October 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Airport insanity
by John Kelsey 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

>From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> >Sent: Oct 16, 2004 2:27 PM >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Airport insanity >> For whatever reason, pictures of me always come out looking >> like some crazed religious fanatic. But that doesn't mean >> that I'm going to bomb anything. And I sure hope that I'm >> not going to be detained or denied entry because of how I >> *look*, alone. >If you really look like the shoe bomber, then you should have >to drive, or use public transport. > --digsig > James A. Donald Surely this is a matter best left to the private companies offering transportation, subject only to restrictions to prevent future 9/11 attacks. --John

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RE: Airport insanity
by Major Variola (ret) 17 Oct '04

17 Oct '04

At 12:14 PM 10/15/04 -0700, James A. Donald wrote: > -- >> >My profile is radically different from all those who killed >> >nearly 3,000 of my countrymen on September 11, 2001. My >> >"holy book" of choice is the Bible. My race is Caucasian. I >> >am a loyal, taxpaying, patriotic, evil-hating, >> >English-as-first-language, natural-born American. As was Timmy McV, Zeus rest his soul. Got ANFO?

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Google Desktop privacy branded 'unacceptable'
by R.A. Hettinga 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/google_desktop_privacy/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT Google Desktop privacy branded 'unacceptable' By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 15th October 2004 22:47 GMT Google's Desktop represents a privacy disaster just waiting to happen, a rival has warned. David Burns, Copernic CEO, says users should know that the giant ad broker intends to mix public and private queries in the future, leveraging its key moneyspinning product: contextual advertising. "If you lined people and said, 'Stick your hand up if you want Google to know what pictures you have, and what MP3 files you have,' I don't think many would." Burns had offered these capabilities to partners before, but received some pushback. "Major brands don't want to compromise their reputation. We've offered this in the past to potential partners, and had a major PC hardware company and major portals say 'No, we can't do this'", Burns told us. With the subpoena-happy RIAA getting support from state law enforcement in its war on copyright infringers, Google represents a single point of compromise for millions of file traders. Copernic offers a native Windows search application both as a free download and as a branded offering to partners, and has toyed with merging the two before. But it's realized personal archives are very different to Google's snapshot of the web - and the queries are different too. "I don't deny desktop and web on the same page is attractive," he added. "But we're not going to do it." Burns was former US chief of FAST, which created the All The Web search site before selling it to Overture. Yahoo! now owns both. Google Desktop Search allows users to opt out of sending the company back detailed usage data, but it isn't possible to firewall it completely. Much more ominously, reckons Burns, Google's product manager Marissa Mayer said she expected the private queries to generate more hits for google.com. Most people, she believed, would choose to combine personal and web searches resulting in more revenue for Google's ad business. "As a result, we will serve more Web results pages and more ads, and those ads have more chances of getting clicked on. So there will be incremental Web search revenue from this product," she told the Washington Post. In January, Eric Schmidt said the company's goal was to create a "Google that knows you". With the addition of personal information, it's just taken a giant step towards that goal. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'

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RE: Airport insanity
by Tyler Durden 16 Oct '04

