November 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

"Nonce Stamp": SRI International Receives Security Technology Patent for Paper-based Transactions
by R.A. Hettinga 23 Nov '04

23 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_vi…> November 23, 2004 08:01 AM US Eastern Timezone SRI International Receives Security Technology Patent for Paper-based Transactions MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 2004-- "Nonce Stamp" Offers Many Applications, Including Electronically Downloaded Airline Tickets, Travelers Checks, Passports, Postage, Legal Documents, and Event and Movie Tickets SRI International, a leading independent, nonprofit research institute known for its pioneering innovations, today announced that it has been issued a fundamental U.S. patent for its "nonce stamp" technology, which can secure and authenticate paper documents against fraudulent creation and use. U.S. Patent No. 6,820,201 covers SRI's information-based indicia technology for securing and authenticating paper documents. The SRI technology addresses the security issues inherent in today's popular "print-at-home" documents, such as postage and movie tickets, which can be readily counterfeited. The recently awarded patent and related pending SRI patents cover an innovative use of a nonce (an element used to protect electronic cryptography systems from being cracked) to protect paper-based documents. The nonce is a unique number preprinted on a forgery-resistant material. When the user wishes to print an article of value, such as a postage stamp, the value of the nonce is combined with other information (e.g., the value of the postage) and a digital certificate is created. The digital certificate, in electronic or printed form, together with the nonce stamp, provides cryptographically secure proof of the uniqueness and authenticity of the certificate. The inventors are laboratory director Patrick D. Lincoln, Ph.D., and staff scientist Natarajan Shankar, Ph.D., of SRI's Computer Science Laboratory. "Most paper currency and other documents that have monetary value include security features to prevent fraud. SRI saw the need to also secure today's popular "print-at-home" documents to eliminate forgery and counterfeiting," said Dr. Lincoln. "Nonce stamps are a way of creating unique physical representations of digital certificates that are easily authenticated and that cannot be forged." About SRI International Silicon Valley-based SRI International (www.sri.com) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for almost 60 years. The nonprofit research institute performs contract research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses and nonprofit foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies. Contacts SRI International Ellie Javadi, 650-859-4874 ellie.javadi(a)sri.com - -- - ----------------- 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: 1308 iQA/AwUBQaNa38PxH8jf3ohaEQJ7fgCeNCYOxu71aVO/mcYxlc4xUJM8cY4AniMB OlniEOrpGN76Go+Qg+ZK65Lu =M9EY -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[ISN] Hackers Pocket W16 Billion in Cyber Cash
by R.A. Hettinga 23 Nov '04

23 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 - --- begin forwarded text

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Froomkin joins EFF board
by R.A. Hettinga 23 Nov '04

