December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: ArcotSign (was Re: Does security depend on hardware?)
by HyperReal-Anon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Julian, 1. Minor nit-picks should be off-line, not spammed to 3 lists. 2. Tupographical errors should not be nit-picked. 3. Spell check your grammar flames. and 4. Do what I say, not what I do. proff(a)iq.org wrote: > > > >the legitimate user has, excepting the 'remembered secret'. Or is > > >there anything wrong with my logic? > > > > Yes. There is something wrong with you logic. > > > > Bruce > > ********************************************************************** > > Bruce Schneier, President, Counterpane Systems Phone: 612-823-1098 > > There's something wrong with you grammer. ^^^^^^^ "grammer" indeed! > > Cheers, > Julian.

1 0

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"More importantly, as Noam Chomsky points out in "Manufacturing Consent", lying politicians are the modern democratic equivalent of feudal tyrants beating or executing citizens in more "uncivilized times". " Zappa said politics was the entertainment branch of industry.

1 0

arms collectors...
by David Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----- Forwarded message from "Thomas B. Roach" <sigint(a)thegrid.net> ----- Washington Times, 25 Sep 98 Operable missile seized in customs By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES U.S. and British authorities are investigating how a Russian-design Scud missile was imported illegally by a weapons collector in California, The Washington Times has learned. "This is a full-blown missile," said John Hensley, a senior agent of the U.S. Customs Service in Los Angeles. "The only thing missing is the warhead." A Scud B missile and its mobile transporter-erector launcher --minus the warhead -- were seized Sept. 2 by customs agents in Port Hueneme, Calif., about 35 miles north of Los Angeles, said officials familiar with the case. The missile system was licensed for importation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. But paperwork in the case was falsified, and the missile system was not "demilitarized" -- rendered inoperable -- as required by import rules, Mr. Hensley told The Times. British customs officials are investigating the seller, a small firm outside London, and U.S. investigators are questioning an arms collector from Portola Valley, Calif., near Palo Alto, who bought the system, Mr. Hensley said. The missile transfer has raised fears about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missile-delivery systems. It also could be an embarrassment for the Clinton administration, which is engaged in a major international diplomatic effort to halt missile exports by Russia and China to the Middle East. The importation raises questions about U.S. national security controls. Mr. Hensley said U.S. military experts examined the missile and determined that it was produced in Czechoslovakia in 1985. The missile was identified as an SS-1C, which the Pentagon has designated as a Scud B. Transfers of missiles like the Scud B, with a range of 186 miles, are banned under the international export agreement known as the Missile Technology Control Regime. Customs officials said the missile was not identified until it was driven off the British freighter that delivered it and an inspector called customs agents to examine it. Such weapons can be imported but must first be cut up with a blowtorch so they can never be reassembled. The officials identified the buyer only as a wealthy man who is a U.S. citizen. He is a legitimate arms collector -- apparently not linked to terrorists or illicit arms dealers. But the false paperwork has raised questions about the deal and prompted the U.S. investigation. Mr. Hensley said the buyer had purchased a Scud missile earlier that had been properly rendered inoperable. But a photograph of that missile was attached to the illegal system, seized Sept. 2, in an effort to fool customs officials. After examining the missile, customs agents called the ATF and were surprised to learn that an ATF license had been issued for the missile importation. "We thought they were nuts," said one official close to the case. The missile system is being stored at the Navy's Pacific Missile Testing Center in nearby Point Mugu, near Oxnard, where it has been impounded. John D'Angelo, an ATF agent in Los Angeles, had no official comment on the case. "Routinely, the ATF and U.S. Customs Service examine items to determine their suitability for importation under federal regulations," he said. "We have not yet completed the inspection of this importation and therefore can't discuss it." The SS-1 Scud is a liquid-fueled missile that is among the most widely deployed weapons in the world. It is in service with more than 16 nations. Iraq's military forces were able to extend the range of the missile, which was fired extensively during the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The chassis of the missile's launcher was identified as a MAZ-543 truck used commonly by the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces for short-range missiles. "The guidance was totally intact and the engine was ready to go," Mr. Hensley said. "All you needed to do was strap on a garbage can full of C-4 and you had a weapon." C-4 is military high explosive. Concerning how the missile was handled by the British firm, Mr. Hensley said, "It is illegal to import this into the U.K., so the Brits are wondering how this guy got this company to do this." Investigators suspect the missile may have been bought in Europe on the black market. "Our concern is not so much that [the buyer] might have a licensing problem," Mr. Hensley said. "It's just that in the aftermath of the embassy bombings in Africa and the Oklahoma City bombing, that this could be a real problem." The Customs Service is intensifying its efforts to check for illegal imports of such weapons, he said. Stephen Bryen, a former Pentagon technology-transfer official, said weapons like the Scud must be fully dismantled before they can be allowed into the country. "You have to worry anytime somebody brings a missile into the United States, whatever cover it might be," Mr. Bryen said. He noted that terrorists or rogue states could use such collectors to acquire missiles illegally.

