December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Global Alert -- Hysteria in the U.K. threatens Net
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[For more details and background, check out http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ and http://www.hotwired.com/netizen/96/36/index4a.html for my U.K. cyberporn fearstorm piece. --Declan] September 6, 1996 *** GLOBAL ACTION ALERT *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact - Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 30 September 1996 Global Alert: Hysteria in the UK Threatens Free Speech on the Net The Sunday, August 25 issue of the London Observer splashed across its front page a sensationalized account of child pornography on the Internet, falsely accusing two Internet Service Providers, Clive Feather of Demon UK (a full service site) and Johan Helsingius of anon.penet.fi (an anonymous remailer) of involvement in the distribution of child pornography. Why were these accusations made? Demon UK had refused to remove a broad range of sexually-oriented newsgroups identified by UK authorities as possible sources of child pornography, and anon.penet.fi was identified without substantiation as a source for `90% of child pornography on the Internet.' In fact, Demon UK was simply acknowledging that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot police the data that traverses their systems, or assume responsibility for it, any more than the post office can assume responsiblity for content that is sent through traditional mail. And Helsingius, contrary to allegations in the London Observer, had long before restricted the size of files that could be transferred through anon.penet.fi, effectively eliminating the possibility that binary files containing pictures could be exchanged. This story was extreme, but not without precedent: much has been written associating the Internet with those who make and distribute child porn, and there have been many attempts to hold ISPs responsible for objectionable or illegal content. ISPs are not content providers; they channel content provided by their users. It is outside the scope of the ISP to monitor, evaluate, and attempt to remove objectionable content. In fact, any attempt by an ISP to block particular kinds of content will ultimately be fruitless, as providers of that content will simply find alternate channels of distribution. Moreover, it is wrong to assume that the Internet has no rules, and is friendly to the exchange of objectionable materials. In fact the Internet is a `virtual community' of users with a distinct culture incorporating diverse views but finding consensus in opposition to censorship and access control. There is also strong opposition to the exploitation of children; in fact, many Internet users have cooperated in attempts to identify those who create and distribute child pornography. Summary: The physical abuse and exploitation of children is a very real problem demanding a proactive response, however we vigorously oppose attempts to stifle the free and open exchange of information over the Internet in the mistaken belief that overbroad restrictions on the flow of information will protect children from abuse. We support Demon UK and anon.penet.fi (which Helsingius has shut down), and deplore the Observer's lurid attempt to make respectable Internet providers the "cause" of a problem for which they have no responsibility. The Observer story is not the first of its kind: it represents an ongoing confusion about a complex new medium. Unfortunately this misunderstanding has become a global problem, represented in proposed or enacted restrictive legislation as well as negative press. Consider these possible analogies to the Internet: - The Internet is a vast mail system, like a post office. Would you favor a law that required postal authorities to open each piece of mail and evaluate its acceptability? - The Internet is a huge library system. Would you favor a law that would restrict information a library can provide? - The Internet is a collection of virtual communities. Would you favor a law that required routine searches of your community? Our position: These measures constrain everyone because of the misdeeds of a few. It is more sensible to find and deal with the sources of child pornography than to impede the flow of data over the Internet. The imposition of censorship and additional constraints applied to ISPs will not solve the existing problem, but will create a new problem, a barrier to the free and democratic exchange of ideas. For background on global privacy and liberty issues: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/ For press contacts, and for more information about the Internet, see homepages for the signatories to this message: ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei.html CITADEL - Electronic Frontier France * pforsans(a)in-net.inba.fr CommUnity (UK) * http://www.community.org.uk EFF (USA) * http://www.eff.org EFF-Austin (USA) * http://www.eff-austin.org Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/ Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au/ Electronic Frontiers Houston (USA) * http://www.efh.org Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) * http://www.sn.no/~efn Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a (Electronic Frontiers Spain) * http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/ HotWired * http://www.hotwired.com/ ###

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TWA 800 - Friendly Fire?
