December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: libsln.htm -- Is Libel a Crime?
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997, jim bell wrote: > At 07:33 AM 1/28/97 -0500, aga wrote: > >On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, jim bell wrote: > > > >> At 01:14 AM 1/27/97 -0600, ichudov(a)algebra.com wrote: > > >> >These postings do not prove that libel is a crime. It is because libel > >> >is not a crime. Libel is a tort, and unlike with crime, the government > >> >cannot initiate a legal action against someone for libel. Only injured > >> >(libeled) individuals and not the government can sue in a libel case. > >> > >> On the contrary, in some jurisdictions libel is indeed a crime. However, > >> that doesn't mean that prosecutions happen anymore, but the laws are (in > >> some places) still on the books. > > > > >Jim, either you are full of shit or that Law is VERY > >unconstitutional. The first amendment prohibits any Criminal Laws > >from being made against libel. > > You'd think that, wouldn't you? Yes, I agree that those laws are > unconstitutional, but so is about 90+% of what the Federal government does > today. Sigh. > > Criminal libel statutes are apparently (in the US, at least) a holdover from > an earlier era in which government took the place of King George, and wanted > the power to punish people who were too outspoken. The fact that they are > "never" (?) used anymore is presumably a reflection of their > unconstitutionality. Criminal libel statues should also be considered > unconstitutional because they give way too much leeway to the prosecutor to > decide whom to prosecute. His friends will never be charged, but his > enemies will. > > One obvious problem with the LACK of a criminal libel statute, from the > standpoint of the "government-controlling-class," or "the bigshots," is that > it's impossible to sue (and collect from) a (comparatively) poor person for > defaming him...but it's still possible to put him in jail. Civil libel is, > therefore, essentially useless to a government agent as a means of keeping > the masses in line. > > > Myself, I believe that libel should be eliminated as a cause of action in > civil cases as well as it has, de facto, in the criminal area. If anything, > the ability to sue for libel makes things worse: There is an illusion that > this is easy and straightforward, if not economical. It is neither. The > result is that people are actually MORE likely to believe a printed > falsehood because they incorrectly assume that if it wasn't true, it > couldn't be printed. > > > > > Jim Bell > jimbell(a)pacifier.com > Interesting analysis here, but remember; libel is just one kind of "defamation" and an action for defamation will always be actionable. The constitution gives us the right to call the President a motherfucker any time we want to, and it also gives the motherfucker the right to sue. Sueing is better than fighting in the streets. This is the SLOWEST I have ever seen Telnet, today.