4 3

response much appreciated
by bill payne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friday 9/25/98 7:34 PM raymoon(a)moonware.dgsys.com http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/text/faq/usenet/assembly-language/x86/microso… >Sorry, I have not done any ASM DLL programming and none with Visual >Basic. I looked for obvious errors but could not find any. > >Sorry that I could not be of any more help. > >Ray Thanks so much for responding. I have VB 6.0 and masm 6.11. Got masm 6.11 working okay. But I get an error 48 in VB 6.0. I am sleuthing-out what is going wrong. By starting simple. I looked at the NT samples! I notice that the NT 32 bit code is different from the 16 bit api. I thought I might have grossed you out. And therefore got no response. I am SICK about what happened. But the word is getting out. http://www.aci.net/kalliste/bw1.htm I got PAID to write the attached. I will let you know WITH SOURCE CODE of my progress. And thanks so much for helping. I am SUPER-PLEASED with Applied Computer Online Services 2901 Moorpark Avenue Suite 100, San Jose, CA 95128, USA el: (408) 248-8811 U.S. Sales: (888) 927-7543 or 888-9-APPLIED Fax: (408) 249-2884 Sam and Joyce were VERY NICE. Sam declared me a Delphi user. And, therefore, I got VB 6.0 for me for $261.43. http://www.samintl.com With its 800 mb of documentation. Grollier's encylopedia fits on a 650 mb cd rom! I got a separate sheet showing the billing to my credit card. Which I will pass on. Let me show you the machines I did the work for. http://metriguard.com/HCLT.HTM One version used the Forth from my book. I wrote the assembler dlls for the PC Data System version which interfaces to VB 3.0. My feeling is that you might get some CONSULTING business if you create a FORUM on masm at your site. John Young is a LEADER on internet FORUMS http://www.jya.com/index.htm. And J Orlin Grabbe http://www.aci.net/kalliste/, who edited the attached article, is a leader on FORUMS on economics and CLINTON. Grabbe was on 60 minutes. BUT you have to create a DYNAMIC SIMPLE SITE containg INFORMATION OF USE. Hope to hear from you again. And NOTHING EVIL. Other than MASM, FORTH, LINK, ML, NMAKE, Microsoft ... Worse, of couse, than the Great Satan. best bill Title: Black and White Test of Cryptographic Algorithms Jump to Forum Click Image to Jump to Next Article Go to Text Only Print Version Black and White Test of Cryptographic Algorithms by William H. Payne This article requires special formatting. Please Click Here to Read Send This Article to a Friend: Your Name: Email Address of your Friend: Your Email address: Back to Home Page Quick Menu Visit the Button Shop Interactive Forum Black and White Test of Cryptographic Algorithms E-mail the Editor

