December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996 20:13:04 +0100 (MET), Asgaard wrote: >> I don't think spreading false rumours is a good idea - it can discredit >> the spreader if anyone bothers to check any details. > >Disinformation is a time-honoured weapon in political struggle. >A rumour is called just that because it can't easily be checked >- somebody heard from somebody, who heard from somebody etc. The >spreader is hardly ever discredited since he does not guarantee >the validity of the information. 'It's just a rumour, but...' And don't forget the old he-denied-a-wild-claim: "Mr. Politician denied reports that he spent several days in the Lovebird Inn with a goldren retriever, six gallons of coolwhip and a hoover vacuum." # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

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How can I get this book: "Secret Power"
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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How can I get this book: "Secret Power"
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From EE Times October 21, 1996 Issue: 924 Section: Design -- Computers & Communications Required reading By Loring Wirbel What was I thinking? It's been more than six months since I wasted column space with a good intelligence community rant. It's not as though nothing much has been happening. The New York Times and other media outlets have laid out the Cellular Telephone Industry Association's significant complaints against the Digital Telephony Act, portions of which will allow the FBI and National Security Agency to determine location of roaming telephone or IP addresses in a network. And we here at EE Times have been filling you in on the NSA's questionable involvement in an Internet backbone program called Project Monet. Truth be told, it's hard to keep sending up warning flares about the vast expansion of intelligence agencies' reach in an election year as hopeless as this one. President Clinton, of course, called for "wiretaps, many more wiretaps" during his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, and tried to sneak in a quadrupling of the Digital Telephony Act tapping slush fund during the waning days of Congress's budget negotiations. Everyone from Wired to The Progressive is now suggesting that President Nixon actually was more liberal than Clinton along the civil-liberties axis. And Bob Dole? The Republican Party quashed the efforts by budget hawks like John Kasich to carefully analyze NSA and National Reconnaissance Office budgets. The Repub gospel now is to give the Defense Department everything it asks for, and then some. Cryptography buffs have been waiting for relief in the form of the third edition of James Bamford's classic The Puzzle Palace, on the workings of the NSA. The new edition is supposed to contain material from co-author Wayne Madsen detailing NSA presence at Internet switching centers, and cipherpunks have been disappointed that the book didn't meet its June release date. Rumor has it that squabbles between the two authors and the publisher may push the book out well into 1997. But fear not, if you're willing to go chasing afar for good fireside reading! Researcher Nicky Hager in New Zealand has just published an amazing tome, Secret Power, that might do more damage to the NSA than Bamford's work. Hager is a bold activist, working with producers of the New Zealand version of "20/20" to go inside the secret signals base at Waihopai and take unprecedented video footage of the inside of the radomes, which are alleged to spy on international civilian Intelsat traffic. Hager isn't just a crank, however. His work on New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau is incredibly well-researched. Respected defense analyst Jeff Richelson wrote the foreword and British journalist Duncan Campbell claims in the Observer that the book has created quite a stir inside NSA headquarters. The most damning information details a global computer network, run by NSA on behalf of all the U.K./U.S. Treaty allies, called the Echelon/ Dictionary network. Echelon allows NSA to snare traffic intercepted by any ally into a unified database, without the ally having the slightest idea of what NSA is taking. And Hager is certain that civilian telex and Internet traffic is a prime target of the system. Don't look for a U.S. distributor for Secret Power-everyone here is afraid to touch it. His publisher doesn't even list a phone or e-mail. But if we all write to Craig Potton Publishers, Box 555, Nelson, New Zealand, perhaps we can free up enough copies of the book to scare the U.S. signal-intelligence community into having a minimum modicum of respect for civil liberties. But then again, I doubt it.

