December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

ALERT: Digital Telephony Public Hearings, DC, 2/17/94, 9:30am EST
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For immediate release - distribute widely, but quickly 02/18/94 - Congressional Hearings on FBI Digital Telephony proposal, Wash. DC WHERE & WHEN: On March 18, 1994 (TOMORROW), a joint Senate-House public hearing will be held on the FBI's Digital Telephony proposal. The hearing will be held at 10:30am EST (but staffers suggest you arrive one hour early to be assured of a seat), at room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, near Constitution & 1st Streets, NW (next door to the Hart Building). The hearing should last approximately 2 hours. Witnesses will include FBI Director Louis Freeh, Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Jerry Berman, US Telephone Assoc. Pres. Roy Neel, and Plymouth Co. Mass. DA William O'Malley (also Pres. Nat'l. District Attorney Assoc.) The hearing was arranged by the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Technology and the Law, and the House Judiciary Committee's Civil and Constitutional Rights Subcommittee. The hearings will be chaired by Sen. Patrick Leahy, who also intends to hold hearings on the Administration's Clipper Chip scheme, and Rep. Don Edwards. WHAT YOU CAN DO Written comments may be submitted, before or after the hearing, to: Subcommittee on Technology and the Law Attn: Beryl Howell Senate Judiciary 815 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510 USA Note that such comments do not become part of the official record of the hearing, but are probably still important. Let your representatives in government know what YOU have to say. According to Senate Judiciary staff, such comments will be received, reviewed and considered before, during and after the hearings. Comments can also be faxed to the Senate Judiciary office: Beryl Howell, Technology and the Law Subcommittee +1 202 224 9516 (fax) More information is available from the Senate Judiciary office staff: +1 202 224 3406 (voice) BACKGROUND: The Clinton Administration is backing a proposal by law enforcement agencies that could make the entire communications infrastructure susceptible to surveillance. The Digital Telephony Proposal, reintroduced this year after being successfully thwarted last year, would require communications service providers to include "back doors" in their software through which "wiretapping" can be done. In addition, the proposal would give law enforcement officers access to records *about* communications, such as who you call, how long you talk, what online services you frequent, who you send email to and where: if it's something you do online, it is to be laid bare for inspection. Such traffic analysis can reveal vast amounts of information about you, and the potential privacy invasion is far more revealing than past techniques of traffic analysis. EFF is extremely concerned about this proposal and has prepared a detailed summary to explain it and the harm it could do. See: ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel94_analysis.eff ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel94.announce EFF has received a draft of the FBI's new, proposed "Digital Telephony" bill. After initial analysis, we strongly condemn the bill, which would require all common carriers to construct their networks to deliver to law enforcement agencies, in real-time, both the contents of all communications on their networks and the "signalling" or transactional information. In short, the bill lays the groundwork for turning the National Information Infrastructure into a nation-wide surveillance system, to be used by law enforcement with few technical or legal safeguards. This image is not hyperbole, but a real assessment of the power of the technology and inadequacy of current legal and technical privacy protections for users of communications networks. Although the FBI suggests that the bill is primarily designed to maintain status quo wiretap capability in the face of technological changes, in fact, it seeks vast new surveillance and monitoring tools. Among the new powers given to law enforcement are: * Real-time access to transactional information creates the ability to monitor individuals "live". * Access to communication and signalling information for any mobile communication, regardless of location allows tracking of an individual's movements. * Expanded access to electronic communications services, such as the Internet, online information services, and BBSs. * The power to shut down non-compliant networks Several documents, including the full text of the proposed bill and a more detailed section-by-section analysis are available via anonymous ftp on EFF's ftp site, as well as an archived copy of this announcement, and FBI Director Louis Freeh's Digital Telephony speech from late 1993. The documents can be located via ftp, gopher, or WWW, as follows: ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel94_bill.draft ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel94_analysis.eff ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel94.announce ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/EFF/Policy/Digital_Telephony/digtel93_freeh.speech gopher: substitute "gopher://gopher.eff.org/00/" for "ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/" WWW: substitute "http://www.eff.org/" for "ftp://ftp.eff.org/" THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION 1001 G Street NW, Suite 950 E Washington DC 20001 USA +1 202 347 5400 (voice) +1 202 393 5509 (fax) +1 202 638 6120 (BBS) Internet queries: ask(a)eff.org General info: info(a)eff.org -- Stanton McCandlish * mech(a)eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 4 1994 -- Stanton McCandlish * mech(a)eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994