1 0

clinton body count
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

the sheeple shearing continues... ------- Forwarded Message Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 10:50:33 -1000 From: Jonathan David Boyne <boyne(a)hawaii.edu> To: Undisclosed recipients:; Subject: [earthchanges] Re: The Clinton 'body count' - New alarm.. (fwd) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/exclusiv/980924.exrivero_clinton_bo.html THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 24, 1998 ------------------------------------------ [WorldNetDaily Exclusive] ------------------------------------------ The Clinton 'body count' New alarm over growing list of dead close to president By Michael Rivero Copyright 1998, WorldNetDaily.com "Dear Sir," began Monica Lewinsky's somewhat peevish letter of July 3rd, 1997. In it, according to the recently released report by Kenneth Starr, the former intern chided the president for failing to secure for her a new White House job, and hinted that continued stalling would result in word of their affair leaking out. The next day, Monica confronted Bill Clinton in an Oval Office meeting she described as "very emotional"; a meeting which ended when the president warned her, "It's illegal to threaten the president of the United States." Three days later, another former White House intern, Mary Mahoney, was shot five times in the back of the Georgetown Starbuck's she managed. Two of her co-workers were also killed. Even though cash remained in the register, the triple murder was quickly dismissed as a botched robbery. No suspects have ever been arrested. Coincidence? Maybe. Former Democratic National Committee fundraiser and Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was under criminal investigation. Indictments seemed imminent. Ron Brown had reportedly told a confidante that he would, "not go down alone." Days later, his plane crashed on approach to Dubrovnik airport during a trade mission excursion to Croatia. Military forensics investigators were alarmed by what appeared to be a .45-caliber bullet hole in the top of Brown's head. Coincidence? Maybe. Yet another fundraiser was Larry Lawrence, famed for his short residence at Arlington National Cemetery. Less well known is that he had been under criminal investigation by the State Department for three weeks when he died. Coincidence? Maybe. But for a growing number of Americans, the sheer numbers of strange deaths surrounding the career of Bill Clinton has begun to raise serious questions. In a meeting with Vernon Jordan, Monica Lewinsky reportedly expressed fears that she might, "end up like Mary Mahoney," and began to make sure that others knew of her affair with Bill Clinton. Of all the strange deaths surrounding the Clintons, none has come under more renewed scrutiny than the fate of White House Deputy Counsel Vincent Foster, who was found dead in Fort Marcy Park on July 20, 1993. The official investigation concluded that Foster inserted a gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. Yet according to the lab results neither Foster's fingerprints nor blood was on the gun, nor were powder granules or bullet fragments traceable to that gun in his wounds. The purported "suicide note" was found to be a forgery by three independent experts. The record of a second wound on Foster's neck, and an FBI memo that contradicts the official autopsy, strongly suggests that Foster's wounds were misrepresented in the official report. The FBI's own records revealed that deliberate deception was used to link Foster with the gun found with his body. Partly on the basis of that evidence, the FBI is now in federal court on charges of witness harassment and evidence tampering in the case. In normal police procedure, homicide is assumed right from the start. Suicide must be proven, because homicides are often concealed behind phony suicides. Yet in the case of Foster, serious doubts persist regarding the credibility of the evidence offered up in support of the claim of suicide, and a recent Zogby Poll revealed that more than two-thirds of all Americans no longer think the official conclusion of suicide is believable The official conclusion regarding Commerce Secretary Ron Brown's death was that his plane was brought down by, "the worst storm in a decade." However, the Dubrovnik airport weather office, just two miles from the crash site, could not confirm the existence of any such storm, nor did any other pilots in the area. According to the April 8, 1996, Aviation Week & Space Technology, three separate radio links to the aircraft all quit while the aircraft was still seven miles from the crash, evidence that the plane suffered a total electrical failure in flight which was never investigated. The perfectly cylindrical hole in Ron Brown's skull never triggered an autopsy. After Ron Brown's death, his co-worker, Barbara Wise, was found locked in her office at the Department of Commerce, dead, bruised, and partially nude. Following Brown's death, John Huang's new boss at Commerce was Charles Meissner, who shortly thereafter died in yet another plane crash. These and other questionable deaths have been collected together in a document known as the "Dead Bodies List," which can now be found in many locations on the World Wide Web. Some of the cases are poorly documented and have been dismissed until now as "conspiracy theory." However, analysis of the "Dead Bodies List" by experts on the Internet revealed that in many cases, deaths whose circumstances demanded an investigation had been ignored. Some events officially declared to be accidents seem to stretch the bounds of credulity. In one case, Stanley Heard, member of a Clinton advisory committee and chiropractor to Clinton family members, and his lawyer Steve Dickson were flying to a meeting with a reporter. Heard's private plane caught fire, but he was able to make it back to his airport and rent another plane to continue his journey. The rented plane then caught fire. This time, Heard did not make it back to the airport. Gandy Baugh, attorney for Clinton friend and convicted cocaine distributor Dan Lasater, fell out of a building. Baugh's law partner was dead just one month later. Jon Parnell Walker, an RTC investigator looking into Whitewater, interrupted his inspection of his new apartment to throw himself off of the balcony. Nor does the pattern of suspicious deaths discriminate by gender. Susan Coleman was reportedly a mistress to Clinton while he was Arkansas attorney general; she was seven months pregnant with what she claimed was Clinton's child when she died. Judy Gibbs, a former Penthouse Pet and call girl, reportedly counted Bill Clinton among her clients. Shortly after agreeing to help police in an investigation into Arkansas cocaine trafficking, Judy burned to death. Kathy Ferguson, a witness in the Paula Jones case, was killed with a gunshot behind the ear and was declared a suicide, even though her suitcases had all been packed for an immediate trip. One month later, Bill Shelton, Kathy's boyfriend and a police officer who had vowed to get to the bottom of Kathy's murder, was also dead of a gunshot, his body dumped on Kathy's grave. Another alarming trend observed in these deaths is how society's safeguards against murder appear to have been compromised. Many of the questionable deaths involved either negligence or the complicity of medical examiners. Dr. Fahmy Malek was the Arkansas medical examiner under then-Gov. Bill Clinton. His most famous case involved his ruling in the "Train Deaths" case of Don Henry and Kevin Ives in which Dr. Malek ruled that the two boys had fallen asleep on the railroad tracks and been run over by a train. A subsequent autopsy by another examiner found signs of foul play on both the boys' bodies and concluded that they had been murdered. According to Jean Duffey, the prosecutor in the Saline County Drug Task Force, the two boys accidentally stumbled onto a "protected" drug drop and were killed for it. Dan Harmon, the Arkansas investigator who concluded there was no murder, is now in prison on drug charges. Despite the evidence for murder and national exposure, the Henry/Ives case has never officially been re-opened, and