December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

CWD--Wiretap In the Night
by Brock N. Meeks 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CyberWire Dispatch // September // Copyright (c) 1996 // Jacking in from the "Smoked Filled Room" Port: Washington, DC -- Federal provisions funding the digital telephony bill and roving wiretaps, surgically removed earlier this year from an anti-terrorism bill, have quietly been wedged into a $600 billion omnibus spending bill. The bill creates a Justice Department "telecommunications carrier compliance fund" to pay for the provisions called for in the digital telephony bill, formally known as the Communications Assistance in Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). In reality, this is a slush fund. Congress originally budgeted $500 million for CALEA, far short of the billions actually needed to build in instant wiretap capabilities into America's telephone, cable, cellular and PCS networks. This bill now approves a slush fund of pooled dollars from the budgets of "any agency" with "law enforcement, national security or intelligence responsibilities." That means the FBI, CIA, NSA and DEA, among others, will now have a vested interest in how the majority of your communications are tapped. The spending bill also provides for "multipoint wiretaps." This is the tricked up code phase for what amounts to roving wiretaps. Where the FBI can only tap one phone at a time in conjunction with an investigation, it now wants the ability to "follow" a conversation from phone to phone; meaning that if your neighbor is under investigation and happens to use your phone for some reason, your phone gets tapped. It also means that the FBI can tap public pay phones... think about that next time you call 1-800-COLLECT. In addition, all the public and congressional accountability provisions for how CALEA money was spent, which were in the original House version (H.R. 3814), got torpedoed in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Provisions stripped out by the Senate: -- GONE: Money isn't to be spent unless an implementation plan is sent to each member of the Judiciary Committee and Appropriations committees. -- GONE: Requirement that the FBI provide public details of how its new wiretap plan exceeds or differs from current capabilities. -- GONE: Report on the "actual and maximum number of simultaneous surveillance/intercepts" the FBI expects. The FBI ran into a fire storm earlier this year when it botched its long overdue report that said it wanted the capability to tap one out of every 100 phones *simultaneously*. Now, thanks to this funding bill, rather than having to defend that request, it doesn't have to say shit. -- GONE: Complete estimate of the full costs of deploying and developing the digital wiretapping plan. -- GONE: An annual report to Congress "specifically detailing" how all taxpayer money -- YOUR money -- is spent to carry out these new wiretap provisions. "No matter what side you come down on this (digital wiretapping) issue, the stakes for democracy are that we need to have public accountability," said Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. Although it appeared that no one in congress had the balls to take on the issue, one stalwart has stepped forward, Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.). He has succeeded in getting some of the accountability provisions back into the bill, according to a Barr staffer. But the fight couldn't have been an easy one. The FBI has worked congress relentlessly in an effort to skirt the original reporting and implementation requirements as outlined in CALEA. Further, Barr isn't exactly on the FBI's Christmas card list. Last year it was primarily Barr who scotched the funding for CALEA during the 104th Congress' first session. But Barr has won again. He has, with backing from the Senate, succeeded in *putting back* the requirement that the FBI must justify all CALEA expenditures to the Judiciary Committee. Further, the implementation plan, "though somewhat modified" will "still have some punch," Barr's staffer assured me. That includes making the FBI report on its expected capacities and capabilities for digital wiretapping. In other words, the FBI won't be able to "cook the books" on the wiretap figures in secret. Barr also was successful in making the Justice Department submit an annual report detailing its CALEA spending to Congress. However, the funding for digital wiretaps remains. Stuffing the funding measures into a huge omnibus spending bill almost certainly assures its passage. Congress is twitchy now, anxious to leave. They are chomping at the bit, sensing the end of the 104th Congress' tortured run as the legislative calender is due to run out sometime early next week. Then they will all literally race from Capitol Hill at the final gavel, heading for the parking lot, jumping in their cars like stock car drivers as they make a made dash for National Airport to return to their home districts in an effort to campaign for another term in the loopy world of national politics. Congress is "going to try to sneak this (spending bill) through the back door in the middle of the night," says Leslie Hagan, legislative director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. She calls this a "worst case scenario" that is "particularly dangerous" because the "deliberative legislative process is short-ciricutied." Such matters as wiretapping deserve to be aired in the full sunlight of congressional hearings, not stuffed into an 11th hour spending bill. This is legislative cowardice. Sadly, it will most likely succeed. And through this all, the Net sits mute. Unlike a few months ago, on the shameful day the Net cried "wolf" over these same provisions, mindlessly flooding congressional switchboards and any Email box within keyboard reach, despite the fact that the funding provisions had been already been stripped from the anti-terrorism bill, there has been no hue-and-cry about these most recent moves. Yes, some groups, such as the ACLU, EPIC and the Center for Democracy and Technology have been working the congressional back channels, buzzing around the frenzied legislators like crazed gnats. But why haven't we heard about all this before now? Why has this bill come down to the wire without the now expected flurry of "alerts" "bulletins" and other assorted red-flag waving by our esteemed Net guardians? Barr's had his ass hanging in the wind, fighting FBI Director Louis "Teflon" Freeh; he could have used some political cover from the cyberspace community. Yet, if he'd gone to that digital well, he'd have found only the echo of his own voice. And while the efforts of Rep. Barr are encouraging, it's anything from a done deal. "As long as the door is cracked... there is room for mischief," said Barr's staffer. Meaning, until the bill is reported and voted on, some snapperhead congressman could fuck up the process yet again. We all caught a bit of a reprieve here, but I wouldn't sleep well. This community still has a lot to learn about the Washington boneyard. Personally, I'm a little tired of getting beat up at every turn. Muscle up, folks, the fight doesn't get any easier. Meeks out... ------------ Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> contributed to this report.