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Re: uae_1.html (UAE censoring Internet)
by Wayne Clerke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've checked the filtering out already ... it's pretty extensive. Far, far more than Singapore's 'hundred' or so pages. The granularity is such that things like http://www.domain/~user/main may be passed, while a link from that page to a subpage may be blocked. I guess they can afford to do this with so few users and little traffic. Never thought I'd be real interested in how Net Nanny worked ... but I am now. I'd be happy to hear from anyone with good ideas (or (accessible) pointers) about how to minimize the effects of this stupidity ... :-( Regards, Mail: <a href=mailto:wclerke@emirates.net.ae>Wayne Clerke</a> PGP key ID: AEB2546D FP: D663D11E DA19D74F 5032DC7E E001B702 PGP mail welcome. Voice: +971 506 43 48 53 If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space. ---------- > From: Lynx_User(a)linux.nycmetro.com > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Subject: uae_1.html > Date: Tuesday, 28 January 1997 12:26 > > > Reuters New Media > > > [ Yahoo | Write Us | Search | Info ] > > > [ Index | News | World | Biz | Tech | Politic | Sport | Scoreboard | > Entertain | Health ] > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Previous Story: UK Bill To Fight Millennium Computer Bug Moves On > Next Story: Intel to Europe: Get Online Or Fall Behind > _________________________________________________________________ > > Monday January 27 9:50 AM EST > > UAE Launches Service To Censor Internet > > DUBAI - The United Arab Emirates's monopoly Internet provider launched > a service Saturday to censor sites in cyberspace that breached local > moral values and traditions. > > Officials from state telecommunications company Etisalat said the new > Proxy Service would be compulsory for the UAE's 9,669 subscribers, who > will have to configure their web browsers that navigate the net by > February 2. > > "The service was launched today as part of our efforts to improve the > Internet service to our subscribers after lengthy study and research," > said one official at Etisalat. > > "We were working on it before some official statements were made on > the need to control access to some sites on the service," he told > Reuters. > > The move follows repeated calls to regulate access to the Internet in > the conservative Gulf region, where most women are veiled, magazine > pictures revealing cleavage or bare legs are blacked out and > questioning the existence of god can be punishable by death. > > Some are worried about the spread of pornography as well as religious > and political material through the worldwide network of interlinked > computers. > > Last year, Dubai Police chief Major General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim > created a rare public row in the UAE saying the information ministry > and the police, rather that Etisalat, should be authorized to issue > Internet licenses as it was their job to monitor data coming into the > UAE and maintain security. > > Telecommunications experts say the Proxy Service will not be "fully > water-tight," but would help block access to known and unwanted sites > -- a list of which could be constantly updated. > > The proxy server will be pre-fed with Internet addresses where access > is blocked off, industry sources said. But the server will be unable > to block access if addresses of prohibited sites are changed, as > frequently happens. > > Etisalat says it will disconnect any customer who abused its Internet > services and violated "order and clear laws." > > "Singapore has succeeded to a great extent in its drive to control > harm done by the Internet," said another Etisalat official. "Why > cannot we?" > > Singapore government measures to regulate political and religious > content on the Internet and keep it free of pornography became > effective in July last year. They require all Internet service > operators and local content providers to be registered with the > Singapore Broadcasting Authority. > > Copyright, Reuters Ltd. 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Cats Out of Bags
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- "In an interview Tuesday, [David L.] Aaron [the Feds' Crypto Ambassador] disputed the industry's view that the U.S. efforts to control cryptographic technology are being outstripped by the pace of the technology. "When I talk to other governments," he said, "they still don't feel that the cat is out of the bag." What the fuck do *they* know? DCF -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMu+CdoVO4r4sgSPhAQHMqgQAhLoHArHx76zdXu8yM7WrThPi0pn8U5wG IQQItZFQAK84MnnbKDEDsW4SW5e9pM7JaFWbFqUg4VooAnKRd/2oITSijEW57jsR SQrhdqztR5fX82Wi9kBNsx92+McywzaeJBI6t+oTEYqqUlhQhzCoJiUpjMu9Q9FR 2gg8Mc01l4E= =MgUH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: East German Collapse (Was: Fighting the cybercensor
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 28 Jan 1997 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: > (ObCypherpunksContent: if substantial amounts of tax money starts > escaping into Cypherspace, it's not easy to maintain a modern > CorporatistWelfare-for-Bureaucrats state either.....) I disagree. Where does this money "escape" to? Do you spend it on rent, pizza, a new stereo? Hmm... These are all meatspace transactions and can be taxed. I met last week with a senior Clinton administration official for an article I'm working on and posed this question to him, asking how we can tax anonymous online transactions. He replied: "Well, we have this corporate income tax..." -Declan

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Re: PGP Key Preview...
by falk＠Eng.Sun.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> is there a way to preview the contents of a received public key, > without adding it automatically to the public key ring? Trivial. Just have pgp look at the file without giving it any commands. I.e. instead of pgp -ka <filename> do pgp <filename> Pgp will examine the file, tell you it contains keys, show them to you and then ask if you want to add them to your keyring. This is the way I normally add keys, just because I like to look at *any* file before I add it to any system.

