November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Get yer draconian Blunkett rhetoric here
by R.A. Hettinga 25 Nov '04

25 Nov '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/blunkett_policy_maker/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Odds and Sods ; Bootnotes ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/blunkett_policy_maker/ Get yer draconian Blunkett rhetoric here By Lester Haines (lester.haines at theregister.co.uk) Published Wednesday 24th November 2004 09:31 GMT Those readers who are following the magnificent meanderings of UK home secretary David Blunkett as he moves the UK inexorably towards voluntary/compulsory ID cards (http://www.cashncarrion.co.uk/?op=catalogue-products-null&prodCategoryID=28) in an attempt to stem the tide of swan-roasting illegal immigrant members of al-Qaeda who threaten the very fabric of our society will certainly enjoy Chris Applegate's David Blunkett Policy Maker (http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/other/blunkett.php) This nifty piece of programming is designed to deliver "draconian rhetoric, whenever you want it", and can instantly formulate a Blunkett-style policy guaranteed to make Britain a safer, more loving place. For example: Give refugees a 'Citizenship test', and then deny them the right to trial by jury. And charge them for it. Quite right too. Applegate warns users that: "The random generator can generate actual policies that Blunkett has launched. I take no responsibility for any distress caused by sudden realisation of the truth, nor any feelings of fear, doom etc. for one's own civil liberties." You have been warned. . -- ----------------- 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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DIY fingerprint idea thwarts ID thieves
by R.A. Hettinga 25 Nov '04

25 Nov '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/fingerprint_fights_id_theft/print.h…> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/fingerprint_fights_id_theft/ DIY fingerprint idea thwarts ID thieves By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk) Published Wednesday 24th November 2004 07:59 GMT The Home Office is touting ID cards as a solution to ID theft in today's Queen's Speech (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4034543.stm) but a Yorkshire man has taken matters into his own hands. Jamie Jameson, a civil servant from Scarborough in North Yorkshire, insists that credit can only be extended in his name on production of a thumbprint. Jameson hit on the idea of writing to the UK's three main credit reference agencies - Equifax, Experian and Call Credit - and requesting that they put a 'Notice of Correction' on his file stating that a print must be offered with applications for loans or credit cards issued in his name. At the same time he submitted his fingerprint. This Notice of Correction of the first thing a prospective lender will see when it calls up his records. Normally this facility provides a way for individuals to explain why they have a county court judgement against their name or other qualifications to their credit history. Jameson is using it to do a cheap security check. Although uncommon in the UK, thumbprints are often used as an audit mechanism for people cashing cheques in US banks. A similar scheme was trialled (http://www.south-wales.police.uk/fe_news_w/news_details.asp?newsid=169) in Wales. Jameson takes a little ink pad similar to that used in US banks around with him all the time just in case he might need it. If an application for credit is accepted without a thumbprint - against Jameson's express instructions - then he will not be liable for losses. If a would-be fraudster gives a false print on an application then it makes it easier for them to be traced by the police. "Lenders don't have to match prints. Using prints just establishes an audit trail if anything goes wrong," Jameson explained. "It's not so much me proving who I am as preventing someone else being me." Jameson has been using the idea successfully for over a year. He concedes that the scheme isn't foolproof and that it's possible to fake (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/05/16/gummi_bears_defeat_fingerprint_sens…) fingerprints ("nothing's perfect," as he puts it). As far as Jameson knows he's the only person who's using the technique in the UK. The scheme delays the issuing of credit, which could be a problem with people who apply for multiple accounts but this is a minor inconvenience for Jameson. "This is driven by the individual so there are no data protection issues. It's a real deterrent to ID theft," he told El Reg. . -- ----------------- 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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CIA Researching Automated IRC Spying (fwd from brian-slashdotnews@hyperreal.org)
by Eugen Leitl 25 Nov '04

25 Nov '04

----- Forwarded message from brian-slashdotnews(a)hyperreal.org -----

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Re: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report
by John Kelsey 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

>From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd(a)echeque.com> >Sent: Nov 24, 2004 1:02 AM >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report ... >And the problem with a civil war in Iraq is? At least three: a. The pottery barn theory of foreign affairs--we'd be blamed for making things worse. (I don't know how much this matters long term, but it would certainly have made life pretty hard on Tony Blair and the rest of the world leaders who actually supported us.) b. We would one day like their oil back on the market. c. We would like to make sure that the next regime to come to power there isn't someone we also feel obligated to get rid of, as even invasions done on the cheap cost a lot of money. > --digsig > James A. Donald --John

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Re: Latest Tasteful Video Game: Chappaquiduck
by Major Variola (ret) 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

At 11:34 PM 11/21/04 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >Slsahdot reports that MSNBC reports http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6549265/ >that there's a new video game "JFK Reloaded" http://www.jfkreloaded.com/start/ I'm waiting for Grand Theft Auto IV, Drunk Over the Bridge With the Secretary variant. Wonder what Teddie will say about that one. Oswald saved the world from nuclear conflict, thank the gods he offed the sex & drug crazed toothy one as soon as he (et al :-) did. And a hell of a shot as well. Gotta respect that, with a bolt-action, no less.

