December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 17 Apr 94 13:39:39 paul(a)hawksbill.sprintmrn.com (Paul Ferguson) wrote: >A Page 1 story in The Washington Post Sunday (94.04.17) reads, >"Clinton Lets Police Raid Projects," "Warrantless Searches Said to Be >Needed For Tenants Safety." > [Deletions] What really gets me here is the alienability of the rights in question. One of the prevailing arguements seems to be "the tenants are willing to sacrifice their rights for more safety." This of course misreads the question. If it were only a questions of relinquishing your own rights then there are procedures for the waiver and consent to search. What drives me up the wall is some tenants saying they are willing to waive their own rights for safety when what they are really doing is waiving EVERYONES rights for their safety. This is merely another load of whiskey for the toothache. Bust down some doors and we will solve the nations problem of violence. I have to hand it to the administration, they managed to divert the attention of the media from the other major screw-ups and cast a "fight the violence" spotlight on it. At least this cluster-fuck is (in the current atmosphere) defendable. What a crock. The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles disturbs me. -uni- (Dark)

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RE: Warrantless searches -- A sign of things to come?
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The ease with which this nation disregards its own fundamental principles > disturbs me. A government official was quoted in today's LA Times as saying approximately, "I'm sure we can square this with the Fourth Amendment... this is an emergency situation." Eli ebrandt(a)hmc.edu To which I reply: Then declare a national emergency and suspend the constitution. Any emergency not sufficent enough to do this isn't a national emergency. The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like "The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. -uni- (Dark)

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MS Word - don't email documents
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Apr 11 Computer Currents: Windows Magazine Uncovers Word "Time Bomb" Ever wonder if someone could read your mind? Well, if you use any Microsoft Word version 2.0 through 6.0 you may have unwittingly provided someone with your thought processes. If you ever create documents which are sent digitally, be aware that your client might be able to read your earlier drafts. This is due to the fact that in Word's default mode, with options Prompt for Summary Info off and Allow Fast Saves on, deleted text portions are retained in the internal document structure. This enables anyone with a file viewer to check your earlier passages -- such as a lower price you were originally going to quote. (Incidentally, you can do the same thing with the Macintosh version and a utility like CanOpener. -- Ed.) By turning Prompt for Summary Info on and Allow Fast Saves off, you can prevent a potential disaster. Since this is not a bug, Microsoft says there is no fix.

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Warrentless Search
by Jeff Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Black Unicorn states: >The only thing that bothers me more than the use of rhetoric like >"The War on Drugs" or "The War on Crime" or "The Health Care CRISIS" >to cover up the fact that rights are being circumvented or outright >eliminated is the willingness of the population to buy into the game. >-uni- (Dark) The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. Another facet of human nature one can trust is 75% of the population will follow a direct order without much question, given the person issuing the order appears to have the authority to do so. I am Emergency Medically Trained. When the shit hits the fan, I order people to preform specific tasks, most notibally calling 911. If a person stands there and thinks, I order another to do it. It only takes a matter of seconds to organize a concerted team effort to aid the victim- because I am the responsible person. They are not accountable for their actions anymore in their minds, I am. This isn't civilization, it's gregarious herd instinct ;) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLbG1hV/ScHuGXWgVAQFbfQP/Xy6ZvJDwWAUGpuqUM4nXekBb9oH8wxBD LuXuBTUX3IdZzaG9ZRwFLBrZMSEw8t7GXvSZYTh0+LMqM4B2wM6oIa0p8XDuYe++ iyMO/KdZsh5FpJL/sDS1w9OTQQWfoX4bYUSBRE6S/NOtMlHyIpVGDBl4hrJhvwop GaFgmpq45K8= =UtdX -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- PGP PUBLIC KEY via finger! JAFEFFM Speaking & Thinking For Myself! * eagle(a)deeptht.armory.com email info(a)eff.org * *** O U T L A W S On The E L E C T R O N I C F R O N T I E R **** ***** Committed to Free Public Internet Access for World Peace *****

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Re: Warrentless Search
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Davis said: The average citizen operates from a paradigm of self interest, perhaps extended to his/her family. If a governmental action does not resonate with this paradigm- (i.e. "what's in it for me?")- the government action goes largley unnoticed. When the Reagan administration exhumed the 1888 Law allowing military to assist law enforcement, but not make arrests, I took note of that because it directly affected my life. Almost no one else paid any attention to it. <- What you describe, as near as I can tell, is the effect of "entrepreneurial politics." That is when a policy (allegedly) creates general and widespread benefits at a cost that burdens a small portion of the popolous. The incentive is strong for the few opponents to oppose it. These tend to pass when the opponents are poorly represented and cannot make their objections widely known. Compare these with: Client politics: When the benefits of a policy are concentrated, but the burdens widely spread. Small groups have powerful reasons to support the regulation/legislation. The opponents have little reason to resist if it even is clear that the legislation will effect them. These usually pass when watchdog groups are not present. Interest-Group politics: Costs and benefits are narrowly concentrated. The public doesn't have much incentive to be bothered with the legislation and doubts there is a serious effect to them. Interest groups usually carry the day here. Majoritarian politics: All or most of society hopes to gain; all or most hopes to gain. Interest groups have little incentive to form. In general what you seem to want to attribute to a basic non-concern by the people in general is really the fact that none or little of the citizenry feel themselves effected by the legislation. The circumvention of the rights against warrantless search in such a major way is a majoritarian politic issue, and is not comparable to the example that you gave, (baring more specific information). Ignoring the potential ramifications of a seizure of constitutional rights to fight the symptoms of some invented "Crime Crisis" is to me much more indictive of citizen's apathy. I make this assertion with the admission that I don't know the specifics of your example, as you did not provide them. I feel this conversation, which facinates me, bears off of the cypherpunks topic. Unless the voices calling for a more technical and a less political subject matter have waned, I think we should consider another forum. Personally I find the discussion of centralist issues in general important. It's the tie in to cryptography and the lack of a comprehensive list position on the political nexus with the technical that worries me. Sorry for the bandwidth in any event. See, J.Q. Wilson, The Politics of Regulation (1980) for a deeper discussion. -uni- (Dark)

