December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Analysis of proposed UK ban on use of non-escrowed crypto
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security wrote: > > Personally think these proposals are "fliers", things so bad that the > radicals will get hung up on elements the gov could really care less about. > Tricky part is to pick out what complies with the *real* agenda. Sounds like you got caught 'bending over' in the past, and learned from the experience. How about a law that requires all politicians to speak through an interpreter? Say, Howard Stern? (Only because Lenny Bruce is dead.) -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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Re: LJL into key-escrow? (was Re: The Balloon is Going Up....criminalization of noncompliant crypto)
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, Apr 02, 1997 at 12:26:55PM -0600, Toto wrote: [...] > > Kent, > You should try to refrain from embarassing yourself by referring > to the above as "reasoning". Obviously, I embarass easily. > I'm of a like mind with Bill Stewart and Dr. Robert's, or whoever, > who appear to think that compromises on privacy and freedom lead to > yellow stars and barbed-wire fences. Do you work for a living? > Now, if you could just give us similar examples to illustrate > how the burdgeoning market for Zyklon-B showed that corporations > *really wanted* the Holocaust... Hitler again. You lose. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent(a)songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

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Re: LJL into key-escrow? (was Re: The Balloon is Going Up....criminalization of noncompliant crypto)
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin, lacking valid arguments, asked: > > Do you work for a living? I'm an undercover liquor store owner. I use PGP ski-masks to retain my anonymity when picking up the night's receipts. (It's kind of a freelance 'cash escrow' type of concept.) -- Toto "The Xenix Chainsaw Massacre" http://bureau42.base.org/public/xenix/xenbody.html

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q.N2
by nadeshda＠mexred.net.mx 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To whom it may concern: Thank you for answering my mail, it was very useful for me, but at the end you asked me why do I think legislation would be needed? I have several opinions: In one part I think that it is not necessary to legislate, because as you said you have to protect your privacy from the gobernent, IŽm agree of that, but I have other situations: IŽm going to give you some examples: 1) I heard about several cases about individuals who use the Internet to attract children who are then raped and murdered, kidnapped and sold on the black market, many of these pediophiles work out in open in complete anonimaty, due to the structure of the Internet and many service providers. 2) And what about the terroists who use the Internet to comunicate with each other, gather information and funding establish methods, investigate methods of terrorism (how to make a bomb in your house using abono and household chemicals. This is an area that should be strongly controlled, but the question is how do you do it without restricting the rights of the average citizen?

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Junger v. Secretary of State
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We offer Peter Junger pleadings against the Secretary of State and the government's responses: "This action is brought by a law professor under the First Amendment challenging United States export laws that he claims infringe upon his rights to speak and publish encryption software and other encryption information." Several prominent cryptographers and NSA officials have provided declarations in connection with the suit. http://jya.com/pdj.htm

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Re: Bot-generated insults
by Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mixmaster wrote: > > Now, you too can act like a total asshole and send anonymous slams to mailing > lists and newsgroups making it impossible to killfile. Been there, done that. --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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FC 97 and www.offshore.com.ai offline
by Jim Burnes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone been able to reach www.offshore.com.ai for the last several weeks. I've been trying to follow up with some email to Vince about getting my fellow FC '97 attendees' email addresses, but to no avail. If anyone on the list was at the conference, or has such a list I would appreciate it. BTW: hi to lucky green, eric blossom, vince and everyone that made FC 97 a wild adventure. jim burnes jim.burnes(a)ssds.com Jim Burnes Engineer, Western Security, SSDS Inc jim.burnes(a)ssds.com ---- Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. -Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural Addr