23 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Congrats to Michael Froomkin, AKA Vinnie "The Pro" Bono, an anonymous source of mine on cypherpunks back in the day, before he broke the ice himself, once he realized we weren't all going to be hitting him up for free legal advice. :-). Cheers, RAH - ------- <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/eff_griffin_froomkin/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register B; Business B; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/23/eff_griffin_froomkin/ Griffin, Froomkin join EFF board By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at theregister.co.uk) Published Tuesday 23rd November 2004 02:29 GMT The future of digital rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation looks faintly brighter today with the creation of an Advisory board, created to help the group form some effective long-term strategies. Amongst the 12 advisors named are the FSF's Eben Moglen, and Princeton professor Ed Felten. But we're pleased to see two names familiar to veteran Register readers, music entrepreneur Jim Griffin and lawyer Michael Froomkin [home page (http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/welcome.html) - blog (http://www.discourse.net/) of the University of Miami's law school. Froomkin has devoted much of his time in recent years to examining how consensus is formed to provide a legitimate basis for online institutions, penning Habermas(a)discourse.net: Toward a Critical Theory of Cyberspace (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=363840) and although he has used the word "meme" on his blog (tut, Michael, we think you mean "theme" or "idea") he's proved himself a scrupulous and tenacious ICANN watchdog. Former Geffen CTO Jim Griffin, who co-runs the Pho mailing list, is probably the most passionate and articulate advocate of modernizing the compensation framework for the digital distribution of music. We interviewed (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/02/11/why_wireless_will_end_piracy/) Jim back in February, and your reporter drew heavily on Jim's persuasive arguments when giving this talk (http://www.theregister.com/2004/09/23/orlowski_interactive_keynote/) to the music industry earlier this Fall. All credit to the EFF for recognizing that fresh thinking is needed. The group's most notable successes have been on behalf of individuals who've falled foul of the rights' holders ugly use of litigation: such as "DVD Jon" Johansen and Dmitri Sklyarov. But the group has been outflanked at almost every turn by the better-funded copyright lobby. At times it's even managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory: for example in the case of Senator Orrin Hatch. Hatch was so disgusted by the way the recording industry treated artists he threatened to introduce flat fee licenses (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/26/hatch_induce_act/) but was wooed by persistent flattery from the RIAA. He's now one of the staunchest pigopolist advocates. And earlier this year much of the organization's outstanding work on privacy was undone by Brad Templeton 'Google isn't so spooky' (http://www.templetons.com/brad/gmail.html) analysis of GMail, which kindly overlooked the implications of Google's defense of the service: that only machines read your email. As former DoJ cybercrime czar Mark Rausch pointed out here (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/15/gmail_spook_heaven/) that's an invitation for the the FBI to point its machines at your email too, and make the same defense. Ah, what problems, what confusion these techno utopians create for themselves! So not all of the EFF's ineffectiveness can be explained by a lack of resources, or its location: 2,300 miles further from Congress than its rival lobby groups. The organization was born out of the popular technical ethos of libertarianism, in which compromise is distrusted and direct political engagement is shunned for a faith in market forces. And being lawyers, they like to fight cases, naturally. "They like to lose - they feed on the indignation," thunders one reader, who characterizes the EFF as "a bumbling third-rate ACLU with high-tech airs. They're mucking about with some important cases, and every time they lose, we lose." Ouch. While there are welcome signs that the EFF is shedding some of its previously ideologically-hamstrung positions - such as advertising in Rolling Stone, and sending a blogger to the WIPO discussions - there's some way to go yet. The decision to advocate a "voluntary" collective license is going to go safely nowhere, to the contentment of the recording rights holders - as it's a compact that everyone in the world can sign up to except the people who matter. (The rights holders themselves) Still, the new appointments are a welcome sign that new tactics may be deployed. At every turn the tech lobby has been outsmarted and outfought, losing almost every important case it's engaged in, and we now practically have to beg Congress not to detonate our computers. It's going to be a long haul back. Sitting back and praying that either the market, or some as yet unknown emergent phenomena, will take care of things is no longer an option. B. Related stories Dirty rotten inducers - the law the IT world deserves? (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/26/hatch_induce_act/) RIAA praises 'magnificent' P2P (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/16/bainwol_induce_letter/) EFF asks US court to ditch vague patents (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/21/patents_brief_ambiguous/) EFF BOFH arrested (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/13/eff_bofh_arrested/) UK Sklyarov protestors picket US embassy (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/08/30/uk_sklyarov_protestors_picket_us/) B) Copyright 2004 - -- - ----------------- 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: 1308 iQA/AwUBQaNDlcPxH8jf3ohaEQJW1ACcC3S7nI7PfVYLrK6MfRLdmhv7vWMAoN8F B3mJI+MKfTSIEDrqcGuEUEQC =6rkQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[IP] Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents (fwd from dave@farber.net)
by Eugen Leitl 23 Nov '04