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hyperdisk
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone remember the application hyperdisk? It had encryption functions and I was hoping someone would recall which method it used... -uni- (Dark)

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Re: Autentication gadgets
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I remember seeing some discussion about the security gadgets people from Bell Labs, amonst others, used for logging in from remote sites. It was a s imple credit-card-calculator-like challenge-response device. Any pointers? Sure... We use either an AT&T smart card or the Digital Pathways Securenet Key. We started using the latter because they don't sell (expensive) host software, so they'll disclose the information you need to roll your own host end software. A list of some other authenticator vendors can be found in ftp://ftp.cert.org/pub/cert_advisories/CA-94:01.ongoing.network.monitoring.… Btw -- the comment in there about the Securenet Key not being exportable from the U.S. is wrong, even though it does use DES. It's an authentication device not readily usable for secrecy, so our beloved government has deigned to permit its sale to furriners.

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RE: Warrentless Search
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Jeff Davis Another facet of human nature one can trust is 75% of the population will follow a direct order without much question, given the person issuing the order appears to have the authority to do so. ...... It only takes a matter of seconds to organize a concerted team effort to aid the victim- because I am the responsible person. They are not accountable for their actions anymore in their minds, I am. This isn't civilization, it's gregarious herd instinct ;) ................................................. This isn't herd instinct; it's innocence & ignorance. If someone can recognize the situation for what it is and has knowledge of what is required, they will proceed to contribute according to their informed judgement. If they are not sufficiently familiar with the meaning of what they are facing, then they will be amenable to guidance or to the appearance of knowledgeable authority. If you seem to know what the right thing which needs to be done to correct a problematic situation, they will accept your commands; but if it is recognizable that you don't know what you are talking about or what is apropos, you will lose their following. Blanc

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Terra Libre?
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I recently received some junk mail from a group/company called Terra Libre (I think that's their name). Anybody know anything about them. >From their mailing it seems like they would be very interested in the privacy technology this list promotes. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

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Warrantless Search
by Jeff Davis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

uni- (dark) writes: >Ignoring the potential ramifications of a seizure of constitutional rights >to fight the symptoms of some invented "Crime Crisis" is to me much more indictive of citizen's apathy. I make this assertion with the admission that I don't know the specifics of your example, as you did not provide them. I spend the majority of the warm months on the fecal end of the stick in the Drug War. I personally do not drink, nor do I even smoke pot. A Warrior's sobriety has great survival value, and extends far beyond the ethnocentric denotation of "sobriety" in this western culture. As a consequence of having very long hair, and prefering Grateful Dead to mere Rock 'n Roll, I get stopped and searched frequently anytime I'm out of Wyoming. I prefer to be harrassed by law enforcement, than make the simple concession of cutting my hair. I wear the hairstyle of my Cheyenne ancestory for spiritual reasons. Being a civil libertarian, I accept this drastic change in my life brought on by the Drug War for very simple reasons. All the time law enforcement spends harrassing me, several people who are minding their own business and smoking a little pot, not to mention the use of other soft drugs, are getting away scott free. We keep looking at real life case law for precident in cyberspace legal defense. This is speech. That was established by EFF in the S Jackson et al. games case. Now we are looking at privacy. I have no personal privacy. Absolutely everything I do is open to inspection by the US Gov't. Warrentless search precident means that my accounts can be inspected. My passwords can be obtained by technological surveillance with out my know- lege, and my private accounts invaded. I live in a community where I don't even lock my front door- ever. This is widely known and most people are aware they are free to walk in my home any time they want, whether I am here or not. This trust is honored reciprocally. The current state of cberspace is exactly like being on Acid in 1964. I urge you all to study the parallel's of revolutionary uprising, and subsequent oppression of same by the US Gov't. I've seen the other side of the fence. We're in the business of reclaiming privacy and liberty, not struggling to keep it. -- PGP PUBLIC KEY via finger! JAFEFFM Speaking & Thinking For Myself! * eagle(a)deeptht.armory.com email info(a)eff.org * *** O U T L A W S On The E L E C T R O N I C F R O N T I E R **** ***** Committed to Free Public Internet Access for World Peace *****

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