December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDA Court Challenge: Update #6
by Declan B. McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Update #6 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Redistribute freely ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this update: BYU/CMU's Dan Olsen's net-censorship boondoggle ACLU's 4/9 motion to suppress obscene images -- DENIED The new "I am a child" Internet protocol Who cares about kids: Who are the adults? Olsen as an expert witness -- on what? April 11, 1996 PITTSBURGH, PA -- The U.S. Department of Justice wants to split the worldwide Internet into "adult" and "minor" sections. That's their plan, assuming they can find someone to testify that this audacious boondoggle is even remotely feasible under current technology. If the DoJ gets this testimony in the record, then their attorneys will argue that the Communications Decency Act is constitutional and should be upheld. Well, they found their man. The Justice Department stoolie who's testifying tomorrow is none other than Dan R. Olsen, Jr., the incoming director of the Human Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, now the head of the computer science department at Brigham Young University. Olsen concocted this scheme that he calls L18, for "Less than 18." Under it, every net-user must label every USENET post, email message, FTP site file, web page, chat room, IRC channel -- any collection of public bits spewed on the Net -- if the content is "inappropriate for minors." If you think you're clever 'cuz you labeled some "indecent" materials as suitable for kids, guess again, pal. Try that trick and the Feds'll throw your ass in jail for two years and send you a bill for $250,000. (Owners of anonymous remailers might be for in some surprise visits from the Feds if their systems are used to post "indecent" stuff that's labeled L18.) The censorhappy geeks at Brigham Young University put together a demo to prove that this scheme works. First Olsen stuck L18 tags on half his web pages. Then they set up a "Netscape proxy server" so it denied access to pages with L18 tags unless the user was verified as an adult. The experiment was a success -- and a hit with the DoJ! By now cybersavvy readers are wondering: "But how will a server know how old a user is?" The DoJ has a couple ideas that they're going to throw at the three-judge panel in Philadelphia tomorrow. The government's idea seems to be that if the judges accept even one of them, they'll uphold the CDA. The DoJ's proposals are: 1. Servers with "indecent material" will register users as adults or minors. 2. Every ISP will tag accounts as adults or minors. 3. A custom router will only allow users to access "indecent" sites if an adult types in the password first. Olsen's Grand Design for the Net incorporates Proposal #1. He's pushing the idea that web servers or proxy servers with "indecent" material will give out "adult verification passwords" before you can access their web page. This means: * A lengthy pre-registration process before you can access the site. * The server has to keep a database with the identities of all the adult users, complete with the credit card numbers that presumably will be used for verification. * If you want to access hundreds of web sites with "indecent" material, you've got to get hundreds of different passwords. If you run a web site with material that a Federal prosecutor anywhere in the U.S. may find "indecent" or "patently offensive," under Olsen's plan you have to verify that your users are adults. Somehow, I don't expect overseas sites will go for this. What, doesn't the DoJ realize that we're not just talking about the U.S. here? +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ ACLU'S MOTION TO SUPRESS OBSCENE IMAGES -- DENIED! +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ It's not about cybercensorship. It's about cybersex. At least that's what the DoJ wants everyone to believe. Justice Department attorneys have been flooding the court with printouts of hundreds of pages of dirty pictures, a lot of them pretty damn raunchy. Some of them might even be "obscene" -- that is, they fall into a legal class of images that flunk a three-part test that includes only images without "serious literary, artistic, social, political, or scientific value." Pretty hardcore stuff. GIFs like coeds fraternizing with german shepherds -- with the help of 25' of rubber tubing and a Tibetan yak. On April 9, the ACLU/EFF plaintiffs filed a motion to close the floodgates on the DoJ's deluge of porn, asking that the government be barred from introducing exhibits "unless they believe in good faith the material could not be prosecuted under existing obscenity or child pornography laws." The idea behind this motion was to educate the court and remind them that the CDA outlaws "indecency," not "obscenity." EFF attorney Mike Godwin explains the difference in his forthcoming book _Cyber Rights_: The term "indecency," although never defined by Congress or the courts, is a far broader concept than "obscenity" (examples of "indecency" include George Carlin's famous "Seven Dirty Words" monologues, at least some portions of Howard Stern's radio broadcasts, and, according to one court, the text of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl"). Not one of our plaintiffs has "obscene" or even titillating pictures on our web sites, but all of us are subject to a $250,000 fine and two years in prison if a minor stumbles across our URL. Yesterday the court denied our motion, saying that it understood that we weren't challenging obscenity laws and that, unlike the situation that might occur if there were a jury, the judges would not be prejudiced by any pictures introduced. The court ruled *they* were capable of understanding the difference, so there was no need to separate the materials. They did admit that we had raised an important issue, and the court understood the reason for the motion. I guess we have to trust them. +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ THE NEW "I