December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Coalition Letter on Privacy and Airline Security
by Dave Banisar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A HTML version of this is available at http://www.epic.org/privacy/faa/airline_security_letter.html February 11, 1997 Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. The White House 1600 Pennsylvanpia Ave, NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. Vice President, We are writing to you to express our views on the serious civil liberties issues raised by recent government activities in the name of airline security. These include recent orders issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, and also proposals recommended by the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and the FAA Advisory Aviation Security Advisory Committee. Many of these proposals were developed in the highly-charged atmosphere following the still-unsolved crash of TWA Flight 800 and reflect a misguided rationale that something had to be done, no matter how marginal in value or violative of individual rights. We all feel strongly that air travel must be safe - nobody wants to feel that to set foot on an airplane or an airport is to take a substantial safety risk. However, basic civil liberties protected by the Constitution should not be sacrificed in the name of improving air safety, especially where the potential benefits are questionable. At the airport ticket counter, passengers check their luggage, not their constitutional rights. Identification One area of concern is a secret FAA order issued in August 1995 and apparently revised in October 1995. The FAA order purportedly requires airlines to demand government-issued photo identification from all passengers before they can board an airplane. It remains unclear whether a passenger must provide that identification and what discretion an airline has to allow, or refuse, any passenger to board if they refuse to provide identification or simply do not have any available. Americans are not required to carry government-issued identification documents. Any requirement that passengers show identification raises substantial constitutional questions about violations of the rights to privacy, travel, and due process of law. The Supreme Court has consistently struck down laws that interfere with the constitutional right to travel. The Court has also overturned laws in a variety of circumstances that require an individual to provide identification in the absence of any specific suspicion that a crime has been committed. In addition, it is unclear that requiring passenger boarding an aircraft to identify him or herself actually makes the people with whom they travel any safer. A bomber with a fake ID is just as effective as a bomber with no ID. We urge the FAA to withdraw its directive and to notify airlines that identification should not be requested for security reasons. At a minimum, the FAA should require airlines to post notices telling passengers that they cannot be denied boarding just because they fail or refuse to identify themselves. Computer Databases and Profiling Another major concern involves the proposed increased utilization of the practice of "profiling" passengers to determine whether they pose a security risk and should thus be searched. This would require the collection of personal information on passengers prior to their boarding a plane. Information that may be collected includes a picture or other biometric identifier, address, flying patterns with a particular airline, bill paying at a particular address, criminal records, and other information. This, and information gleaned from observing the persons with whom the passenger was traveling, would be fed into a computer data base that would be used to decide whether the passenger "fits the profile" and should be subjected to heightened security measures. Under this proposal, the checked luggage of people selected by the computer would be scanned by new sophisticated scanning devices. The risks to privacy are enormous and run not only to those who "fit the profile." For this system to be useful, it must apply to every person who might take a flight, i.e., to everybody. A new government dossier on everyone would have to be created, computerized, and made accessible to airline personnel. In addition, for the system to be useful, it would have to be linked to other data bases and constantly updated. Each time a person changes their address or takes another flight, or does anything related to the characteristics about them deemed significant by the profiling system, the government would track it. All of our experience with the creation and updating of such ever-changing data bases teaches us that the likelihood of inaccuracy at any given moment is high. The FBI, for instance, recognizes that data in its computer system of criminal records has an inaccuracy rate of 33 percent. Such inaccuracy would lead to both a breach of safety and to violations of the rights of innocent people. This proposal is a quick fix that won't fix anything. The proposal also violates a central principle of the Code of Fair Information Practices and the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C § 552a): information given to the government for one purpose ought not be used for other purposes without the consent of the person to whom it pertains. The use of criminal records in such a data base, particularly where those records include arrests that do not result in convictions, is particularly troubling. Profiling also frequently leads to discriminatory practices. Already, we have received numerous reports of discrimination against individuals and families with children who have been refused entry onto aircraft because their names appeared to be of Middle-Eastern origin. In the well publicized example of security guard Richard Jewel, reports indicated that the FBI profile led the police to unfairly target Mr. Jewel for the incident, even in the absence of other evidence. This incident vividly shows the limitations of basing a law enforcement decision on a profile. We urge the FAA and airlines to discontinue the use of passenger profiling. X-Ray Cameras We also view with concern proposals to install in airports new cameras which can depict highly detailed images of individuals' bodies under their clothes. Existing scanners, the development of which was partially funded by the FAA, already show a revealing and invasive picture of a naked body in high detail and the technology is likely to improve. This is clearly a search under the Fourth Amendment and is far more intrusive than a standard metal screening device. Passengers should not be subject to an "electronic strip search" in order to board an aircraft. To expose travelers' anatomies to the general public or even to selected (not by the victim of the unreasonably intrusive search) strangers is extremely embarrassing and shocking to the conscience. We urge the FAA to reject proposals to use body scanners capable of projecting an image of a person's naked body. Secrecy Much of the key decision-making surrounding these proposals has been shrouded by secrecy. The FAA has claimed that it is exempt from open government laws and has refused to release its directives on profiling and identification. Relevant meetings have been closed to the public or limited to participants who can afford to pay expensive fees. We urge the FAA to publish its directives and open all further decision making open to public scrutiny. Conclusion In conclusion, we believe that these proposals raise grave constitutional issues and are likely to produce only minimally beneficial results to improve airline safety. We urge the FAA and the advisory commissions to focus their efforts on improving security in a balanced and rational manner that is open to public scrutiny and consistent with constitutional rights. Sincerely, Houeida Saad American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee Greg Nojeim American Civil Liberties Union Maher Hanania American Federation of Palestine James Lucier, Jr., Director of Economic Research Americans for Tax Reform Aki Namioka, President Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Lori Fena, Executive Director Electronic Frontier Foundation David Banisar, Staff Counsel Electronic Privacy Information Center Ned Stone Friends Committee on National Legislation Judy Clarke, President National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Kit Gage, Washington Representative National Committee Against Repressive Legislation Audrie Krause, Executive Director NetAction Sharisa Alkhateeb North American Council of Muslim Womem Simon Davies, Director General Privacy International Robert Ellis Smith, Publisher Privacy Journal Evan Hendricks, Chairman US Privacy Council and Publisher, The Privacy Times Enver Masud Executive Director The Wisdom Fund John Gilmore Civil Libertarian and co-founder, The Electronic Frontier Foundation ------- David Banisar (Banisar(a)epic.org) * 202-544-9240 (tel) Electronic Privacy Information Center * 202-547-5482 (fax) 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 * HTTP://www.epic.org Washington, DC 20003 * PGP Key http://www.epic.org/staff/banisar/key.html