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Junger vs. U.S. crypto-suit
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to JYA for putting these documents online; I wasn't able to convert 'em myself. -Declan ************ http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/editorial/0,1012,792,00.html The Netly News Network / Afterword Junger vs. U.S. By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) April 2, 1997 Peter Junger decided to do it differently when he filed a lawsuit against the Federal government seeking to lift export controls on encryption software. He could have mimicked the other two crypto-suits and asked the government to let him ship data-scrambling software overseas -- and sue when the request was denied. But Junger never sent that query to the Feds. "In my case I've never applied for permission. >From the beginning I'm raising the constitutional issues. So it's a cleaner case," says Junger, a 63-year old law professor at Case Western Reserve University. Junger hopes to win by stressing that any regulation requiring government approval of a publication -- a "prior restraint" -- is unconstitutional, even when applied to computer programs. "My position is that I don't have to apply for a license. It's unconstitutional for you to require me to apply for a license," he says. (The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment's "chief purpose" is "to prevent previous restraints upon publication.") Junger filed his lawsuit last spring. Now the documents are online at http://jya.com/pdj.htm; read on for some excerpts... ---------- Excerpted from Statement of issues, points, and authorities ISSUES Prof. Junger challenges those provisions of the ITAR, as written and as would be applied to his conduct, that require a license or some other government approval before disclosing cryptographic software or technical data. The following are principal standing and First Amendment issues that plaintiff respectfully suggests ought to be addressed at oral argument: Standing Issues I. Prof. Junger has alleged that he cannot disclose at least some cryptographic information (either cryptographic software or technical data) to foreign persons or place some of the information on the internet without a license. Does Prof. Junger have standing to challenge the regulations? Or must he first apply for a license? First Amendment Issues II. As a threshold matter, is source code and object code expression or so closely related to expression that is protected by the First Amendment? III. There is no dispute that certain cryptographic software and technical data is subject to licensing under ITAR. Do the licensing requirements amount to a system of unconstitutional prior restraints? IV. The government has asserted that export controls on cryptographic software and technical data are necessary to protect its ability to gather foreign intelligence. Do the regulations control a substantial amount of protected expression that is unrelated to the government's stated purpose? V. Notwithstanding that all statutes and regulations are imbued with some ambiguity, are these regulations sufficiently clear to persons of ordinary intelligence? ---------- Code that actually encrypts deserves First Amendment protection apart from its own expressive content. Code that actually encrypts can be used to keep other communication secret and confidential. To the extent that source code and object code have a function, that function is to protect the secrecy and confidentiality of other communication. For this reason alone, cryptographic computer code deserves First Amendment protection. As a means of protecting confidentiality and furthering other communication. cryptographic code is no different than the newsracks at issue in Lakewood or the ink and paper at issue in Minneapolis Star & Tribune Co. v. Comm. of Revenue, 460 U.S. 575 ( 1983). Any requirement that a person must first seek a license or other government approval before publishing or disclosing protected expression is a classic prior restraint. Near v. Minnesota, 283 U.S. 697 (1931). ###

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Something of interest...
by IRSNWPR＠net.insp.irs.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Oregonian, Wednesday, April 2, 1997 20 armed federal agents raid home in Vancouver - The occupant is investigated for an Internet essay he allegedly wrote on killing government officials By John Painter Jr. of The Oregonian staff VANCOUVER, Wash. - About 20 armed agents from at least three federal agencies in four states raided a Vancouver home Tuesday, apparently looking for evidence of a plot to kill government officials. Sources said James D. Bell, who reportedly lives with his elderly parents at the home at 7214 Corregidor Road, was the subject of an investigation involving an essay he allegedly wrote and circulated on the Internet. The essay promotes a way to win money by correctly predicting the time of death of selected government agents. The essay - "Assassination Politics" - has been the subject of both serious discussion and pointed derision in Internet forums. One critic described it as "nothing more than a plan to commit murder for political purposes." Agents, guns drawn, boiled from a dozen-vehicle caravan before it stopped rolling just after 9 a.m. and entered the McLoughlin Heights neighborhood home to search it. The FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raiders were accompanied by members of the Portland Police Bureau's bomb squad. Bell, described in a federal document as armed and dangerous, was seen chatting with agents outside the house after agents entered the home. The raid reportedly was planned by the IRS Inspection office in Walnut Creek, Calif., which does criminal investigations for the agency. Most of the agents at the scene drove cars bearing Oregon plates. Others had plates from Washington, California and Nevada. The Internet essay speculates on a complicated procedure to kill government agents who violate the "Non-Aggression Principle," which was not explained. The essay suggests creation of an organization that would manage a list of people who "had seriously violated the NAP, but who would not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were done at the behest of the government." The essay mentions the federal agents involved in the Waco and Ruby Ridge actions as examples. Each name would have a dollar figure attached to it. That amount- received as contributions-would be awarded "for correctly `predicting' the person's death, presumably naming the exact date," the essay says. "Predictions" would go into a computer file, it says, then be encrypted. The death-date prediction then would be delivered to the organization by an untraceable method, such as putting it on a floppy computer disk in code and mailing it. In effect, the source said, when the pool got big enough someone would kill the targeted person and collect the pool money by telling beforehand when the target would die. Agents at the scene refused to comment on the probable cause for the search warrant, as did the IRS office in California and the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle. However, a source familiar with the investigation suggested that IRS agents believed they are among the potential targets. In March 1989, the house was raided as a suspected methamphetamine lab, but drug agents found only a chemical used in making the drug. James Bell was charged with manufacturing illicit drugs and possessing phenyl acetic acid with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. The felonies were later dismissed, and Bell was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $2,500 fine.