AM A CHILD" INTERNET PROTOCOL +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ There's a second way to answer the question of: "How do you know who the children are?" Another option the DoJ appears to be pushing -- we'll know details tomorrow -- is this idea of reprogramming every computer on the worldwide Internet to run software that tags users as adults or minors, so a server will know whether it can send out "indecent" material. This shifts the burden of establishing age-identity from the content provider to the business or school giving out the Internet account. It also would allow any unscrupulous net.lurker to troll for "I am a child" tags and follow them back to the originating site -- not exactly the best way to protect the children! I should have realized this DoJ strategy earlier. Last week when I was arguing with Bruce Taylor, an architect of the CDA, we went 'round and 'round on the issue of children on the Net. He maintained that every Internet user has to have an account somewhere, so the provider of that account can tag the user as a minor or adult. I asked Taylor how his proposal was possible with the TCP/IP protocol -- the nerve system the carries all the data flowing through the Net. He replied that technical problems can be solved by technical people, and wasn't there a new protocol being developed, anyway? Basically, his position was: "Your side comes across to the court as saying that it can be done but we won't do it. You're a bunch of geeks who want to protect their porn and the court isn't going to buy it." The "new protocol" being developed is IP Version 6, which the DoJ zoomed in on in cross-examination of one of our witnesses, Scott Bradner from the Internet Engineering Task Force: 13 Q Would it be fair to say, to summarize what you've just 14 said, that the IP Next Generation group is working on a new 15 generation of the IP Protocol itself? 16 A That is correct. 17 Q Does it have -- does the IP Next Generation group have 18 recommendations regarding a specific architecture of the 19 packet traffic on the Internet, including the format of the 20 packet? The DoJ is going to argue that IPv6 can include such an adult/minor tag in each datagram. Chris Hansen, the head of the ACLU's legal team, says: Olsen is going to push this tagging idea that the government has, that you can imbed in your tag -- in your address -- an adult or minor tag. They're going to suggest that the market will come into existence that will make that tagging relevant. It's more like the *judicial penalties* will evolve to make the tagging not just relevant, but mandatory! On the cypherpunks list, Bill Frantz, a computer consultant, outlines one problem: One of the migration paths suggested for IPV4 to IPV6 migration is to tunnel IPV4 packets within IPV6 packets. IPV4 packets do not provide for an adult/minor tag, so until the transition to IPV6 is fairly well along, this approach will be ineffective. If the people who are worried about minor's accessing smut want something this century, they should go with PICS. A member of the IETF replies: Neither, for that matter, do IPv6 packets -- there is no provision for them. Furthermore, were anyone to create an end to end header of that sort, it would be eight bytes of wasted space in every packet in the net, especially since the implementation of such a tag is a technical impossibility as there is no way to force the originating system to tell the truth. The "high-touch" argument against this is important as the high-tech one. I just received the following mail from someone who would be unable to continue his work if the DoJ's IPv6 scheme is implemented: We provide free anonymous access to the net to sexual abuse survivors. We don't even know who they are, nor do we care - a lot of them are hiding out from their perps, and to try and identify them would be a tremendous breach of trust, as they are depending on us for their anonymity, much as a reporter would protect their anonymous source. I also have been told by these folks themselves that some of them are under the age of 18 - hell, I've had a few that tell me that they are 13 or 14 years old, and that they are still at home, still being raped by their perps. We provide an outlet for their frustrations, emptional support, a community for them, people to talk to, and support for them if they choose to report their abuse. None of this would be possible if Taylor and friends had their way. Sure, we could trace each and every one of them back to their providers, and find out who they are, but I'm not going to do it, and I'm perfectly willing to go to jail to protect their identities. My integrity is worth a whole hell of a lot more than any government law. +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ WHO CARES ABOUT KIDS: WHO ARE THE ADULTS? +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ The third way to answer the now-tiresome who-are-the-kiddies question is to turn it on its head and ask: "Who are the adults?" Hardware to answer that question already exists. The March 25 issue of Interactive Week reports that Livingston Enterprises, Inc. has colluded with Senator Exon's staff to design an "Exon box" -- a router that lets ISPs cut off unrated or "indecent" or unrated sites. To get around the block, an "adult" enters a secret password that tells the router to open a session and let the packets flow. Exon's staff is heralding this as an example of how easy it is to comply with the CDA. The only problem is that, like many such hamfisted censorship "solutions," it sucks, and it ain't going to work. One of the original architects of the Internet, David P. Reed, wrote: I do work to protect my children from inappropriate material, but pressure from Senators to mandate technically flawed solutions, and opportunistic, poorly thought-through technologies from companies like Livingston are not helpful. +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ OLSEN AS AN EXPERT WITNESS -- ON WHAT? +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+ As I was writing this, I started wondering