November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

ACLU concerned that microchip passports won't be encrypted
by R.A. Hettinga 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

<http://www.indystar.com/articles/5/197851-1715-P.html> The Indianapolis Star ACLU concerned that microchip passports won't be encrypted Associated Press November 27, 2004 WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration opposes security measures for new microchip-equipped passports that privacy advocates contend are needed to prevent identity theft, government snooping or a terrorist attack, according to State Department documents released Friday. The passports would emit radio waves that could be read electronically from as far away as 30 feet, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the documents under a Freedom of Information Act request. The ability to remotely read personal data raises the possibility that passport holders would be vulnerable to identity theft, the ACLU said. It also would allow government agents to find out covertly who was attending a political meeting or make it easier for terrorists to target Americans traveling abroad, the ACLU said. Frank Moss of the State Department said the United States wants to ensure the safety and security of Americans traveling abroad. But encrypting the data might make it more difficult for other countries to read the passports, Moss said. All new U.S. passports issued by the end of 2005 are expected to have a chip containing the owner's name, birth date, issuing office and a "biometric" identifier -- a photo of the owner's face. -- ----------------- 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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Tin Foil Passports?
by Eugen Leitl 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

Link: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/27/0026222 Posted by: michael, on 2004-11-27 05:05:00 from the joke's-on-you dept. Daedala writes "The debate over [1]contactless chips with biometric information in passports continues. Vendors have been chosen for testing in the [2]U.S. and [3]Australia. [4]Privacy advocates are still arguing about the measure, as are [5]security reporters and [6]bloggers. The [7]specs themselves are interesting, to say the least. The EETimes says that [8]in interoperability tests, the potential chips could be read from 30 feet away. However, both they and the New York Times have published [9]articles reporting vendors' low-cost solution: '[I]incorporate a layer of metal foil into the cover of the passport so it could be read only when opened.' Don't they know that the whole tinfoil hat thing is supposed to be a joke?" IFRAME: [10]pos6 References 1. http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/08/22/0040202&tid=158 2. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=52200157 3. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=51200486 4. http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-60594 5. http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2004/nf2004115_1663_db016.htm 6. http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/000434.html 7. http://www.icao.int/mrtd/download/technical.cfm 8. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=45400010 9. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/26/politics/26passport.html?hp&ex=1101531600… n=6e6254bd574cba42&ei=5094&partner=homepage 10. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=5819&alloc_id=12652&site_id=1&request_id=4960775 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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RE: [p2p-hackers] Why UDP and not TCP? (fwd from travis@redswoosh.net)
by Eugen Leitl 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

----- Forwarded message from Travis Kalanick <travis(a)redswoosh.net> -----

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CFP-2005 Call for Proposals
by announce＠cfp2004.org 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY CONFERENCE: Panopticon 2005 April 12-15, 2005, Westin Hotel, Seattle, WA www.cfp2005.org The 15th annual conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy takes place from Tuesday, April 12th, to Friday, April 15th, 2005, in Seattle, Washington. The Program Committee is now accepting proposals for conference sessions and speakers for CFP2005. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2004 CFP serves as an internationally recognized forum for the members of the technical, government, hacker, legal, business, education, media, cyber-rights, and non-profit communities to address cutting edge technical, business, legal and cultural issues. Programs, topics, and speakers from prior years' CFP conferences can be found at: www.cfp.org The CFP2005 Program Committee welcomes proposals on all aspects of technology, freedom and privacy. We are particularly interested in receiving proposals that ask the hard questions about privacy and freedom in emerging surveillance societies, and challenging those assumptions. For example, how much surveillance is too much? When does surveillance cease making us more secure and begin to change the fabric of society? The theme of the 15th CFP is "Panopticon 2005." Over time, and particularly recently, surveillance of ordinary citizens has increased to dramatic levels. Not only are governments watching more aspects of their citizens' lives, but those in the private sector are increasing surveillance of people as well. Often lost in the race to "increase intelligence" are discussions about different approaches to address problems like the threat of terrorism that are equally or more effective, but do not involve extensive and constant surveillance. In addition to topics directly related to the Panopticon 2005 theme, other areas of interest include: 1. domestic and international travel issues 2. communications surveillance 3. children and young adults growing up in a surveillance society 4. social networking 5. the flourishing of free speech (i.e. blogging) in spite of increased watchfulness 6. RFIDs and other emerging technologies 7. Intellectual property issues We are seeking proposals for tutorials, plenary sessions, workshops, and birds-of-a-feather sessions. We are also seeking suggestions for speakers and other relevant topics not listed above. Sessions should present a wide range of thinking on a topic by including speakers from different viewpoints. We particularly welcome proposals for non- traditional presentations - those that utilize drama, "mock trials," interactivity, the performing arts, and audience participation. Complete submission instructions appear on the CFP2005 web site: www.cfp2005.org All submissions must be received by December 31, 2004. The CFP2005 Program Committee will notify submitters of the status of their proposals by January 20, 2005. ======================================================================== Note: you have received this mailing because you were an attendee at a previous CFP conference or because you have requested information about CFP. If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send your request to: remove(a)cfp2005.org and be sure to note the exact email address at which you received this communication so we can purge it from the list. Please address all other queries to: feedback(a)cfp2005.org. Please do not respond to the address on this announcement; mail to this address is discarded without being read. ======================================================================== --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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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CFP-2005 Call for Proposals
by announce＠cfp2004.org 27 Nov '04