Jean Duffy has since left Arkansas out of fear for her life. Several witnesses in the Henry/Ives case later died and were ruled as either suicides or natural causes by Dr. Malek, whose willingness to provide an innocuous explanation for these deaths is illustrated in one case where he claimed that a headless victim had died of natural causes. Malek claimed that the victim's small dog had eaten the head, which was later recovered from a trash bin. When pressed to fire Dr. Malek, Gov. Clinton excused the medical examiner's performance as the result of overwork and gave him a raise. Dr. Malek's Washington D.C. counterpart was Fairfax, Virginia, Medical Examiner James C. Beyer. Long before his autopsy on Vincent Foster, Beyer's work was disputed. In the case of Tim Easely, Beyer ignored obvious defensive wounds, and eyewitness reports of an argument between Easely and his girlfriend, to conclude that Easely had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the chest. When an outside expert called attention to the fact that Easely had been stabbed clear through one of his palms, the girlfriend confessed to the murder. In the case of Tommy Burkett, Beyer ignored signs of violence done to Burkett to rule it was a simple suicide. A subsequent autopsy showed that Beyer had not even done the work he claimed in his original autopsy. Even though Beyer showed X-rays to Burkett's father, Beyer later claimed they did not exist. When Beyer performed the Foster autopsy, he wrote in his report that X-rays had been taken, then again claimed they never existed when asked to produce them. In some cases, the deaths simply have no innocuous explanation, One witness, Jeff Rhodes (who had information on the Henry/Ives murders) was found with his hands and feet partly sawn off, shot in the head, then burned and thrown in a trash bin. Another obvious murder was Jerry Parks, Clinton's head of security in Little Rock. Immediately following news of Foster's death, Parks reportedly told his family, "Bill Clinton is cleaning house." Just weeks after the Parks' home had been broken into and his files on Clinton stolen, Parks was shot four times in his car. Ron Miller, on whose evidence Nora and Gene Lum were convicted of laundering Clinton campaign donations, went from perfect heath to death in just one week in a manner so strange that his doctors ordered special postmortem tests. The results of those tests have never been released, but toxicologists familiar with the case suggest that Miller's symptoms are consistent with Ricin, a cold war assassin's poison. For a fortunate few the murder attempts have failed. In the case of Arkansas drug investigator Russell Welch, his doctors were able to identify that he had been infected with military anthrax in time to save his life. Gary Johnson, Gennifer Flowers' neighbor whose video surveillance camera had accidentally caught Bill Clinton entering Flowers' apartment, was left for dead by the men who took the video tape. Gary survived, although he is crippled for life. L.J. Davis, a reporter looking into the Clinton scandals, was attacked in his hotel room but survived (his notes on Clinton were stolen). Dennis Patrick, whose bond trading account at Dan Lasater's company was used to launder millions of dollars of drug money, has had four attempts on his life. But the real importance of the "Dead Bodies List" isn't what it tells us of modern political intrigues, but what it tells us of ourselves, in how we respond to it. The list has been around for quite some time, largely ignored by the general public, completely ignored by the mainstream media. The common reaction has been that such a list is unbelievable, not for its contents, but for its implications. For that reason, most Americans have, until recently, accepted at face value the official assurances that all these deaths are isolated incidents with no real meaning; that all the indications of foul play and cover-up are just an accumulation of clerical error and "overwork"; that it's all just "coincidence." On Aug. 17, as Bill Clinton admitted his "inappropriate relationship" with Monica Lewinsky on nationwide television, Americans began to confront the unavoidable fact that this president and his administration had lied to the public about a rather trivial matter. Americans came to realize that this president and his administration could no longer safely be assumed to have told the truth on more serious matters. In this new climate of doubt, the "Dead Bodies List" has enjoyed a new vogue, albeit a dark one. Talk radio discusses it. Total strangers e-mail it to each other. What was unthinkable a few months ago has become all too plausible. Political murder has come to America. Those cases on the "Dead Bodies List" where hard evidence directly contradicts the official conclusion have come under renewed scrutiny. It takes courage for the average citizen to accept that the government has lied to them, for by doing so, the citizen also accepts the obligation to do something about it. Americans know beyond a doubt that they have been lied to. Americans are discovering that they cannot ignore the fact of being lied to without sacrificing that part of the American self-image that holds honor and justice as ideals. But as the above poll would suggest, such a sacrifice is no longer acceptable. ----------------------------------------------------------- [WorldNetDaily.com] --------------------------------------------------------- © 1998 Western Journalism Center --------------------------------------------------------- This page was last built 9/24/98; 11:51:28 Site: matlanta(a)mindspring.com *** A List of Strange Deaths of Individuals Who All Had Verifiable Ties with Bill Clinton http://www.devvy.com/death_list.html VINCE FOSTER FIVE YEARS AFTER Unsolved Mystery Hampers All Starr's Probes By Carl Limbacher http://www.esotericworldnews.com/vince.htm VINCE FOSTER INVESTIGATIONCHRIS RUDDY, (PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE) http://www.ruddynews.com Christopher Ruddy's New Web Site <NewsMax.com> http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover.shtml Vince Foster - Patrick Knowlton v. FBI Agent Bransford http://www.monumental.com/lawofcjc/pk/ *** Foster "J'Accuse!" http://www.angelfire.com/fl/pjcomix/zola1.html EENIE MENA MINIE MOE... http://www.esotericworldnews.com/eenie.htm The Mena Coverup http://www.esotericworldnews.com/mena.htm THE "SECRET" CHEMICAL FACTORY THAT NO ONE TRIED TO HIDE http://www.esotericworldnews.com/london.htm American Patriot Friends Network (APFN) APFN EMAIL LIST SUBSCRIBE/UNSCBSCRIBE IN SUBJECT LINE TO APFN(a)netbox.com APFN ONELIST: http://www.onelist/subscribe.cgi/apfn http://w20.hitbox.com/wc/index.cgi?W50887524 http://esotericworldnews.com/apfncont.htm http://www.freeyellow.com/members5/apfn/ ----------------------- Headers -------------------------------- Return-Path: <pamrobin(a)caliente.igate.com> Received: from rly-za04.mx.aol.com (rly-za04.mail.aol.com [172.31.36.100]) by air-za04.mail.aol.com (v50.11) with SMTP; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 22:49:20 -0400 Received: from heather.greatbasin.com (heather.greatbasin.net [207.228.35.41]) by rly-za04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id WAA15772; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 22:46:20 -0400 (EDT) Received: from caliente.igate.com ([207.228.53.226]) by heather.greatbasin.com (8.9.0/8.8.8) with ESMTP id SAA08413; Thu, 24 Sep 1998 18:38:04 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <360AF264.C0288E60(a)caliente.igate.com> Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 18:31:16 -0700 From: American Patriot Friends Network <pamrobin(a)caliente.igate.com> Reply-To: APFN(a)netbox.com Organization: American Patriot Friends Network X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.05 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "\"apfn(a)onelist.com\"" <apfn(a)onelist.com> Subject: The Clinton 'body count' - New alarm.. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit >> - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left. - - --------------0F193EECF4CB9441348B1B97-- - ------- End of Forwarded Message ------- End of Forwarded Message