why Olsen got picked as the DoJ's expert witness for tomorrow's hearing, especially when his research is *not* in distributed computing environments and protocol design. It's in human computer interaction and user interfaces. One of Olsen's former students at Brigham Young University contacted me last week, saying he had initially hoped that Olsen was "lending a neutral opinion" on technical issues "but that hope proved false." I asked if his former faculty member has "done any work relating to distributed computing environments like the Internet?" His reply: "The closest thing I'm aware of is a paper on interactive bookmarks." Network engineering that ain't. On April 7th I sent Olsen email, asking him: "What kind of research have you done related to distributed computing environments like the Internet?" As of April 11, still no response -- even though he had replied to my earlier messages almost immediately. (I wouldn't put it past the DoJ's tame attack ferret, Jason Baron, to try and muzzle Olsen as well.) Vanderbilt Professor Donna Hoffman writes about Olsen: A colleague at CMU told me that Dan Olsen is largely an administrator at BYU and will assume administrative duties at CMU as the temporary head of the HCII... I've seen his vita and talked to some colleagues in CS and related fields about his work and it doesn't seem that he has done much, if any, research related to the distributed computing environments like the Internet. His vita is difficult to parse because he has numerous items I can't identify - for example, are they book chapters, working papers, proceedings? Where were they published? And so on. He is the Editor of a new journal published by CACM which started a few months ago, related to human-computer interaction. His main research interest seems to be in user interface issues, but he hasn't published much in scholarly journals so I would conclude that his work has had little impact on the field. (I should point out here that a member of the HCII at CMU sent me mail saying that conference proceedings are the main form of publication in the field.) Still, I wonder why the DoJ couldn't get a real net-expert to defend the CDA and the network protocol schemes they're proposing? Grey Flannel Suit (aka Air Force Special Agent Howard A. Schmidt) is going to take the stand tomorrow and do a live demonstration of how he can find cybersleze on the Net. I can hardly wait! Grey Flannel has been involved in a half-dozen porn prosecutions in the past: two dealing with civilian porn sites and and four dealing with military ones. From the deposition he gave in Washington, DC earlier this week, the extent of his testimony seems to be: "I went onto the Net and found dirty pictures." The following clue as to Grey Flannel's history of porn-prosecutions flowed into my mailbox the other day: It would be interesting to find out if Schmidt was involved in _US v. Maxwell_, 42 M.J. 568 (USAF Ct Crim App 1995), a military justice case concerning a USAF colonel who used AOL to communicate "indecent language" to another servicemember and to traffic in pornographic matter. USAFOSI was clearly involved in the investigation, but no agents are named in the opinion. Flannel will be followed by our last witness, MIT's Albert Vezza, and then Dan Olsen. Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- We're back in court on 4/12, possibly 4/15 as a last day of witness testimony, 4/26 for rebuttal if necessary, and 6/3 for closing arguments. Mentioned in this CDA update: Michael Froomkin: "The Internet as a Source of Regulatory Arbitrage" <http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/arbitr.htm> Wired: "How Anarchy Works -- Inside the Internet Engineering Task Force" <http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.10/departments/electrosphere/ietf.html> Net-Guru David Reed's article: "CDA may pervert Internet architecture" <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?num=2093> Michael Froomkin's LONG article on anonymous remailers: <http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/ocean1-7.htm> Dan Olsen at BYU <http://www.cs.byu.edu/info/drolsen.html> BYU's censorship policy <http://advance.byu.edu/pc/releases/guidelines.html> Internet Eng Task Force <http://www.ietf.org/> Rimm ethics critique <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/> Int'l Net-Censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/zambia/> CMU net-censorship <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kcf/censor> University censorship <http://joc.mit.edu/> Grey Flannel Suit <howardas(a)aol.com> This report and previous CDA Updates are available at: <http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/> <http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/EFF_ACLU_v_DoJ/> <http://www.epic.org/free_speech/censorship/lawsuit/> To subscribe to the fight-censorship mailing list for future CDA updates and related net.censorship discussions, send "subscribe" in the body of a message addressed to: fight-censorship-request(a)andrew.cmu.edu Other relevant web sites: <http://www.eff.org/> <http://www.aclu.org/> <http://www.cdt.org/> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Entropy Estimator
by hoz＠univel.telescan.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 12 Apr 1996 at 20:58:19 Timothy C. May wrote: >At 9:06 PM 4/12/96, rick hoselton wrote: >>... I have these two 8-million byte >>files. One is a recording made by a geiger counter, every bit >>is uncorrelated with anything else in the universe ... >No, this is not the case. Suppose your file of 64 million bits of entropy >is stored as "Rick's Geiger Counter File,"... I left the word "you" out of one sentence. My line breaks are very strange. I wrote "chronologist" when I meant "horologist". I revealed a US-centric point of view, and I broke a New Year's resolution by contributing to the noise level on the cypherpunks mailing list. But I did not forget to say: >...every bit is uncorrelated with anything else in the universe ... :) Rick Hoselton It's not really fair to call me crazy, just because one of my personalities is paranoid/schizophrenic. Rick F. Hoselton (who doesn't claim to present opinions for others)