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Gilmore's regional arrest & interstate travel
by Major Variola (ret) 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

> John (under regional arrest) Gilmore The feds can't prohibit interstate travel, no? To visit 2 of the states, you must use a boat. Do boats require ID? I understand that trains now do. [Note that driving through a foreign country should not be required. To boat you pass out of US waters, into international, and back into US waters.] ----- Will DCite be greenish like trinitite, or is the swamp iron-poor?

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Suicide pigs fly to support Blunkett's War on Terror
by R.A. Hettinga 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/terror_scare_spin/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register B; Internet and Law B; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs B; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/terror_scare_spin/ Suicide pigs fly to support Blunkett's War on Terror By John Lettice (john.lettice at theregister.co.uk) Published Tuesday 23rd November 2004 11:44 GMT In an amazing coincidence, news of a thwarted 911-style terror attack on the UK emerged just hours before the Government was due to unveil a legislative programme chock-full of security-related goodies. The strangely fact-free story, available from the Mail, (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id= 328011&in_page_id=1770&ct=5) ITN (http://www.itv.com/news/index_957889.html) and The Scotsman, (http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1346532004) among others, is attributed to a "senior authoritative source", and Downing Street, the Home Office and the Metropolitan Police "declined to comment." As journalistic constructs designed to distance government from responsibility for the junk the spin doctors are handing out go, "senior authoritative source" is pretty esoteric. It's not 'Home Office sources', nor is 'sources close to the Home Office' - maybe it's not even 'informed sources', and our confidence in it is further undermined by the apparent need to say in the story that the source "who has no axe to grind, said that the threats were real and were not deliberately exaggerated for political purposes." When you have to put in your story, 'look, I know you're all going to think this is junk made up by the Government to coincide with the Queens speech, but it's not, OK?', you are in bad shape.? The Government's intention now will be to let this one lie (as it were), and just smugly decline to comment. David Blunkett, who heads up the newly-merged Ministries of Fear and Truth, has however had trouble controlling his mouth on previous occasions. Earlier this year the man who is not running a fear-inspired campaign to justify his terror measures cited (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3607141.stm) a thwarted chemical bomb plot as justifying them. The chemical in question was, even in the views of the terror rentaquotes, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3603961.stm) a peculiar choice for a bomb that would do anything apart from, er, inspire terror, and it later transpired that nobody had actually been arrested (http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA4C2.htm) and that none of the strange and ineffective bomb-making chemical osmium tetroxide may even have been acquired. There were actual arrests in another chemical bomb scare (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/11/17/tube.terror/) (although in that report John Prescott seems weirdly off-message). Unhappily, as this valuable sweeping up (http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/january03_index.php?l=52%82%22=0") of terror-scare aftermaths reports, none of them was ever convicted of terrorism-related activities. One of the three was sentenced to three months for possession of a fake French passport. What percentage of fake ID holders are terrorists, Mr Blunkett? But back to today's events. Among the 'sensible preemptive measures' to be announced today we have the ID scheme bill, and just last week David Blunkett was pre-spinning the matter in his speech to the IPPR. The transcript of this now available, (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/identitycards_041118speech.htm) and we note with some interest that David, who assures us he does not use terror scares to sell repression, says: "Now people say to me that they don't believe for a minute ID cards would actually help in terms of being able to track or prevent terrorist activity and they say 'It didn't stop the terrorist attack in Madrid in March, did it?' And the answer is: 'no it didn't' and I have never claimed that it would have done." A little research provides an example of trustworthy and truthful David not saying that very thing. In the Breakfast with Frost (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/3657219.stm) interview in April, which is rapidly acquiring 'seminal' status, he said: "Firstly because we've got biometrics, I mean, people say to me you couldn't stop the World Trade Center attack, you couldn't stop the Madrid bombing with ID cards. Well, you couldn't with, of course because the Americans although they have an insurance system, do not have an ID card as you know." "The Spanish do. But it isn't a foolproof biometric card with a database, with the ability to test not only the card vis-a-vis the database, but actually the person and the card they hold. That's what will be potentially possible." Which, we'll grant, is not saying the ID scheme would have stopped Madrid, but it does look a bit like saying Madrid happened because the Spanish had the 'wrong kind of ID card', while we, of course... More later, after the rich lady sings, no doubt... B. - -- - ----------------- 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' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 1336 iQEVAwUBQaT7ZcUCGwxmWcHhAQEFOgf/YOsv1LvmnOeC6ArryPqf8qFXY+nl8qVB GuNjg398lnGWuJqWBq9EVf+TILXh1zeO4vOfFBC9agrdqBVsLsl0wFbgm9ylgDA+ +XnOV0oBXhMWWPrXDJn6h8YVHyT96Sd593wKJSTUcs7eQOAXaHMhYQCrg1Kg5hOH TtNIijBHACaWOv9rkt8CczmmAjypmT0zLP/VXB65Q3zwlaLFBZiNzjJUcyr/9vbB VPI1tOGyuqsPm5X1GfVXSmd3Nx96sr2fPcfSwD+huSrlh7MzxLPh9WbMfXGBs/96 k8EO8Hk8cQmBut/8g4ZHTe2nNCWBUp4LQoOnPFiecdSXvuvRf/aNyg== =LcB1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Homeland Security's Request For Student Data Stirs Concern
by R.A. Hettinga 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110125761251482555,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 24, 2004 POLITICS AND POLICY Homeland Security's Request For Student Data Stirs Concern By ALONSO SOTO and ROBERT BLOCK Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 24, 2004; Page A4 WASHINGTON -- A Homeland Security Department campaign to make schoolchildren better prepared for terrorist attacks is raising concerns about making them more vulnerable to identity theft as well. The department's preparedness form, which went out as part of the "Ready" campaign in September and October, asks that students in junior and senior high school carry around a form that includes their Social Security number, birth date and home address, as well those of their parents and siblings. The move first caused an outcry in Rhode Island when a consumer fraud investigator brought it to the attention of Patrick Lynch, the state attorney general. Mr. Lynch responded by firing off a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge requesting that he revise the form immediately. "While I do agree that it is important for families to have a plan in the event of an emergency, I believe this particular form is capable of more harm than good," he said in the letter dated Oct. 14. He said he was particularly concerned about the part of the form that exhorts: "Take this out of your agenda, fill it out with family and make copies to keep in your schoolbag and in visible locations at home." Mr. Lynch said that asking children to carry around such information was an invitation to identity thieves because teenagers frequently lose or misplace their backpacks. Mr. Lynch said in a phone interview yesterday that he has yet to receive any response from Homeland Security. Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied that the government was encouraging identity theft, saying that people worried about such problems could choose to leave the sensitive entries blank. "People can choose to include whatever information on the forms they like," he said. Several Homeland Security programs have drawn criticism and privacy complaints from civil activists over the past two years. The agency says that such measures need to be taken to protect Americans from terrorist plots. Homeland Security officials declined to say how many student planners with the forms were sent around the country, but say that they have removed the sentence encouraging students to keep copies of the forms in their backpacks from the latest version. However, space for the family Social Security numbers is still included. Mr. Roehrkasse said that forms which will be sent to younger children later this year won't include space for Social Security information. Barry Steinhardt, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union Liberty Project, said Homeland Security was "grossly irresponsible" for the form, saying that it should know that identify theft is an epidemic in the country and their actions would only make it easier for thieves. "I hope this was just a misjudgment by the department and not a concealed attempt to collect data," he said. According to the Federal Trade Commission, the problem of identity theft cost Americans nearly $43 billion last year. Identity theft is also of major concern to federal law-enforcement officials because it could help terrorists disguise their activities. In addition to complaining to Mr. Ridge, Mr. Lynch wrote to Rhode Island's state director of Homeland Security affairs and to the superintendents of each of the state's school systems asking them to disregard the Homeland form. "We don't want children, we don't want adults, we don't want anybody giving up their Social Security numbers," he said. -- ----------------- 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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Where Did Arafat Stash the Money?
by R.A. Hettinga 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110124561472582236,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 24, 2004 WORLD NEWS Where Did Arafat Stash the Money? For Palestinian Authority, Credibility Could Depend On Tracking Down Funds By FARNAZ FASSIHI Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL November 24, 2004; Page A11 RAMALLAH, West Bank -- As the Palestinian Authority enters the post-Yasser Arafat era, the tracking down of funds controlled by the deceased leader -- rumored to be in the tens of millions of dollars -- will affect the authority's credibility at home and abroad and the potential for clashes among its factions. Some Palestinian officials already have called for questioning of Mr. Arafat's closest aides, and now interim successors, Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmad Qurei, and his wife, Suha Arafat. Officials have pledged to determine exactly the amount and location of the money. This week, a statement issued by the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group in the West Bank, warned the new government of corruption among some top officials and vowed to take the law into its own hands if action isn't taken within a month. "Officially, the money is supposed to be with the Finance Ministry, but millions of dollars are invested around the world and no one knows where they are," said Hassan Khreisheh, first deputy speaker of the legislative council who has led several probes into government-corruption charges. "This is unacceptable to any Palestinian." Over the decades, as Mr. Arafat carried the flag of the Palestinian struggle, he accumulated money donated by countries, businesses and individuals to support his movement and help the Palestinian people. Until the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Gulf countries donated millions of dollars a year to the Palestinian cause, and Saudi Arabia alone sent an annual check of $50 million, or about $38 million, a year to Mr. Arafat. He used this money to support Palestinian refugees in Arab countries, as well as to fund some of the security groups within the Palestine Liberation Organization, the umbrella organization headed and controlled by Mr. Arafat. Aid from Gulf countries slowly diminished after Mr. Arafat backed Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, but Mr. Hussein stepped in to make up for lost income. The money was stashed in foreign bank accounts, with some invested in commercial entities around the world. The International Monetary Fund in a September 2003 report said that from 1995 to 2000, the Palestinian Authority's assets may have exceeded $898 million. That report concluded that much of its revenue from taxes was invested in a variety of commercial enterprises that nominally belonged to the authority, but that the "substantial revenue" they generated was being diverted, as was revenue from monopoly contracts for cement and petroleum. The report said the enterprises operated "with no transparency or accountability." Under the arrangement worked out through the 1994 Oslo Accord, Israel collected value-added and excise taxes on purchases by Palestinians, and was to remit the money to the Palestinian Authority. But money -- particularly from excise taxes on petroleum, tobacco and alcohol -- was diverted, some to an account in a Bank Leumi branch in Tel Aviv, the report said. Mr. Arafat and his financial adviser, Mohammad Rachid, controlled the account, according to the IMF. A major overhaul launched in 2002 by the new minister of finance, Salem Fayyad, succeeded in transferring control of the bulk of assets from Mr. Arafat to the government. Since January 2003, all funds have been separated into two categories: the Palestinian Authority's assets of $300 million to $700 million in 79 commercial ventures, the largest being a telecommunication company operating in Algeria and Tunisia, which is now considered public money; and the PLO's money, whose sum remains a mystery but is estimated in the tens of millions of dollars by independent auditors who investigated the funds. Under political pressure from donor countries, Mr. Arafat agreed the authority's money could be tracked down throughout the Arab world, registered and secured in the Palestinian Investment Fund, which requires at least three official signatures for any withdrawal and is audited by the Democracy Council, an American nonprofit group hired by Mr. Fayyad. But no watchdog was ever hired to monitor the PLO funds, and according to James Prince, who leads the American auditing team, "the PLO funds are totally opaque." According to some officials and investigators, Mr. Arafat used that money to buy loyalties, and this stash came from the authority's presidential budget of close to $40 million -- as well as various illegal cuts Mr. Arafat allegedly was receiving from petroleum smuggling and from fees paid by trucks crossing the Gaza Strip border. "They took away his political and physical power, and all he had was financial power," Mr. Prince said. "He went around with cash and threw money around." -- ----------------- 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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Blair's Legislative Program To Focus on Crime, Security
by R.A. Hettinga 24 Nov '04

