December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Nat'l Law Journal and The Independent on CWD and net-filters
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 16:04:48 -0500 To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu From: declan(a)well.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: FC: Nat'l Law Journal and The Independent on CWD and net-filters Sender: owner-fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Attached are portions of two articles from the National Law Journal and London's The Independent following up on the CyberWire Dispatch that Brock and I put out earlier this month on the rather unusual behavior of net-filtering software. The original CWD is at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/Declan_McCullagh/ http://cyberwerks.com:70/cyberwire/cwd/ (eventually) -Declan =========================================================================== The National Law Journal Monday, August 5, 1996 Page A13 By Ann Davis ...Civil libertarians are demanding to know: since when were the National Organizaton for Women or the Endangered Species Coalition in the same class as devil worshippers? How can photos posted by animal rights groups be categorized as "gross depictions"? Caught in a dragnet of blocking software are web sites on everything from the safe use of fireworks to safe sex, according to a report by the Internet-based news service CyberWire Dispatch. To blocked groups' disappointment, however, Internet legal experts say any lawsuit against private computer censors may be a losing proposition... [Mike Godwin is quoted.] ...A cyber-Deep Throat recently leaked the lists to two Internet investigative reporters, Brock N. Meeks and Declan B. McCullagh. Blacklisted sites include a Silicon Valley council of the National Rifle Association and Cyber High School, whose web address is similar to that of a gay video site... [Snapshot of CyberHigh's web page included] As a lawyer for CompuServe, Inc., Mr. Cunard meets potential legal challenges with skepticism. The free speech angle? Implausible against a private entity, he said. Discrimination claims? Difficult, unless you can prove the Internet is a place of public accomodation. Tortious interferrence? not likely, because most web site operators don't require subscriptions and therefore don't have a duty to those who access their sites. =========================================================================== The Independent (London) Monday, July 22, 1996 By Charles Arthur REAL ALE IS TOO STRONG FOR THE AMERICAN MORALISTS Programs to protect children from Net porn are keeping them out of a vast range of sites, says Charles Arthur [...] Since last July, programs such as Cyber Patrol, NetNanny and Cybersitter have sold thousands of copies. Some have distribution agreements with organisations such as BT and CompuServe. The makers boast that their products "includes a bad site list of thousands of Wed sites that are not suitable for children" and "allow parents to censor what their children access on the Internet." So far, so good - except that many of those "banned" sites include many British sources holding very useful or entirely innocent information. And the morality underlying many of the bannings is very American, and quite unlike that which a British parent might be expected to apply. Among the British sites on the World Wide Web which your child would be unable to access when using the programs are the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), the Prison Lexicon (which provides information about penal reform), the computing department of Queen Mary and Westfield College, Imperial College, the University of Stirling, the Internet connection companies Demon and Zetnet, and Telephone Information Services - which offers weather and share reports but not sex lines. Between them, the programs prevent access to tens of thousands of sites on the Internet. But they effectively apply an American system of morals - on religion, weapons, drugs, alcohol and sex - to the data which British children might be expected to know about, or could obtain from newspapers. None of the operators of any of the sites mentioned above was aware that they were "blocked", and all were mystified by it. "Which self-selected Mary Whitehouse put us on their list?" asked Iain Lowe, research manager of Camra. In Camra's case, the answer is a team of researchers at Microsystems Software, based in Farmingham, Massachusetts, which has been selling Cyber Patrol since July 1995, and now claims 80 per cent of a fast-growing market. "Camra's site is blocked under our code for beer, alcohol, wine and tobacco," said Dick Gorgens, the company's chief executive. "It was added on June 10 when it was advertising a beer festival." Mr Lowe responded, "We don't promote underage drinking. But pubs in this country are allowed to apply for childrens' certificates: all the family can go. And we have had inquiries to our site from GCSE students doing projects on the economics of the brewing industry." Mr Gorgens denied that the program was imposing American morals onto British users. However, the panel which reviews the banning of sites includes no Britons, although it does include representatives from the National Rifle Association and the right-wing anti-pornography Morality in Media group. [...] "A close look at the actual range of sites blocked by these programs shows they go far beyond just restricting 'pornography'," said Brock Meeks, an Internet journalist and consultant who, with fellow journalist Declan McCullough, obtained a decoded list of the sites banned by the programs earlier this month, July, and revealed their indiscriminate breadth in an Internet mailing list, Cyberwire Dispatch. Steve Robinson-Grindey, who runs the Prison Lexicon site, said "It is effectively an electronic encyclopaedia of everything concerning prisons and penal affairs in England and Wales. It is extensively used by schools and universities for information. Even the People's Republic of China allow access to the site." He thought it might be banned because "obviously they rely on search words for filtering - in which case they would discover the words sex, AIDS, homosexual, and so on. But they failed to realise these words were being used in serious material." [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- fight-censorship is archived at http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/