1 0

IP: ISPI Clips 4.73: Europeans Bristle Over NSA's ECHELON-So Should You
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "ama-gi ISPI" <offshore(a)email.msn.com> Subject: IP: ISPI Clips 4.73: Europeans Bristle Over NSA's ECHELON-So Should You Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 01:12:58 -0700 To: <Undisclosed.Recipients(a)majordomo.pobox.com> ISPI Clips 4.73: Europeans Bristle Over NSA's ECHELON-So Should You News & Info from the Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) Friday September 24, 1998 ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This From: The Baltimore Sun, September 19, 1998 http://www.sunspot.net NSA listening practices called European `threat' European Parliament report accuses agency of widespread spying http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/editorial/story.cgi?storyid=900000194001 By Neal Thompson Sun Staff The National Security Agency has incurred the wrath of some U.S. allies and triggered debate about increased global eavesdropping, thanks to a new report that accuses the agency of spying on European citizens and companies. With the help of a listening post in the moors of northern England, NSA for nearly a decade has been snatching Europe's electronic communications signals, according to a report for the European Parliament. "Within Europe, all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency, transferring all target information to Fort Meade," said the report. `Powerful threat' It warned that the NSA's tactics represent a "powerful threat to civil liberties in Europe" at a time when more communication -- and commerce -- is conducted electronically. A preliminary version of the report circulated overseas in recent months, touching off heated debate, with front-page stories in Italy, France, Scotland, England, Belgium and even Russia. The NSA won't discuss the report or even admit that the listening post exists. But this week, two days of debate in the European Parliament continued the extraordinary public disclosure of comprehensive post-Cold War spying by the agency. On Wednesday, the Parliament passed a resolution seeking more accountability from such eavesdropping arrangements and more assurances that they won't be misused. "We want to make sure that somebody's watching them," said Glyn Ford, a British member of the European Parliament, the legislative body for the 15-member European Union. Observers say this was the first time a governmental body has described in detail -- and then criticized -- the NSA's tactics. "The cat's well and true out of the bag," said Simon Davies, director of the London-based watchdog group Privacy International. "I would argue that we have made the grandest step in 50 years toward accountability of such national security transparencies." The report describes a sophisticated program called Echelon, which the NSA established in conjunction with British intelligence agencies. The program includes a listening post in Menwith Hill, in Yorkshire, whose satellite dishes soak up the satellite and microwave transmissions carrying Europe's telephone conversations, faxes and e-mail. Unlike Cold War spying aimed at the military, Echelon is a global electronic surveillance system that targets individuals, businesses, governments and organizations, the report says. The U.S. shares the information with Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as part of an intelligence-sharing agreement called UKUSA. Each nation has its own set of key words, so it can seek information on specific issues, the report states. Europe is but a fraction of Echelon's target area -- and the Menwith Hill post is one of at least 10 around the world, the report adds. "One reason its a bigger deal over there than it is over here [in the U.S.] is because the SIGINT [signals intelligence] systems are over their heads and not our heads," said Jeffrey Richelson, an analyst with the National Security Archives, a U.S. group seeking to declassify intelligence related documents. Echelon repercussions But the disclosure of Echelon could soon resonate across the Atlantic after the European Parliament action. Furthermore, it could complicate current negotiations between the U.S. and the European Union over encryption programs that scramble or encode computer information, said Parliament member Ford. The U.S. has been lobbying for back-door access to such codes for security reasons. --------------------------------NOTICE:------------------------------ ISPI Clips are news & opinion articles on privacy issues from all points of view; they are clipped from local, national and international newspapers, journals and magazines, etc. Inclusion as an ISPI Clip does not necessarily reflect an endorsement of the content or opinion by ISPI. In compliance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed free without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ISPI Clips is a FREE e-mail service from the "Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues" (ISPI). To receive "ISPI Clips" on a regular bases (up to 3 - 8 clips per day) send the following message "Please enter [Your Name] into the ISPI Clips list: [Your e-mail address]" to: ISPIClips(a)ama-gi.com . The Institute for the Study of Privacy Issues (ISPI) is a small contributor-funded organization based in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada). ISPI operates on a not-for-profit basis, accepts no government funding and takes a global perspective. ISPI's mandate is to conduct & promote interdisciplinary research into electronic, personal and financial privacy with a view toward helping ordinary people understand the degree of privacy they have with respect to government, industry and each other and to likewise inform them about techniques to enhance their privacy. But, none of this can be accomplished without your kind and generous financial support. If you value in the ISPI Clips service or if you are concerned about the erosion of your privacy in general, won't you please help us continue this important work by becoming an "ISPI Clips Supporter" or by taking out an institute Membership? We gratefully accept all contributions: Less than $60 ISPI Clips Supporter $60 - $99 Primary ISPI Membership (1 year) $100 - $300 Senior ISPI Membership (2 years) More than $300 Executive Council Membership (life) Your ISPI "membership" contribution entitles you to receive "The ISPI Privacy Reporter" (our bi-monthly 12 page hard-copy newsletter in multi-contributor format) for the duration of your membership. For a contribution form with postal instructions please send the following message "ISPI Contribution Form" to ISPI4Privacy(a)ama-gi.com . We maintain a strict privacy policy. Any information you divulge to ISPI is kept in strict confidence. It will not be sold, lent or given away to any third party. ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