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INFO: Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale signs the pro-crypto petition! (9/26/96)
by Voters Telecommunications Watch 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

============================================================================= ____ _ _ _ / ___|_ __ _ _ _ __ | |_ ___ | \ | | _____ _____ | | | '__| | | | '_ \| __/ _ \ _____| \| |/ _ \ \ /\ / / __| | |___| | | |_| | |_) | || (_) |_____| |\ | __/\ V V /\__ \ \____|_| \__, | .__/ \__\___/ |_| \_|\___| \_/\_/ |___/ |___/|_| MORE NET LUMINARIES JOIN THOUSANDS IN SIGNING PRO-ENCRYPTION PETITION http://www.crypto.com/petition/ JUDICIARY HEARING ON HR 3011 (9/25/96) Date: September 25, 1996 URL:http://www.crypto.com/ crypto-news(a)panix.com If you redistribute this, please do so in its entirety, with the banner intact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Introduction Join Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale as he signs the pro-crypto petition! How to receive crypto-news Press contacts ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION This is a busy last few days for Washington. In the midst of it all, the Judiciary committee held a hearing HR 3011, beginning the process of educating Congress for next year, and bringing in the Administration for a regular public drubbing about their antiquated encryption regulations. The very same day, WWW.Crypto.Com was honored to have Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale sign onto petition that supports legislation that would: -Relax export controls on encryption technology; -Prohibit the government from imposing "Key Escrow" solutions domestically; and -Recognize the importance of privacy and security for the future of electronic commerce, individual liberty, and the success of the Internet. Jim Barksdale is no stranger to the encryption debate. He testified at the July 25th hearing on the pro-encryption Pro-CODE bill (S1726). You can hear him in his own words by listening to the RealAudio transcript of the hearing cybercast at http://www.crypto.com/events/072596/ We'll be continuing the petition throughout the break and the election and use it next year to support the encryption legislation that will surely be introduced again. Be a part of it by signing the petition with Jim Barksdale at http://www.crypto.com/petition/ ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOIN NETSCAPE CEO JIM BARKSDALE IN FIGHTING FOR YOUR PRIVACY! The following petition can be signed onto at http://www.crypto.com/petition/ The Information Revolution is being held hostage by an outdated, Cold War-era U.S. encryption policy. Current U.S. export controls and other initiatives are slowing the widespread availability of strong encryption products, endangering the privacy and security of electronic communications, harming the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, and threatening the future of electronic commerce and the growth of the Global Information Infrastructure (GII). We the undersigned Internet users and concerned citizens strongly support Congressional efforts to address this critical issue. Bills are currently pending in both Houses of Congress which would: -Relax export controls on encryption technology; -Prohibit the government from imposing "Key Escrow" solutions domestically; and -Recognize the importance of privacy and security for the future of electronic commerce, individual liberty, and the success of the Internet. We urge Congress to act NOW to enact a U.S. encryption policy that promotes electronic privacy and security. Add your name to his at http://www.crypto.com/petition/ ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO RECEIVE CRYPTO-NEWS To subscribe to crypto-news, sign up from our WWW page (http://www.crypto.com) or send mail to majordomo(a)panix.com with "subscribe crypto-news" in the body of the message. To unsubscribe, send a letter to majordomo(a)panix.com with "unsubscribe crypto-news" in the body. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PRESS CONTACT INFORMATION Press inquiries on Crypto-News should be directed to Shabbir J. Safdar (VTW) at +1.718.596.2851 or shabbir(a)vtw.org Jonah Seiger (CDT) at +1.202.637.9800 or jseiger(a)cdt.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- End crypto-news =============================================================================