23 Nov '04

----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave(a)farber.net> -----

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We're from the government, and we're here to grope you...
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/041129/usnews/29marshals.b.htm> USNews.com Home Issues 11/29/04 Nation & World An Intrusive new search Thanksgiving travelers may be in for a bit of a shock as they plod through security lines at the nation's airports. Passengers chosen for secondary screening or whose clothing appears suspicious or bulky are now subject to frisking--in a pretty intrusive way. In late September, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began allowing security checkpoint screeners to manually pat down women's breasts and the genital and derriere regions of both sexes during searches. The point is to find hidden explosives while machines that might perform the job are still being tested. "I know it's not pleasant," says Rep. John Mica, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, "but until we get the technology, what are the options?" The air marshals hasn't exactly taken off The new policy reflects an increasing sense of urgency about the lack of explosives-detection equipment. Today, only a small percentage of carry-on luggage and passengers is tested for bombs. In its final report, the 9/11 commission said the TSA must give "priority attention" to checking passengers for explosives. In August, two Russian airliners crashed, almost certainly because of explosives two Chechen women had concealed beneath their clothing--underscoring the danger. Complaints. The TSA policy says that passengers can request that the new screening be done in a private room and requires that the frisker be the same gender as the traveler. But graduate student Sommer Gentry, 27, says that male screeners at Boston's Logan International Airport tried to pat her down while a female screener at Baltimore-Washington International Airport roughly jabbed a metal-detector wand between her legs. "How can I feel safe," Gentry said, " when the TSA is ordering me to let strangers put their hands all over my most intimate places?" TSA spokesman Mark Hatfield says the new policy generates only about a dozen complaints a week, but there have been reports of passengers, mostly women, growing angry during searches. The TSA is currently testing machines that could eliminate the need for such frisking, like "trace portals" that blow puffs of air at passengers to dislodge and sniff for bits of explosive material. But it will be a while before the machines are ready for widespread use. In the meantime, the TSA will continue the pat-downs and train screeners to explain the process more carefully. "These are very valid security measures," says Hatfield. "They get at a very specific potential threat." But that's not enough for Gentry. "I am now," she says, "an ex-frequent flier." -Samantha Levine - -- - ----------------- 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: 1308 iQA/AwUBQaJt7sPxH8jf3ohaEQLe1QCg1Fn29ta6DuoUkfFwFwa4W8d0RZsAoIb3 clsWWFX+kMxKx9Pc2I7jVWkG =O4K6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41460-2004Nov10?language=printer> The Washington Post washingtonpost.com E-Mail Authentication Will Not End Spam, Panelists Say By Jonathan Krim Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, November 11, 2004; Page E01 For consumers and businesses increasingly shaken by the growing onslaught of unwanted e-mail and the computer viruses and other nefarious hacking spam can bring, any hope for quick relief was soundly dashed yesterday during a government-hosted gathering of technology experts. Several executives and academics speaking at a forum sponsored by the Federal Trade Commission said criminals are already steps ahead of a major initiative by e-mail providers to counter those problems by creating a system to verify senders of e-mail. In theory, such an authentication system would make it harder for spammers to disguise their identities and locations in an attempt to avoid being shut down or prosecuted. But a majority of spam is launched by "zombies," or infected personal computers that are controlled by remote spammers. E-mail from a zombie looks as if it is coming from a legitimate source -- because it is. The owner of that source is simply unaware that his or her computer has been commandeered. "We'll be lucky if we solve 50 percent of the problem" with e-mail authentication, said Pavni Diwanji, chairman of MailFrontier Inc., a Silicon Valley provider of e-mail security systems. By some estimates, the problem is rapidly becoming a crisis. In the first half of this year, an average of 30,000 computers a day were turned into zombies, according to the computer security firm Symantec Corp. In addition to serving up unwanted or fraudulent messages, spam is used to deliver viruses and other malicious software code that can allow hackers to capture private data such as credit card or bank account numbers from personal computers. Hackers and spammers also have been able to exploit a lack of awareness among many computer users, tricking them into providing their passwords or account information in response to e-mails that appear to be coming from legitimate financial institutions or retailers, a tactic known as phishing. The information is then rapidly sold on a black market heavily populated by elements of organized crime in Eastern Europe, Asia and elsewhere. As incidents of the resulting identity fraud mount, "we're losing consumer confidence in this medium," said R. David Lewis, vice president of Digital Impact Inc., which provides bulk e-mail marketing services to large companies. Lewis and others said that if the public reaches a tipping point at which Internet commerce is no longer trusted, the economic consequences will be severe. Despite the authentication effort's shortcomings, none of yesterday's speakers suggested abandoning it, because it is seen as an essential building block for other solutions. But the forum demonstrated in stark terms the depth and complexity of the problem. Any e-mail authentication system, for example, would check that the block of Internet addresses assigned to an e-mail provider includes the specific numeric address of a sender of a piece of e-mail. Thus, a red flag would go up if a message seeming to come from bob(a)xyz-123.net is actually not coming from a computer that uses the xyz-123.net mail service. But Scott Chasin, chief technology officer of e-mail security firm MX Logic Inc., said the underlying Internet system that houses the necessary data is insecure and can be tricked by hackers. Chasin said the problem has been known for 10 years, but industry and Internet standard-setters have been unable or unwilling to fix the problem by encrypting the data. Getting agreement on an authentication system has been similarly difficult and is partly why the FTC held the summit. The major e-mail providers, America Online Inc., Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and EarthLink Inc., are still testing and pushing various plans. The Internet group assigned to endorse a standard disbanded recently, unable to resolve discord and uncertainty over whether licensing rights asserted by Microsoft would cut out a broad swath of organizations that use so-called open-source software. Chasin and other panelists also said the basic operating systems that power computers -- the most dominant of which is Microsoft Windows -- remain too vulnerable to hackers. He said a worm was recently discovered that lodges itself in Windows files and goes to work when a computer user tries to access the Web site of his or her bank. The malicious code automatically redirects the Web browser to a fake page that looks like the real thing. In this scenario, the user has not been duped by a fake phishing e-mail. Instead, the vulnerability in the operating system has allowed the code to redirect the user's browser to a phony page where a hacker can capture the user's name and password. Still, panelists insisted authentication is a vital first step. After that, they said, could come a system that evaluates the "reputation" of senders, perhaps using a process that marks good e-mail with an electronic seal of approval. -- ----------------- 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: Gov't Orders Air Passenger Data for Test
by John Kelsey 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