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Federal Court Friday for Henson
by hkhenson＠cup.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To: hkhenson From: hkhenson Subject: anouncement Date: Thu, 11 Apr 96 10:31:13 PDT Lines: 248 To those who have not been following the antics of the Scientologists in their epic battle with the Net, and various cryonicist, extropians, cypherpunks, pensfa, kabuki, and bay area folks: After a Temporary Restraining Order was issued against well known net.person Grady Ward by the Scientologists, I looked up one of the forbidden documents on the news spool, commented on the criminal aspects of the contents, and posted it to the net. A week later *I* was served with a 3 inch stack of legal papers. There will be a hearing for me in Federal court, Friday, April 12, sometime between about 9:30 and 11:30. It might be kind of fun, since I am starting by trying to get the judge to disqualify himself. If you want to know *way* too much about this subject, the meat of the court filings are at: http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/scientology/henson/home.html And here is the my posting (sanitized), a threat letter, and my response. Sorry for the spam and the short notice. Wide distribution, especially to news media encouraged. Keith Henson ************** H. Keith Henson San Jose, CA 95123 408-521-0614 Ronald M. Whyte, Federal Judge Northern District of California San Jose, CA Open Letter to Judge Whyte Dear Judge Whyte: In the company of perhaps 100,000 other people (the readers of the Usenet newsgroups alt.religion.scientology, alt.activism, alt.2600, comp.org.eff.talk, and misc.legal), I read the TRO against Mr. Grady Ward and "all persons in active concert." Was it your intent for this order to apply to random persons on the Internet such as myself? If so, I believe the TRO is a violation of my First Amendment rights to discuss the criminal activities of the cult of Scientology. Upon reading the TRO you approved, I sorted the list of documents attached and ran a text search on the news spool on one of my accounts to see if any of these documents were there. Some were-- though it is impossible to tell if they are the real thing or not. I pulled out the first one which came up. I had not been inclined to look at this material before (it's *boring*), but your TRO inspired me. Assuming this is real, I can see why the "Church" of Scientology is trying to suppress this material. If carried out, the instructions in this particular bulletin amount to *criminal* acts, to wit, the practice of medicine without a license. I reproduce this widely available document in its entirety for your edification. > HCO BULLETIN OF 14 NOVEMBER 1978 [snip all but name, I an under a TRO not to disclose the contents.] Please note that point 4 states that this process of "blowing BTs" cures illness. The phrases "cease to read" and "no longer read" refer to "auditing" with an E-meter. The "Church" of Scientology is under Court orders stemming from FDA actions in the early 1970s against making such claims involving the use of E-meters. This bulletin (assuming it is real) is written evidence of the level of contempt the "Church" of Scientology has for the Courts. Scientology even has policies on using the court system to abuse critics and former members. Forbidding discussion of this particular document, including quoting it entirely, is clearly against the public interest as well as a violation of my First Amendment rights. Unless, of course, copyright law can be used to prevent disclosure of instructions for criminal activity. With respect to "all persons in active concert," I have certainly been sympathetic to the ideals Mr. Ward espouses, and felt much of the rage he must have felt when (as he puts it) the "criminal cult of Scientology" sent Gene Ingram, a wanted felon, to obtain pictures of Mr. Ward's children from his mother by deceit. For what reason did the "Church" of Scientology need pictures of Mr. Ward's children? Were they planning a kidnapping or was this just a tactic of intimidation? This would certainly be an interesting question for you to skillfully ask of the members of the law firm which paid Mr. Ingram for this particular service. They will be in your court Friday. I know that taking a stand against Scientology is likely to subject me and my family to the same abuse Mr. Ward has experienced. But there comes a point where people of good will *must* stand up to criminals--even to those who are experts in using the courts to harass. If you think I am being too harsh in this matter, I can supply you with nearly unlimited affidavits and court findings which show a consistent pattern of criminal behavior for this cult over decades of time. Friday I will provide to you a letter from Mr. Arnie Lerma to Judge Brinkma about the stunts pulled on Mr. Lerma in a related case. Many of those who read these news groups are outside of the US, and thus not subject to your authority. I, however, am local to San Jose and will be in your court Friday morning. It is my position that the public interest in this matter should override *all commercial* copyright concerns. The entire corpus of material the "Church" of Scientology is trying to keep from public view is so at odds with what cult victims are told when they are suckered into it as to constitute fraud--thinly disguised as "religion." On the other hand, if you feel the TRO *does* preclude quoting examples of the copyrighted, trade secret, criminal instruction manuals of the "Church" of Scientology, please let me know. Sincerely, H. Keith Henson President/CEO Xanadu Operating Company [CoS threat letter, and my response. Posted on alt.religion. scientology, comp.org.eff.talk and misc.legal] Yo folks! Another letter from Helena showed up in my mailbox. [posted and mailed, cc to Judge Whyte] >Dear Mr. Henson, > > I represent Religious Technology Center ("RTC"), the owner >of the confidential Advanced Technology