141): ... The advantage for society is that the cop's behaviour, such as billy-club swinging velocity, can be monitored. It could detect gunfire, too, ... This would work to the extent that the equipment is actually mounted on the cop it claims to belong to, so some manner of authentication would be needed. Fleming told me that the localizers would also take biometric readings to monitor the cop's physical status. It turns out that individual biometric readings vary significantly from person to person. It would be very hard for one cop (or a dog, suspect, whatever) to pose as someone else by wearing his localizer. ... Yes, that's right - keep surveillance cameras going on _yourself_. If you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to fear from taping everything you do. I don't like this idea one bit. I agree with Tim that it is the first step on a very slippery slope. ... I expect that it will be difficult to convince our Nation's Finest to adopt this new technology - though I'm sure they'd be happy to apply it to parolees and those serving on probation.... It would be difficult for the cops to reject it. After all, it definitely benefits vast majority of good cops. It only hurts that teensy-tiny minority who violate people's rights. Right? Michael also argued that it might be more easily sold to private security firms for legal liability reasons. This argument is even more persuasive for police officers. Cities routinely pay astronomical settlements, or fight expensive law suits, arising out of alleged incidents of police misconduct. Frivolous lawsuits would be quickly thrown out of court. Rogue cops would be identified and thrown off the force. Works for me. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Hal Finney & Bob Rae and Ontario's Parliament
by FRODO＠uhura.trinity.toronto.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- All lines between this and the PGP header may be suspect. This is what I posted to Ont.general this evening. Those who are interested in getting more information about the kerfuffle in Toronto over the posting through an anonymous remailer might want to check out http://www.earth.org/~newsbites (I believe that's it. You might want to try without the directory.) Which contains muchos information, including the discussion going through the newsgroups, and the Globe and Mail article.) The article below is what I posted to ont.general myself this evening. Seemed a good chance to proselytize... ;) It was signed, as below, with my shame-facedly new PGP key, though the signature file was slightly different. (I've managed to grab the real .sig off my unix account. As I noted, one of my e-mail sites is currently not sending mail.) Article begins: Short note. Mike Harris' behavior in the legislature is the symptom of either malevolence or incompetence or both. Either way, he won't be getting my vote. On the other hand, there are ways of protecting yourself from forgeries such as this. You can't stop people from sending such mail, but you *can* make mail that you write unique. PGP, a fully legal encryption program which the Ontario government could use FOR FREE, has a signing protocol so that recipients can check to make sure that your mail did indeed come from you. If you make it a standard that you don't send unsigned mail, and don't post to newsgroups without signing what you send, unsigned mail will be suspect. In this case, the mail went through the cypherpunks anonymous remailer at portal.com. I trust that whoever sent the mail had enough computer sense to have chained it through several remailers, if little else. We've been through the arguments about "yes there was a disclaimer," but people seem to be ignorant of the fact that there are already ways of protecting yourself from misrepresentation on the net. The University of Toronto's CDF facility is currently having a little problem with sending mail (ie, it can't), so I'm posting this instead of sending it directly to Bob Rae. Perhaps we should send him PGP for Christmas? Richard - -- Richard Martin ChemPhysCompSci 9T7+PEY = 9T8 g4frodo@cdf Trinity College University of Toronto SVW92 martinrd(a)gpu.utcc My opinions, when not poached. (or fried) frodo(a)uhura.trinity [Tack a "toronto.edu" on the end of each e-mail address. I'm faced with a mailing program with draconian margin policies.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCVAgUBLuvVl6+lG3+zwTCVAQFPdwQAtX0fh0aJuhPC1mCUAlNDDi9tV0QB0yy8 cSNIlBxVgEzTl6K0geu25CSXSGh2N4dFdh6rHMPjkMkOsfcVPFI5nXb8+zHtfFgd UxkU0mwhunyFzLCN4tm0UVKruzWmfV8bGV9EezSsRrmAeAsZwT9s5hJ3qdOnf3mn twbGIn1Eadg= =UI1+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Real-time surveillance of the police
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:11 PM 12/11/94, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > ... Yes, that's right - keep surveillance cameras going > on _yourself_. If you're not doing anything illegal, > you've got nothing to fear from taping everything you > do. > >I don't like this idea one bit. I agree with Tim that it is the >first step on a very slippery slope. > > ... I expect that it will be difficult to convince our > Nation's Finest to adopt this new technology - though > I'm sure they'd be happy to apply it to parolees and > those serving on probation.... > >It would be difficult for the cops to reject it. After all, it >definitely benefits vast majority of good cops. It only hurts >that teensy-tiny minority who violate people's rights. Right? I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic here, although I don't think you are. That seems like a slippery slope all it's own, there. I don't like it when someone tells me "what do you have to worry about if you aren't breaking any laws," and I don't like it when someone says that about the cops too. That argument is awfully scary. Yeah, if the cops didn't want to accept such a thing, it might be worth calling them on their hypocrisy for applying that argument to citizens and not to police. But I don't think it would be wise to use the "what do you have to worry about if you aren't breaking any laws," argument too often.

