December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

US dissident in Sweden
by Asgaard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Dagens Nyheter reported yesterday that a US citizen, Mr Ritt Goldstein, is in Sweden asking for political asylum. Alledgedly he has been systematically harassed and persecuted by US police after organizing resistance against police violence and brutality. The NYPD 'zero tolerance success' has recently been praised here as something for the Swedish police to learn from. Luckily the 'up yours' story surfaced soon afterwards. The latest crypto policy news here says that Sweden will not go along will mandatory GAK. In the long run there is little hope for European resistance to the New World Order, though. Only France has nuclear warheads out of US control and France is The Enemy as the leading proponent of an EU Superstate. Asgaard

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Your Privacy and Your Life
by Myron Lewis 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bob: After spending a lot of time following the mail recently, I informed a friend (a prominent economist with a major firm that manages money and investments for governments and the like) about the latest goings on in the U.S. government's attempt to essentially ban privacy. He came up with a new twist that I thought might be interesting to many. Editorial note: Jay is not a cryptographer, so by "unbreakable" I think he should mean breakable only with extreme difficulty (i.e. its not worth the effort)) without the key(s). I have encapsulated the term in quotes. .....MRL. PROPOSED BAN ON "UNBREAKABLE" DATA ENCRYPTION ITS NOT JUST YOUR PRIVACY THAT IS AT STAKE: IT COULD BE YOUR LIFE! The Federal government wants to make it unlawful for anyone in the US to use any form of data encryption, to which a key has not been provided to the Federal government. In effect, the proposed laws outlaw privacy. Government officials claim there is no communication which they should not be able to read. Government officials claim they need this power so they can catch criminals, terrorists and spies. Key questions that must be asked of those who support giving government officials this extraordinary power: Why should the doings of criminals set the standard of behavior to be applied to the vast majority of Americans, who are law-abiding? Do government officials expect criminals to obey this law? Do government officials have any data series which show the number of cases in which intercepted data/telephone communications were the only evidence available for use against the accused? "Unbreakable" encryption can save your life. Most of us have records in all sorts of databases, for all kinds of good reasons (tax records, payroll records, medical records, military service records, credit card usage, car rentals, etc.). The advent of cheap computing power makes it possible for these databases to be linked, so that a quite complete picture of each American can quickly be assembled. These data can be potentially lethal. For example, if an abused woman has fled to a distant part of the country, these data can be searched with relative ease by her abuser, if he has the requisite computer skills. With "unbreakable" encryption, his efforts will be blocked. Rather than banning "unbreakable" encryption, Federal law should mandate it for key personal databases, of the type listed above. At an extreme, your personal data could be used to target you for genocide. In most European countries, citizens must carry national identity cards, a form of internal passport. When one moves to a new town, one must register with the police there. Those who have watched movies depicting World War II in Europe perhaps recall Gestapo agents stopping persons on the streets and demanding to see their "papers". Police officers in Europe can still demand to see national identity cards when they wish to do so: minorities are often targeted. We do not have "national identity" cards here in America. Yet. But the various databases, if linked, could formal a virtual "national identity" card. Thus, if as future administration decided it wanted to target a certain group of Americans, as was the case with Japanese-Americans during World War II, those databases could become a virtual death warrant for those in the target group. Rather than supporting a ban on "unbreakable" encryption, every American should demand that Congress require key databases be "unbreakably" encrypted, and that severe punishments should be meted out to those who refuse to "unbreakably" encrypt such databases. The Federal governments argument that a ban on "unbreakable" encryption will cripple its efforts to protect us against criminals overlooks a key fact. The biggest criminals in this century have not been common or organized criminals. The biggest murderers in this century have been officials of governments "gone bad". In eight major genocides between 1915 and 1994, 57 million were murdered, including millions of children. In the Nazi genocide alone, 13 million were murdered in 13 years. It would take Europes common criminals about 400 years to murder so many, if Americas peak murder rate in the past 20 years (10.2/100K in 1980) were applied to Europe. Plenty can be done to curb violent criminals. But asking us to accept a ban on "unbreakable" encryption is asking us to commit suicide for fear of death. Call your Congress member and demand they vote against the ban on "unbreakable" encryption. The life you save may be your own, or those of your spouse, children and grand-children. Jay Edward Simkin, Research Director, JPFO (Milwaukee, WI) Ed. note: This is not his real job.

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Adam Back in British Science Journal
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

When the British Science Journal asked readers to recommend redesigns of the human body, one imaginative soul said he'd like the esophagus separated from the trachea with different apertures so he could drink a yard of ale and sing "God Save the Queen" at the same time.