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The latest rumor. The message came to me from a man who was Safety Chairman for the Airline Pilots Association for many years and he is considered an expert on safety. He would not ever spread idle rumor. In short, he is usually quite certain before saying anything! The following information about TWA Fight 800 was received this afternoon: (08-22-96 ) TWA flight 800 was shot down by a U.S. Navy guided missile ship which was in area W-105. W-105 is a Warning Area off the SouthEast coast of Long Island and is used by the military for missile firing and other military operations. Guided missile ships travel all over the world defending the US and they were conducting practice firings up over the top of a Navy P-3 radar plane who was on a Southwest heading about over the top of TWA 800. Evidently the missile is suppose to go over the top of the P-3 and the accuracy of the missile is being measured by instrumentation in the P-3. There was a USAir flight coming from the Southeast descending towards Providence, RI that had been cleared to 21,000 feet and the TWA 800 aircarft was restricted to 13,000 feet. The air traffic controller requested the USAir flight to turn on his landing lights with the idea that TWA might see his lights and identify him. At that point, he would clear the TWA flight to continue his climb. The P-3 was a non-beacon target (transponder OFF) flying southwest in the controlled airspace almost over TWA 800 and made NO calls to ATC. After the explosion, he continued his flight to the west and then called ATC and asked if they would like him to turn around and assist with the "accident!" You will remember that the first announcement about this accident came from the Pentagon. The spokesman mentioned that they were sending the Navy to the crash site. They immediately sent a Navy Captain who was replaced the next day by an Admiral. That Admiral is still on the scene. The FBI has conducted at least 3,000 eyewitness interviews and the NTSB has not been able to be a part of these interviews not have any access to the contents of them. Some of those eyewitnesses reported seeing lights. Those were probably the landing lights of the USAir plane. It has been a cover-up from the word go. The NTSB is there in name ONLY. All announcements made by Mr. Bob Francis say absolutely nothing and notice that the FBI is always standing beside or behind Mr. Francis and it would appear that his job is to make sure that nothing is said that would give away "THE BIG SECRET!" It is time to end this farce and tell the public the real truth as to what happened to TWA 800. My source shall remain my own but the above information is true and I believe it will all become known soon. Now that all of you know the real truth.

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Public briefing on the NRC cryptography policy report at...
by CRYPTO 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: Public briefing on the NRC cryptography policy report at MIT on Sept 11 Cryptography's Role in Securing the Information Society A Public Briefing in Cambridge, Massachusetts Wednesday, September 11, 1996, 3:00-4:00 pm There will be a public briefing in Cambridge, Massachusetts by the National Research Council on this report. The briefing will be held at the Laboratory of Computer Science, MIT, Room NE43-518, 545 Technology Square, in Cambridge (off Main Street). Dr. Herbert Lin, study director for this report and senior staff officer of CSTB, will conduct the briefing. For further information, please contact Ron Rivest at (617) 253-6098 or rivest(a)theory.Ics.mit.edu. Pls post.

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Cellular phone tracing
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From comp.risks: Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 22:24:13 -0400 (EDT) From: glassman(a)sunsite.unc.edu Subject: FedEx monitoring of cellular phonecall locations [...] nowhere near either of those places, so I did not bother to mention my current location to the operator. The next day, Saturday, I called FedEx with the same cell phone from Blowing Rock to arrange the pickup. The operator immediately asked if I wanted them to come to the intersection that I had placed my call from the day before. Two days later, a FedEx operator confirmed that they are getting "new systems" at some locations that are able to record the locations from which cellular calls are placed. I have now asked Cellular One three times to explain to me why they do not tell subscribers that they pass this location information through the system, but to no avail. [...] ========== end fwd.

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No Subject
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 5 Sep 96 at 14:31, Anonymous wrote: > This can lead into a long argument about just _when_ violence is > initiated, where opinion is more important than fact, but IMO: Agreed, if you live in a world of fantassy.... > Mr. Bell, if he follows through on his scheme, *will* be initiating > violence. You urge us not to get into the argument about "just_when_violence is initiated" and proceed to state the "Mr. Bell... ...*will* be initiating violence". What is that english word? Dogmatic? Nahhh, there must be a more precise one. Please help me here... > There are two roads to take in life, convincing and coercing > others. Looters of all persuasions have always counted on that and it worked for them for thousands of years. > I worry that abuse of the very young and weak (for > now) anonymity system for the purpose of initiating, rather than > exposing, violence will lead to more government violence than we > already have. You could worry all you want, but your only way to assess wether or not it will happens is not through your feelings but trhough the use of your rational mind. Stop "feeling" and start thinking. > Perhaps I am wrong and there is no hope; but if so, > that means another revolution. Revolutions are very romantic > sounding, to those who have not been in a war. I suppose that this refers to AP. If so, go RTFM because you conclusions and the workings of AP are not compatible. AP would not lead to a war, per se. Neither a civil war. > I urge everyone to > read "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" by Jeffrey Rogers > Hummel for a look at what our last revolution got us (hint: it was > *not* less government). I urge you to have a look at what is at the root of the growth of govt. It is not things but ideas, basic premises about life and the interaction between individuals. Ultimately, basic premises about the nature of Man is what brought us more govt. To understand govt excess, you've got to understand what is into the brain of the govt peoples. jfa "One of theses centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force." - Ragnar Danneskjold :) Jean-Francois Avon DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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DC lock and key, from HotWired
