December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Opinion piece in NYT; responses needed
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> The New York Times, January 2, 1996, Business, p. 14 > > > Viewpoint: J. Walker Smith > > Standoff in Cyberspace Gulch > > > In the new frontier that is cyberspace, a showdown is > shaping up as the law moves into town. On one side is a > band of cybercitizens bent on protecting their privacy as > they explore this unmapped territory. On the other are the > lawmakers charged with safeguarding all cybercitizens from > crime, even if it means forcing them to give up some of > their privacy by, say, signing in as they enter town. > > This is how the public debate over cyberspace security has > been framed. And on-line users are, indeed, worried about > security. Yankelovich Partners surveyed 400 randomly > selected on-line users, aged 16 and older, by telephone in > mid-October and found that 90 percent agree that better > Internet security is needed to insure that personal and > financial information is not accessible to unauthorized > people. Nearly 80 percent believe it is too easy for one's > credit card number to be stolen if used on the Internet. > And almost 70 percent agree that pornography on the > Internet has gone far beyond reasonable bounds. This op-ed starts out by portraying the two 'sides' as 'lawmakers safeguarding from crime", and "citizens bent on protecting privacy"--which I'd say is fairly accurate. The next paragraph, however, discusses the fact that almost everyone agrees that 'better internet security ' is neccesary is support for the lawmakers side of things. It goes on to say: [...] > A cyberspace that offered privacy, security and decency > would clearly be preferred. But recognizing that this > simply may not be technologically achievable, most on-line > users put security and decency ahead of absolute privacy. > Fifty-three percent of cybercitizens agree that > guaranteeing Internet security is more important than > worrying about the privacy of each user. The rest of the opinion piece only gets worse--the author thinks that, while privacy is a good goal, "in no way should [privacy] distract regulators from maintaining order and decency on this new frontier, nor should it be allowed to defeat the progress of commercial ventures. " Now, first of all, the cypherpunks are clearly an entity that values _both_ privacy and security, and doesn't see them as at all contradictory. They're two sides of the crypto coin. The very same encryption that can make it possible to set up secure credit card transactions also makes it possible to use anonymous remailers--and the security isn't harmed by people with anonymous shell accounts or access to the net. Chaum's digicash could theoretically provide security _and_ anonymity, without any contradiction. Now, Walter Smith probably wouldn't be satisified with cypherpunkian solutions--he doesn't want anonymous communications _regardless_ of whether we also get secure credit card transactions, and would be perfeclty happy with crypto available to everyone, and a law against anonymous communications on the net. But, regardless of his own opinion of privacy/anonymity and security individually, in this piece he portrays them as linked, and in fact mutually damaging. There is a danger of this view becomming commonplace--whenever we encounter it, we should take pains to argue that privacy/anonymity and security _aren't_ mutually exclusive, are sometimes mutually _enhancing_ (ITAR restrictions make anon remailers and secure financial transactions a pain in the ass to set up legally). And we should make it clear that there are a lot of people out there who value both extremely highly, and don't see any need to sacrifice one for the other. [I'm not sure of the proper email address to send a response to this viewpoint, but you might try "viewpts(a)nytimes.com", which is the proper place to submit "viewpoints", ie op-ed pieces in Business section of the NYT]. Very interesting also, is that Smith explicitly says that privacy concerns shouldn't be allowed to "defeat the progress of commercial ventures". It's unclear exactly what the 'progress' that Smith is talking about is, that would be defeated by putting too much emphasis on privacy. But the previous paragraph mentions "users will find it in their self-interest to reveal more and more about themselves so the interactive system can cater easily to their needs and preferences.... 71 percent of respondents found it highly desirable to be able to receive customized information, while only 35 percent felt the same about a guarantee of anonymity." Smith appears to be saying that the interests of commercial ventures in ammassing data about what consumers visited what web sites, and what consumers are likely targets of customized marketting (customized information?), should take precedence over the interests of citizens in keeping their information private! Many on cypherpunks are used to thinking of business interests as if they match cypherpunks interests, I think--certainly they seem to where ITAR is concerned, at the moment. But it's good to remember that 'business interests', at least as interpreted by some businesses, are going to contradict cypherpunks interets. Unfortunately, business interests often seem to have the advantage in the U.S. legislative process--with this in mind, lobbying action from 'public interest' groups like the EFF, and us as individuals, is more important when it doesn't line up with business interests (protecting anonymity) then when it does (getting rid of ITAR). Large corporations are lobbying for loosening ITAR, and we can help them, but when lobbying for allowing anonmity, if it comes down to that, we'll have fewer/less powerful allies. Also, clearly in this survey, they asked two independent questions "Do you find it desirable to be able to receieve customized information" (71% said yes), "do you find it desirable to be able to guarantee anonymity" (35% yes, which is actually enhearteningly higher then I would have thought). In the context of his opinion piece, though, he clearly sets them up against each other--what if the surveyed had been asked "When guaranteeing anonymity comes into conflict with allowing commercial ventures to send you customized adverts, which is more important"? Obviously, that question is biased also, but my point is that it's important to make this connection in people's minds. Here, there might _be_ a tradeoff--and consumers frequently get up in arms about how anyone can get their credit report, or their driving record, or whatever. It's important that we create a connection between anonmity on the net, and empowerment to keep personal information personal--we need to link the "customized information" which Smith's surveyees were so enamored of, to the privacy invasions posed by credit reports and such, that consumers already know about and know they don't like. [I'm going to try to make myself write a letter to the NYT in response to that viewpoint, making some of these points I'm saying it's important to make, but you should too. :) ]