27 Nov '04

COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY CONFERENCE: Panopticon 2005 April 12-15, 2005, Westin Hotel, Seattle, WA www.cfp2005.org The 15th annual conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy takes place from Tuesday, April 12th, to Friday, April 15th, 2005, in Seattle, Washington. The Program Committee is now accepting proposals for conference sessions and speakers for CFP2005. The deadline for submissions is December 31, 2004 CFP serves as an internationally recognized forum for the members of the technical, government, hacker, legal, business, education, media, cyber-rights, and non-profit communities to address cutting edge technical, business, legal and cultural issues. Programs, topics, and speakers from prior years' CFP conferences can be found at: www.cfp.org The CFP2005 Program Committee welcomes proposals on all aspects of technology, freedom and privacy. We are particularly interested in receiving proposals that ask the hard questions about privacy and freedom in emerging surveillance societies, and challenging those assumptions. For example, how much surveillance is too much? When does surveillance cease making us more secure and begin to change the fabric of society? The theme of the 15th CFP is "Panopticon 2005." Over time, and particularly recently, surveillance of ordinary citizens has increased to dramatic levels. Not only are governments watching more aspects of their citizens' lives, but those in the private sector are increasing surveillance of people as well. Often lost in the race to "increase intelligence" are discussions about different approaches to address problems like the threat of terrorism that are equally or more effective, but do not involve extensive and constant surveillance. In addition to topics directly related to the Panopticon 2005 theme, other areas of interest include: 1. domestic and international travel issues 2. communications surveillance 3. children and young adults growing up in a surveillance society 4. social networking 5. the flourishing of free speech (i.e. blogging) in spite of increased watchfulness 6. RFIDs and other emerging technologies 7. Intellectual property issues We are seeking proposals for tutorials, plenary sessions, workshops, and birds-of-a-feather sessions. We are also seeking suggestions for speakers and other relevant topics not listed above. Sessions should present a wide range of thinking on a topic by including speakers from different viewpoints. We particularly welcome proposals for non- traditional presentations - those that utilize drama, "mock trials," interactivity, the performing arts, and audience participation. Complete submission instructions appear on the CFP2005 web site: www.cfp2005.org All submissions must be received by December 31, 2004. The CFP2005 Program Committee will notify submitters of the status of their proposals by January 20, 2005. ======================================================================== Note: you have received this mailing because you were an attendee at a previous CFP conference or because you have requested information about CFP. If you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please send your request to: remove(a)cfp2005.org and be sure to note the exact email address at which you received this communication so we can purge it from the list. Please address all other queries to: feedback(a)cfp2005.org. Please do not respond to the address on this announcement; mail to this address is discarded without being read. ======================================================================== --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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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A Burglary Foiled by Calls That Didn't Reach 911
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/nyregion/27theft.html?pagewanted=print&po…> The New York Times November 27, 2004 A Burglary Foiled by Calls That Didn't Reach 911 By MARC SANTORA he plan seemed simple enough. The building had been cased and the burglars knew exactly what they wanted - advanced computer circuit panels that could be sold on the black market for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The night before Thanksgiving, about 8 p.m., they entered the Verizon building in White Plains undetected and set to work. But as the criminals removed the panels, they soon triggered problems across Westchester County. Most problematic, 911 systems across the region began to crash. By the time some 150 panels were removed, roughly 25,000 people had lost 911 service. At 9:51 p.m., the White Plains Police received a call alerting them to the fact that there might be a problem at the Verizon building. Still unaware that burglars were at work inside, a patrol car rolled up to the site, according to Inspector Daniel Jackson. "Literally, the two guys were walking out the door," Mr. Jackson said. They were carrying two large boxes when the officer shouted for them to stop. The men dropped the stolen boxes, fled on foot and were eventually run down by the officer and arrested, Mr. Jackson said. The two men were identified in a criminal complaint as Larry D. Davis, 43, of Brooklyn, and Gailican Phillips, 34 of Manhattan. They have been charged with conspiracy to commit interstate shipment of stolen property, a federal crime with a maximum sentence of five years in jail, according to the complaint. Mr. Jackson said that the burglary itself was not as disturbing as the widespread effect it had on the 911 system. The police are working with the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security on the case. Terrorism has been ruled out as a possible motive. Although the burglary occurred in the Verizon building, the stolen equipment belonged to some half-dozen other telecommunications companies that use the premises to house part of their operations. No Verizon customers were affected, a company official said. Dan Diaz Zapata, a spokesman for Verizon, said the building had many levels of security - from video cameras to security badges to on-site guards - and that the company was cooperating with local and federal authorities. Mr. Zapata said that Verizon had redundancy capabilities built into its system that would have prevented a theft of their own equipment from having such a wide impact. Mr. Jackson said that there had been a theft at the building once before, in 2003, and the police had reason to believe one of the two men involved Wednesday also took part in that operation. He would not elaborate on other details in that case. However, much less was stolen then. According to the complaint filed in Southern District of New York, the circuit boards ranged in value from $5,000 to $70,000 each and, all told, were worth in excess of $1 million. The plan was to deliver them to an unnamed co-conspirator who, in turn, planned to sell them to an unnamed company in California, according to the complaint. "There apparently is a strong, robust black market for this stuff," said a federal law enforcement official, who insisted on anonymity for fear of saying something that would compromise the investigation. There have been two other similar burglaries in New York City and New Jersey in recent years, according to Mr. Jackson. Those thefts were much smaller in scale. National Infrastructure Coordination Center of the Department of Homeland Security is also working with local police because of concern that the 911 system could be relatively easily compromised. After arresting the two men and photographing the stolen circuit panels, the police returned them to the companies that owned them. Once reinstalled, the 911 problems ended, and by 7 a.m. the system was back to normal, Mr. Jackson said. Police said the panels that were stolen were each about the size of a legal pad and are used by telecommunications companies to transmit data and connect calls. There is an industry standard for the panels and they can easily be transferred from one computer to another. Potential buyers of the panels on the black market range from small telecommunications companies to overseas clients, the police said. Copyrigh -- ----------------- 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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CFP-2005 Call for Proposals
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