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ITAR / S 1726 / Civil Disobedience
by Cypherpunks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Mr. President, I am writing to express my disapproval of the Clinton Administration's position on the ITAR restrictions for encryption software. This is an important issue to me. 1) Software is writing, so it is protected by the first amendment, so the ITAR is unconstitutional. The idea that only paper books are first amendment protected, and electronic books are not, is just plain wrong. 2) The ITAR does not help National Security, but in fact greatly reduces our nations security because the Internet, and the computers and information connected to it, are kept from using good Encryption. 3) I feel that encryption is very important for doing commerce on the Internet, and that commerce on the Internet is important for our economy (Internet is the fastest growing sizable segment). You say you like the "Information Super Highway" and you are "going to focus on the economy like a laser". You should be removing the ITAR restrictions on American businesses. Otherwise the business for commerce software will go to companies in other countries. 4) The Clinton Clipper III proposal to have government key escrow is not acceptable. Also, it will never work, since people will always be able to buy and use software from the rest of the world. This proposal is just slowing down Internet progress. Please cancel Clipper III. 4) I really don't want to vote for a president who would continue this type of regulation of the Internet. The Republican candidate Bob Dole and the Libertarian candidate Harry Browne support Senator Burns Pro-CODE bill S 1726 that would end this foolishness. The current law, (see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/2778.html) says that "The President shall periodically review the items on the United States Munitions List to determine what items, if any, no longer warrant export controls under this section. The results of such reviews shall be reported to the Speaker of the House [...] at least 30 days before any item is removed from the Munitions List [...]." It seems either of your two rivals would, if president, end the control of software. Will we have to elect one of them president to remove software from the Munitions list? 5) As an act of civil disobedience I have personally exported an encryption program (it is 3 lines of writing) using the web page at http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/ Yours sincerely, Cypherpunks cypherpunks(a)toad.com Sent from host niobe.c2.net with IP 140.174.185.17

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Re: ITAR / S 1726 / Civil Disobedience
by autoresponder＠WhiteHouse.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thank you for writing to President Clinton via electronic mail. Since June, 1993, whitehouse.gov has received over one million messages from people across the country and around the world. Because so many of you write, the President cannot personally review each message. The mail is first read by White House Correspondence staff. Your concerns, ideas, and suggestions are carefully recorded and communicated to the President weekly with a representative sampling of the mail. We are excited about the progress of online communication as a tool to bring government and the people closer together. Your continued interest and participation are very important to that goal. Sincerely, Stephen K. Horn Director, Presidential Email The Office of Correspondence P.S. Please read on - you may find the following information useful. -- This is the only electronic message you will receive from whitehouse.gov. No other message purporting to be from the President or his staff with an address at whitehouse.gov is authentic. If you have received such a message, you have been spoofed. -- You will receive only one autoresponder message per day. -- The only personal addresses at whitehouse.gov are the following: President(a)whitehouse.gov Vice.President(a)whitehouse.gov First.Lady(a)whitehouse.gov Please write to Mrs. Gore and other White House staff by regular mail. The address is: The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500. -- On October 20, 1994, President Clinton and Vice President Gore opened a World Wide Web home page called "Welcome to the White House: An Interactive Citizens' Handbook" and it remains one of the more popular spots on the Web. The White House home page provides, among other things, a single point of access to all government information available electronically on the Internet. "Welcome to the White House" can be accessed at: http://www.whitehouse.gov -- White House documents and publications are available on the World Wide Web (see above) and by email. To receive instructions on retrieving documents by email, please send a message to the following address: publications(a)whitehouse.gov In the body of your message, type "Send Info" (without quotes); do not include other text (such as message headers or signature lines (.sig files)). The instructions will be sent to you automatically. **************************************************************** List of Clinton Administration Accomplishments (three documents compose the whole): To: publications(a)whitehouse.gov Message body: send file 317571 send file 317573 send file 317575 **************************************************************** -- The White House Public Access Email FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document is available at the following address. The FAQ, among other things, lists alternate sources of government information, i.e., the Congressional email projects. Send an email message (no text necessary) to: faq(a)whitehouse.gov (This FAQ address is an autoresponder only; any comment sent to this address will not be acknowledged.)