1 0

IP: Analysis of a Hack: Why was NYT Different?
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Analysis of a Hack: Why was NYT Different? Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 04:09:43 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Online Journalism Review http://olj.usc.edu/indexf.htm?/sections/ September 17, 1998 Analysis of a Hack By Doug Thomas, Online Journalism Review Staff Columnist The following report is based in part on interviews conducted with Kevin Mitnick and John Markoff, two key people whose names were invoked as part of the September 13, 1998 hack of The New York Times Web site. On Sunday, September 13, a group calling themselves "Hackers for Girlies" hacked into The New York Times Web site, forcing the Times to take its site offline for nine hours - hours that happened to be on what was potentially one of the paper's biggest days in the paper's online history. According to the Times, traffic that was already up 35% on Saturday was expected to double on Sunday, in large part due to The New York Times' coverage of the Starr Report and the report's full text, which was also on the site. The hack, which was by all accounts a fairly sophisticated attack, is different from most previous hacks in a number of ways. There have previously been hacks of Web pages designed to express political dissatisfaction. The Department of Justice Web page, for example, was hacked in response to the passage of the Communications Decency Act. Sites of both the Conservative and Labor parties in Britain were hacked prior to elections. But this is the first hacking incident - which could also be considered a political intervention - where a major media outlet has been financially damaged over the public perception that their coverage was unfair. At the heart of the dispute is the case of Kevin Mitnick, and at issue for hackers is the question of Times technology reporter John Markoff's coverage of Mitnick's case. Mitnick, who has served the last three and a half years as a pre-trial detainee at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, was the subject of several Times stories written by Markoff. He was ultimately the subject of a best-selling novel co-authored by Markoff and Tsutomu Shimomura, the San Diego-based security expert who helped the FBI track and capture Mitnick. Hackers allege that Markoff used his position at the Times to hype the story of Mitnick's arrest and capture - and to demonize Mitnick in the public imagination. These perceptions, according to the hacker community, account in large part for Mitnick's continued incarceration in a maximum-security jail and his denial of the right to a bail hearing. He is only four months from trial on a 25-count federal indictment for alleged hacking. In short, the message that hackers left on the Times Web site could be boiled down to this: They feel that the way hackers are covered by the mainstream media generally, and by The New York Times specifically, is unfair. They are disturbed both by what is written about hackers, as well as what stories are overlooked. The battle over such representations continues to be played out in the coverage of the hack itself. Mitnick learned of the Times hack through local radio broadcast reports, some of which described it as an "act of Internet terrorism" led by Mitnick. But Mitnick said in an interview that he was upset both by the incident and the subsequent coverage of it. The message that the hackers left Sunday came in two parts: the page that was displayed on the Times' Web site and the comments left in the HTML code, which were far more articulate than the hacker-speak that appeared on the surface. The hackers themselves indicate this in their P.S. "0UR C0MMENTS ARE M0RE 'LEET THAN 0UR TEXT. DOWNLOAD THE SOURCE T0 TH1S PAGE AND P0NDER 0UR W1ZD0M." It is in the comments embedded in the source code that the hackers describe "the real meaning" of the page, including supporting quotations from Tennyson, Voltaire and Milton. The hackers' central grievance stems from what they see as Markoff's involvement in the pursuit and capture of Mitnick. The Web page's message targets Markoff, specifically asking: "D0 YOU HAV3 N1GHTMAR3S ABOUT H3LP1NG 1MPRIS0N K3VIN? KN0WING THAT Y0UR LI3S AND D3C3IT H3LP3D BR1NG D0WN TH1S INJUST1C3?" What lies beneath the code in the comments spells out the hackers' complaint more directly: "The injustice Markoff has committed is criminal. He belongs in a jail rotting instead of Kevin Mitnick. Kevin is no dark side hacker. He is not malicious. He is not a demon. He did not abuse credit cards, distribute the software he found or deny service to a single machine. Is that so hard to comprehend?" Markoff, in an interview Tuesday, said his coverage of Mitnick's case was totally objective. After years of covering Mitnick and because of his close connections with Shimomura, Markoff said he found himself with "access to remarkable events" and wrote about them "as accurately and clearly as I could." "There were no dilemmas," he said. "I told my Times editors what I was doing every step of the way." Regarding the decision to make a Page One story of the FBI pursuit of Mitnick, he said: "I didn't place the story." "If hackers are upset and believe the story was hyped, they are targeting the wrong person," Markoff said. "Their quarrel is with the Times' editors, not me." Although the term given to Mitnick - "darkside hacker" - did figure prominently in Markoff's book, "Cyberpunk," which he co-authored with Katie Hafner, Markoff said that the "darkside" moniker was "created by the Southern California press." He said the term appeared in stories by both the Los Angeles Times and the Daily News in the San Fernando Valley well before he ever used it. Markoff thinks the hack against the Times has the potential to do "tremendous damage" to Mitnick. If Mitnick's defenders want to make the claim that Mitnick and people like him are "harmlessly wandering through cyberspace," Markoff said, an event like this is the "clearest example to contradict that." Emmanuel Goldstein, editor of the hacker publication 2600, sees things differently. "It's not what I would have done," Goldstein said. "But it got the story out. It is a story that has been suppressed for so long." The popular sentiment among hackers is that the coverage of the Mitnick case hyped his arrest and capture - by referring to him as the "Internet's Most Wanted," as a "cyberthief" and in some cases as a "terrorist" - but the press has paid little or no attention to issues of Mitnick's long incarceration without a hearing, the denial of his right to a bail hearing, or to the fact that the government has failed to provide Mitnick with access to the evidence to be presented against him. Even Markoff, who insists that he played no part in putting Mitnick in jail, indicated that he has "a lot of sympathy for Kevin," acknowledging that Mitnick is in a "difficult situation" and is faced with a "grim set of alternatives." But Markoff rejects the notion that anyone but Mitnick himself is responsible for his current situation. "Kevin made himself what he is," Markoff said. A statement from Mitnick's attorney, released on Monday, addressed the hack of the Times: "Kevin Mitnick appreciates the support and good wishes of those who speak out against his continued state of incarceration for years without bail. However, he does not encourage any individuals to engage in hacking pranks on his behalf. Kevin believes other avenues exist that can be more beneficial to his circumstances." Supporters were directed to the Mitnick Web site at www.kevinmitnick.com. In the aftermath of the hack, several issues remain. The New York Times will undoubtedly claim that the damage done to their site has cost them substantial lost revenue and a decrease in traffic and e-commerce. Goldstein, however, quarrels with the claim that any real damage was done. "They didn't trash the Times' Web site and they could have," he said, indicating that the hack was intended to send a message, rather than to do any serious damage. This is not the first time a Web site has been hacked in support of Mitnick. In fact, in December of 1997, hackers posted a threatening message at Yahoo!, demanding the release of Mitnick. While that incident can be dismissed as a prank, the Times attack is something altogether different. Even the message the hackers left on the Times' page criticizes other hackers for not having "a real purpose" and for not leaving a "meaningful statement" in their hacks. © Copyright 1998 Online Journalism Review Doug Thomas is a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication. His column, Hacker Alert, appears monthly in the Online Journalism Review. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