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Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 26 Sep 96 at 20:46, snow wrote: > Having been a firefighter for about 4 years, I can say that for > > small fires water works quite a bit better. For larger fires (over a > hundred acres or so) setting a backfire, or burning out the fuel in > the direction the fire is probably going to go is a hell of a lot > easier than hauling millons and millions of gallons or > blood^h^h^h^h^h water. > > Petro, Christopher C. > petro(a)suba.com <prefered for any non-list stuff> > snow(a)smoke.suba.com Well, let's not debate over firefighting, a lousy analogy... As long as Canadair sells water bombers, let them do. It brings money to Montreal... :) As for Jim Bell, he would probably say that he just proposes to use your techniques. :) jfa

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Re: AP [was: Re: Kiddie porn on the Internet] [NOISE]
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:00 PM 9/25/96 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >jim bell wrote: >> That's about it. I long ago noticed the similarity between AP and the >> fictional Gort. >> Problem is, Gort would have to be programmed. How would you write such >> a program? Governments would want their hand in it. They'd insist on >> "government exceptions" to rules, like: "All violence is forbiddden! >> (except for violence by duly authorized government employees!)" >> Not very practical. > >Indeed it may not be practical to try such a program on current >computers. I've had thoughts for some time about an analogy where each >person in a civilization represents a cell in a single brain, and so on, >so perhaps AP is merely a portion of the program for this "brain". As >to what happens when you try to concentrate a disproportionate amount of >the programming task into a few hands, that appears to be the situation >we have now. Exactly correct. The current system is intended to present the illusion that it is the product of the voters, where it is really defined by the political establishment. Bill Stewart pointed out (correctly) that what I'm proposing is "mechanism without a built-in policy." While this may appear to be a bit reckless, the reason I'm confident it will work is that the status quo has a _throughly_corrupt_ policy, a policy which is actively hostile to the interests and rights of the average citizen. Replacing that system with one that is merely neutral is a great improvement, particularly if there is no way for that policy to be hijacked by a tiny minority of the public. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: AP Protocol Failures [NOISE]
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:37 PM 9/26/96 -0500, snow wrote: >> >> Troops are in Northern Ireland for a very simple and depressing >> >> reason. People like Jim want to impose their will on others by force. >> But AP is great - adding more violence to Ireland is just the thing >> they need........ > > It wouldn't ADD more violence. I had intended to respond to Bill Stewart's comment before this. I was surprised that he would suggest that AP would (necessarily?) cause "more violence." To me, it's obvious that it will cause _different_ violence, and I strongly suspect it'll actually reduce the total violence level, and certainly will do so in the long term. But far more than reducing violence, it'll reduce coercion that doesn't rise to the level of violence as well. When people AREN'T put in jail or prison for a victimless crime, I consider that a drastic reduction in coercion, and that's progress. Put fewer people in jail, and you anger fewer people, and you rob fewer people by taxation to pay for that jail, etc. >> One of the strong negatives of AP is that it leads to reverse AP - >> if you don't know _which_ Hatfield killed the latest McCoy, >> you might as well just shoot one or two Hatfield Boys at random. >> If you kill off GrandDaddy Hatfield, there's nobody to say >> "OK, let's stop shooting each other"; instead there's a bunch of >> angry grandkids, and uncles, _all_ of whom have the >> authority to say "Let's go kill the McCoy bastards who did this!" >> The protocols may work when there's one hierarchical target - >> they don't work with two. Hammurabi's law about "An eye for an eye >> and a tooth for a tooth" was a _limitation_ on the amount of vengeance >> you were allowed to take, not a minimum required vengeance. > > Putting AP into place doesn't make murder legal. You could still >be arrested, tried (depending on the jurisdiction) and punished for it. Not only that, you could use AP to kill somebody who killed SOMEBODY ELSE with AP! (which is, to me, a rather obvious fact, but one that escapes an unusually large number of people. 'course, you'd have to figure out who did it... a non-trivial task under the circumstances.