1 0

Re: List! No Way: Creati
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:23 PM 2/11/97 -0500, harka(a)nycmetro.com wrote: >Were it possible to use Perry's PGPDomo, which would effectively >keep out at least the Spammers? That'll keep out the outside spammers; it won't keep out anybody trying to attack the list (if people can do that with remailers, they can figure out how to do it with PGP...) # 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/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Re: anonymity and e-cash
by Mark M. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 12 Feb 1997 janke(a)unixg.ubc.ca wrote: > It's not too hard: The payee forwards a blinded, non-signed coin > to the payer. The payer has the bank sign this, and then returns > it to the payee who strips out the blinding factor. This is correct except for the fact that the payer also has to apply a blinding factor to the coin, thus making it a "double-blinded" coin. It gets signed by the bank, the payer divides the coin by the blinding factor and sends it to the payee, who then strips out his blinding factor. Ecash coins can also be laundered making the above scheme mostly unnecessary. Since most people will probably not look upon fully anonymous ecash highly, laundering will be a more popular option as it cannot be prevented. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMwJkjyzIPc7jvyFpAQFHcwgAm2TZXg3wVDCtXyHBdq7WX44iA+nIvmHJ GlcXCjyKBEmvRPfkvU/NUnS1cRfjsPh5ZmjNwjBc21lwxjcOLFtu+3Mcd6tNoyYQ 4Abp4lvJLnpGAtAVeSeTAw+7mzwrC0jfWgt2meNbnyp2WxLxg/JA7VGGkS39g4Jm +i3F8H00mFJfmZUGpAiywE7GNobCXeppPJOn/QHA4/FrWJx5hE39qgB7U+AFwYVP PHGy4SSSBeKWciK83DU3Bz6ptygznL7fHW4vOZ8UM5QZjbyiDomVriSuJHw0lKdH r63BhOqYPXgMHgsa28XTlI9AWN5PpaIbvORTHOWv40EF3nGVrWGnMw== =Vpit -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

Re: anonymity and e-cash
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: tcmay(a)got.net (Tim May) > You missed a very good talk by Ian Goldberg of UC Berkeley at the Saturday > Cypherpunks meeting at Stanford, where Ian talked for more than an hour on > just this issue. (He also talked for an hour on his crack of the RSA > challenge using 250 workstations...this was also a good talk.) I wish I could have heard that, it sounds good... A simple idea we have discussed for full anonymity uses the idea of exchanging coins at the bank. You make an anonymous connection to the bank, supply some ecash you have received along with some blinded new ecash. The bank verifies that the ecash is good and signs your blinded ecash, sending it back to you. You unblind it and have good, fresh smelling ecash which you can keep, spend, or later deposit in your account. If the merchant performs this exchange operation on-line as soon as he receives ecash, then his anonynmity is protected. The customer is protected too, by the blinding he used when he withdrew the ecash earlier. So both sides remain anonymous. It sounds like Ian may have worked out details of a system where third parties do these exchanges. Banks may be reluctant to allow them for liability reasons, and the market, abhoring the vacuum, will supply intermediaries who perform exchanges for a fee. Resolving the various forms of cheating is the hard part. When Lee asks about a signed receipt, it is hard to understand what is the point if the seller is fully anonymous! A signed receipt from a freshly-minted key is not of much use to anyone. If the participants are using persistant pseudonyms then whatever reputation capital they have can be put on the line when cheating happens, although it still may be hard to tell who cheated whom. Did the customer pass bad cash and claim it was good, or did the merchant deposit good cash and claim it was bad? The same thing could happen every day at the supermarket, of course. A customer insists they paid $20 but got change for a $10. If dozens of customers say the same thing has happened to them, we start to mistrust the market, while if several businesses say this particular customer has made the same claim to them, we blame the customer. Hal