of the religion of >Scientology, and the holder of exclusive rights under the >copyrights applicable to the Advanced Technology materials. >Among these copyrighted and confidential materials are the >Advanced Technology materials of certain levels known as "NED for >OTs Series." Boilerplate. Do you have a macro programmed with this introduction? > I have been informed that you have posted NOTs Series 34 to >the Internet without the authorization of my client, who, of >course, would not have given such authorization had it been >requested. That I did. In particular the HCOB of Nov. 14, 1978. I presume by your complaining that RTC acknowledges this material to be an official copyrighted, trade secret, instruction manual for criminal activities? No wonder you want to keep it from being discussed! > I also see that you are claiming that you have talked >to the court and that this justifies your posting. You would have to be exceptionally dense to avoid noticing that the quoted document was right in the middle of a letter to Judge Whyte. > I am hereby placing you on notice that NOTs Series 34 is a >copyrighted, unpublished work. And I am hereby placing RTC on notice that the HCOB of Nov. 14, 1978 contains claims and instructions which seem to me to be both criminal in nature and in violation of certain court orders against the "Church" of Scientology. > Not only is it subject to the TRO >issued by Judge Whyte against Grady Ward (and will be subject to >the preliminary injunction once issued), it is also subject to a >preliminary injunction issued by Judge Whyte in Religious >Technology Center v. Netcom On-line Communications, Inc. against >Dennis Erlich. In both instances, the injunction is against Ward >or Erlich and their "agents, servants, and employees, and all >persons acting or purporting to act under his authority, >direction or control, and all persons anyone acting in concert or >in participation with any of them who receive notice of this >Order." These injunctions were issued on the basis that RTC was >likely to succeed on the merits of its claims. Well, lets see. I am certainly not any kind of "agent, servant or employee" of either Dennis Erlich or Grady Ward, nor do I act under any kind of direction or control. Now, you can go argue with Judge Whyte that all persons who happen to read a.r.s, agree with Grady or Dennis that CoS is a scam of a cult, and take independent action are "acting in concert or in participation." Lots of luck. > > You have also included in your notice a request for people >to send you the NOTs materials. I am not interested in just *any* old NOTs materials. I asked for NOTs materials which amounts to instructions for criminal acts, such as those found in the HCOB of Nov. 14, 1978, or fraud. I believe discussion of this subset(?) of these materials is in the public interest. I am prepared to go to court to defend my right to quote from and discuss the criminal acts and policies of the "Church" of Scientology. > Please be informed that the >California Uniform Trade Secrets Act prohibits even the >*acquisition* of materials containing trade secrets. I simply do not believe that anything which can be found by a few seconds of searching on any one of a hundred thousand computers all over the world can be considered a "trade secret." What is a non-profit *Church* doing with trade secrets anyway? Trade secrets are for *profit* making commercial companies. Or perhaps fraudulent scams. > It is for >this reason that Mr. Ward was enjoined under trade secret law. >Your solicitation of these materials is a violation of that law >and an inducement to others to do so. As I pointed out above, I asked for material which amount to criminal instruction manuals or material which shows evidence of fraud on the part of Scientology. It will be very interesting to be enjoined in a First Amendment pursuit which is so clearly in the public interest. You really should try. You don't even have to hire a process server. Give me a call, beeper # 408-521-0614, and I will come down to Mr. Hogan's office and pick up my papers. > I am setting forth below the TRO issued by Judge Whyte and >the notice which I posted after the TRO was issued. I hereby >demand that you cease and desist from any and all further >posting, reproduction, display, distribution, solicitation or >acquisition of NOTs Series 34 or any of the Advanced Technology >works of the Scientology religion. > > Sincerely, > Helena K. Kobrin Well, Helena, I am going to put it a little nicer than Grady would, but you can take your demand, fold it till it is all corners, and stick it where "the Sun don't shine." And, just to show I mean it, I am *again* asking for NOTs or any other Scientology "AT" materials, acquired by legal, or *illegal* means which describe criminal acts, amount to criminal instruction manuals, or show the fraudulent bait and switch nature of Scientology. It is my intent to comment on and post this material in the public interest. I do not believe that either copyright law or trademark law will prevent the publication of information relating to unlawful acts. If you think otherwise, I suggest you check with a couple of tobacco companies. > NOTICE TO READERS: > > On March 6, 1996, Grady Ward posted a message to the >Internet soliciting a NOTs pack. In a later posting, Ward [snip for bandwidth] Keith Henson SP 4, bucking for SP 6

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RE: Entropy Estimator
by Blake Coverett 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> them. So far, the results have been consistent within 20%. EXE's show 3-4 > entropy bits/byte, ZIP files show 6-7, and DLL's and text files show 1-2. Hmm... EXEs have twice the average entropy of DLLs?? The structural difference between an EXE and a DLL is a single flag in the header. I suspect that either your sample inputs are highly non-representative or your algorithm for estimating entropy is badly flawed. regards, -Blake

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SF BAY event: Goodlatte, Burns, Pressler, Diffie, Hellman, Merkle, ...
