December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

(fwd) ALERT! Govt thought police online, to be debated on PBS 2/15
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 1 (Highest) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 13:26:25 -0800 To: GovAccess(a)well.com From: jwarren(a)well.com (Jim Warren) Subject: ALERT! Govt thought police online, to be debated on PBS 2/15 Cc: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu Sender: owner-govaccess(a)well.com Precedence: bulk Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:05:21 -0500 To: policy-posts(a)cdt_list.cdt.org From: editor(a)cdt.org (CDT Editor) Subject: TONIGHT (2/15) on PBS - CDT Dir. Jerry Berman vs. Family Research Council Resent-From: policy-posts(a)cdt_list.cdt.org X-Mailing-List: <policy-posts(a)cdt_list.cdt.org> archive/latest/14 X-Loop: policy-posts(a)cdt_list.cdt.org Precedence: list Resent-Sender: policy-posts-request(a)cdt_list.cdt.org Jerry Berman, Executive Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, will debate Cathleen Cleaver of the Family Research Council TONIGHT (Thurs 2/15) on PBS's 'News Hour with Jim Lerher'. (Formerly the MacNeill/Lerher News Hour). Check your local listings for time and channel. Cleaver and the Family Research Council were strong supporters of the Exon "Communications Decency Act." Topics to be discussed include the CDA, court challenges, the recent announcement by Compuserve to un-block Usenet access and provide parental control technologies to CIS subscribers, and other issues relating to Internet Censorship. == I just god it, so now you just got it (as quick as my listserv can shovel it out the pipe). --jim Jim Warren, GovAccess list-owner/editor (jwarren(a)well.com) Advocate & columnist, MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/<# upon request> Mo' as it Is. --jim Jim Warren, GovAccess list-owner/editor (jwarren(a)well.com) Advocate & columnist, MicroTimes, Government Technology, BoardWatch, etc. 345 Swett Rd., Woodside CA 94062; voice/415-851-7075; fax/<# upon request> To add or drop GovAccess, email to Majordomo(a)well.com ('Subject' ignored) with message: [un]subscribe GovAccess YourEmailAddress (insert your eaddr) For brief description of GovAccess, send the message: info GovAccess Past postings are at ftp.cpsr.org: /cpsr/states/california/govaccess and by WWW at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/states/california/govaccess . Also forwarded to USENET's comp.org.cpsr.talk by CPSR's Al Whaley. May be copied & reposted except for any items that explicitly prohibit it. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Reality is not optional." --Thomas Sowell The e$ Home Page: http://thumper.vmeng.com/pub/rah/

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No Subject
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A federal judge in Philadelphia has issued a partial temporary restraining order prohibiting enforcement of the "indecency" provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The judge declined to enjoin those provisions of the Act dealing with "patently offensive" communications. The court agreed with the plaintiffs' claim that the CDA will have a chilling effect on free speech on the Internet and found that the CDA raises "serious, substantial, difficult and doubtful questions." The court further agreed that the CDA is "unconstitutionally vague" as to the prosecution for indecency. But the court left open the possibility that the government could prosecute under the "patently offensive" provisions The court has recognized the critical problem with the CDA, which is the attempt to apply the indecency standard to on-line communications. Nonetheless, online speech remains at risk because of the sweeping nature of the CDA. The entry of the court order is a strong indication that the "indecency" provision of the legislation that went into effect on February 8 will not survive constitutional scrutiny by a three- judge panel that has been impaneled in Philadelphia. The panel will fully evaluate the constitutional validity of the legislation and consider entry of a permanent injunction against enforcement of the new law. The temporary restraining order (TRO) was issued in a lawsuit filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the American Civil Liberties Union and a broad coalition of organizations. EPIC is also participating as co-counsel in the litigation. The court ruling comes in the wake of widespread denunciation of the CDA, which was included in the telecommunications reform bill signed into law last week. According to EPIC Legal Counsel David Sobel, one of the attorneys representing the coalition, "The court's decision is a partial victory for free speech, but expression on the Internet remains at risk. This is destined to become a landmark case that will determine the future of the Internet." Looking ahead to proceedings before the three-judge panel, Sobel said "we are optimistic that further litigation of this case will demonstrate to the court that the CDA, in its entirety, does not pass constitutional muster." EPIC has maintained since its introduction in Congress that the ban on "indecent" and "patently offensive" electronic speech is a clear violation of the free speech and privacy rights of millions of Internet users. Comprehensive information on the CDA lawsuit, including plaintiffs' brief in support of the TRO, is available at: http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/lawsuit/ =============================================================== David L. Sobel Legal Counsel Electronic Privacy Information Center sobel(a)epic.org http://www.epic.org =============================================================== _________________________________________________________________________ Subject: _________________________________________________________________________ David Banisar (Banisar(a)epic.org) * 202-544-9240 (tel) Electronic Privacy Information Center * 202-547-5482 (fax) 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 * HTTP://www.epic.org Washington, DC 20003 * ftp/gopher/wais cpsr.org

