December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

legal question of DSA-based signatures?
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I have before me a statement made by Information Security Corp.: "The Comptroller General has ruled that, for the purposes of electronic commerce, DSA-based digital signatures are as legally binding as hand- written signatures." Can anyone verify this?

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Netly News special report: "The Privacy Snatchers"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Recently the FBI has started to demand a creepy new anti-privacy law. It requires that all future technologies -- from cell phones to WordPerfect -- include a kind of electronic peephole to let law enforcement agents snoop through your private files and communications without your knowledge or permission. One House committee has already approved the FBI's bill. Such easy access is the fantasy of every unethical policeman and corrupt bureaucrat. Now, the police say they'll never peek through this peephole without a judge's approval. But history reveals that time and again, the FBI, the military and other law enforcement organizations have ignored the law and spied on Americans illegally, without court authorization. Government agencies have subjected hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans to unjust surveillance, illegal wiretaps and warrantless searches. Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, feminists, gay rights leaders and Catholic priests were spied on. Even Supreme Court justices were monitored. Can we trust the FBI? Visit the Netly News for a special report on The Privacy Snatchers: http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1466,00.html -Declan ------ http://cgi.pathfinder.com/netly/opinion/0,1042,1466,00.html The Netly News (http://netlynews.com/) October 3, 1997 The Privacy Snatchers By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) ------ ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: Stronghold
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeff Barber <jeffb(a)issl.atl.hp.com> writes: > This is revisionist history. I can't recall any intimation at the > time that any messages were filtered from the unfiltered list. There were three lists. The unfiltered list did not go through the moderator's hands in any way and continued to received all messages (which is how unfiltered subscribers found out about the problem). The filtered list had the posts approved by the moderated. Then there was supposed to be a "flames" list where the moderator sent posts he had rejected. In theory, the moderated+flames lists should have the same contents as the unfiltered list. Here is the original statement by the moderator laying out his policy: > 3) Cypherpunks who wish to read all posts to the list may do so > by taking advantage of either of two optional lists. The first > (cypherpunk-flames(a)toad.com) will consist solely of messages > expurgated from the main Cypherpunks list. (Those who subscribe > to "flames" will be able to easily monitor my moderating > decisions.) The second (cypherpunks-unedited(a)toad.com) will > contain all posts sent to Cypherpunks. It will be the equivalent > of the current open, unmoderated list. It will appeal to those > who don't want list moderation. > > 6) Because every message submitted to Cypherpunk will be posted > to two of the three sister lists, I don't intend to lose much > sleep over whether or not this or that moderating decision was > perfect. I will do the best job I can, within the constraints > listed here. If I err, it isn't fatal. Everyone who wants one > will have two Cypherpunk venues for their posts. Sounds fair > enough to me. What do you think? Here is a message from a pseudonymous poster laying out what actually happened. Many list members may not have seen this message, unless they were subscribed to the unfiltered list. > Well, as it turns out, a number of messages have made it neither to > cypherpunks nor to cypherpunks-flames. Making matters worse, however, > not only are certain messages being suppressed from both lists, but > even messages mentioning that fact get suppressed from both the > cypherpunks and the cypherpunks-flames lists! and here is a letter to him from the moderator, confirming this fact: > Hi, > > On 7 Feb 1997, Against Moderation wrote: > > > What I object to more strongly and think is wrong is the > > fact that it went to *neither* list. > > Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that. As soon as I can > arrange it with John, I am going to stop moderating the list. > In the interim, I *will not* be sending your post onto either > the Flames or the Moderated lists. This is done for legal > reason. As it is, you have already published a libel on the > unedited list by repeating Dimitri's libel. This exposes you to > legal liability, but as an anonymous poster, you are somewhat > insulated from the consequences of your act. In sum, no messages were filtered from the unfiltered list, which is how cypherpunks who avoided moderation learned of the situation. The messages were eliminated from the regular (moderated) list, but they were not sent to the "flames" list, contrary to the stated policies. No hint was given to the subscribers to the moderated list, which was the majority, that this was being done. Messages referring to these facts were also filtered. A sad episode indeed.

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Anne Wells Branscomb and other information
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anne Wells Branscomb has died. She was 68. A longtime communications and computer lawyer, she significantly shaped the world of information and Net-policy. (I met her once, at a Computers Freedom and Privacy conference.) Her short biography is at: http://www.ngi.org/AWB/ On a different note, congratulations to: * Solveig Singleton, the new director of information studies at the Cato Institute. * Bruce Schneier and EPIC's Dave Banisar, for their book released last month, "The Electronic Privacy Papers." * EPIC's Marc Rotenberg and Phil Agre, for their book released this month: Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape, edited by Philip E. Agre and Marc Rotenberg (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997). * Bob Palacios, former webmaster for the Center for Democracy and Technology, who's moving on to a new job at a Rockville, MD software company. (I understand CDT needs a new webmaster.) Also, I hear the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market thinktank in Washington, DC, is looking for a full-time analyst to do Internet policy work for them. Stuff like privacy, Net-regulation, free speech. Email me for contact info. -Declan ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: legal question of DSA-based signatures?