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Re: la cypherpunks
by Jim Gillogly 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes: > This is encouraging, that the LA area is talking about having a meeting. > So, mid-May? Sometime before the 16th would be good for me... otherwise how about a Maui meeting in the last half of the month? Jim Gillogly 25 Rethe S.R. 1994, 21:18

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Re: Denning Presentation and Q&A at George Mason University
by Carl_Ellison＠vos.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>If cellular phones, baby monitors (!) and regular telephones used >Clipper-like technology, many citizen-to-citizen privacy worries would be >solved since ham radio and scanner operators would be unable to monitor >these transmissions. The same is true if all those transmitters used DES without key escrow -- and, if wireless and cellular phones were to decrypt when they came off the air, there would be no loss of FBI wiretap ability. Today I mailed a formal proposal to that effect (scrap Clipper; replace it with regular DES over the air and clear otherwise; reform the export laws) to NIST with cc: to DERD (at her suggestion). - Carl

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EFF gun-shy of legally employing PGP (fwd)
by Mike Godwin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Grady, this kind of smear is unnecessary. I didn't respond to further queries because I didn't see any further queries. I expect you to apologize for this forthwith. Some people apparently have too much time on their hands, and they fill it with speculations about others' motives. In the meantime, I'll give you three reasons we didn't use PGP. 1) It wouldn't have solved the problem, since the majority of people who spreead the false press release are not encryption users. 2) PGP is inconvenient to use. 3) EFF is a Mac shop, but our licensed copy of Viacrypt doesn't run on the Mac. Feel free to forward this message. And, please, try not hinder our effectiveness with further unsupported smears and accusations. Thanks in advance. --Mike From: grady(a)netcom.com (Grady Ward) Subject: Re: "Porn Press Release" from EFF is a Hoax Message-ID: <gradyCMtHxp.M6L(a)netcom.com> Followup-To: alt.2600,comp.org.eff.talk Organization: Moby lexical databases X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] References: <CMI2AL.uAD(a)sernews.raleigh.ibm.com> <2m2mou$mp1(a)eff.org> <1994Mar15.170955.21185(a)nntpd2.cxo.dec.com> <2m5p3f$gt4(a)agate.berkeley.edu> Distribution: inet Date: Thu, 17 Mar 1994 16:32:13 GMT Lines: 78 Steve Pope (spp(a)zabriskie.eecs.berkeley.edu) wrote: : page(a)solvit.enet.dec.com (My name is...) writes: : > Yes, but the point of the reply, is that PGP signatures SHOULD : > be used by sysops. : Hmmm... why PGP, as opposed to the FIPS Digital Signature Standard? : Is the latter not in place yet? Yes, you can use the DSS (unless it is given away to PK partners, that is). The importance of using PGP or another strong privately developed crypto is that it supports the industry rather than relies upon the government. But since Mr Godwin has answered the question to his satisfaction and is not responding to further questions, I guess we will never know the real reason why the EFF will not use PGP to digitally sign press releases. Apparently Mr Godwin chooses not to be responsive to the EFF membership with respect to this issue. He only has said that sysops don't use PGP so rumors would not be quashed anyway. From a person of his intelligence this is about the lamest reason I've heard. Let me see if I can speculate on the real reaons the EFF may not choose to use PGP to sign press releases: (0) Using PGP would be provocative to the very powers we seek to infiltrate [ViaCrypt PGP is perfectly legal and fully licensed.] (1) There is not a problem with authenticity. [This must be false, otherwise Mr Godwin wouldn't have begun this thread] (2) Signing with PGP is not effective. [false; MD5 and RSA have no known weaknesses] (3) Signing with PGP is too hard or would take too much time [false, perfect for irregular press releases] (4) PGP signatures take too much bandwidth. [false, again perfect for the mmoderate to longer press releases] (5) Sysops don't use PGP, rumors would spread anyway [Sysops might begin with suitable leadership; the signature of course could be ignored and the rumor spread anyway -- but if there *were* a question of authenticity an individual could check the authenticity without needing to log on to EFF's server or needing to personally contact an EFF official] (6) Signatures make the press release harder to read [false, a single line at the beginning and a block of lines at the end are added, none of the body is changed in any way] (7) We are journalists and attorneys, not nose-picking nerds [??????] (8) We are journalists and attorneys, this might expose up to greater liability and less 'deniability'. [???????] (9) We just defend these 'PGP' and 'BBS' people. We don't actually want to ASSOCIATE with them more than we have to. Cooties. [???????] (10) The EFF does not have to explain its actions or inactions to anyone. [???????] While Sternlight is merely annoying, and sometimes entertaining, EFFs lack of dialogue on this leadership opportunity supporting private crypto signatures is very, very disappointing. -- Grady Ward | +1 707 826 7715 | finger grady(a)netcom.com for free 3449 Martha Ct. | (voice/24hr FAX) | Moby lexicon brochure & samples Arcata, CA 95521-4884 | 15E2ADD3D1C6F3FC | KN6JR monitoring 14.178 & 14.237 USA | 58ACF73D4F011E2F | 1800 UTC - 2000 UTC daily