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Re: FBI=LIE
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/fbi-lab.html: > The World Trade Center bomb was made of urea-nitrate, a compound > that can be confused with non-explosive mixtures of the same > ingredients. In an informal internal check of lab procedures, some > senior FBI lab workers mixed human urine with fertilizer and added > samples of that non-explosive mixture to the flow of material being > tested by the chemistry unit. A manager in the chemistry lab > identified the urine-fertilizer mixture as an explosive. Just coincidentally, these errors imprison the innocent instead of freeing the guilty. > Still, Joseph E. DiGenova, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, > said the issues raised in the report would allow defendants to > contest lab findings against them and would permit people convicted > of crimes to attempt to reopen their cases, based on the possibility > of flawed forensic evidence. > "It's going to be a royal pain in the neck for federal judges and > prosecutors and a godsend for defense attorneys looking for a means > of getting their clients off," he said Why not "proving their innocence"? A prosecutor - and one who does not respect our legal tradition of presumed innocence - is not a good choice for a quote here. Nowhere in the entire article is there evidence that the reporters talked to anyone outside the FBI/Justice Department milieu. > Scientists at the lab said they were often stifled in a lab run by > non-technical field agents who had little knowledge of science and > who regularly altered reports to help prosecutors. But law > enforcement officials said there was little evidence that anyone had > been wrongly convicted based on improper lab work. Why isn't this the story? FBI agents regularly committed perjury, and we see a story about lab errors. Elliot Ness

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Re: Last nail for US crypto export policy?
by falk＠Eng.Sun.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I just ran out of asswipe. > Does anyone have any RSA Data Security, Inc. stock they'd like to > sell? Now, now. I don't think RSADSI had any illusions of 40-bit keys being secure; they just wanted to find out just *how* insecure they were. I suspect that this crack will *benefit* RSADSI, and the rest of the crypto community, by helping to convince the feds to ease up.

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Workaround for filtering/cybersitter
by Mark Rogaski 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I had experience with Netscape plugins and spare time, I'd try it myself. But here's my proposed solution. A plugin in Netscape intercepts all requests, encrypt the URL with a pubkey algorithm, encode the string base64, send it as GET input to a proxy server. The proxy server decodes and decrypts the URL, gets the requested page, and returns it. This beats out URL-based filtering. Still need to figure out the specifics of key-exchange. If we use 40-bit encryption, it's exportable, and it still works in our threat model (ie. we don't care if the watchers figure out the URL a few hours later). To beat out dropping packets with unacceptable pattern in them, we could use an SSL-based server as the proxy. The plugin could even have a nice little on/off switch and a list list of available proxies. mark -- [] Mark Rogaski || "Computers save time like kudzu [] [] wendigo(a)pobox.com || prevents soil erosion." [] [] http://www.pobox.com/~wendigo/ || - afcasta(a)texas.net [] [] >> finger for PGP pubkey << || []

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Re: Fighting the cybercensor
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:40 PM 1/27/97 -0500, Phillip M. Hallam-Baker wrote: > > >jim bell <jimbell(a)pacifier.com> wrote in article <5ch9f2$cuu(a)life.ai.mit.edu>... > >> Look, I've proposed what I consider to be a remarkably consistent method to >> prevent the kind of political tyranny that you criticize, and I don't see >> any recognition of this fact. > >Thats because its a whacko solution that has no credibility >or consistency. > >If anyone tried to set up such a market and a price went out >on any of the heads of state fantasized about Mr Bell would be >dead as a doornail in a week. > So you're saying that the system would work. Mr. bell would be targeted, a price on his head, for starting that very system. Mr. Bell would be a martyr, his system being proven by his own death. It would be some varient of his idea that would be used to kill him, a bounty. I think that the system would work, I also think that it would be easiest to use by those already in possession of the money. It would take care of part of our overpopulation problem though...