News story quoted by RAH: >WASHINGTON - The government on Friday ordered airlines to turn over >personal information about passengers who flew within the United States in >June in order to test a new system for identifying potential terrorists. The interesting thing here is that they can't really test how effective the system is until they have another terrorist event on an airline. Otherwise, they can assess the false positive rate of their list (people who were on the no-fly-list, shouldn't have flown according to the rules, but did without trying to hijack the plane), and the false positive and false negative rate of their search for names in the list (e.g., when it becomes obvious that Benjamin Ladon from Peoria, IL would have matched, but wasn't the guy they were hoping to nab, or when it becomes obvious that a suspected terrorist was in the data, did fly, but wasn't caught by the software). > The system, dubbed "Secure Flight," will compare passenger data with names >on two government watch lists, a "no fly" list comprised of people who are >known or suspected to be terrorists, and a list of people who require more >scrutiny before boarding planes. Presumably a lot of the goal here is to stop hassling everyone with a last name that starts with al or bin, stop hassling Teddy Kennedy getting on a plane, etc., while still catching most of the people on their watchlists who fly under their real name. ... > Currently, the federal government shares parts of the list with airlines, >which are responsible for making sure suspected terrorists don't get on >planes. People within the commercial aviation industry say the lists have >the names of more than 100,000 people on them. This is a goofy number. If there were 100,000 likely terrorists walking the streets, we'd have buildings and planes and bus stops and restaurants blowing up every day of the week. I'll bet you're risking your career if you ever take someone off the watchlist who isn't a congressman or a member of the Saudi royal family, but that it costs you nothing to add someone to the list. In fact, I'll bet there are people whose performance evaluations note how many people they added to the watchlist. This is what often seems to make watchlists useless--eventually, your list of threats has expanded to include Elvis Presley and John Lennon, and at that point, you're spending almost all your time keeping an eye on (or harassing) random harmless bozos. >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> --John