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RE: Whats so bad about a surveillance state
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Brian D Williams : Blanc Weber Postulates: > -With the rise of fiber telcos are laying fewer cable > routes and just stuffing the routes they do dig up with > more fiber than is necessary for replacement of the > existing copper, leaving some major areas with only a > single path in and out as one bundle of fiber replaces > tons of copper that was laid in multiple paths > originally becayse it would not fit in one path. Saves > the telcos money, but a single backhoe might be able to > cause some major damage now... Well, I can't speak for the other Telco's, but here in the Midwest this is flat out untrue. .................................... Well, I can't say if that's true in the Midwest or anywhere else on the planet, because I didn't write that paragraph, as I don't know a thing about cables of any type or kind. :>) Blanc

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encrypt me
by baumbach＠atmel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded from RISKS DIGEST 15.62: ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 23:17:29 -0500 (EST) From: Paul Robinson <PAUL(a)TDR.COM> Subject: 'We {Will} Find you...' In an article on the cover of the February 10, 1994 {Washington Technology} magazine of the same name, talks about a specialized use of biometrical information (specific details unique to a person like size, etc.) to identify them. The idea behind this is that in an airport, an infrared camera is mounted near the arriving passengers section, taking pictures of every person who is passing through the facility. This captures the 'aura' or underlying facial vascular system (pattern of blood vessels and such). In 1/30 of one second, it captures the data and forwards it via high-speed data lines to an FBI database that has stored auras of the worlds most-wanted criminals and terrorists, then matches generate an order to nab a suspect, supposedly producing "a piece of evidence that is as rock-solid as any presented to a court." Currently, infrared cameras are being attached to desktop computers to create digitized thermograms of people's faces in 1/30 of a second. The company that is working on this technology, Betae Corp, an Alexandria, VA government contractor, claims that the aura is unique for every single person. The photos in the front of the article show two clearly different thermographic images that are claimed to be from identical twins. The facial print does not change over time (and would allegedly require very deep plastic surgery to change it), retains the same basic patterns regardless of the person's health, and can be captured without the person's participation. The technology will have to show it is a better choice than current biometric techniques such as retinagrams (eye photographs, voice prints and the digital fingerprint. A Publicity-Shy Reston, VA company called Mikos holds the patent for certain technology uses of this concept. Dave Evans of Betac who has obtained certain "non exclusive" rights in the technology claims that "thermograms are the only technology he has seen in his more than two decades of security work that meet the five major criteria of an ideal identification system: They are unique for every individual, including identical twins; they identify individuals without their knowing participation; they perform IDs on the fly; they are invulnerable to counterfeiting or disguises; they remain reliable no matter the subject's health or age," the article said. Only retinal photos are equivalent, but potential assassins aren't likely to cooperate in using them. Right now it takes about 2-4K per thermograph, (it says '2-4K of computer memory' but I suspect they mean disk space) and that's not really a problem for a PC-Based system of 2000 or so people going to and from a building; it's another magnitude of hardware to handle millions of aircraft travelers in airports. Also, infrared cameras are not cheap, in the $35,000 to $70,000 range, which, for the moment is likely to keep small law enforcement facilities from thermographing all persons arrested the way all persons arrested are routinely fingerprinted. But we can expect the price to come down in the future. The writer apparently had to agree with Evans not to raise privacy and security issues in the article, it says, since first they have to show the technology works. But even it raised questions: - The technology could be a powerful weapon in a "big brother" arsenal, with cameras in front of many stores and street corners, scanning for criminals or anyone on the government's watch list? - Does the government have the right to randomly photograph people for matching them against a criminal database? - What guarantees do we have that thermographs are actually unique for every person, or that the system is foolproof? - What is the potential for blackmail, with thermographs to prove people were in compromising places and positions? There are also my own points. - While this can be used to protect nuclear power plants against infiltration by terrorists (as one example it gives), what is to stop it, for example, to be used to find (and silence or eliminate) critics and dissidents? I wouldn't give China 30 seconds before it would use something like this to capture critics such as the victims of Tianamen Square. - Long history indicates that better technology is not used to improve capture of criminals who violate the lives and property of other private parties, it is used to go after whatever group the government opposes. That's why people who defend themselves with guns against armed criminals in places where gun controls are in effect, can expect to be treated harsher than the criminal would have been. Existence of criminals supports the need for more police and more police-state laws; defending oneself against criminals shows the ineffectiveness of those laws. Paul Robinson - Paul(a)TDR.COM ------------------------------