1 0

Re: Let's Say "No!" to Single, World Versions of Software
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:02 AM 7/31/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Having a U.S. version, without any limits on crypto and without any >software key escrow (GAK), and then having a "for export" version, with >keylength limits and/or mandatory registration of keys with the U.S. >National Security Agency.... > >Well, what this would do is to basically drive sales of the "NSA" version >to near zero. Between customer distaste for an NSA version, I can imagine >many foreign governments not being too pleased to see this product being >used by its citizens. For over a decade, the ham radio community has been familiar with the phenomenon of handheld, microprocessor-drive "rice radios" (because they're usually Japan-built) which contain an internal limitation keeping them from receiving or transmitting out of their band. These radios are built for the world market, and are "programmed" by installing (or not installing) various diodes on a PCB. Removing, adding, or shifting diodes is an easy trick, and restores full functionality to the device. What's to prevent a software writer such as Microsoft (or anyone else, for that matter) from writing two versions of a program (domestic and export), perhaps containing a difference as minor as a two-byte EQUate representing the maximum number of bits that are "allowed" in the key. Everything else is identical. Making a change would be as simple as bringing up a hex editor and changing those bytes. (okay, admittedly that won't seem simple for most people, but a simple single-purpose editor program would probably pop up for the purpose.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

1 0

Re: fbi, crypto, and defcon
by Chris Adams 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 30 Jul 96 08:42:26 -0800, ceridwyn(a)wolfenet.com wrote: >making laws). The question was rephrased: "How do you personally feel >about exporting strong crypto", and again they refused to answer on the >grounds that they were there as spokesmen for the FBI, but people could >talk to them later and ask any questions they liked, and "the answers may >surprise you". Evidence that maybe some goons really do have a clue, but ^^^^^ >are still too afraid to do anything about it... //cerridwyn// This probably isn't the most accurate phrase. Generally, goons wouldn't even have said *that* much... I'm really starting to think this is a confirmation of a corollary of the Dilbert Priciple: incompetence rises to the top. // Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> - Webpages for sale! Se habla JavaScript! // Automatically receive my resume or PGPKEY by sending email with a subject // of 'send PGPKEY' or 'send resume'. Capitalization counts so be careful!

1 0

Re: Let's Say "No!" to Single, World Versions of Software
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:02 7/31/96, Timothy C. May wrote: >This point has been raised by us many times. And, to be fair, this point is >not lost on the NSA/Freeh/Denning/Gorelick crowd, I am sure. That is, they >would not countenance the importation into the U.S. of "Iraq-GAKked" and >"China-GAKked" programs, for example. > >So, what's the deal? The resolution of this quandary almost certainly lies >in an "international agreement," along the lines of the various key escrow >meetings which have been held (Karlsruhe in '93, Washington in '94, etc.). >A "New World Order" solution, with complicated reciprocal agreements about >whom the trusted key authorities might be, how nations could gain access, >etc. (These relationships are too complicated for my brain to handle...how, >for example, would one come to an agreement with Libya? What about Cuba, >given that many of our nominal allies trade freely with Cuba and chafe when >we try to get them to join our boycotts?) I don't see a global agreement on GAK happening anytime soon. But that doesn't mean that a less ambitious agreement can't be reached. Perhaps it will come out of OECD, perhaps it will be limited to G-7. We will see an agreement on GAK amongst the major players, with the exception of Japan. After all, the players are faced with the same dilemma: how to best control the behavior of their citizens. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