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News: Sony/Philips has trouble exporting TV's
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

They're just TV's, for crying out loud!! C-Cube patrons may remember Tom Lookabaugh (Christie Cadwell's husband) who is quoted below. I don't recall his title being "sales manager", though, unless he got a recent "promotion" (frequently a C-Cube management speak for "pushed aside"). Ern -------- From Electronic Buyers' News: October 28, 1996 Issue: 1030 Section: News CODE LIMIT EXCEEDED By Jack Robertson Washington - New Internet-television systems from Sony Corp. and Philips Electronics Co. are technically munitions under U.S. export controls and cannot be shipped to the companies' worldwide sales networks, it was disclosed last week. Sony officials said the company's TV set-top box designed by WebTV of Palo Alto, Calif., includes a state-of-the-art 128-bit code encryption system for electronic commerce. This far exceeds the 40-bit encryption code permissible for export under the U.S. Munitions Control List. Philips also makes a WebTV set-top Internet box at its Magnavox TV plant in Knoxville, Tenn., and is similarly barred from shipping the unit to sales channels around the world. Both global electronic giants face immediate competition in the emerging TV-Internet surfing market from other Japanese, South Korean, and European set-makers that don't face the U.S. encryption controls. They now join the U.S. computer industry, which has long protested that the outmoded encryption export curbs are causing them to forfeit overseas sales of PCs and workstations to foreign rivals. President Clinton last month proposed lifting the level of encryption export controls from the present 40-bit code word to 56 bits, but only if a trap door is embedded in the cipher to allow law enforcement agencies to decode wiretapped messages. Clinton is expected shortly to sign an executive order putting the new control limits into effect. The pending 56-bit-code threshold doesn't help the Sony or Philips Web-surfing TV systems - nor most U.S. computer companies that build systems with encryption exceeding even the new control limit. Both Netscape and Microsoft Web-browsing software includes 128-bit code encryption, surpassing export curbs. Zenith Electronics Co., maker of a Web-surfing TV set, isn't concerned about the encryption controls, since it sells only in the U.S. market where the curbs don't apply. Divicom Inc., based in Milpitas, Calif., must get an export license from the U.S. State Department for every exported cable TV front-end encoder, which includes 128-bit code word, according to Tom Lookabough, the company's sales manager. He said the license review process can take eight weeks or more, a troublesome delay that foreign competitors don't face. Divicom and Scientific Atlanta both said their new digital TV set-top boxes include encryption that exceeds allowable export limits - but virtually all sales so far are in the U.S. market. As digital-box production ramps up, the companies would like to sell overseas, but run into the export control ban that puts them at a severe disadvantage against the foreign competitors aggressively entering the set-top market. President Clinton's encryption export control changes include an industry-favored provision to take the category off the State Department's Munitions Control List and shift responsibility to the Commerce Department.