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Microchip passport critics say ID theft possible
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-11-22-hitech-passport_x.htm> USA Today Microchip passport critics say ID theft possible The Associated Press The United States hasn't issued any microchip-equipped passports yet, but as the Department of State tests different prototypes, the international standards for the passports are under fire from privacy advocates who worry the technology won't protect travelers from identity thieves. The American Civil Liberties union has raised alarms and even an executive at one of the companies developing a prototype for the State Department calls the international standards woefully inadequate. The international standards for "electronic" passports were set by the U.N.-affiliated International Civil Aviation Organization, which has worked on standards for machine-readable passports since 1968. On the latest passports, the agency has "taken a 'keep it simple' approach, which, unfortunately, really disregards a basic privacy approach and leaves out the basic security methods we would have expected to have been incorporated for the security of the documents," said Neville Pattinson, an executive at Axalto North America, which is working on a prototype U.S. electronic passport. As part of heightened security post-Sept. 11, all new U.S. passports issued by the end of 2005 are expected to have a chip containing the holders' name, birth date and issuing office, as well as a "biometric" identifier - a photo of the holders' face. The photo is the international standard for biometrics, but countries are free to add other biometrics, such as fingerprints, for greater accuracy. Privacy advocates have complained about the security standards for the passports, but Pattinson is the most prominent person involved in their creation to express concern that they could become prey for identity thieves if safeguards aren't standardized. A slide in a presentation he gives says, "Don't lose the public's confidence at the get go." Another asks, "Who is up for a black eye?" The international passport standards call for "a very sophisticated smart card device," that uses a chip and an antenna embedded in the passports' covers, Pattinson said. Unlike cheaper and dumber RFID tags, the passport chips would be microprocessors that could send one piece of information at a time in answer to queries from a machine reader. They could also be equipped with multiple layers of encryption for security. The international standards spell out ways the passports could incorporate more protection from identity thieves, but they make those methods optional. Under the standards, information on the chip could be picked up by someone who wires a briefcase with a reader, then swings it within inches of a passports, Pattinson said. Over a greater distance, an interloper could eavesdrop on border control devices reading the passports, he said. "There's no security built into it," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program, at the American Civil Liberties Union. "This will enable identity theft and put Americans at some risk when they travel internationally." One rudimentary way to protect electronic passports from identity thieves is to wrap them in tinfoil, which blocks radio waves. A single size Doritos bag would do the trick. Protecting border control agents' readers with a metal shield would protect against eavesdropping. The International Civil Aviation Organization and State Department say they're looking at more organized methods. The privacy issues "have come up and they are being looked at," said Denis Schagnon, a spokesman for ICAO. "This is a process that is being implemented over the next few years, it is not something that happens overnight." One way to fight identity theft is already in the standards, he said: The passports will have built-in encrypted authentication to let electronic readers know they are original documents, not forgeries. The international standard "is obviously a baseline," said Angela Aggeler, spokesperson for the bureau of consular affairs at the State Department. "This is something we continue to develop and work on. (Privacy) is the thing that is driving a lot of our considerations. Personal privacy issues are of paramount consideration." Other countries are also making the switch to microchipped, biometric passports, at U.S. request. Under the Patriot Act, visitors from 27 countries whose citizens don't need visas to visit the United States will need electronic passports, too. The United States originally asked that visitors from those countries have the electronic passports by this October. President Bush in August gave the countries an extra year to issue them; they will be required by next October. In testimony before a House committee, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that other countries were finding the switch "daunting," as was the United States. The Government Printing Office is manufacturing test passports using chip packages provided by four companies, it said when the contracts were awarded in October. The National Institute of Standards will then test the prototypes to see if they meet durability, security and electronic requirements. The State Department and the Department of Homeland Security are also testing the passports, Aggeler said. One or more companies will win a contract for the passports by the end of the year, according to the printing office's schedule, and the U.S. government would begin issuing them to officials and diplomats starting early next year. The companies under contract are Axalto, whose parent company is headquartered in France, SuperCom, Infineon Technologies and BearingPoint, which have been awarded contracts worth a total of $373,000. BearingPoint is the only company headquartered in the United States. - -- - ----------------- 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: 1308 iQA/AwUBQaJRlsPxH8jf3ohaEQJZcwCgm4/0wYTRd4NvCI4rx/Ii2/+nvMUAn3wB Iz4VwYjQJoZMuzFhm4LUPzGz =Y9yI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report
by John Kelsey 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