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: kaye(a)popd.ix.netcom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 12:18:36 -0700 Reply-To: Digital Signature discussion <DIGSIG(a)VM.TEMPLE.EDU> Sender: Digital Signature discussion <DIGSIG(a)VM.TEMPLE.EDU> From: Kaye Caldwell <kaye(a)IX.NETCOM.COM> Subject: Re: legal question of DSA-based signatures? To: DIGSIG(a)VM.TEMPLE.EDU The document to which this refers is posted at: http://www.softwareIndustry.org/issues/docs-org/cg-opinion.pdf At 01:23 PM 10/3/97 -0400, you wrote: >I think I already know the answer to this, but it might be fun to have the >word with the bark on it... > >If you reply to this, I'll pass it on to the cypherpunks list. > >Notice that the question comes through an anonymous remailer. > >Cheers, >Bob Hettinga >--- begin forwarded text > > >Date: Fri, 3 Oct 1997 12:17:32 -0400 >From: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> >Comments: This message was remailed by a FREE automated > remailing service. For additional information on this service, > send a message with the subject "remailer-help" to > remailer(a)anon.efga.org. The body of the message will be > discarded. To report abuse, contact the operator at > admin(a)anon.efga.org. Headers below this point were > inserted by the original sender. >Subject: legal question of DSA-based signatures? >To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net >Precedence: bulk >Reply-To: Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> >X-Loop: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > >I have before me a statement made by Information Security Corp.: > >"The Comptroller General has ruled that, for the purposes of electronic >commerce, DSA-based digital signatures are as legally binding as hand- >written signatures." > >Can anyone verify this? > >--- end forwarded text > > > >----------------- >Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox >e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA >"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, >[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to >experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' >The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ >Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http:www.fc98.ai> > > --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http:www.fc98.ai>

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C'Punk Action Project - Help the Newbie
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Law Abiding Citizen wrote: > > I'm new to encryption, having just purchased PGP. I want to abide by > the law, but I don't know who to send a copy of my secret key to. We need to compile a list of people that law-abiding citizens can send copies of their secret keys. I will start the list with those that the LAC has already mentioned. Surely other C'punks will have their own nominees for this position of supreme trust. 1. The FBI guy who shot Randy Weaver's wife. 2. The FBI guy, Kahoe, who ordered evidence of the FBI murder of citizens destroyed. 3. One of the other four top FBI officials who helped with the cover-up? 4. Your drug drug dealer, to pass along to his CIA connection. 5. A Jewish person, to give to the Mossad, to pass on to the CIA. 6. The NYC cop with the toilet plunger in his hand.

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Note to cypherpunks in Chile
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Next week I'll be speaking at REUNA-InternetWorld'97 in Santiago, Chile, staying at the Hotel Plaza San Francisco. I'd love to meet anyone who wants an update on U.S. Net-politics (or vice versa). -Declan ------------------------- Declan McCullagh Time Inc. The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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D. DENNING's report
by Jerome Thorel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi folks, Did you saw an onine version of the study by D. Denning & William E. Baugh, Jr., "ENCRYPTION AND EVOLVING TECHNOLOGIES AS TOOLS OF ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM". I've got the paper version, but am seeking an online one. Excerpt here: http://guru.cosc.georgetown.edu/~denning/crypto/oc-abs.html If there is no digital version, I can scan it for the community. PLEASE ANSWER ME PRIVATLY - am not a cypherpunk sub' --> Jerome Thorel lambda bulletin Paris, France www.freenix.fr/netizen <--

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Guilt
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Anonymous wrote: >Alex Le Heux wrote: >Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> wrote: >>Let's also take a look at the Dutch performance during their >>occupation. While there certainly were many courageous Dutch people >>who helped refugees (at great personal risk, to say the least), and >>there were many courageous Dutch people who were in the resistance, >>there were also many Dutch people who did not perform so well. Not >>only were a large number of Jewish people turned in by Dutch >>informers, but there were even Dutch SS units. > >You have a nerve. You, coming from a country where people are still >regularly killed in the name of racism, tell me this?! >Alex >------------ >The Same Old Guy replied: > >Want the cold, hard facts of life, Bubba? >You didn't put WWII 'behind' you. We did! >Gun-loving Americans conquered your continent and gave you your >countries back instead of enslaving you, like every other winner in >history has done. > >*** Certified Low Blow *** >Some of us discriminate against Jews. Do you know why? >Because we HAVE some! >*** Certified Low Blow *** > >We were giving them refuge while Europe was massacring them by the >millions. Now you have the balls to say we're not all treating them >right all