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The event costs $35 (or $20 if you're a Churchill Club member). Probably plus the price of dinner -- this wasn't clear from their recording. I wish I would be in town for it. Someone do a trip report, please! -- gnu Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 19:43:08 -0700 From: Kate Apgar <kapgar(a)ix.netcom.com> To: webmaster(a)eff.org Subject: Goodlatte to appear in Burlingame My name is Kate Apgar and I am the executive director of the a non-profit, nonpartisan organization called the Churchill Club. We present about 20 programs a year with topics ranging from arts, entertainment, education, foreign affairs, economics, medicine and high technology. We are hosting a program on cryptography. One of the keynote speakers is Congressman Goodlatte (see description of program below). If this information is appropriate, please post and let us know. Thank you for your time. Information Security and the 20th Anniversary of Public Key Cryptography Monday, April 29, 1996 Marriott Hotel, Burlingame, CA 5:30 PM Full Dinner 6:30 PM Program KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Senator Conrad Burns (R, MT) Senator Larry Pressler (R, SD) Congressman Robert Goodlatte (R, VA) David Morris, Vice President, Cylink Corp. Jim Omura, Chief Technology Officer, Cylink Corp. James Freeman, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Phil Mellinger, Chief Engineer, Government Securities Assoc. Paul Raines, Project Manager, United State Postal Service Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman and Ralph Merkle - Pioneers and original patent holders for public key cryptography Economic espionage is costing the nation billions of dollars in lost business every year. U.S. companies are in danger of losing everything from trade secrets and proprietary financial information , to the bottom line figures on contract bills. Three bills are now in Congress to protect government, business and home computer users from outside snooping of sensitive information. These proposed new laws have been written to encourage the use of encryption and loosen export restrictions on encryption technology. Congressman Goodlatte is the author of one of these bills. April 1996 is also the 20th anniversary of the creation of Public Key Cryptography. The three principal pioneers and patent holders will also be present to share their views on the need for strong encryption. Morris of Cylink Corp. will provide an overview of what state-of-the-art security solutions are needed, and available, to truly protect business from unauthorized access. James Freeman of the FBI will discuss the recent study on industrial espionage and Paul Raines from the U.S. Postal Service will talk about electronic postmarking and certificate authority key registry bureau. TO REGISTER: Please call (408) 371-4460 or fax reservations (408) 371-4180 or email chrchllclb(a)aol.com PRESENTED BY THE CHURCHILL CLUB

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Re: RC4 improvement idea
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<jamesd(a)echeque.com> wrote: > > Such keys are not weak. At 02:57 AM 4/9/96 -0700, David Wagner wrote: > No, the report was right: the weak keys are real. > > For one key in 256, you have a 13.6% chance of recovering 16 bits of > the original key. > > On average, the work factor per key recovered is reduced by a factor > of 35 (i.e. the effective keylength is reduced by 5.1 bits) by using > this class of weak keys. Why do you not just assume the last byte of the key is 0x4A Then for one key in 256 the effective keylength is reduced by a whole 8 bits instead of a measly 5.1 bits. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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Any examples of mandatory content rating?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are several swirling proposals for "rating" of Internet packets, Usenet articles, Web pages, and perhaps other computer-communicated items. There are also things like the "V-Chip," included as part of the Telecommunications Act. (The V-Chip is ostensibly a "voluntary self-rating" scheme, with an included mandate that government will give industry a year or so to come up with a plan.) I foresee major legal challenges to mandatory ratings of content. Issues involving prior restrain, censorship, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. I'm interested in hearing about any _actual_ examples where a government body in the United States has mandated that intellectual property (roughly, written words, magazines, motion pictures, CDs, etc.) be "rated" or "age-labelled." Before anyone out there fires up his "Reply" and tells us about movie ratings, magazine warning labels, and the like, read on. To forestall a couple of likely examples some will cite, let me discuss a few oft-cited cases: 1. Movie ratings. The familiar "G," "PG," "R," and "NC-17." (Used to have "M" for "Mature," and "X" for, well, X-rated stuff.) In actuality, these ratings are _not_ mandated by law, and are done by the MPAA, the Motion Picture [something] Association. There may be serious legal charges brought if, say, a 10-year-old child was let into a showing of "Debbie Does Fort Meade," but this would be after the fact and would presumably involve negligence charges of some sort (contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child abuse, etc.). (A parallel to this is ordinary speech to a child. While speech is not required to be rated, there might well be various sanctions applied to an adult who spoke to a child in various indecent or obscene or "patently offensive" ways. I'm not saying whether I endorse this, and it would depend on just what was said, but the point is that there is no "rating" system for speech imposed, nor would the Constitution admit one.) We may speculate that had the movie industry not adopted "voluntary ratings" in the 1960s, government may have tried to impose ratings, but the fact is that government did NOT impose content ratings. (The important point being that we cannot look to how the movie situation evolved for hints about how Internet packets or articles might be rated.) Note also that the MPAA ratings are not "self-ratings," but are done by a panel of MPAA representative. Many film directors have been very angry over the MPAA ratings they received, and