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.hotwired.com/muckraker/ Muckraker By Brock Meeks More DC Lock and Key The Clinton administration will unveil new encryption legislation, dubbed the Key Recovery Initiative, as early as 9 September, Muckraker has learned. The bill's title is an exercise in Orwellian redirection - nothing more than an attempt to make the threadbare "key escrow" encryption concept, which was spawned via the infamous Clipper Chip, more vanilla-sounding. The Key Recovery Initiative is political hardball, calculated to split an industry currently reluctant to bow to pressure from the FBI and the National Security Agency to voluntarily adopt the key escrow encryption scheme. In making its pitch, the White House is "offering some sweetheart deals to a number of companies," says an industry source familiar with the administration proposal. Those "sweetheart deals" involve relaxing export controls on encryption software only for certain industries - finance, insurance, and health care, industry sources say. Such a move essentially leaves companies such as Netscape isolated. It's a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. In return for relaxing the export controls, the White House will ask companies in the targeted industries to provide concrete assurances that they will endorse a government-devised system of "key recovery encryption" in which the decoding keys to any scrambled data are turned over to a "trusted third party." Those third parties, of course, must first be verified and approved by the government via as yet undefined criteria. The decoding keys made available under this plan would be accessible to any law enforcement agency that could prove to a judge that it needed them to carry out an investigation. If that ambiguous level of "proof" can be provided, your keys are handed over without debate or recourse on your part. The administration's legislation will propose a "framework" based on "a global key management infrastructure," according to a little-publicized statement released by the White House on 12 July. A spokesperson from the vice president's office confirmed that the legislation will be drawn from this outline. The bill is an attempt to forge alliances with US trading partners so that data can be accessed and decoded across international borders. The legislation's blueprint includes: - Liberalizing export controls for encryption products dealing with financial, insurance, and health-care data. - A standards-setting procedure for "key recovery systems and products" that will be "eligible for general export licenses," and standards for products that the government will buy. - Transfer of export control oversight from the State Department, which currently maintains that encryption technology is a "munition," to the Commerce Department. [...]

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Re: Whistleblowing on the Internet
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 3-SEP-1996 06:43:40.27 I would note that most unions are mostly run by populists of various varieties, who are generally against individual liberties - whether liberal or conservative populist doesn't make any real difference in the long run. To me, Pat Buchannan and Adolf Hitler look rather similar. >While some unions are clearly run by and for thugs, some employers have >also hired thugs to attack union organizers, and both unions and employers >have convinced government thugs to attack their opponents, though unions >generally have convinced governments to write laws with fines attached, >while employers have often had actual Federal troops shooting union strikers, >and have had police refrain from defending strikers from attack. I object to union members getting beaten up for union membership, striking, etcetera, just as much as I object to members of any other non-governmental organization being beaten activity. But there's a difference between the right not to get beaten up and someone claiming that union membership - still less not working - isn't a perfectly legitimate reason for firing someone. The state should not be interfering in this matter, in either direction. >In a free market, there wouldn't be laws requiring or forbidding union >membership, and some unions would prosper by providing good service to their >members and to the employers that hire them, while others wouldn't. Quite.... but unions that survive under a free market will look a _lot_ different from today's unions. -Allen

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Re: Reputations