of the time. >Buy a fucking clue! Monty Cantsin is feeling a bit guilty about starting this. While there is some value in taking the smug Europeans down a few notches, it is beginning to look as if some Americans need to be taken down a few notches as well. "The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People" by John Loftus and Mark Aarons. Pages 49-50: "In 1943 the Holocaust was in full operation, but in April of that year in Bermuda, a conference of British and American officials formally decided that nothing should be done about it. They 'ruled out all plans for mass rescue.' The British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department were both afraid that the Third Reich would be quite willing, indeed eager, to stop the gas chambers, empty the concentration camps, and let hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish survivors emigrate to freedom in the West. The Foreign Office 'revealed in confidence' to the State Department its fear that Hitler might permit a mass exodus. If approaches to Germany to release Jews were 'pressed too much that is exactly what might happen.'[46] "The bigoted reality behind the Secret Report of the Easter 1943 Bermuda Conference was that not a single Allied nation wanted to let teh Jews settle in its country. The unspoken consensus was that it was better to let Hitler handle them than arrange a mass evacuation to the United States, England, or Canada. In short, the Jews were expendable to the war effort.[47] Only after the war was it confirmed that a rescue operation to the Nazi concentration camps could have been successful. 'Marshal of the RAF Sir Arthur `Bomber` Harris declared afterwards that a rescue plan was `perfectly feasible, but I was never asked to undertake it.`'[48] "No one campaigned to rescue the Jews because the leaders of the Western nations had deliberately withheld the truth about the Holocaust from their own citizens. After verification by each of the Allied intelligence services, the body counts of murdered Jews were quietly classified as early as September 1941." Pages 70-71: "Ibn Saud had no intention of ever letting a single Jew emigrate to Palestine. President Roosevelt discovered this for himself, but too late. "In February 1945, just before he died, President Roosevelt personally met Ibn Saud. He attempted to enlist the king's support for the Zionist solution, but Ibn Saud firmly rejected the idea, instead suggesting that the Allies should give 'them and their descendants the choicest lands and homes of the Germans who oppressed them' or that the Allied countries take in the Jews themselves.[57] "The king's vehement opposition to Jewish migration was a bit of a shock to Roosevelt, who was strongly sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Yet none of the Western nations was ever prepared to take more than a handful of Holocaust survivors. As one book showed, the Canadian policy was 'none is too many.' The king seemed to recognize this, and he reminded Roosevelt that Palestine had already taken 'its fair share of refugees from Europe.' "Suddenly the president's sympathy for the Jews was wavering. He told Ibn Saud that 'he would do nothing to assist the Jews against the Arabs and would make no move hostile to the Arab people.' Roosevelt's new policy was to be netural, but neutral in favor of the Arabs.[58] It was an uncomfortable lesson for the ailing president. The choice seemed clear enough. The United States could help the Jews found their home in Palestine, or it could have Saudi Arabia's oil as the engine room for postwar dominance. It seemed to Roosevelt that could not have both. He chose oil." Footnotes, Chapter 2: [46] David Wyman, "The Abandonment of the Jews" (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 342 [47] For accounts of the official policies of the various Allied governments, see Walter Laqueur, "The Terrible Secret" (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981); and Martin Gilbert, "Auschwitz and the Allies" (London: Michael Joseph/Rainbird, 1981). [48] Ricahrd Deacon, "The Israeli Secret Service" (London: Sphere, 1979), p. 29. Footnotes, Chapter 3: [57] The king's ". . . firmness disconcerted Roosevelt, who seems to have believed a few hours' personal chitchat and some lavish Lend-Lease assistance would win the King of Arabia to his purpose. "The president tried another tack. He was counting on the legendary hospitality of the Arab, he said, to help solve the problem of Zionism. But [the king] did not see why the Arabs of Palestine should feel especially hospitable towards the Jews. "'Make the enemy and the oppressor pay,' he said; 'that is how we Arabs wage war.' "It was not the Arabs of Palestine who had massacred the Jews. It was the Germans and, as 'a simple bedouin,' the Sa'udi king could not understand why the president seemed so eager to save Germany from the consequences of its crimes. . . ." Kelly, "Arabia, the Gulf and the West" (New York: Basic Books, 1980), pp. 271-272. [58] Returning to Washington, a chastened Roosevelt told Congress that "from Ibn Saud, of Arabia, I learned more of the whole problem of the Moslems and more about the Jewish people in 5 minutes than I could have learned by the exchange of a dozen letters." Ibid., p. 272. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNDVRD5aWtjSmRH/5AQGxqgf+Mc4zodAP9o7ymAVZpslQbrI+EuZhqhqA Wp86+KRsihdDU67YsqlEFAUz8gZXVeWsx7yJEIf94byDlP2BkeZoXhTaafrOpsne yj8tlpjhgVgFJopM3FX8PmNHK0YHrGdv7O2G+2k02z6B9jlDIv3VXbcvleX2O0iW 1o7syi6sUE9yt9ZozQS8H4AQZypPxg0OmkY/O0WunyXGOZJcSWthCgomwNAt/tz6 OBzj7csVq1lw4/+yUegEQmsimWSy+Q88HJeuiS5jJH3/jiNCaIStsBLBMYv+ql0X 7aNK7F48ckoVbC/OC5QobH2ELYs56BjqZ3N2yRnuOudhtVUO/b8Iqw== =QySR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Freedom of Encryption: Is it SAFE?