>From: "R.A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >Sent: Nov 21, 2004 9:23 PM >To: John Young <jya(a)pipeline.com>, cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Re: Fallujah: Marine Eye-Witness Report ... >By the way, John, did you know that Bush Is Going To Revive The Draft??? I know this is currently known to be false by all informed opinion, but I don't think it's crazy to worry about it. If we want to fight high-tech wars like the invasion of Iraq, lots of conscript troops aren't that useful. If we want to occupy places like Iraq, we need people to do the occupying, and it's clear that there's some strain on our forces now. Conscript troops might very well be useful for that kind of work. Suppose we invade and occupy Iran next. Where will the soldiers needed to hold down occupied territory come from? Suppose we follow up with Syria, which is surely about as repressive and nasty a place as Saddam's Iraq. Three things are very clear about the current situation: a. A lot of people are finding out that their military obligations are going to be longer and much less pleasant than they expected. This is going to have a big impact on recruiting in the future. b. If we just want to hold down what we've got, we have enough troops to do it, but if we want to really go on a democratizing bender in the Middle East, we'll need more troops. c. It's not at all clear we won't be taking some action against Iran in the next year. Hopefully, that won't involve invading them, but it could. >Cheers, >RAH --John

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A Tale of Two Maps
by R.A. Hettinga 22 Nov '04