16 Oct '04

OK, Mr Donald...you're shittin' me, right? >Has anyone who does not look a terrorist done a suicide mission >outside Israel or Russia? If you define a suicide mission a priori as the act of a terrorist (I guess I do), then by definition anyone who performs such an act is a terrorist. Therefore, anyone who performs a suicide mission looks like a terrorist. Guess it's simple, then eh? >Recall the shoe bomber. You just >had to look at him. Yer trollin me, I just know it! YAAGH but I can't help myself...I gotta respond! I guess it's OK then if we don't allow strange looking people on the planes. Come to think of it, I think YOU look like a terrorist... >You would think the airport screeners would >need to be half brain dead to let him on the plane. Come to >think of it, they are half brain dead, but laws that require >them to pretend to be stupider than they actually are do not >help. OK, so you not only want to stop anybody odd looking from getting on an airplane, you want near-welfare, minimum-wage HS dropouts be responsible for determining what "odd" means? >Just don't let anyone who looks like the shoe bomber fly. >Problem solved. Huh? The one flaw in this logic is that this only works if you can send this particular definition of suspicious "looks" backwards in time. The shoe-bomber is a particularly interesting case, as I believe the dude was ethnically British. He might have looked odd from the photo you saw circulated in the press, but I'd bet a lot of money no one would have picked him as looking like a terrorist. However, since we now know about what the shoe-bomber looks like, it should be relatively easy to stop his genetic clones or identical twins from boarding planes in the future. "Problem Solved" indeed. However, this might not work against people that DON'T look like the shoe-bomber. > >There are probably a few innocents in Guantenamo, but they >released at least one Al Quaeda terrorist who promptly got back >in business murdering large numbers of people, and was caught >doing it - so presumably they have released lots of others who >have committed lots of murders, and not been caught doing it. Hum. An interesting, Stalinist logic. Well, Stalin was on a certain level immensely practical. I say we build a big electrified fence around Cobble Hill Brooklyn and fuck 'em...SOMEONE in there is definitely Al-Qaeda, therefore let's assume everyone in there's guilty until proven innocent. >Anyone who was non Afghan and in Afghanistan in the middle of >the war without a good explanation should have been executed by >the Northern Alliance or imprisoned permanently in Guatenamo. So likewise would you agree that if any non-citizen US soldiers (there are 10s of thousands non-citizen soldiers in the US) are captured in the numerous future wars, then they captors have the right to execute them on the spot? Uhm...no Geneva convention or anything? What the hell, it's a free-for-all anyway! >Yes, I do support internment, as wartime measure, during real >war, against an ethnically based enemy. Wow. Since Iranians are Indo-European (ie, white), then in the event of war with Iran would you advocate rounding up all Americans of Indo-European ancestry? Does this have to be "pure", or should we grab the African Americans too (which have large % of Indo-European genes)? Oh wait, most of the Afghans are Indo-Europeans too. So if you're arrested then you'll certainly understand that we're really just protecting the US from your possible collusion with your relatives in Afghanistan... What seems to be clear to me is that you believe that your opinions originate from some self-consistent logical framework that is "unpopular" in some quarters. What also seems clear to me that it's really an inconsistent hodgepodge thrown up around the real goal, American domination at all costs, damn the logic and damn the consequences. -TD > > --digsig > James A. Donald > 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG > wI0xr9ayXv/a3zae3P/aa8cP2yCVMsnUHEQvlSZ4 > 4biccsub2YZowuf9Kq6OzR5YpJQrEGdamGR4hGonc _________________________________________________________________ Is your PC infected? Get a FREE online computer virus scan from McAfee. Security. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963

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Human Lie Detectors Almost Never Miss, Study Finds
by R.A. Hettinga 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

<http://www.reuters.co.uk/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=scienceNews&storyI…> Human Lie Detectors Almost Never Miss, Study Finds Thu October 14, 2004 05:18 PM ET By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As he lies, the young man shrugs, flutters his eyelids and shakes his head. Another, on a witness stand, grimaces for a millisecond as he answers a question. Most people believe they could easily detect such lying behavior, but in fact most miss a good 50 percent of lies, says deception expert Maureen O'Sullivan of the University of California San Francisco. But O'Sullivan says she has found a special group -- just 1 percent of those she has tested -- who catch a lie nearly 90 percent of the time. "We call them wizards," O'Sullivan told a briefing sponsored by the American Medical Association on Thursday. "Wizardry is a special skill that seems magical if you don't have it." These wizards have a special ability to ferret out little tics that show when a person is lying. She and her colleagues have so far screened 13,000 people for their ability to catch a liar on videotape. "We found 14 people who we called ultimate experts," she said. They could tell when people deliberately lied about feelings, committing a crime or their own opinions. Another 13 were good at detecting specific types of lies. For example, she said, "There was a group of cops who got very good scores -- they got 80 percent or more on crime but none of them did well on the video about feeling." Now O'Sullivan is trying to find out how they do it. She finds they have little in common so far, except a motivation to catch liars. Some have advanced degrees, some only a high school education. About 20 percent had alcoholic parents. "They are located all over the country. We sit down and go over the ... videotapes. I ask them to think aloud. I tape record them thinking aloud," she said. While most people know to look for certain cues as a person lies, these wizards intuitively find an individual's peculiar cues. One may shrug when lying, and another may make fleeting expressions of disgust or even amusement. "There are lots of clues. The problem is how do you put them together and how to you make any sense of them?" O'Sullivan said her findings could help train better lie detectors -- for instance, federal agents or therapists who need to know when someone is telling the truth. She is not sure about other real-world applications. "We have made an offer to the federal government that it might be interesting to have them as sort of panel when they have high profile investigations," she said. What about analyzing the presidential debates between President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry? O'Sullivan just laughed. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'