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Re: Articles on RC5 and GOST in January 95 Dr Dobbs Journal
by alano＠teleport.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>In the Jan 95 issue of Dr Dobbs Journal, you will find the following: > [stuff deleted] > > An article by Ron Rivest on RC5 (without code). I could have sworn that had code with it. In checking, it has only pseudocode. My mistake... Oops. >Remember, you can export cryptographic source code in paper form. I wonder how it effects their FTP archives... | "Encryption ROT13s your mind." | alano(a)teleport.com | |"Would you rather be tortured by the government | Disclaimer: | |forces or the people's liberation army?" -mklprc | Ignore the man | | -- PGP 2.6.2 key available on request -- | behind the keyboard.|

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RE: Real-time surveillance of the police
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Jonathan Rochkind wrote: ... I don't like it when someone tells me "what do you have to worry about if you aren't breaking any laws," and I don't like it when someone says that about the cops too.... This misses the point I was trying to make. The first argument in favor of wiring the cops, is that it is to their benefit. It helps backup officers or medical personnel to find them. It protects them from unfounded accusations of brutality or other misconduct. It makes a permanent visual and sound recording of perps who get away. This helps in later identification. Even with all these arguments in favor of wiring, I have a sneaking suspicion the cops will not want it. Why? Though few police would admit it publicly, my conjecture is that they know they are currently getting away with murder (sometimes literally) and would feel being wired would force them to obey the law. So my "teensy-tiny-minority" argument was offered sarcastically. In addition, I think recording officers' shifts would show just how little work cops actually do for their pay. Wiring would really throw a money wrench in the doughnut-boys cushy deal. Cynical? You betcha. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Real-time surveillance of the police
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by Michael D. Crawford: . . . if a street gang felt the cops were thumping their members with unwarranted enthusiasm, the gang could purchase a case of cameras at the local Price Club, and everyone could carry them to photograph the cops. ............................................................... The first thing I imagined on reading this, was numbers of young blacks in the ghetto carrying on their shoulders - not boom boxes, but camcorders. But next I multiplied and elaborated and exaggerated the idea of everyone protecting themselves by any and all surveillance devices possible and available, and came up with this vision of a society where membership required that everyone be amenable to being recorded on contact with anyone and their cat. "Of course, I respect you - I just don't *trust* you." Blanc

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Re: alt.anonymous.messages propagation
by L. McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Todd Masco writes: > Timothy C. May writes: > # Isn't this what "alt.anonymous.messages" is all about? > Alas, it is not available at MIT. I'll have to scrounge for a server that > carries it (volunteerings of feeds welcome!); Hmmm, does MIT get alt.anonymous at least ? I understand alt.anonymous was created to serve a purpose similar to that of alt.privacy.anon-server, but at the moment it's a de facto equivalent of alt.anonymous.messages. alt.anonymous is somewhat better propagated than a.a.m, from what I've heard. You should request one or both groups from the MIT news admins. If users there want to read the group, they'll likely be quite happy to carry it. I'm a fairly well-known regular in alt.config, and I believe I can probably recruit some prominent news admins to send booster newgroup messages for alt.anonymous.messages. Apart from that, it's a matter of people asking their local news admins to pick up the group if they aren't already carrying it. > Though netcom is our > IP provider, I'd rather not get news from them. Heh, I don't blame you. Although I heard they recently ditched alt.this.site.newgroups.everything (or something like that), they still carry virtually everything that gets newgrouped by anyone, accidentally or not. - - -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server "We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines; I know that that ain't allowed" --Talking Heads - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLuvzUGf7YYibNzjpAQHr7AP/WCfDofFHaj8JgOEIWM490zc5hPCQxSSV 2d1KZ61wVGsJEDGLdEMI1OT1cuZAgTzbs4HXd+Hi0z5gu/ZsynSpkxCQTfPr7RZV 4+wPSSVOiEK4rrwf95dfJsC7U+EZk8fUCd8gNX0dXVJKYe9n258oWlUNk8VkgNgM L6f+bXRX/VY= =B8La - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLuv0uioZzwIn1bdtAQEbggF/ax15KwhS915RJ4eTZHpAPBS2W62tT8eK IniODiSMg+yqtueEQ7yTs8cny7RLOUYq =YTYr -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Misunderstanding of Remail Headers
by L. McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hal writes: > One thing I do notice on reading the discussion in can.politics is the > fact that despite the disclaimers in the message headers, some people > took this as a forgery attempt on my part. I wonder if it might be > necessary to insert disclaimers into the body of the message as > anon.penet.fi does, at least for messages to known mail-to-news > gateways. > > There was also a misperception that my remailer was an official effort > endorsed by Portal (again, despite the disclaimers). Note that it was > they who were contacted, not me (yet). This might suggest that it will > not be possible to cleanly separate the remailer operators and service > providers when problems like this arise. Both may end up being hassled > (time will tell whether I am). This is all too familiar to me. Although I still haven't heard the official line on the shutdown of Underdog following the Scythe spam, at least some people locally (including, crucially, my advisor) received the impression that I had forged (and authored !) the offending news articles in spite of the disclaimer headers. Furthermore, the spam might not have been a fatal blow if not for the fact that some people ignored the "complaints to <lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu>" header and wrote directly to root or postmaster here. Everyone who actually wrote to me came away satisfied that I was taking appropriate action, as far as I could tell. I'll take this opportunity to reiterate that I'm no longer operating a remailer at this address. I wrote to Matt Ghio about a week ago asking him to remove my address from remailer-pings(a)chaos.bsu.edu, but I suppose he's busy with school these days. That list remains frozen with information dating from Nov.22. Karl Barrus mentioned something about chaos.bsu.edu having moved to chaos.taylored.com; perhaps this is part of the reason for the snag ? - - -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server "We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines; I know that that ain't allowed" --Talking Heads - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLuv2yGf7YYibNzjpAQF/GQP/VNo06+qqYvQBhU0xAO+TpHx44OJX6dKI HWhW+zIA6Xp/UYKsql8Mfg7dhxesJ4JSdqkkjY8znqUrwp/CnOTo3qql0W/EOxYt l3f7kcHJWvr/gPO/rvtMgWbR2GRjkhaCa62ny/tgV+IGCKxDqCi25A4Y2x23KFDB JgiLP4c2hSc= =34zm - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBLuv4ACoZzwIn1bdtAQEkZwF/dL0lroedGXvGlNJFJ5W6Z0dm83yefrzq 9aRFW9Xh+2/cjvb5+OMY0Ol1uEnU5UaM =ygWU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RSAREF for Perl Beta Testers Wanted
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RSAREF for Perl is complete and ready for beta testing. Does anyone want to volunteer? Using it requires Unix, Perl, and RSAREF 2.0. You do not need to recompile the Perl interpreter. It gives you conventional and public-key encryption, signing, hashing, and Diffie-Hellman as one-liners in Perl. Mike