--- begin forwarded text

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'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99996701> | New Scientist 'Suicide tree' toxin is 'perfect' murder weapon 15:56 26 November 04 A plant dubbed the suicide tree kills many more people in Indian communities than was previously thought. The warning comes from forensic toxicologists in India and France who have conducted a review of deaths caused by plant-derived poisons. Cerbera odollam, which grows across India and south-east Asia, is used by more people to commit suicide than any other plant, the toxicologists say. But they also warn that doctors, pathologists and coroners are failing to detect how often it is used to murder people. A team led by Yvan Gaillard of the Laboratory of Analytical Toxicology in La Voulte-sur-Rhtne, France, documented more than 500 cases of fatal Cerbera poisoning between 1989 and 1999 in the south-west Indian state of Kerala alone. Half of Kerala's plant poisoning deaths, and one in 10 of all fatal poisonings, are put down to Cerbera. But the true number of deaths due to Cerbera poisoning in Kerala could be twice that, the team estimates, as poisonings are difficult to identify by conventional means. Unnoticed homicides Using high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry to examine autopsy tissues for traces of the plant, the team uncovered a number of homicides that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. This also suggests that some cases put down to suicide may actually have been murders, they say. Although the kernels of the tree have a bitter taste, this can be disguised if they are crushed and mixed with spicy food. They contain a potent heart toxin called cerberin, similar in structure to digoxin, found in the foxglove. Digoxin kills by blocking calcium ion channels in heart muscles, which disrupts the heartbeat. But while foxglove poisoning is well known to western toxicologists, Gaillard says pathologists would not be able to identify Cerbera poisoning unless there is evidence the victim had eaten the plant. "It is the perfect murder," he says. Three-quarters of Cerbera victims are women. The team says that this may mean the plant is being used to kill young wives who do not meet the exacting standards of some Indian families. It is also likely that many cases of homicide using the plant go unnoticed in countries where it does not grow naturally. -- ----------------- 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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U.K. government hit with another large computer failure
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2004/0,4814,97853,00.html> U.K. government hit with another large computer failure The computer crash is being called the biggest in U.K. government history News Story by Laura Rohde NOVEMBER 26, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - IT system failures continued to plague the U.K. government this week, when as many as 80,000 civil servants working for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) had to deal with what is being described in the local press as the biggest computer crash in government history. The DWP was carrying out a "routine software upgrade" on Monday when the system crashed, leaving around 80% of the department's 100,000 desk machines disrupted or completely shut down, a DWP spokeswoman said today. The problems lasted through most of yesterday, but the "majority of our system is up and running now," she said. Microsoft Corp. and Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) run the DWP's network as part of a $3.8 billion information technology contract. Microsoft issued a short statement today saying that it worked closely with its partners to help rectify the situation and support the DWP, but declined any further comment. Representatives from EDS could not immediately be reached for comment. The head of the DWP, government secretary Alan Johnson, has promised an internal inquiry into the systems failure and the role Microsoft and EDS, of Plano, Texas, played in the crisis. The DWP, which is responsible for providing a variety of state benefits to about 24 million people, attempted to downplay the effect the computer problems will have on its customers, saying that the department's mainframe computers were not affected. "There will be delays with new and amended benefit claims, but we have been dealing with the problems though our