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RE: Airport insanity
by John Kelsey 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

>From: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina(a)hotmail.com> >Sent: Oct 15, 2004 10:02 AM >To: rah(a)shipwright.com, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net, cryptography(a)metzdowd.com >Subject: RE: Airport insanity >First of all, the guy is a major dumbass... >>My profile is radically different from all those who killed nearly 3,000 of >>my countrymen on September 11, 2001. My "holy book" of choice is the Bible. >>My race is Caucasian. I am a loyal, taxpaying, patriotic, evil-hating, >>English-as-first-language, natural-born American. If profiling were >>allowed, I wouldn't be the one filling out government forms to prove I'm >>not a terrorist. The other guys would. >I'm thinking that the state-of-the-art on Cypherpunks is such that no real >comment here is necessary. "Ahh, thanks for flying, Mr McVeigh. You're in seat 1A, just behind the cockpit. We like to put patriotic Americans there to make sure there's no risk of in-flight terrorism." >This is precisely why Al-Qaeda sent 19 (or probably more) true-believers. >Even if TSA lowers the odds, all you have to do is roll the dice many more >times, and a few of the faithful will definitely get through the checkpoint. >Security measures might stop a lone crazy, but the odds don't stand up if >they send dozens of people into airports all around the country. And Iraq II >is promising us a bumper crop of new 'terrorists'. Yep. It gives you a warm feeling all over to know that we're spending billions of dollars on running a nation-sized terrorist training camp. Ah, but not to worry. *These* terrorists won't get WMDs. We know, because apparently there's not a gram of WMD anywhere in Iraq. And besides, A.G. Khan has been brought to justice, and is now requiring proof of identity and a major credit card before shipping you the Nuclear Weapons Program in a Box set, and North Korea is too busy stockpiling nukes and missiles for an upcoming "negotiated settlement to certain border questions" to sell any of them to any (other) crazies. Why the only other place where there's a risk of nuclear proliferation is in the old Soviet Union--and we all know *they* don't have any Islamic fundamentalist terrorists running about. So we can clearly rest easy. It's a good thing we've got an administration in the White House who cares about security and the war on terror. Otherwise, I'd be a mite worried about now.... ... >-TD --John Kelsey

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Vote-counting glitch in NZ local elections
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

Looks like you can mess up voting even if there is a paper trail. These are paper votes that are electronically counted, so the problem was in the electronic processing, not the actual voting procedure. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3600391&thesection=news&… Let me count the ways ... 14.10.2004 [...] An electronic processing and counting botch-up has left the results for seven city and district councils and 18 district health boards up in the air. Final results, due yesterday, have been delayed indefinitely. Mr Carter blamed the company Datamail, which was contracted by Electionz.com - the company hired by many councils to manage their elections - to count the votes from electronically scanned voting papers. [...] Peter.

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At least there's some (attempt at) common sense in airline security
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3600794&thesection=news&… Ease off says air security boss 15.10.2004 Security on domestic flights is too strict and should be downgraded, says the head of the Aviation Security Service. General manager Mark Everitt, a former police detective with 21 years' experience, said if he had his way passengers would be able to take Swiss Army knives and other small, sharp objects on board domestic flights. "I'm actually an advocate for letting these things back on the aircraft. It's time to back up a little," he told delegates at the Police Association's annual conference yesterday. But New Zealand had to meet international security standards and his personal view was not enough to instigate a review of security standards. Knowing levels of risk was the key to ensuring flights were safe, said Mr Everitt. The banning of small knives did not stop attacks in the air. [...]