1 0

IP: Why is This Important? Read: The Politics of Hacking
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Why is This Important? Read: The Politics of Hacking Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 04:19:59 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com ---------------------------- NOTE: Here is why the issue is important: "Mitnick has been incarcerated for three and a half years without a hearing and has had the evidence to be brought against him withheld from discovery." No habeas corpus. No hearing. No evidence. This man is a political prisoner to whom justice has been denied. Is he guilty? No one will ever know if there is never a trial. Presumption of innocence is obviously a thing of the past. ---------------------------- Source: Online Journalism Review http://olj.usc.edu/indexf.htm?/sections/ September 16, 1998 The Politics of Hacking By Doug Thomas, Online Journalism Review Staff Columnist Over the past few years there has been a decided shift in the way hackers think about the world. Born from an idealistic model of personal, individual achievement, the very idea of hacking has always been a singular and isolated phenomenon. In the early days, hackers rarely worked in groups or teams, preferring to hand programming solutions off to one another in the process of what they called "bumming code." Each time a program was handed off, it would be improved slightly and then passed along to the next hacker, and so on. Hackers of the 1980s and 1990s, who began to form loosely knit groups such as the Legion of Doom and Masters of Deception, practiced a similar ethic, whereby hackers would learn from one another, but generally the understanding was everyone for themselves (especially whenever someone got arrested!). That ethic, which began with the hackers of the 1960s and 1970s, is beginning to dissolve in the face of politics. Old school hackers are oftentimes disgusted by the antics of their progeny (and make no mistake they are their offspring). Indeed, many old-timers insist that today's hackers are unworthy of the moniker "hacker" and prefer to terminologically reduce them, calling them "crackers" instead. That distinction has never held much truck with me. It denies too much history, too many connections, and is often nothing more than a nostalgic, and very convenient, recollection of their own histories. The earliest hackers did most of what they criticize today's hackers for. Let's face it, they stole (the Homebrew Computer Club was famous for pirating code), they regularly engaged in telephone fraud (even Jobs and Wozniak built and sold blue boxes), they used all sorts of hacks to avoid paying for things (remember TAP? TAP stands for Technological Assistance Program; it was a newsletter put out by the Yippies that taught people how to use technology to avoid paying for things.), and they had no problem with breaking and entering or hacking a system if it meant they could spend more time on the mainframe. They also tended to forget a lot of things. Who paid for all those computers at Harvard, Cornell and MIT? Who funded ARPAnet? Could it be the same folks who were busily napalming indigenous persons halfway around the globe? And why were those computer labs shielded by 1" thick bullet-proof plexiglass during the 1960s? The old school history is not as simple as it sometimes appears. Yes, they were the geniuses who gave us the first PCs, but along the way, they tended to be implicated in a lot of nasty business, to most of which they were all too willing to turn a blind eye. I don't mean to suggest that old school hackers were not hackers, only that they weren't all that different from the new schoolers that they like to brands as criminals, crackers and the like. Where the old school seems to come off as (at best) forgetful, the new school has shown a new kind of commitment, something that is virtually unthinkable to hackers of yesteryear. The hackers of the late 1990s are becoming political. There is a new move to group action, political involvement and intervention. Recently, seven members of the Boston hacker collective, the L0pht, testified on Capitol Hill before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. As Peter the Great described in his write-up of the testimony: "Mudge gave a short, elegant statement which set the tone for the rest of the day's talks. He expressed his hope for an end to the mutual animosity that has long existed between the hacker community and the government and his sincere desire that the ensuing dialogue would pave the way towards civility and further collaboration between the two sides. This was a beautiful moment. It was as if a firm hand of friendship was being extended from the hacker community to the senate. I was moved, truly." This is a gesture that would have been virtually unthinkable only a few years ago. Even more dramatic is the fact that the Cult of the Dead Cow has a policy on China. In part, that policy was used in their justification for the release of Back Orifice, a computer security program that exploits vulnerabilities in Windows 95 and 98 operating systems. According to the cDc, Microsoft's decision to choose profit over human rights in supporting trade with China implicates them in the politics of oppression. The cDc has been working to support a group of Chinese dissidents, the Hong Kong Blondes, who are learning to use encryption and hacking techniques to stage interventions in Chinese governmental affairs to protest Chinese human rights violations. Most recently, at home, hackers have begun to band together in an effort to raise public awareness about the imprisonment of Kevin Mitnick, a hacker facing a 25-count federal indictment. Mitnick has been incarcerated for three and a half years without a hearing and has had the evidence to be brought against him withheld from discovery. In response to Miramax's decision to film Mitnick's story, hackers have banded together, launching a full-scale protest (among other things) in front of Miramax's offices in New York. Their campaign also includes letter writing initiatives, the distribution of "FREE KEVIN" bumper stickers, Web sites, T-shirts and even an online ribbon campaign. Another group recently hacked the New York Times Web site. The late 1990s marks a point in time when computers have begun to affect us in undeniably political ways. The globalization of technology, coupled with the power that the computer industry wields, makes hacking, in this day and age, essentially a political act. Some of the effects can be seen in the highly politicized trial of Kevin Mitnick and in the efforts to pass the WIPO treaty, legislation that makes hacking (even legal experimentation) a criminal act. The differences between old school and new school hackers are not as great as they might appear or as they are often made out to be. If there are differences, they reside in the fact that hackers today are stepping up and taking a kind of political responsibility that was altogether alien to their predecessors. The future of hacking goes hand in hand with the future of technology. In today's society we have passed the point where we can deny the import of such action based on some nostalgic vision of our relationship to computers and the world. It is high time that the hackers of yesterday take a long, hard and sober look at their own history and begin to recognize the ways in which the hackers of today are picking up and championing an agenda which the old school hackers can no longer hide from. © Copyright 1998 Online Journalism Review Doug Thomas is an Online Journalism Review staff columnist and a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