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FBI Suspends Lab Whistleblower
by Robalini＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Paul Watson for forwarding this to me. >From eplurib(a)megalinx.net Mon Jan 27 20:16:54 1997 01/27/1997 20:06 EST FBI Suspends Lab Whistleblower By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has suspended a scientist-agent whose charges led to a still-secret Justice Department report critical of some FBI crime lab workers. A Republican senator said Monday the suspension ``appears to be a reprisal.'' The FBI also took action regarding other employees criticized in the secret report, said officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. Three or four employees were transferred out of the FBI lab but not suspended, these officials said. The agent, Frederic Whitehurst, once an FBI crime lab supervisor, was put on administrative leave with pay Friday afternoon and barred from entering any FBI building, even as a guest, according to a letter from Acting Lab Director Donald W. Thompson Jr. The FBI took Whitehurst's badge and gun, said Whitehurst's lawyer, Stephen Kohn. The action came just days after FBI Director Louis J. Freeh received a report from the Justice Department's inspector general that officials said criticizes the work of some FBI lab employees and a report from a special investigative counsel who looked into an alleged press leak by Whitehurst. Thompson's letter said only that Whitehurst was suspended ``pending our review of information in the possession of the Department of Justice'' and added that the move ``does not indicate that you have engaged in any inappropriate conduct.'' FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the bureau would have a statement on the matter later. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee on administrative oversight, wrote Freeh on Monday to demand that FBI officials appear Tuesday in his office to justify the action against Whitehurst. ``Recently, a Department of Justice official knowledgeable about the IG's investigation told me privately that Dr. Whitehurst had done a service for his country in bringing forth his information,'' Grassley wrote. ``The action taken by the FBI implies that he is being punished for `committing truth.' It appears to be a reprisal for his disclosures,'' Grassley wrote. Kohn said that after Whitehurst's allegation about lab misconduct became known ``he became a lighting rod for other employees to funnel information to the inspector general.'' Kohn said FBI officials became ``very, very angry'' when they received the inspector general's report and learned that ``Whitehurst funneled information directly from other FBI employees to the inspector general and the investigation mushroomed beyond what they had expected.'' Kohn said that was why Whitehurst, once rated by the FBI as its top expert on bomb residues, was barred from entering FBI buildings and from getting information from other employees. The still-secret inspector general's report is being reviewed by FBI officials to determine whether any lab employees will be disciplined. The inspector general hired a panel of outside scientists to evaluate the work of the lab after Whitehurst alleged in late 1995 that a pro- prosecution bias and mishandling of evidence may have tainted crime lab work or testimony on several high-profile federal cases. These include the World Trade Center bombing, the mail-bomb killing of a federal judge and a civil rights lawyer, and the Oklahoma City federal building bombing. Prosecutors have decided not to use at least one lab employee as a witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case and in a bank robbery case in Ohio, sources said Monday, apparently to prevent defense attorneys from using the inspector general report to undermine any testimony by the employee. Stephen Jones, counsel for Timothy McVeigh, who is charged in the Oklahoma City case, has deposed Whitehurst and indicated he may be called as a defense witness. Nearly a year ago, Whitehurst was called to an interview by Special Investigative Counsel Joseph C. Hutchison, who was brought here from the Connecticut U.S. attorney's office to conduct the leak investigation. Hutchison wrote Whitehurst's lawyers that ``there is substantial reason to believe that your client ... is responsible for the unauthorized release of work-related information to Jeff Stein,'' a freelance writer who produced an article intended for publication in Playboy magazine. At that time, Carl Stern, then Justice Department spokesman, said Playboy wrote the department to check the article's facts, which allowed officials to learn that the article would contain information and allegations about FBI employees that are protected from public release by the Privacy Act. Stern said, ``There is no criminal investigation looking into the conduct of Frederic Whitehurst. There's an administrative inquiry in connection with the leak of Whitehurst's communications with the department to a writer from Playboy magazine.'' =========================================================== E Pluribus Unum - http://home.megalinx.net/~eplurib/home.html P.O. Box 477; Stockport, OH 43787 Voice (614) 836-7650 Fax (614) 836-7651 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6

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