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Re: Cash, Credit -- or Prints?
by John Kelsey 15 Oct '04

15 Oct '04

>From: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina(a)hotmail.com> >Sent: Oct 12, 2004 1:43 PM >To: franks(a)mcs.anl.gov >Cc: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Cash, Credit -- or Prints? ... >Very interesting question. I'd bet almost any amount of money that it's >fairly trivial to simply alligator-clip-out the fingerprint's file from >almost any of the cheaper devices. Hell, I'd bet that's true even of more >expensive "secure" devices as well. I don't think the readers store an image of the fingerprint, just some information to make it easy to verify a match. I don't think you could reconstruct a fingerprint from that information, though you could presumably reconstruct a fingerprint image that would fool the detector. >From what I've seen, the whole field of biometrics needs a lot of work on characterizing the attacks and defenses against them, and coming up with reasonable ways to verify that a reader resists some attack. I think individual vendors often have some ideas about this (though I gather their defenses are often disabled to keep the false reject rate acceptably low), but there doesn't seem to be a clean process for determining how skilled an attacker needs to be to, say, scan my finger once, and produce either a fake finger or a machine for projecting a fake fingerprint into the reader. Anyone know whether some kind of standard for this exists? >-TD --John

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Airport insanity
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Oct '04

14 Oct '04

<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/printct20041013.shtml> Townhall.com Airport insanity Cal Thomas (back to web version) | Send October 13, 2004 Ted Kennedy and I have something in common. We are both on airline lists as potential terror suspects. Kennedy was recently denied access to a US Airways flight out of Washington, one he has taken for 40 years. I am on a US Airways list of some type that apparently requires airline employees to take my driver's license behind closed doors, have a conference and then stamp my ticket with a code that mandates my person and my carry-on bag be searched. Every time I fly, which is sometimes several times a week. I especially appreciate the crotch grab to make sure I'm not hiding any weapons of mass destruction. How would you like to be the trainer for this procedure? The idiocy virus is now spreading to other airlines. It seems someone who shares my name is wanted by authorities. I hope he is getting some of my hate mail. Logic should dictate that once I prove I am not the guy they are looking for, they would take me off the suspect list. But, no, our misnamed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is anything but logical. US Airways gives me a TSA phone number to call. I am not surprised when a machine answers. The machine promises a "prompt" response. I leave a message. There is no response. A few days later, I call again. Same recording, same message, same non-response. I send an e-mail to TSA. This time I receive an "automated reply," assuring me of a prompt response. Two days later, I receive another e-mail informing me I will have to fill out a form to prove I am not a terrorist. This is an interesting twist on the "innocent until proven guilty" standard in law. The confusion plot thickens. Two weeks ago, TSA approved my application for "registered traveler" status as part of an experimental program at some airports for frequent travelers. I recorded my "eye print" and fingerprint, and now a machine can identify me and allow me to go to the head of the security line, but only at the airport where I applied. Other participating airports require applications to be made at each of those airports, even though the paperwork presumably goes to TSA headquarters. Why can't TSA look at that one application that has been approved and take me off their "watch list," or whatever they call it? Is "logic" not in government dictionaries? Things have become so ridiculous on the road that a TSA screener in Duluth, Minn., last week required me to open my computer bag, whereupon she used one of those devices that resemble a deodorant pad and wiped every electrical cord. When I asked why, she responded, "The downed Russian airliners." When I noted that Duluth was the only airport in the country where my electrical cords had been wiped, she replied, "Everyone is supposed to." The arbitrariness of all of this makes me think the "security" system isn't very secure and that it is all a sham created by politicians to fool the public into believing they are protecting us. Meanwhile, millions cross our borders illegally, including untold numbers from countries that hate us. Why isn't the Bush administration doing something about illegal immigration instead of pretending these people are coming here solely to do manual labor we native Americans don't want to do? Wouldn't we be safer if we prevented those who wish us harm from getting into the country? Thanks to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's misguided policy of refusing to profile travelers, we get equal opportunity inconvenience and stupidity. Imagine if cops were prohibited from describing gender, race or other physical characteristics when broadcasting an all-points bulletin for a suspect. My profile is radically different from all those who killed nearly 3,000 of my countrymen on September 11, 2001. My "holy book" of choice is the Bible. My race is Caucasian. I am a loyal, taxpaying, patriotic, evil-hating, English-as-first-language, natural-born American. If profiling were allowed, I wouldn't be the one filling out government forms to prove I'm not a terrorist. The other guys would. This is an outrage! The form will soon be in the mail. They'll probably send me a note assuring me of a prompt reply, before misplacing the application. Senator Kennedy, can you help? -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 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'

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