would not have rated their films as the MPAA panel did. There are then local ordinances about allowing children in to see "R" or "NC-17"-rated movies, but this is a case where the government piggybacks on the "private" ratings service (which could raise some important constitutional issues if it was ever seriously challenged, which seems unlikely). This MPAA situation is an important example because it is neither "self-rating" nor "government" rating, but is, instead, something else. This model would be extremely hard to apply to the Internet, as there is no similar body to the MPAA, nor is there the same economic incentive for any such body to form and then to try to cope with tens of thousands (at least) of articles and pages per day.... 1A. A special case of this system is _television and radio broadcast_ of indecent material, a la the FCC's regulations about content broadcast over the airwaves at various times of the day. Cable is not regulated in the same way, though most cable systems I have seen have "adult" material in the evening hours (though definitely not confined to late evening). Lots of wrinkles here, and the FCC is attempting some regulation of some cable..."The Playboy Channel" is involved in a dispute where they are being told they can only send their channel out after certain hours...details should be accessible on the Web. I think this special case of FCC involvement covers a different set of issues than the "content" issue per se. Though this may help to explain some of the rumors about the FCC seeking a broader mandate to regulate "cyberspace," as this gives them a foot in the door to regulate content on the same basis they regulate content of broadcasts. Moving on.... 2. Magazines, as in "For Adults Only!" emblazoned on the covers. In doing my "research" for this article, I consulted my "reference materials," and discovered that such warnings are less common than I remembered them as being. Neither "Penthouse" nor "Playboy" issues that I have at hand contain any such warnings, though some other mags do. So far as I know, there is no government requirement for labelling. Again, there may be sanctions imposed for, say, selling such a magazine to a minor. I can't say as I've ever heard of a court case along these lines. Importantly, there appears to be no "ratings board" run by the government that rates such materials a priori. ("Obscenity" is not the same as pornography or nudity, as we all must know by now.) I conclude that magazines need not be labelled, voluntarily or otherwise, though there may be sanctions if children are exposed to certain materials (though this is unlikely). More to the point, it seems likely that the laws which exclude children from entering bars and strip joints are the one which would apply to keeping children out of "adult bookstores." An important point was made recently by someone on the Cypherpunks list, that some libraries make a point of providing access to _all_ materials, by _all_ patrons, including back issues of "Penthouse." So far as I know, no librarians have gone to jail for this. Moving on... 3. "Explicit Lyrics" labels on CDs and music. This one is more iffy. I recall the _proposals_ to require such labels, and Tipper Gore (wife of VP) was a leader in this campaign some years back, but I don't believe any laws were formally passed. I could be wrong. And some local jurisdictions may have such laws; I recall some part of Florida mandated a labelling law, or banned sales of explicit lyrics CDs in some way. (The "2 Live Crew" issue, with "Me So Horny" and other gems.) And none of the CDs I have seen here in California with "Explicit Lyrics" or "Parental Advisory" notices mention who did the rating, whether the lyrics are "Government Censor Approved," etc. This tongue in cheek mention of "Government Censor Approved" is an important point: any hint that a government censor is to apply ratings to written or spoken or similar materials runs smack dab into the First Amendment. This is not just an academic matter. There is no provision for a "ratings board" to review content, and such a "prior restraint" (can't publish something until it's been rated or approved) is a textbook case of prior restraint, forbidden by the First Amendment. (The H-Bomb case involving "The Progressive" was ultimately decided in favor of no prior restraint, even for such a potentially serious situation.) So, if anybody's still reading this, I am interested in _any_ examples where intellectual content (as opposed to food or drug packaging, for example) is required to be labelled. Such examples might shed some light on how these various proposals for "labelling" of Net traffic might work. And absent such examples, might show just what a tough road lies ahead for those advocating such labelling. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" 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: Money supply is fake anyway
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Banks "invent" money on a daily basis. > > Really? Since when? > That's something from college-level economics. If a bank has reserves in excess of their reserve requirement, they can loan out the excess, several times, gambling that they won't be made to provide all of that alleged money in a more negotiable (outside of the bank system) form, like cash. As I understand it, that's where a lot of the 80s Savings & Loan problems came from - too many people wanted their 'money' in a more negotiable form too quickly, and they had to fold. (OTOH, it's been a long time since I took that college-level economics course.) dave --- David Smith, Intellectual Terrorist http://www.midwest.net/scribers/dsmith/

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Email privacy policies at universities
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We don't really have one, because we respect privacy in general. Kind of a "congress shall make no law" approach. Skidmore seems to have a pretty reasonable policy at http://www.skidmore.edu/help/rules/mail-privacy.html If you know of others, please pass along for the discussion on the resnet list, http://www.acns.nwu.edu/resnet/resnet-forum/resnet-forum.html The subject line there reads "off topic" for that list, but I don't think it is. -rich

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Re: No matter where you go, there they are.