1 0

G7 Anti-Terrorism Reports [BRIEF]
by karl_marx＠juno.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks: At 1735 CDT on Tuesday, July 30, 1996, CNN Atlanta during World News Tonight reported (in a _very_ brief flash) several "resolutions" adopted by the Group of Seven (G7) trade meeting in Paris. At the bottom of the list of resolutions was to "prevent terrorist from using the Internet" (quote from CNN anchorwoman). No further explanation was given in regards to that statement, but methinks that in wake of recent terroristic activities in this country, Pro-CODE in Congress, and Netscape Navigator 3.0b3 in the hot little hands of Americans everywhere, there could be a complete retreat from the "progressive" attitude of legislators in this country towards strong crypto. John Young has already requested further information about the G7 meetings, and it would probably behoove us all to know precisely what it was that was said before such a resolution was agreed upon. Or, better yet, whose idea it was to attempt to "prevent terrorists from using the Internet." Apologies to all if this is redundant information, and apologies to the purists for intruding with this newsflash. ObCrypto: Anyone have any more information on Royal Dutch Shell apparently the first customer of TIS' firewall package with key escrow ? Has such a purchase been confirmed, and if so, does it still entail an agreement with the British government as an escrow agent ? -J. Malcolm +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-= j malcolm summers / karl_marx(a)juno.com / summersj(a)southwestern.edu ignorance is not bliss +-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=-+-=

1 0

Re: fbi, crypto, and defcon
by anonymous-remailer＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Short review of the Fedz show at DefCon. Most of the San Francisco Computer Crime squad was in attendance. SA Black and Butler's presentation was classic good cop/bad cop (respectively). Nice quote by them in the Vegas paper about how all hackers aren't bad. They were even doing recruiting, and had the little hacker puppies eatting out their hands for a mug, t-shirt, or minature badge. It wasn't determined whose surveillance goodies were being installed in the drop ceiling of the conference room at 4:30 AM. The "hotel maintenance" guy certainly hauled ass when one of the official DefCon Goons showed up (classic textbook time for raids, black bag jobs, etc). Tsk, tsk. And me without any TSCM gear. Points to the Fedz for great psy-ops (especially the quote about how the "new" FBI is more sensitive). Points off to quite a few hackers who don't have a historical context of government abuse and are pretty damn easy to manipulate. All in all, probably more entertaining than most shows on the Strip. Obligatory comment on hackers compared to cypherpunks. Zero to no political savvy. Extremely poor organizational and communication skills. Nearly clueless on social issues. These would be the hackers. Yeah, yeah. I know there are exceptions. But all in all, I'd rather hang with C-punks.