1 0

IP: Oh, I feel sooooo much better now.....
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Oh, I feel sooooo much better now..... Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 07:38:34 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: Nando Net http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/politics/092498/politics4_13127_noframes.h tml IRS embarks on new era with taxpayer-friendly mission statement Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press WASHINGTON (September 24, 1998 4:13 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- The Internal Revenue Service adopted a new official mission statement emphasizing that "service" is its primary job. In another step toward becoming more taxpayer-friendly, the IRS announced Thursday a new statement that will be featured on its 1998 tax publications, displayed at IRS offices and put on its Internet Web site. The statement says that the IRS mission is to "provide America's taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities and by applying the tax law with integrity and fairness to all." This replaces a 1980s statement in which the first line stated that the IRS's main job was to "collect the proper amount of tax revenue at the least cost." "Words alone aren't going to change the IRS, but this serves an important purpose," said IRS Commissioner Charles O. Rossotti. "The mission statement will be a reminder that we must be dedicated on a day-in, day-out basis to serving taxpayers." The change is one of many that have followed passage in Congress of an IRS reform law aimed at moving the agency away from its heavy-handed past. Copyright © 1998 Nando.net ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

3 2

IP: Here it Comes! E-Privacy Dispute Could Go to WTO
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IP: Here it Comes! E-Privacy Dispute Could Go to WTO Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 15:12:58 -0500 To: believer(a)telepath.com Source: USIA http://www.usia.gov/current/news/latest/98092502.clt.html?/products/washfile /newsitem.shtml 25 September 1998 ELECTRONIC PRIVACY DISPUTE COULD GO TO WTO, EXPERT SAYS (U.S., EU still working for resolution) (510) By Bruce Odessey USIA Staff Writer Washington -- The U.S. complaint against European Union (EU) policy on electronic privacy could eventually wind up in the World Trade Organization (WTO), a Brookings Institution scholar says. Robert Litan, director of Brookings' economic studies program, said he could not predict what action the EU will take when its directive on data protection -- opposed by the United States -- enters into force in October. At a September 24 meeting of the Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) he speculated on some of the potential outcomes, however. At issue is the EU directive restricting the collection and use of personal information on the Internet. Most contentious is a provision prohibiting electronic transmission of personal information about EU citizens to countries that lack "adequate" privacy protection. Enforcement of that provision might mean, for example, that EU authorities might block U.S. companies in Europe from communicating electronically with their offices in the United States. Co-author of a forthcoming book on the electronic privacy issue, Litan guessed that, if the two sides cannot resolve the dispute, the EU might test its directive by imposing data embargoes on specific U.S. business sectors or on certain business practices. He noted that EU authorities have requested staff reports on four sensitive related issues: medical information, electronic commerce, airline reservations and personnel records. Litan also identified four service sectors he considered especially vulnerable to the directive: banking, insurance (especially health insurance), investment banking (especially merger and acquisition financing) and accounting. If the dispute ends up before a WTO panel, he said, the two sides could pick their arguments from different parts of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). He said the EU could base its argument on Article XXIV, which allows governments to protect the privacy of their nationals. The United States could base its argument on Article XXII, which prohibits discrimination against foreign providers, he said. In contrast with the EU, the Clinton administration has been pressing in the WTO and other multilateral and regional groups for minimal government regulation of electronic commerce. The administration has encouraged the emerging U.S. industry to engage in self-regulation instead. Litan said EU authorities have choices on whether to enforce the EU directive in a more or less intrusive way. For one example, they could distinguish between business and other personal information, he said. For another, he said, they could offer "safe harbor" exemptions for corporate communications, or for certain industries, or for certain equipment like laptop computers. He said big multinational companies will somehow cope with the EU directive, however it is enforced, possibly by entering into contracts with the EU. But Litan could not guess how small and medium-sized U.S. companies could afford the expense of working out special arrangements with EU authorities or how those authorities could enforce the directive against small companies doing business in cyberspace. "It's hopeless," he said. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************

1 0