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gregburk(a)netcom.com (Greg Burk) writes: > mccoy(a)communities.com (Jim McCoy) writes: > > Greg Burk writes: [...] > > Go read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (a good book to read anyway :) > > and examine the nature of the computer network "discussion groups" he talks > > about: a classic example of reputation markets in many-to-many discussions. [...] > I have read it, a long time ago. Frankly, it's a spectacularly bad > example. He writes of the two child-protagonists gaining reputations as > great philosophers on a sort of Usenet. (At the time I believe OSC was a > member of Delphi, UNCLEORSON) > > Look around on the real Usenet. OSC could not have been more wrong. If you look closer you would probably be surprised to see things starting to move in this direction. As the number of participants has grown the "noise" in most newsgroups has grown to an unmanageable level. Now most newsreaders allow you to score authors or article threads so that you can keep individual reputation and interest files. I am actually an anomoly at my company, a collection of very net-savvy people, because I actually still participate in a few newsgroups; most of the interesting net discussions now take place on mailing lists which allow further reputation filtering (most mail agents have better and more flexible filters than news agents) and most bleeding-edge traffic happens in private mailing lists where one cannot even participate unless they have already established their reputation. If these lists were gatewayed to read-only newsgroups you would have what Card was talking about. > > > As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid: > > > > > > How exactly would you "convert" your reputation into other capital? > > > Would you accept bribes and tell lies? Seems to me you would only get a > > > one-shot "conversion" and it couldn't possibly hope to equal your > > > investment. > > > > Tell that to Walter Cronkite, Siskel & Ebert, Moody's and others who have > > converted reputation capital into large piles of money [...] > > You don't seem to realize you are actually including at least one major > example of a counterfeit reputation here. > > I speak of Siskel & Ebert, whom I have caught at least once giving a > strikingly dishonest review. I had seen the movie (See You In The > Morning) on opening day, before they reviewed it. It stunk. No, this is just an example of how reputations are not global values, each reputation is modified by the perspective of the user. _You_ disagreed with the review and have probably used your experience to weight the values of future reviews by those particular reviewers. This is why there are hundreds of different sources of reviews for movies, people weight the recommendation given by the reviewer with > Conclusion: They knew it stunk, but for some reason I won't speculate on > they wanted to say they liked it so they misreported it, and covered > their butts with a review that would look mixed later but sound like a > rave now. I see a counterfeit reputation. Incorrect. One thought it was a good film and the other disagreed. You did not find it to be a good film and have since modified your weighting of the Siskel & Ebert reputation value to reflect this. It is highly improbable that there were any behind-the-scenes machinations between the movie backers and the reviewers: such a person has a value which is directly proportional to being viewed as impartial and once they have established a reputation the value in maintaining the reputation outweighs the value a potential briber could gain by trying to influence the review (nothing will drop the reputation faster than getting caught cheating, and a single reviewer does not have enough influence on the public to impact a films box office returns enough to make the bribe worthwhile.) It is more likely that you just disagreed with the review and you have since learned your lesson and now seek multiple review sources or else switched to a different source for movie review information (dropping your personal weighting of Siskel & Ebert down below other sources.) > > No, I think that you just don't understand the mechanics of reputations and > > how they interact with the most important resource in most people's lives: > > time. > > I'm tempted to tit-for-tat, but I will not refute your points by telling > you you just don't understand. I guess I could have been more diplomatic, but it seems that you just do not understand that reputations are not a global value, rather they are a weighted value which is modified over time as the user seeks to determine a balance of raters and reviewers which most closely represents their particular viewpoints, interests, and experiences. There is no one single reputation which a given person has, all reputations are dependant upon the source of the reputation and the context in which that particular reputation is used. > > time. Instead of thinking of "reputation" look at it from the other end and > > consider the "attention marketplace." > > Fine, but resolving good vs counterfeit reputations takes time too. *Sigh* There is no such thing as a "counterfeit" reputation. When someone joins a network with a particular set of interests they will start off by finding a reputation service(s) which they think, though various channels ranging from advertisement to word of mouth, closely matches their interests and views. This is the only time that outright deception can influence a person and it is also the point at which deception is least profitable (because the deceiver will be easily revealed once the user compares the reputations with what they expect to see and because most new users will choose multiple services to perform comparison shopping.) There may even be reputation services which rate other reputation services to let people know how the service compares to its stated viewpoints and advertisements. A reputation service gains income by establishing a long-term replationship with the customer, so it is in the services interests to maintain credibility with its users. If they do not then that reputation service will have a negative weighting depending on what the user is interested in, so the problem of correct vs. incorrect reputations will itself be handled by reputation services. An individual will have multiple reputations depending on which service is providing the reputation and the context in which the reputation is being used. "Tim May" may have a relatively high reputation in most services on cryptography and crypto-anarchy issues but this reputation will not apply to football predictions or articles posted to soc.culture.swedish. Someone may try to burn a reputation to pass off a false statement as truth, but this is as unlikely to work as it is for Peter Jennings to tell all of his viewers that this afternoon Bill Clinton appointed me his senior domestic policy advisor; people now have a wide variety of news and information sources to use for comparing the veracity of the statement, getting caught diminishes his reputation and this has a monetary value to him, and because his audience is larger due to his increased