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Opinion piece in NYT; responses needed
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by jrochkin(a)cs.oberlin.edu (Jonathan Rochkind) on Sun, 28 Jan 7:33 PM > The New York Times, January 2, 1996, Business, p. 14 > Viewpoint: J. Walker Smith > Standoff in Cyberspace Gulch That's January 28, 1996, no lie. Mein typo, bitte schoen. Back to Mr. Rochkind's assail.

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mailing list
by tchen＠mindport.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

can i get on the mailing list?

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Re: "German service cuts Net access" (to Santa Cruz)
by David K. Merriman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 04:02 PM 01/28/96 -0600, m5(a)dev.tivoli.com (Mike McNally) wrote: > >olmur(a)dwarf.bb.bawue.de writes: > > It's illegal in Germany to publish material denying the holocaust. In > > the same moment this guy sent his book [...] per snail-mail from Canada > > to Germany he commited a crime here in Germany. > >Hi. President M5 of Psychonia here. I'm afraid we've recently >enacted legislation in the tiny nation of Psychonia that makes it >illegal to parenthesize question marks in electronic mail messages, >because such acts are a direct offense to some of the members of >primitive hill tribes who live in remote portions of our land. > >I issue this warning not to set foot in Psychonia or any of the >countries with whom we share extradition treaties, or you will be >arrested and brought here for trial, conviction, and punishment. > This message is _clearly_ an effort to spread *pornography* on the net. I know this to be true through the use of a 3-letter code that I have cleverly deleted . If you continue to spread this vile and disgusting trash, I shall have no choice but to complain to my government representatives and have all imports from your country banned, and to pressure companies not to do business in/with your nation. Dave Merriman -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMQtudMVrTvyYOzAZAQEJlAP/WeH2TkFaa0MBz2AfWsbOU30flSmghqCn Hg30Uwi44fHg4zpGsQYPfwPofK5BJ+cwPcTBuhurZgmKxhEJuj5OrrOw/kaKLjnu uJ82MEIEhkojCUGAQicYgW+B2g62vtJXYhBuQWTKzrKpiys2vYucil6m/8fxZFKx TDSq4sHK5IA= =MtgG -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------- "It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error." Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Judge <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> My web page: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1148

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Escrowing Viewing and Reading Habits with the Government
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:59 AM 1/28/96, Lucky Green wrote: >Of course the V-Chip transmits the ID number of the program to be rated >upstream. Since all programs will be rated by the chip, regardless if you >choose to use the rating or not, the exact channel you are watching will be >tracked and logged. > >Have fun, This is a serious misstatement of the proposal! I am shocked, simply shocked. If Lucky only knew what I know... The logged information is only available to law enforcement if they have a legitimate need to know, as evidenced by a valid court order, an authorization from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a request by a regional or local police department, or upon suspicion that a sex offender or pedophile is displaying too much interest in children's shows or "Baywatch." The "Library Awareness Program," administered by the Justice Department, is designed to identify potential criminals before they have a chance to commit their deeds. The visits to libraries made by the FBI are used to determine who is reading subversive or dangerous material. According to Director Freeh, "If we had had this program in place when Timothy McVeigh was a child, we could have detected his interest in ANFO and picked him up for reeducation, or at least recruited him for the CIA's Lockerbie team." Finally, I am confidant the the viewing habits "escrowed" with the government will only be used for good purposes. The policeman is our friend. --Klaus! Boycott espionage-enabled software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Downsizing the NSA
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timothy C. May wrote: >AT&T is downsizing, IBM downsized a while back, so why couldn't the NSA >just do the right thing: admit that the Soviet threat is no more, >congratulate the victors, and downsize by 20,000 employees? Your post is very interesting. I would like to add to it in the form of a question: Q) What are the factors, in what context did AT&T and IBM and many other big companies downsize? Or, in other words: What are the ultimate contextual causes of the downsizing? Regards to Cypherpunks from a new guy on the mailing list. JFA