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:48 PM 4/11/96 GMT+01DST, Powers Glenn wrote: >- It's called "S/A" (Selective Availability) which is the NWO term for adding >- errors that "authorized" users can remove. (Not to be confused with A/S, or >- anti-spoofing) It was originally intended to be turned on in wartime to >- deny the enemy accurate fixes, but during the Gulf War military GPS >- receivers were so scarce that the soldiers had to use commercial products, >- so the S/A actually was turned OFF then! >- >- Since then, pressure has been building to turn off S/A, since its usefulness >- is nearly zero. Even so, the amplitude of S/A errors are only a little >- larger than natural errors caused by satellite timing errors, atmospheric >- propagation variations, etc. The result is that DGPS is useful, which is >- (more or less) a fixed antenna and GPS system which knows where it is, and >- subtracts where it "seems" to be by GPS every second, and broadcasts the >- resulting error data on some terrestrial system to receivers locally. The >- result is errors down to the 1-meter level and even lower. That system >- compensates for both natural errors and S/A, so the whole purpose of having >- S/A is negated. Eventually S/A will probably be turned off permanently, but >- even then we'll want to continue to use DGPS systems. > > Close, but not quite: >S/A is an ADJUSTABLE variable, not on/off. Huh? You sound like you're trying to correct me, but you're not. I'm already aware that the magnitude of S/A is adjustable; nothing I've said above contradicts this. >it can reduce accuracy to 10 meters or 100 meters or whatever. For ordinary C/A code (the kind civilians are allowed to use) it can't "reduce accuracy to 10 meters." The minimal error in C/A mode is based on atmospheric propagation and other errors. Adjusting S/A down or off can eliminate the ADDED error, not reduce it below C/A's normal minimum RMS value. >It's a DoD term, not NWO term. I was being a bit facetious. Nevertheless, my implication was correct: The term is "selective availability" and it was specifically chosen to sound "positive" rather than "negative." (I can't tell you exactly which issue of GPS World magazine mentioned this, but I've read every copy since it was started a few years ago. It was probably in this magazine. It would have been more accurate, I suppose, to call this "Newspeak.") > The "this is where you really are" percision location (forgot >the designation off hand) is ENCRYPTED (yes, there is crypto >revelance here...) in the data stream from the satellites. It's called "PPS," for "Precise positioning Service." Check the most recent issue of GPS World for an article on making that even more accurate. Nevertheless, even PPS is only accurate to about +/- 2 meters; DGPS is easily accurate to 1 meter, and I've seen ads that talk about 0.15 meter accuracy with differential GPS in C/A mode. > The difference S/A makes is on the order of magnitude, therefore not >"useless." That depends on what you compare it to. If you compare it to non-differential, C/A code signal, it turns +/- 25 meter (approx, of course) errors to upwards of +/- 100 meter errors, although as I understand it S/A is normally toned down to about +/- 50 meters. BTW, I don't doubt that DoD has the technical ability to increase S/A even beyond +/- 100 meters, but that would be a pointless exercise. It would also strongly piss off the average civilian GPS user, and since by far the largest number of GPS users are now civilian (and this number is growing rapidly) the DoD knows which side of its bread is buttered. And using DGPS, the effect of S/A is essentially nil, since both it and most "natural" (unintentional) errors are cancelled out. So, what part of "useless" do you not understand? Please note that I didn't say it had no effect, merely that it was "useless." As in, no militarily significant effect. If you still disagree, please formulate a plausible (and, ideally, a PROBABLE) scenario under which the presence of S/A achieves a military benefit based on a rational view of whichever "enemy" you choose. Since DGPS receivers are available for well under $1000, you're going to have to hypothesize a poverty-stricken enemy indeed. >It should be pointed out that different regions of the >earth can have different degrees of accuracy based on the S/A system. > I doubt S/A will ever be turned off, but this is my opinion. Just a couple of days ago, I saw a note HERE reporting that Clinton had backed down (his normal behavior, interestingly!) and had decided to turn off S/A. I haven't seen any confirmation of this claim, but then I haven't looked either. If that report was correct, your opinion is already wrong. I am fully aware that it could later be turned back on, if there was a genuine reason to do so. This would be in line with the original intent behind S/A, to turn it on only when there was some real reasons to do so. Why they did not adopt this planned mode years ago, I don't know. >I know Jim's opinion. Discussion of this point is pointless. In other words, "Don't confuse me with the facts." > DGPS transmission are made from a multiple single points, which >(to the best of my knowledge) are not networked. > glenn That's only partially true. There is nothing to prevent the world-wide distribution of a data stream which represents the complete differential correction data for GPS, broadcast from multiple locations by FM subcarrier, idle cell-phone site, HF, pager channels, or other. In fact, it has been argued that it should be transmitted, in the band of the GPS signals(so that a separate differential antenna is not required), from satellites, with the receivers built into GPS units, so that it would be available to everyone no matter where he is. The attraction of this system, from a government/military standpoint, is that it would tend to foster dependance on this correction system by the average GPS user, and would tend to deter development of DGPS stations independent of the government. That means that the government would actually be able to keep the "S/A advantage": When it wants accuracies to be degraded, they will be. Its current policy, however, practically guarantees that DGPS stations will be broadcasting in every major population center within just a few years. Isn't it a good thing that government is so (CDA alert!) fucking stupid? Jim "He only talks about one subject" Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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