reputation there is a greater chance that others will investigate the matter and so his chance of getting caught is higher. > > Right now reputation markets have a > > limited presence on the internet (mostly through killfiles) because the > > tools required are not integreated into the tools used to browse the > > information. In time this will change. > > How? I ask for something more specific than In The Future Everything > Will Be Done Right. Version 0.1 (coming to a news server near you by the end of the year) will take the form of a service whereby you can subscribe to a usenet filtering service which will present your newsreader with a database of articles which have already been filtered by the reputation service to remove off-topic and "me too" posts (or perhaps based upon other filtering criteria.) The agency making this service possible will also sell to individuals or groups the ability to start their own service on this news host and perform whatever filtering they want, this will also include adaptive filters (if I can ever get the little bastards to use an internal weighting function which does not converge too quickly) which will attempt to learn the general weighting criteria are so that the people running reputation filtering need only update the filters occasionally and not score each and every posting. The hard part, and the part which is slowly gaining enough momentum to make this possible, is the integration of cryptographic signatures into messages so that one can determine the authenticity of a message and thereby assign a reputation value to a real identity instead of an easily forgeable email address. jim

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Edited Edupage, 5 Sep 1996
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)educom.unc.edu" 5-SEP-1996 22:55:23.70 >************************************************************ >Edupage, 5 September 1996. Edupage, a summary of news about information >technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, >a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities >seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. >************************************************************ [...] >AOL BLOCKS JUNK MAIL SITES >America Online is blocking all electronic mail sent from five Internet sites >that have been used to send hundreds of thousands of unsolicited messages to >AOL customers. In turn, Cyber Promotions Inc., which is associated with >three of the sites, has accused America Online of hypocrisy for "censoring" >commercial messages sent from other sites but allowing AOL itself to sponsor >commercial promotions. AOL dismisses the charge as an "apples and oranges >comparison." (New York Times 5 Sep 96 C2) There's been a court suit to stop AOL from doing so, which appears to have gotten a temporary injunction to that effect... I'll forward the details. >CHINA SCREENS OUT "SPIRITUAL POLLUTION" ON THE NET >The Beijing government has begun blocking as many as 100 Internet sites that >offer material the government deems unsuitable for its citizens -- including >dissident viewpoints from Hong Kong and Taiwan, sites sponsored by U.S. >major media organizations such as CNN and the Washington Post, and sexually >explicit sites such as Playboy and Penthouse. An official described the >blocked sites as suspected purveyors of "spiritual pollution." (Wall Street >Journal 5 Sep 96 B12) Hmm... funny similarity between Chinese objections of "spiritual pollution" and ASEAN objections of "cultural" problems, isn't there? [...] >Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl(a)educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas ><douglas(a)educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the >University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. >************************************************************ >Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: >send mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe edupage >Roy Lichtenstein (if your name is Roy Lichtenstein; otherwise, substitute >your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu >with the message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you have subscription problems, >send mail to manager(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wouldn't personally use AOL in any event, but their use of their computers is their business. I do have some doubts as to whether AOL subscribers necessarily signed on for this - as noted on the list-managers list, a consent arrangement would thus be preferable. The other argument of the Cyber Promotions jerks is nonsense - how does AOL blocking affect the rest of the Internet? -Allen >PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (Sep 6, 1996 12:23 p.m. EDT) -- A federal judge has = >ordered America Online to stop blocking up to 1.8 million "junk" e-mail = >files flooding subscribers' electronic mailboxes daily from a = >Philadelphia marketing firm. [...] >Pending a trial tentatively scheduled for Nov. 12, U.S. District Judge = >Charles R. Weiner ordered AOL Thursday to lift the block on Cyber = >Promotions' mailings. Weiner is presiding over a suit Cyber Promotions = >Inc. filed accusing AOL of trying to drive it out of business. >Cyber Promotions controls three of the five sites blocked by AOL. The = >others -- one that distributes software to create bulk e-mail lists and = >one that had sent out ads for Internet video porn -- were not affected = >by Weiner's order. >AOL attorney David Phillips said the company was considering an appeal. = >He said AOL customers had been "complaining vociferously about Cyber = >Promotions' junk mail." >Sanford A. Wallace, the president of Cyber Promotions, was pleased about = >the decision. >"We feel that America Online has violated the civil rights of their = >members and has violated our rights to send e-mail through the Internet, = >which AOL does not own," he said. >Although unsolicited mail sent through the post office in the United = >States is not considered illegal, the rules have yet to be defined in = >cyberspace. The larger services -- AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve -- all = >have policies forbidding mass junk mailings

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