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Errata: Digital Telephony hearing, DC, March 18 1994
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please pardon the date errors in the previous post about the Washington DC Congressional hearings on Digital Telephony. The date is March 19, 1994 - tomorrow. For those that missed the original announcement, the Senate Tech & Law Subcommittee and House Civil Liberties Subcommittee are holding a hearing at the Dirksen Building Rm. 266, featuring testimony from EFF's Jerry Berman and FBI's Louis Freeh, et al., regarding the FBI Digital Telephony "Wiretap Bill". Call the Senate Judiciary staff at +1 202 224 3406 for more info. -- Stanton McCandlish * mech(a)eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994

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Re: Locating Color Copiers
by stevenJ 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John C. Brice muttered something about... :: ::The Secret Service is a division of the Treasury Department. One of their ::main duties is tracking down counterfeiters. If someone has stolen a color ::copy machine, there's a very good chance that it was stolen for the end ::purpose of counterfeiting. So I would imagine that that would be why the ::SS would be looking for this particular stolen property. Make sense? That's ridiculous. I hate to start a flame-war, but if I decided that I desperately needed a color copier but didn't want to spend that money and figured I'd just steal one, why would there be a good chance that I'd be doing this to start a counterfeiting process? Maybe I just want to make color copies. If you truly believe that this would be the main impetus for anyone stealing on of these devices you're thinking in the same ballpark as those who we fight against with cryptography. Additionally, it's only possible to photocopy $1, $5 and $10 because anything larger than that has that funny little strip of plastic in the bill. e x t r a p o l a t e steve j. white _____________________________________________________________________________ Gort, klatu barada nicto. aragorn(a)alpha1.csd.uwm.edu

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Re: Errata: Digital Telephony hearing, DC, March 18 1994
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please pardon the date errors in the previous posts about the Washington DC Congressional hearings on Digital Telephony. The date is March 18, 1994 - tomorrow. That is: March EIGHTEENTH, Friday. Not 17, not 19. Profuse apologies for these goofs. How did this happen? Let's be democratic, you can vote on it: __ low levels of choline today __ it's a conspiracy, and I'm trying hard to confuse you. I really work for the FBI. __ a sudden surge in cosmic rays affected my computer, making it type 9 or 7 instead of 8 __ feces occurs __ I have a natural propensity for idiocy __ synchronicity, karma, and/or the will of a/the god[s] __ I have an irrational desire to receive flame-mail __ visual disortion due to ergot infestation on the wheat my breakfast bagel was made out of Anyway, this part at least is correct: > For those that missed the original announcement, the Senate Tech & Law > Subcommittee and House Civil Liberties Subcommittee are holding a hearing > at the Dirksen Building Rm. 266, featuring testimony from EFF's Jerry > Berman and FBI's Louis Freeh, et al., regarding the FBI Digital Telephony > "Wiretap Bill". > > Call the Senate Judiciary staff at +1 202 224 3406 for more info. Apologies again, and just to reiterate, this important event takes place on Friday, March EIGHTEEN (18), 1994, which for most of you is tomorrow. -- Stanton McCandlish * mech(a)eff.org * Electronic Frontier Found. OnlineActivist "In a Time/CNN poll of 1,000 Americans conducted last week by Yankelovich Partners, two-thirds said it was more important to protect the privacy of phone calls than to preserve the ability of police to conduct wiretaps. When informed about the Clipper Chip, 80% said they opposed it." - Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Who Should Keep the Keys", TIME, Mar. 14 1994

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Getting EFF to sign their postings
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike says (paraphrased) 1> Signing isn't enough, since many people post stuff without checking (true, but it's *more* checkable that way, especially for the people who post verbatim rather than abstracting.) 2> PGP is too hard to use No accounting for taste, I suppose :-) 3) We're a Mac shop ViaCrypt *can* run on top of SoftPC. It's not blazingly fast, and certainly increases the hard-to-use factor, but it's doable. And you generally convert your postings into ASCII to post anyway - is your mail system also a Mac? (Probably a Sun, I suppose, but ViaCrypt is available for some Unix platforms now.)

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