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Something of interest...
by IRS Inspection 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Oregonian, Wednesday, April 2, 1997 20 armed federal agents raid home in Vancouver - The occupant is investigated for an Internet essay he allegedly wrote on killing government officials By John Painter Jr. of The Oregonian staff VANCOUVER, Wash. - About 20 armed agents from at least three federal agencies in four states raided a Vancouver home Tuesday, apparently looking for evidence of a plot to kill government officials. Sources said James D. Bell, who reportedly lives with his elderly parents at the home at 7214 Corregidor Road, was the subject of an investigation involving an essay he allegedly wrote and circulated on the Internet. The essay promotes a way to win money by correctly predicting the time of death of selected government agents. The essay - "Assassination Politics" - has been the subject of both serious discussion and pointed derision in Internet forums. One critic described it as "nothing more than a plan to commit murder for political purposes." Agents, guns drawn, boiled from a dozen-vehicle caravan before it stopped rolling just after 9 a.m. and entered the McLoughlin Heights neighborhood home to search it. The FBI, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms raiders were accompanied by members of the Portland Police Bureau's bomb squad. Bell, described in a federal document as armed and dangerous, was seen chatting with agents outside the house after agents entered the home. The raid reportedly was planned by the IRS Inspection office in Walnut Creek, Calif., which does criminal investigations for the agency. Most of the agents at the scene drove cars bearing Oregon plates. Others had plates from Washington, California and Nevada. The Internet essay speculates on a complicated procedure to kill government agents who violate the "Non-Aggression Principle," which was not explained. The essay suggests creation of an organization that would manage a list of people who "had seriously violated the NAP, but who would not see justice in our courts due to the fact that their actions were done at the behest of the government." The essay mentions the federal agents involved in the Waco and Ruby Ridge actions as examples. Each name would have a dollar figure attached to it. That amount- received as contributions-would be awarded "for correctly `predicting' the person's death, presumably naming the exact date," the essay says. "Predictions" would go into a computer file, it says, then be encrypted. The death-date prediction then would be delivered to the organization by an untraceable method, such as putting it on a floppy computer disk in code and mailing it. In effect, the source said, when the pool got big enough someone would kill the targeted person and collect the pool money by telling beforehand when the target would die. Agents at the scene refused to comment on the probable cause for the search warrant, as did the IRS office in California and the U.S. attorney's office in Seattle. However, a source familiar with the investigation suggested that IRS agents believed they are among the potential targets. In March 1989, the house was raided as a suspected methamphetamine lab, but drug agents found only a chemical used in making the drug. James Bell was charged with manufacturing illicit drugs and possessing phenyl acetic acid with intent to manufacture methamphetamine. The felonies were later dismissed, and Bell was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $2,500 fine.

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