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The NetBuyer Basement is Open!
by announce＠lists.zdnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Sen. DiFi in the Merc 9/15 - Same old Same old
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The SanJose Mercury News interviewed Senator Dianne Feinstein for today's paper. She gave a good answer on why encryption is im[prtant for protecting our privacy, then segued into why Law Enforcement needs access to it. Q:"Doesn't government control of encryption technology used by American citizens infringe on their constitutional rights? A:"No one is talking about intrusion on privacy rights".... telephone analogy... "Encryption is already being used by criminals, terrorists, and drug cartels. THe terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center had plans to blow up 11 American commercial airliners. Encrypted files detailing these plots were found on one of the terrorists' computers. Imagine the tragedies that might not be prevented if Law Enforcement officials are unable to decode encrypted files when necessary." Q on her district strongly wants encruption A: "California's high-technology industry is one of the most potent economic and technological forces in the world. The industry is being asked to develop this technology in a way that does not take away Law Enforcement's ability to protect public safety. People's safety must keep pace with new developments in technology or we will live to regret it. I understand the desire, the need even, for companies to be competitive in a world market. In this case, the industry is being asked to put people's safety ahead of their bottom line. It's that simple." - --- and much more rot along those lines. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQBVAwUBNB1dD/thU5e7emAFAQGv+gH+I71kgKcEpZ5Z93T33TFg/vyD5eUvXB+5 JC+HXwC7XTPtghW3ETB8h+GbtkOwumFpq0Xmd3a4xqaF+x4E+JIwUw== =dF+5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com Regular Key PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Wit Capital Update -- Unprecedented investment opportunities
by brandy＠witcapital.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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InfoWar 11 / HTML
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Elliptic Curve library for visual basic
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.jim.com/jamesd/tools.htm The cryptographic extension to Visual Basic contained a gross error: I hope to reissue it with a fix in a couple of days, probably Thursday 20th of September, if all goes well. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: House National Security committee guts SAFE, worse than no bill
by Peter D. Junger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CORRECTED MESSAGE [Adam Back has pointed out that I made a stupid mistake when I sent the original version of this message, in that I failed before sending it to delete some code, which Declan McCullagh had included in his message, as I had intended. I cannot reconstruct exactly how I came to make this mistake, but suspect that it had to do with the fact that at the time I sent it I was rushing to get to class and was having difficulty both with my connection to my office machine and with my monitor, which tends to flicker badly when someone uses a hair dryer or something like that in the building where I live. Here is what I had intended to send. Please correct your records accordingly. I regret any inconvenience my mistake may have caused.] ------Text of Corrected Message Adam Back writes: : : Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> writes: : > : > I was talking to someone after a law class this evening (we're covering : > electronic privacy topics, but unfortunately we're not at crypto yet). He : > suggested widespread civil disobedience. : : Might I suggest using RSA in perl: [Adam Back's code for RSA in perl is deleted (but you can find it at <http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/> and in Declan's original message).] : which is now officially non-exportable (as reported by Peter Junger; : he asked for serveral code examples and this one was one of the : non-exportable ones). Short enough to make them look silly, short : enough that most people don't have qualms about quoting, or using as a : .sig. And they've committed themselves in writing to Peter Junger : that you're not allowed to export it. For the classification by the commerce department of the programs that my Legal Attack Team submitted, and for the applications, see <http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/comp_law/jvd/index.html>. It is unlikely that we will be seeking further classifications in connection with my suit, but it might be an interesting and useful project---not involving civil disobedience---for some of you. It would be interesting to see exactly which encryption programs the bureaucrats classify as encryption programs, and which they don't. It would also be interesting to see if they give the same classifications in response to requests by those who are not suing them. I must, however, warn you that it is not an easy project. It cannot be done by e-mail and you have to get numbered forms from Commerce Department on which the applications must be submitted. In fact, the difficulty of applying for a classification or a license is one of the many reasons for concluding that the export restrictions on cryptography violate the United States Constitution. It would certainly be helpful if it turned out that that Commerce cannot or will not respond promptly to classification requests made by would-be publishers of cryptographic software who are neither commercial publishers nor suing to enjoin the enforcement of the regulations. -- Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH EMAIL: junger(a)samsara.law.cwru.edu URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu NOTE: junger(a)pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists

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Re: GAK will probably be economically impossible
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 15 Sep 97 at 10:19, Robert Hettinga wrote: > In fact, even if all transactions remain book-entry ones, the exploding > total transaction volume and competition to make those transactions > efficient will make GAK economically impossible, because it provides no > tangible benefit to those who use cryptography for business. There's no > economic return on the additional cost. > > The cost of anything is the foregone alternative, and the cost of GAK > causes you to forego a lot of money and potential revenue and doesn't buy > you anything in return. In the long term, you are right. But taxation doesn't buy much in return that you couldn't buy by yourself either but they still do it... But again, the incentives are differents from their standpoint... Ciao jfa

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