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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by gsmith＠ultragrafix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 26 Sep 96 at 16:51, Declan McCullagh wrote: > Anonymity and nonescrowed crypto are the linchpins of AP and its > more general case, Maysian crypto anarchy. The withering of the > nation-state. Whatever you want to call it. > > To prevent it, governments will ban both. A criminal law, passed in > the wake of say a bombing this fall in Washington, DC, banning > nonescrowed crypto. (Freeh will assert he has evidence the > terrorists used PGPhone.) And another law banning online anonymity. I agree with the prediction but the cause will probably not be AP. AP could probably be run from BBS and direct link over a very informal and loose network made out of individual modem connections. I think it is very unlikely it would get succesfully stopped. It could even be run from physically exchanged diskettes. It would run slowly, but still, it would run. OTOH, the "Maysian" crypto anarchy will be a much more immediate problem to govts. "L'argent est le nerf de la guerre",or, loosely translated: "money is war's fuel" as we say... When they start getting financially starved, they'll have to increase taxation but the population already have them in very low esteem... AP, with a properly structured media campaing, will make govts heroes, Maysian anarchy will make them seen as looters. Did I put my foot in my mouth again? > What then, Mr. Bell? > > -Declan > // declan(a)eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan(a)well.com Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Finest Limoges porcelain and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultant physicists and engineers, LabView programming PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Sep 96 at 0:21, Simon Spero wrote: > On Thu, 26 Sep 1996, Declan McCullagh wrote: > > > Anonymity and nonescrowed crypto are the linchpins of AP and its > > more general case, Maysian crypto anarchy. The withering of the > > nation-state. > > If I might dare a crypto-related comment as well; it also requires > an absolutely trusted third-party to manage the funds and issue the > ecash used to pay the murderer, (sorry, fortunate gambler). The > reason why the third party must be trusted by both the payers and > the gambler, and thus cannot be anonymous (only at 'best' > pseduonymous) should be obvious. For the payer, the ammount involved is so small that he might thing it is worth a shot to put the price of two bottles of beer "just in case" it works. As the system gets known, it'll gain reputation. For the hitman, this is another story, but there is a way. AP, a sensationalistically choosen name (No, Jim, I know... you intended it only as a joke) very badly describes what the server does. It could accept donations for all sorts of things, many of them being legally unconsequential. So, a potential hitman group could make donations for anybody who would predict any kind of event and see if they would pay. The server could not even know if these would be integrity tests or legitimate donations. IMO, there is only one way to prevent AP: it is by preventing the advent of e-cash. Making it illegal to issue such currency, and seize and prosecute heavily if any of it is found. This would includes, of course, gold (or other material value) e-tokens, etc. It will come from a total control of money. Can it be done? I doubt it very stronly. jfa Did you give away a copy of PGP to a friend today? Please Cc me any reply, I am not on Cypherpunks anymore. Thanks.

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Re: Weaknesses in Smart Cards? (Re: FLA_wed)
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Its worse than that. The Bellcore piece was presented as being about a possible weakness in MONDEX. In fact MONDEX does not use the cryptographic technique investigated. Its a symmetric key (DES) based system. I would immagine they would keep a symmetric component even if they go for a public key system. BTW if you think carefully about MONDEX you will note that a public key system does not improve security. The system depends on private keys embedded in the devices. There is no value in having the devices use public key signatures over symetric ones. Phill PS whats the betting that anyone at a high profile site who happens to be offline for a few hours to (say) change service providers will be reported as having been "hacked"?

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Re: Tamper-Resistant Software from INTEL
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:57 PM 9/26/96 -0500, snow wrote: >Mr. Guthery >> Has anybody heard of tamper-resistant software in general or a method >> for tamper-resistant software from Intel in particular? > > What do you mean by "tamper resistant"? It means that if you do *ANYTHING* to try and adjust, modify, and/or configure the software, it no longer functions. Sadly, Microsoft has beat them to the punch on this technology. --- | "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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