1 0

ANNOUNCEMENT: nym.alias.net enters beta testing
by lcs Remailer Administrator 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I'm pleased to announce that the nym.alias.net pseudonym server has now entered the beta-testing phase, and seems quite stable. Nym.alias.net offers several interesting features: * Public-Key encryption of all received mail. Once mail has gone through nym.alias.net, no one can read it except you--even if you have been sending your mail to a newsgroup and your reply-block and remailers become compromised. * Support for multiple, probabilistically-weighted, reply blocks. These can be used for redundancy or to foil traffic analysis with decoys. * Replay detection. This foils replay attacks, but can also be used for higher reliability if you send redundant copies of a message through different remailer chains. * An option to receive only fixed-length messages (by splitting up large messages and padding small ones with garbage). * An option to sign mail you send with the remailer's public key, so as to give some assurance of authenticity without having to publish your own PGP public key. * Support for finger [pending DNS approval]. You can choose to make your nym's PGP public key available to all who finger its E-mail address. Right now you can test this by fingering at 18.26.0.252. In addition, experimental nym.alias.net support for Premail is now available (in the form of a patch to premail 0.44). With this patch, premail will store your nym's PGP key on encrypted keyrings. This allows you to publish a PGP key for your pseudonym without the danger of your identity being revealed to someone with access to your main PGP keyrings (or a backup copy of them). To obtain more information about nym.alias.net, finger <nymhelp(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> or send mail to <help(a)nym.alias.net>. To get information about using premail with nym.alias.net, finger <premail-info(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> or send mail to <premail-info(a)nym.alias.net>. These documents are also available on the new nym.alias.net web page: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/n.a.n.html Please report all bugs to <admin(a)nym.alias.net>. I'll also be glad to consider feature requests, particularly from anyone interested in developing any more client software. Enjoy! mix-admin(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMf6dcUTBtHVi58fRAQE4NgP/SoKSqHxobEHuyWl6lXVAHgk9yqNS/WAD jUfKYGodThr93kJZkmreyIHrWgbromJJlXo6MPq9KpZzIh85uHRzBPRSh293hfUo ta8/sdZsW1+uoEkAs8JUWlwAEGo+bfmgRnFswf80pAPClpbGo52DAKyLKfdCaFps kQ+4hoouUvo= =qEWa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: Freeh Testimony 7/25/96
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wish someone had asked Freeh directly whether he granted, in saying: >First and foremost, the law enforcement community fully supports a >balanced encryption policy that satisfies both the commercial needs of >industry and law abiding individuals for robust encryption products [...] that law abiding industry and individuals have a legitimate need to keep information private from the US government -- and especially the FBI. +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme(a)acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2| | "Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song." | +-------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison (aka Mother) -+

1 0

Re: Usenet Conference on Security
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:55 PM 7/26/96 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >While the Department of Justice guy (whose name slips my mind) was saying 4 >horsemen over and over (really an oversimplification of his position), The person was Scott Charney.

1 0

Re: You know it's getting late when... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: You know it's getting late when... > Date: Tue, 30 Jul 1996 18:36:38 -0500 (CDT) > From: ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) > > > > Ostensibly, one of the reasons for having a free and fair political system > > is so people will not be inclined to throw bombs and plot violent > > revolution. Grandly ignoring this, that reporter seems to take the > > diametrically opposite tack: A totalitarian government can best avoid > > bombings and violence. > > > Actually the graph goes like this: > > ^ Non-State Terrorism > | > | ..-.. > | /~ \ > | .-~ \ > |..---/~ ~-. > +------------------------------------------------> Level of Totalitarianism > > ^ State Terrorism > | > | ------------------------------------- > | .-~ > | .-~ > | .-~ > |/ > +------------------------------------------------> Level of Totalitarianism > So we should take your personal opinion as fact? What statistics do you base this on? What are the vertical scales, number killed? What is the horizontal scale measured in, number wanted to kill? I suspect it simply is not possible to measure such a phenomena as terrorism as anything other than a simple counting game. The problem becomes quite quickly, what qualifies as terrorism? Consider (to some) a trivial example. There are 20 million cats and dogs killed each year because somebody was irresponsible. The vast majority of these are or were pets (not feral or wild animals as some would claim) which persons simply didn't want anymore. Now there is somewhere around 250 million people in the US. This means that 1 out of 10 (roughly) are costing the rest of us about $50 ea. to take care of their pet 'problem'. I see no difference in having my money taken via taxes (where most of it comes from) for this than having somebody come and take $50 for whatever reason by kicking my front door in. Why am I being forced to pay this money to pay for somebody elses lack of discipline and simple human empathy? Jim Choate

1 0