2 1

Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 16:22:28 -0800 > From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> > Subject: Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" > I was making the point that _any_ site distributing a list is likely to > face legal pressures not to carry certain items. Read between the lines (or > read the unedited list) the discussion by John Gilmore, Sandy Sandfort, and > the products of Sandy's company, and legal pressures applied, to see what I > mean. This is exactly the reason that my suggestion to anyone setting up a remailer with any sort of controversial content should do it as some sort of outreach of their business. It is too expensive in time, money, and hassles to do for grins and giggles. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

1 0

Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:03 PM 2/11/97 -0600, Jim Choate <ravage(a)einstein.ssz.com> wrote: >What is the current future of the Cypherpunks webpage? Will it continue to >be kept up or is it going down as well? If you mean the one on soda.berkeley.edu, the last I checked nobody had updated it in a year or more, but it was still ticking. # 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/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 18:47 EDT > From: "E. Allen Smith" <EALLENSMITH(a)ocelot.rutgers.edu> > Subject: Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd) > > Someone with more experience correct me if I'm wrong (I'm just > starting to learn about mailing list management), but isn't saving > at least the first bounce from a given address good in order to check > what address is the one that's actually bouncing? Admittedly, this only > applies to badly-formed bounces. The rest can just have the address > noted. Hmmm, I can see saving the address causing the bounce in some sort of array that is indexed to the majordomo subscription list for a given remailer. It would not cost anything but overhead to save the entire message. I guess my motivation was not that I cared their mailbox was full or it was a invalid address but that I wouldn't be able to deliver at this time. I just don't see any reason that it helps me to know why they can't receive mail only that they can't. > >Want to volunteer? > > Give me some idea of how much programming knowledge, time, etcetera > is required, please, before I can answer. I'd be renting space on some other > computer (e.g., an account on cyberpass.net) to do it in; the only higher-level > programming language (i.e., beyond Applesoft Basic) that I know anything of > is Perl (and I don't know that all that well); and I am somewhat busy with > other stuff. In other words, it depends. Hmmm, not shure how much programming it would take - never done it myself. I think Perl would be an acceptable language. I certainly hope to do the majority of the scripts on the CDR in Perl myself. Perhaps there is somebody who knows the fine points of how INN cache's messages. Redbeard and I had a short discussion about this issue today relating to tracking messages to reduce mail-loops. I will discuss it with him and see what happens. I know exactly what you mean. I have two full-time jobs and hadn't really thought of taking on the cpunks list in any manner. But hey, that is the spice in life... Give me a couple of days to look at the situation and if somebody don't beat me to it I'll post what I find out. Cool? Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

1 0

Re: Network of majordomos (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 00:04:44 +0000 > From: paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk > Subject: Re: Network of majordomos > Charter: > > alt.cypherpunks will serve as a discussion forum for the members of > the cypherpunks community. The discussion group previously resided on > a mailing list run at toad.com but due to a difference of opinion > between the majority of active members of the list and the owner of > toad.com, John Gilmore, the list must now relocate onto usenet as a > temporary measure while further measures are put in place to > re-establish a mailing list format. The group has approximately 1500 > members and has been active online for some 5 years. I would like to see that 'temporary measure' changed to one means of distribution and a resource in addition to the remailer chain. I would really like to see this stay in place. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

1 0

Re: NSA Rainbow Series.
by Tobin Fricke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> 1-800-688-6115 press 0 or just wait for the operator. My second > order consisting of posters and video has not arrived either. It has been > about 6 weeks. The Rainbow order was only 2 weeks. Be prepared that when > you order the Rainbow series you will be getting a large box.Their are > something like 30+ booklets in the series. > There is a set of security posters that include a Santa > poster.And there is also a video with two films on it (Acess Ins and outs > adb Acess Control). How much does all this stuff from the NSA cost? Tobin Fricke (please reply privately, tobin(a)mail.edm.net)

1 0

Transmission of Crypto material and ITAR
by Benjamin Grosman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear All, I have a question regarding the impossible enforcement of ITAR/EAR: Naturally I cannot download crypto software from the US, but most of these sites have mirrors in other countries, such as the UK for PGP, and sweden and finland for lots of things. However, with the way that information is routed throughout the internet from these sites, whenever I, in Australia, request packets containing this data from the UK etc, it invariably passes through the US from coast to coast! Therefore, if ITAR/EAR tries to govern that, aren't they really trying to enforce something totally unenforcable? Surely they cannot expect all gateways operated by, say, Sprint and MCI to packet sniff 'n' search? Can anyone tell me what the ruling is with regards to this? Yours Sincerely, Benjamin Grosman ---------------------------------------------------------------- Benjamin Grosman - Programmer, Magna Data Internet Solutions Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur. [Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.] ----------------------------------------------------------------

1 0