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RE: Real-time surveillance of the police
by crawford＠scruznet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy Sandfort <sandfort(a)crl.com> writes: > Michael also argued that it might be more easily sold to private > security firms for legal liability reasons. This argument is > even more persuasive for police officers. Cities routinely pay > astronomical settlements, or fight expensive law suits, arising > out of alleged incidents of police misconduct. Frivolous > lawsuits would be quickly thrown out of court. Rogue cops would > be identified and thrown off the force. Works for me. Works for me, too, and one would think that it would work for cities, but experience shows that individual cops can rack up millions of dollars in legal settlement costs and still remain on the force. I heard some figure - this is quite vague, but hey, it's midnight - that a small handfull of cops in San Francisco had cost the City tens of millions, with individual cops repeatedly causing lawsuits, without getting fired. Why? Police unions. Settling out of court without assigning blame. City politics. Mayors that are former police chiefs. A clueless populace. Promises to do better next time. Now, I heartily agree with you that the police should be more closely monitored, and certainly cities have ample reason to avail themselves of this, but most cities do not even avail themselves of citizen police review commissions, because of the resistance the police have to it. In Santa Cruz, a proposal to allow an independent citizen panel to review police internal affairs investigations faced threats of lawsuits from the police union, and took _years_ to adopt. The commission we got has considerably less authority than was originally proposed. This is in a city reknowned throughout the nation for its leftist politics. If the People's Republic of Santa Cruz couldn't get a review board with real authority implemented, I doubt you'll convince the LAPD to put radio beacons on their thumping arms. Much as I think they should. Sandy continues: > Even with all these arguments in favor of wiring, I have a > sneaking suspicion the cops will not want it. Why? Though few > police would admit it publicly, my conjecture ... Well, my knowledge is that at least one cop wouldn't go for it - the cop we caught jacking off to a magazine of ill repute, parked in his patrol car on Yerba Buena Island in San Francisco Bay. Those rhythmic wrist-movements would show an unmistakable frequency signature back at home base. He sure drove off quick. Didn't even say hello. I say, > Yes, that's right - keep surveillance cameras going on _yourself_. If > you're not doing anything illegal, you've got nothing to fear from taping > everything you do. tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) replies: > This scenario is a likely way that "position escrow" will evolve, from > a voluntary escrowing (incl. timestamping, etc.). "Those with nothing > to hide" will agree to escrow their movements...this will exculpate > them in suspected crimes, etc. A slippery slope. I reflected on this a bit, and decided that if one were to implement "personal surveillance", a decent solution would be to encrypt the tapes. Use DAT tape instead of a VCR, and save MPEG's or QuickTime movies that have been encrypted with IDEA. The idea here is protection _from_ the police, to demonstrate that an officer misbehaved in the vicinity of my car, rather than to provide a record for use by the government. Needless to say, I wouldn't advertise that I actually had such a thing until I pulled the tapes out in a deposition, or sent them, decrypted, to the TV news. Again, I'm not saying such surveillance should be imposed, supplied or encouraged by the authorities, but that one might find some benefit in installing it oneself. Cheerio, Michael D. Crawford crawford(a)scruznet.com <- Please note change of address. crawford(a)maxwell.ucsc.edu <- Finger me here for PGP Public Key.

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