contingency plans and the disruptions will be minimal," the DWP spokeswoman said. It is believed that the crash was caused when an incompatible system was downloaded on to the entire network, forcing employees to send faxes because they couldn't access their e-mail accounts and to fill out some payment checks by hand. The IT failure was only the latest in a string of serious computer system problems experienced by the department. The DWP's Child Support Agency (CSA) has been struggling with a $863 million system from EDS that has made payments to only one in eight single parents awaiting them. Last week, Johnson told a House of Commons Parliamentary Select Committee that he is considering shutting down the child-support case management and telephony system, and Doug Smith, the head of the CSA, resigned from his job. Today the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka, called on the government to hold off on its plans to cut 30,000 jobs in the DWP on the basis of IT improvements, in light of the computer crisis. Earlier this year, the government announced plans to eliminate 104,000 civil servant jobs across the government based in part on increased efficiencies gained though new IT systems. Since 2001, the DWP has spent around $8.04 billion on various IT projects, including the CSA system. According to a report it submitted to a Parliament Select Committee, the department has spent $579 million on management and IT consultancy, $97.4 million on staff substitutions and contractors and $102.7 million on professional services. The U.K.'s public sector IT projects in 2003 and 2004 are expected to cost more than $23.4 billion, but U.K. government IT projects have often been accused of being over-ambitious and prone to disastrous delays and cost overruns. Beyond the DWP, further examples include the benefit-payment card program from the Post Office, the Department of Social Security and International Computers Ltd. (ICL), which fell apart after three years and $567 million; software problems that delayed the Swanwick air traffic control center and have since been blamed for a near collision between two airplanes; the disruption wrought on thousands of people with travel plans in 1999 by the Passport Office's new computer system, and the National Probation Service's case-record and management system which was abandoned in 2001 after it was revealed the project was expected to be two years late and 70% over budget. -- ----------------- 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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MyKad too hi-tech to forge
by R.A. Hettinga 26 Nov '04

26 Nov '04

<http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2004/11/27/nation/9513530&sec=na…> The Star Online > News Saturday November 27, 2004 MyKad too hi-tech to forge BY JANE RITIKOS KUALA LUMPUR: The National Registration Department has detected about 10 cases of forged MyKad issued to illegal immigrants in the country since it was introduced in 2001. However, the chips in the cards were not forged ones. Its director-general Datuk Wan Ibrahim Wan Ahmad said those caught with the fake cards were Indonesians and Bangladeshis, who claimed they had paid about RM200 for the card. The fake cards looked like genuine ones except that the forgers could not duplicate the smart chip imbedded in MyKad. "The physical appearance of the card looks real but the chip, a vital component of the card, is functionless and cannot be used for transactions. "This is because the features of the MyKad chip are so high-tech that they cannot be duplicated. Even if they could make a forged chip it has no data that is linked to our database," he said. Wan Ibrahim also said the chip in the fake MyKad was not readable. "We don't believe the chip can ever be forged. The information in our chip has data and biometric features," he said. The MyKad chip stores information of the cardholders including their identity cards, driving licences, passports and health data. Wan Ibrahim said there were also those caught with fake MyKad which had their laminated sheet tampered with to alter the physical details and picture. "When these cards are read, the identity of the bearer is that of someone else. These included those who were checked at the Immigration checkpoints at the airport. At a glance the cards looked real," he added. -- ----------------- 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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