by Michael Pierson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- There has been much discussion recently concerning how to fix certain flaws, or block various amendments in encryption legislation being shepherded through Congress. A far more fundamental problem with these legislative efforts from the beginning was that they involved an implicit concession to the idea that a U.S. citizen's freedom to privately exchange information in whatever coding scheme he or she might choose required some kind of government affirmation or ratification as validation. Once one seeks for the government's deigning to "affirm the rights of United States persons to use and sell encryption", it can (and does) then easily proceed to attach conditions and caveats to these "affirmed" rights. In the process the surveillance hawks within the government have managed, with hardly any struggle, to advance the appearance of legitimacy for their claims of authority to regulate this form of expression. Now comes an expectation that the nature of these "affirmed rights" should be tailored to address "the concerns of national security and the federal law enforcement community." This same community has on occasion complained about how their efforts to fight organized crime and terrorism are being thwarted by not having the modern newspeak disguised equivalent of "Writs of Assistance" (and they are arguably making progress toward acquiring just such powers IMO). Very few politicians are willing to commit the heresy of clearly and staunchly asserting that the information coding methods used by citizens are under no obligation to pass any litmus test, or to be subject to any kind of prior approval or restraint determined by criteria of the law enforcement establishment or anyone else. If the Feds lament that this will make their job harder, too bad. In the words of Orson Welles: "Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy." When these various legislative efforts attempted to reach beyond the issues of export restrictions to address those of domestic use, they became a doubtful and dangerous fix to something that wasn't broke in the first place. If the Government is intent on "abridging the freedom" to use strong encryption domestically, a legislative affirmation of these rights is feeble comfort at best. If I'm seeking to protect my possessions, I don't ask a thief to affirm my property rights. Of course, even the export question is really about the aims of the state's surveillance constituency to obstruct the wide deployment of strong encryption domestically, and its interoperability on the internet as a whole. Challenging the derisible bogosity of the "preventing the Evil Ones from acquiring this technology" rationale that is invoked to justify these restrictions was not something legislation was likely to do with any great vigor. Legislation to "relax" these restrictions involves lending credence to the dubious assumption that these restrictions had any constitutional validity to begin with. Any bill that would have truly provided for the statutory endorsement of the acceptably uncompromised use of strong encryption never really had much more than a snowball's chance in hell of actually being signed into law given the current political balance of power, did it? Far more likely, was that it could be corrupted and hijacked as a vehicle to further the very type of restrictions it was purportedly intended to relieve. A collateral consequence is an increased arrogance and presumption among lawmakers that it is their prerogative to act to define for us citizens, what freedoms for domestic use of encryption we should be permitted. The growing gallery of GAK amendments and competing legislative proposals now emerging appears to support this sad scenario. It's starting to look like the prospects for meaningfully improving the situation with encryption legislation in the current political environment were about as promising as the prospects of a neophyte gambler coming out ahead at a crooked casino. I expect any apparent winnings in the end will come with a catch between the lines in the fine print, if they come at all. In any case, whatever is legislatively affirmed can later be legislatively denied. What a King presumes is his to grant, he usually presumes is his to revoke as well. In the end, what will have really been gained by this legislative venture, and what will have been explicitly or implicitly surrendered? As I see it, at this point the issue isn't about counting wins, it's about cutting losses. Freedom of encryption.... Is it SAFE? I don't think so. - -Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNDVks9GJlWF+GPx9AQGctwQAlE+SKB3/rqG7kz3qdcF2I5eBedz3/DDK f5Vg0Zd8PbhowwT9gWAvyt+ysIZCqRJWMu3vPmWP2iN2ZghLaiGRVv8piXhyUQYl rhv/rOz1Yc1raJbU5Wk+9Qr9zxQqxHZiAk1G0Irye4yDfi72ar8ndD5CqUegBnaF QAoyFGtiJZ4= =2zJO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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