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News: TIA to
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From Communications Week October 28, 1996 Issue: 635 Section: Telepath -- Top Sories TIA TO ISSUE DRAFT WIRETAP SPECS By Peter Cassidy The Telecommunications Industries Association next month will issue draft standards allowing manufacturers to make equipment that complies with the most recent federal wiretapping law. If and when those draft standards are ultimately approved, however, equipment makers will still face a troubling dilemma: The U.S. Justice Department, which in large part wrote the new law, is also the agency that will enforce it. President Clinton signed the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act in October 1994 after a last-ditch, sub-rosa lobbying effort by the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation pushed the bill through a Senate committee. In essence, the law says that the U.S. Attorney General will dictate how the law will carry out its job of tapping into switches. As of October 1998, manufacturers will have to build their switches to meet the industry specs, and carriers will have to maintain the switches accordingly. Switches in place before Jan. 1, 1995, are nominally exempted from compliance. Modifications intended to fulfill the capabilities the Justice Department mandates will be required only if companies are reimbursed for the changes-the exception being equipment that has been "substantially" modified. Despite these protections, concern persists: Because many of the technical features in place before the January 1995 cutoff will have been updated in some way, conflicts with the Justice Department may ensue over whether to consider them "pre-existing" technologies under the law. And companies on the losing end will suffer major penalties: The law specifies that the FBI can define which companies are not in compliance and bring civil actions against them, with fines of up to $10,000 per violation. Accordingly, the ambiguity in the legislative language could end up as costly both for modifications that are not reimbursed and for court challenges. "What is not really addressed is what 'a significant upgrade' really means," said Dan Bart, standards and technology vice president at the TIA. "Ultimately, some test case will come and some judge will make the final decision." Given the relationship between the industry and Justice over wiretapping capability thus far, a court challenge hardly seems far-fetched. In fact the act was proposed only after the FBI and telecom industry groups wrangled for years in consultative committees. The FBI had argued that advanced telephony technologies were making it difficult to wiretap and capture call data. Finally, the agency turned to a legislative solution. The TIA's draft standards, due to be issued next month by the group's TR 45.2 committee, will contain the technical specifications required to build-in the features for the Electronic Surveillance Interface that the act defines. Following a comment period of up to 90 days, the standards will be placed on a ballot for a vote by committee members, said committee chairwoman Cheryl Blum. If substantial changes are made to the draft during the comment period, the standards may have to go back to the committee, she noted. Cellular data removed At a standards meeting last month, the committee removed language that would have defined a standard for forwarding the location data of cellular phones when the instrument is powered up-but not actively transmitting and receiving-information the FBI indicated it should have if available. Ms. Blum said the committee decided such a capability exceeds the requirements of the the act. This point is important because, under the law, companies are reimbursed only for those modifications of existing technologies expressly spelled out in the act. Clearly, the FBI holds the whip, even in this standards-making process. Should the standards be found deficient under the law, the FCC can step in and replace those standards with its own. Justice is the most visible proponent, but the act is also of great interest to the NSA, which introduces a potentially troubling level of complexity as the industry attempts to comply with the law. Commerce Department memos obtained by Telepath show that the NSA was involved in sculpting the language of the act as far back as 1992. A Senate committee staff attorney, now in private industry, told Telepath that the NSA's interest was that the act introduce the opportunity to build wiretap access points into switches outside the United States. Equipment built to specifications in this country-and by offshore manufacturers for the U.S. market-would thus find its way into foreign telephone networks, allowing the NSA a simpler means to tap into targeted subjects. What liabilities this introduces to equipment makers remains unclear, as these are the early days of the act-the first law to give the government the power to demand design changes in telephony technologies. Peter Cassidy is a freelance writer. Send your reactions to this article to telepath(a)cmp.com.

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Re: When did Mondex ever claim to be anonymous?
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>> I don't think spreading false rumours is a good idea - it can discredit >>> the spreader if anyone bothers to check any details. >>Disinformation is a time-honoured weapon in political struggle. Foo. There's so much totally outrageous stuff the government _does_ that we don't have to go giving them ideas about _more_ things to do. And ethics aside (:-), bogus rumours get you lumped in with the folks who think Space Aliens fired that shot from the Grassy Knoll in a plot to kidnap Elvis. It's hard enough not to get treated like that when you're telling the truth, especially about issues where the government knows it's cheating. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk Imagine if three million people voted for somebody they _knew_, and the politicians had to count them all.

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Re: ITAR / S 1726 / Civil Disobedience
by c62op27＠ibx.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Would it be appropriate for other users to forward this message to the prez with their signatures?

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"Montgolfiering" mindlessness
by c62op27＠ibx.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What bombastic dribble is this? Me thinks our good yet crazy friend has been ingesting Dr. Bronner's Pure Peppermint Castille far beyond the recommended quantities. You are montgolfiering into the hot air that swells your brain. I joined this list to learn about cryptology and its related topics, not to have my inbox filled with the ramblings of impotents. Victor

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