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Re: Cypherpunks Decency Act
by tallpaul＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Feb 15, 1996 21:43:49, 'jdoe-agamemnon(a)alpha.c2.org' wrote: >Bill Frantz wrote: >>Perry sent me a polite note asking why I had posted the original post, and >>He suggested that in the future I make it clear why I think my posts are >>relevent to the subject of the list. > >Is this what we call the chilling effect? > No, certainly not in the *meaning* of the term. One: P.E. Metzger is an individual, not a state. To put it in context, "how many [Army] divisions does Perry have?" Two: People publish a variety of opinions to the cypherpunk list. These have included murder for hire and the mass destruction of civilians via nuclear weapons. Surely P.E. Metzger is entitled to post his opinions, far more topical to CP-List than the others. Three: The mathemetician Heri Poncaire once wrote that a properly prepared scientific proof had the effect of "compelling" belief whether the person vewing the proof wanted to believe in it or not. Put another way, any proof in the HP sense has a chilling effect on all belief structures opposed to the proof. This "chilling effect" is not what is meant by the same words used to refer to government action. It is, perhaps, a type of "chilling effect" that scientifically-oriented people would support. Now obviously, P.E. Metzger's post and request is not a scientific proof. It might lead some individuals to refrain from posting clearly off-topic material. The same individuals may get upset at this new-found consciousness and be upset at it. They might even decide their original unmediated desires had been "chilled" by P.E. Metzger's request. So what? --tallpaul

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berkeley site kinda' up
by Mark Rogaski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Well, I got in to ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/ but it seems that none of the filesystems are mounted. A nice, clean space. Any news on what's happening? - ----- Mark Rogaski | wendigo(a)gti.net | wendigo(a)pobox.com | I use PGP, so System Administrator | http://www.pobox.com/~wendigo/ | should you! Global Telecom, Inc. | Why read when you can just sit and | finger for pubkey http://w3.gti.net/ | stare at things? | wendigo(a)pobox.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMSSc09T48ZIkMoEtAQGhYQf9FTxwG4lTpGJ2Rc1DtcsmjOvhnM2eTxvJ zLy9WFo5Hr3W2jSAoQ7VWmfr5ZgcCuyiPtxnkTHfXBqWNS4SnJ5BCYmGhAmLu+WW EMTPXmmeLN/R2vsLCfetmII+/WR2SKvShU8TOTHSrsEZQnbz56AWUVexEs86kvKY q+dJFQadjTmQDdhIh/+jXIeJfccpRujBu7MOb7kWnbmC4VoMVDrKRh+73bcj+4+g Zm+ptTgn8NVCHyjn+Ydy9jU8H2bymQnQl1YsqcAmhrKW9cpB04ijXKM3rGQl99OS kc+qlT1Kwvf4laLHOcFcjKPIWV0o0WRExJhoapgpN6gUfmSWM3LDXg== =nOvQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Computer unmasks Anonymous writer...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Feb 16, 96 edition of the Baltimore Sun announces that a computer program similar to one used to attribute unknown poems to William Shakespeare has been turned to solving the mystery of who wrote the best selling book, _Primary Colors._ The work was apparently done by Donald Foster a professor at Vassar College who discovered that both Joe Klein and the author of _Primary Colors_ used these adjectives quite often: especially, entirely, fiercely, incredibly, mortally, particularily, precisely, profoundly, reflexively, relentlessly, seriously, subtly, surprisingly, ultimately, utterly, vaguely, wistfully More information will be published in an article slated to run in the copy of _New York_ magazine that goes on sale on Monday. This article seems to be the major source for the Sun piece. If Joe Klein, a well-known political writer, is indeed the author, it is clear that he didn't learn one of the first lessons of Washington. If you're going to leak information or quotes to the world, make sure you use the diction of your enemy. That's ventriloquism Washington style. -Peter Wayner

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Computer unmasks Anonymous writer...
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Wash Post today also covers fingering Joe Klein by stylistic analysis, gives Klein's denial and in a separate article reports on the methodology of its own computer analysis and most likely suspects, who are ...