24 Nov '04

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110125411107782447,00.html> The Wall Street Journal November 24, 2004 3:28 a.m. EST WORLD NEWS Blair's Legislative Program To Focus on Crime, Security Associated Press November 24, 2004 3:28 a.m.; Page A11 LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair put the fight against crime and terrorism at the center of his campaign for a third term, pledging to fast-track plans for national identity cards and a new police agency similar to the FBI. With parliamentary elections expected in May, the government wants to appear tough on law and order, and security lies at the heart of the legislative program it unveiled yesterday. "This is a big change, but frankly with terrorism, illegal immigration and organized crime ... identity cards in my judgment are long overdue," Mr. Blair told the House of Commons. Political opponents accused his government of seeking to frighten voters - similar to a charge Democrats leveled against President Bush. Despite widespread public opposition to British participation in the Iraq war, Mr. Blair's Labour Party is comfortably ahead in opinion polls and expected to win a third consecutive term. Queen Elizabeth II outlined to Parliament plans for a Serious Organized Crime Agency to crack down on drug gangs, people-traffickers, major fraudsters and Internet pedophiles. The agency has been dubbed Britain's equivalent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But the government's legislative priority is a law allowing a national database of names, addresses and biometric details of everyone in Britain. The information would be linked to ID cards. Ministers hope to phase them in for voluntary use by 2007, then make them compulsory by 2012. Such cards are mandatory in many Western European countries, but the idea alarms civil-rights activists. -- ----------------- 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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