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Re: "German service cuts Net access" (to Santa Cruz)
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:47 AM 01/29/96, Felix Lee wrote: >> Are you saying that, if I ran a bookstore, and accepted international >> mail orders, I would have to screen every order to ensure I did not >> ship something offensive to the German government? > >urrr. yes? anyone doing international shipping has to comply with >customs regulations anyway. this isn't really any different. (except >when telecom or broadcast media become involved.) > >(excuse me while I see if I can ship smallpox to germany.) >-- If you violate customs regulations on the receiving end, all that's going to happen is the book you sent gets confiscated. Which is only bad for the receiving party (in Germany), since you already have the money, which is fine since it's reasonable to expect the receiving party in Germany to know German customs regulations. You, as shipper, certainly won't get extradicted to Germany from Denmark or anywhere else. Trying to ship smallpox to Germany might be another matter, of course.

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Re: "German service cuts Net access" (to Santa Cruz)
by jf_avon＠citenet.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, here is a very costly but ultimate answer: Cancel all business you have with germany and let them know the reason. This will speak much more louder than any civil liberty protest. The feodal view of most europe makes any appeal to liberty futile. JFA

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Ernst Zundel impersonator on Usenet
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ernst Zundel is the holocaust revisionist who sparked the Wiesenthal Center's attempts at censorship, and the latest move by the German government. Now an AOL alias, "ernstzundl(a)aol.com", is being used in the course of an impressive trolling spree on Usenet newsgroups including aus.flame, alt.skinheads, alt.mindcontrol, and soc.culture.jewish. Some excerpts from posts to soc.culture.jewish: Prior to 1904, there *were* no black people. But they invented the whole myth of Africa, the slave trade, pyramids in Egypt, etc-- to serve their own ends. I know this because *I* have studied history. This is why I am the Revisionist Extraordinaire. I know obscure things about history that nobody except me knows. FOIL THE JEWISH PLOT!! POLUTE THE EARTH!! CONTAMINATE THE WATER!! DESTROY EVERY LIVING THING TO SAVE IT FROM THE JEWS!! AND THEN WAIT FOR THE MOTHER SHIP TO BRING US TO OUR HOME IN THE STARS! I found an interesting message with the help of Alta Vista. Posted by "ernstzundl(a)aol.com" to rec.scuba, it said: Does anyone know of any scuba clubs in or near Kingston, NY? Thanks! I'm not familiar with how AOL screen names work, but my guess is that the Kingston, NY resident impersonating Zundel forgot to switch back to his other screen name before posting. -Declan

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Decrypting the "MIG Group"
by James M. Cobb 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friend, A 01 29 96 Electronic Telegraph newsstory ----------------------------------------- Riddle of spooks in the White House BY AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD reports: Official logs kept by the US secret service...indicate that a top White House aide, Patsy Thomasson, met a team of secret service technicians at her office on the night of Mr Foster's death. Evans-Pritchard writes: ...logs kept by Secret Service staff at the White House --pub- lished in Senate documents on the death of Mr Foster-- show that a so-called "MIG Group" was checked into offices occupied by Miss Thomasson and her boss, David Watkins...at 7.10 pm on July 20, 1993. Miss Thomasson was the only member of the White House staff log- ged into the office at the time. She checked out at the same time as the "MIG Group" at 7.44 pm.... E-P inquired about MIG, but-- The press spokesman for the Secret Service at first said that he had not heard of the acronym "MIG". The next day he changed his account, saying that the "MIG Group" was a team of Secret Service technicians that had gone to Miss Thomasson's office that night to conduct a routine alarm check. He said he could not divulge what the acronym MIG stood for be- cause the unit was secret. However, Intelligence sources have told The Sunday Telegraph that "MIG" stands for "military intelligence group". MIG groups are typi- cally known as Technical Services Counter-Measure teams (TSCMs), highly classified units that handle high-tech counter-espionage. Their duties, for example, include sweeping for bugs at the White House. Sources say that the high-tech counter-espionage staff at the White House are controlled and operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, known as FEMA. This agency...has enormous power and can draw freely on the capabilities of the CIA, the FBI, and the Pentagon. E-P concludes: ...[The logs] add to the growing weight of evidence that a tiny group at the White House was tipped off early about Foster's death, long before the official notification at 8.30 pm. It would have provided a window of at least an hour to cover things up before anybody was alerted. If so, America is facing a White House scandal that is every bit as serious and nasty as Watergate. The Electronic Telegraph can be accessed at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk The newsstory is under World News. Its online filename is wamby- 27.html. Cordially, Jim

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