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Re: Fair Credit Reporting Act and Privacy Act
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:32 PM 2/14/96 -0500, Tim Philp wrote: > If I apply for a credit card and use it to buy a hockey glove (how >Canadian eh) I should not expect to be on the mailing list of every >sporting goods operation in North America! > > [...] > > Again, I am not suggesting prior restraint. I simply want to sue >the bastards who violated my expectation of privacy. 1. All so called privacy laws against databases *have* involved prior restraint, and thus necessarily involved massive violation of privacy by the state. 2. Absent prior restraint, you may have great difficulty discovering whole leaked information concerning you. 3. Such a law as you propose, without prior restraint, would not violate peoples privacy, and for that very reason it is vastly unlikely that such a law would ever be passed. The primary purpose of laws against acts that are malum prohibitum and not malum in se is to empower those that pass them, and the secondary purpose is to empower established businesses that are threatened by competition. (The digital telephony act should be called the big three preservation act.) When you say "There ought to be a law", ask yourself who would pass such a law, who would enforce such a law, and why. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: A Cyberspace Independence Refutation
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

James Donald writes: >[in reply to strata] >> Your other arguments casually dismiss the very real power that large numbers >> of able people with good communications can exercise, have just exercised >> very recently. At 05:03 AM 2/16/96 -0500, lmccarth(a)cs.umass.edu wrote: >Large numbers of able people with good communications very recently exercised >their putative "very real power" against the passage of the CDA. They had no >substantial impact AFAICS. (I intend no slur against the effort.) Could you >name some examples, and add some qualifications that made the difference in >those cases ? 1. President Clinton declared CDA unconstitutional and directed the Justice department to refrain from enforcing it. 2. The normal course of events, when a new medium starts competing against an old medium, is for the new medium to be censored to an utterly ludicrous degree, analogous to the law requiring a man with a red flag to walk in front of horseless carriages, while the old medium has censorship radically relaxed. In the normal course of events one would expect a strict ban on pictures of women in clothes cut below the neck or above the ankles, and a ban on any unpleasant or disturbing subject. (For example the comics code, and the TV rule that married couples had to have separate beds) Instead alt.pictures.binaries.erotica.children is still going strong. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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ITAR personal use exemption in force
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

61 Federal Register 6111 (Feb. 16, 1996) To be codified at 22 CFR parts 123 & 126 Effective today. Excerpts: "After extensive review, the Department of State has decided to further amend the regulations to provide for an exemption for the temporary export of products for personal use. The exemption does not apply to other circumstances, for example, those in which a person contemplates sales, marketing or demonstration.... ... for purposes of this exemption, a product is considered to be in the possession of the exporter if the exporter takes normal precautions to ensure the security of the product by locking the product in a hotel room, safe, or other comparably secure location; and, while in transit, the exporter keeps the product in his/her carry-on luggage or locked in baggage accompanying the exporter which has been checked with the carrier. This amendment involves a foreign affairs function of the United States and thus is exploded from the procedures of [ordinary rulemaking]. However, interested parties are invited to submit risen comments to the Department of State, Director, office of Defense trade Controls, attention: regulatory change, personal use cryptographic products, Rome 200, SA-6, Washington, DC 20520-0602. [The above was dictated using voice-recognition software, so beware of strange word substitutions.] 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.

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Re: Looking for GSM A5 info
by jbaber＠mi.leeds.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<somogyi(a)digmedia.com> writes... > I'm looking for information about the A5 encryption algorithm used in > GSM phones. Specifically: > [...........deleted............] > > Any related information, or pointers to related information, > appreciated greatly. > > ________________________________________________________________________ > Stephan Somogyi Mr Gyroscope Digital Media > > I have a post to sci.crypt from Jun 1994 stored on my web pages that has a fair amount of information on A5 along with an implementation. I can not guarentee that the details are accurate but they may well be of some use. Try: http://chem.leeds.ac.uk/ICAMS/people/jon/a5.html Jon C. Baber jbaber(a)mi.leeds.ac.uk http://chem.leeds.ac.uk/ICAMS/people/jon/

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