22 Nov '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 <http://www.techcentralstation.com/111704A.html> Tech Central Station A Tale of Two Maps By Patrick Cox Published 11/17/2004 The now familiar map of the United States, separated into red and blue states, makes the point, graphically, that the coastal population centers tend to vote Democratic while fly-over country leans Republican. Unfortunately, the map's binary either/or electoral college nature overestimates the philosophical division within the country while failing to show the extraordinary degree to which Americans' voting behavior reflects the degree to which their own neighborhoods are more or less crowded. A far better illustration, devised by Princeton University mathematician Robert Vanderbei, uses shades of purple to indicate the spectrum of election preferences within counties. Here is a map, executed by Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman of the University of Michigan using his procedure: <http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/111704AAA.gif> Here is a map showing U.S. population density in 1990: <http://www.techcentralstation.com/images/111704A.gif> Comparisons of these two maps make startlingly obvious the extent to which population density predicts voter behavior. Though not a perfect match, the relationship is undeniable -- and ultimately enigmatic. What, we are led to ask, could explain this relationship? How does the number of live humans per square mile either influence or reflect political philosophy? The standard, rather unexamined, assumption is that rural America has more traditional cultural values that are associated with the Republican Party. These include religious, family and pro-military values. Urban population centers and surrounding environs, on the other hand, are associated with more progressive values associated with Democratic Party. These values are assumed to be more secular, progressive and anti-military. While this may be an accurate description, no one, to my knowledge, has provided a convincing explanation for the differences between lower and higher density regions. Why would, after all, city life cause one to embrace liberal political views? Why would life in the country yield a conservative perspective? What, specifically, are the causative factors? There has been a surfeit of speculation about psychological factors, but relatively few specifics and even less evidence. Urban areas do have higher crime rates and, while this attribute is widely recognized, there is little real analysis of such as a causative factor in political attitudes. One of the few efforts even to quantify the correlation of population density and crime rates comes from John R. Lott and David Mustard who studied the impact on crime rates of Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun laws -- which is higher in rural areas. One of the very few studies to actually examine the effects of population density on behavior and attitudes is "Measuring Helping Behavior Across Cultures" by Robert V. Levine of California State University, Fresno. Levine found, through a series of interesting tests, such as feigning a blind person trying to find and retrieve a lost letter, that "Far and away the best predictor of helping was population density. Density was more closely tied to the helpfulness of a city than even characteristics like crime rates, the pace of life, economic conditions or environmental stressors like noise and air pollution. Overall, people in more crowded cities were much less likely to take the time to help. New York City was Exhibit A. Crowding brings out our worst nature. Urban critics have demonstrated that squeezing too many people into too small a space leads to alienation, anonymity, de-individuation and social isolation. Ultimately, people feel less responsible for their behaviors toward others -- especially strangers. Previous studies have shown that city dwellers are more likely to do each other harm. Our U.S. results indicate that they are also less likely to do them good, and that this apathy increases with the degree of city-ness." This, of course, is only one study and may not take into account other less observable forms of "helping" so it may not be safe to read much into the author's conclusions. Another fascinating and easily verifiable correlation may be tied only indirectly to the characteristics of population density. The red states, that voted for Bush in both of the last elections, it seems, are net receivers of federal tax revenues. In 2002, Dean Lacy of Ohio State University and the Hoover Institution. published "A Curious Paradox of the Red States and Blue States: Federal Spending and Electoral Votes in the 2000 Election." He found that, "Thirty of the U.S. states reap more in federal spending than their citizens contribute to the federal government in taxes. The other 20 states provide more in taxes than they receive in spending. In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, George W. Bush won most of the states that are net beneficiaries of federal spending programs, while Al Gore won most of the states that are net contributors to federal spending. A state's ratio of federal spending to tax dollars, particularly non-defense spending, is a statistically and substantively significant predictor of Bush's margin of victory across the states. A state's per capita federal tax burden is also associated with the election result: states with higher tax burdens gave higher vote margins to Gore. Compared to Clinton's state-by-state vote shares in 1996, Gore did worse in states that gained in federal spending per tax dollar from 1998 to 2000." Even more specifically, Lacy wrote that, "Put another way, Bush's margin goes up by 2 percentage points for every additional dime of federal spending in a state per dollar of taxes paid by that state." The same results held, in principle, in the Bush/Kerry election, and much has been made of this odd fact by those who want to characterize red states as welfare recipients. It is an odd charge, however, that the states that tend to oppose transfer payments politically benefit most from them financially. One possible explanation of this seeming contradiction is that it is caused by progressive taxation and higher urban area incomes. Though the cost of living is higher in the cities than it is in rural areas, taxpayers with nominally higher incomes naturally pay more taxes. Most federal programs, however, are paid out based more on the basis of population statistics, regardless of income levels, leading to an outflow of revenues from high-income states to low income states. The case can also made that the cost of delivering services to states with low population densities is greater than it is in urban population concentrations. It is, for example, easier to deliver mail to rows of consecutive mailboxes on city streets than it is to drive to a series of far-flung farmhouses. It is also true that labor and other costs are also lower in rural areas, so it is probably not safe to assume federal programs are actually higher in rural areas. Additionally, many significant programs, such as agricultural subsidies, are unaffected by the demographic scattering. I think it is more likely that the net-recipient status of the red states reflects the fact that, in order to secure the support of states whose populations tend to resist transfer payments, supporters of redistributive programs are often forced to buy off red state approval for government spending programs. Still, these characteristics fail to explain the differences in the underlying differences in political attitudes between concentrated and dispersed populations. All modern differences between rural and urban American life may, in fact, be irrelevant. They could, rather, be holdovers from more traumatic times. As I've lived and worked in both heartland farm country, in Idaho and Florida, as well as and some of America's largest cities, including New York and Boston, I am skeptical that current differences would yield the radical differences in political philosophies that we now observe. The caricatures put forth by both sides, of insular hicks in trailer houses and cowering victims in crime-ridden row houses, do not reflect the experiences of most people. Less than a hundred years ago, though, the contrasting challenges of city and farm life were far more tangible. One data point is that, before the development of penicillin at the beginning of the first World War, a compound fracture, which was a not uncommon consequence of being thrown from a wagon, resulted in death about half the time. On the other side of the demographic divide, big city politics were often remarkably brutish and intrusive. Victor Davis Hanson, if I understand him correctly, posits that the legacy of America's farmer/warrior past has had an enduring impact on America's traditional political views, now emanating primarily from the heartland. One might expect, if this is true, that those who live in closest proximity to agricultural activities and communities would maintain more of these traditional attitudes. George Bush's use of the symbols of agriculture, cowboy boots, big belt buckles and pickups, obviously appealed to these people. If Hanson is correct, however, demography may very well be destiny, as technology has decreased radically the portion of our population that is involved, even peripherally, in agriculture. Moreover, the cultural connection between the modern descendants of agricultural families may soon fade because, as Thomas Sowell suggests, culture lasts only two or three generations, and there are fewer and fewer Americans with agricultural roots as time passes. Ninety-nine out of a hundred Americans were engaged in agriculture at the time of the American Revolution. In 1953, about 15 percent of the U.S. population, or twenty-three million people, actually lived or worked on farms, and 54 million lived in areas deemed rural. Now, due to the impact of technology on agriculture, only 3 million people, or 1 percent of the U.S. population, live on farms. According to an admittedly revised definition, the rural population has risen to 59 million but has lagged far behind urban growth and is now only 21 percent of the U.S. total. This pattern continues today as growth in rural areas is running at less than a quarter of the urban rate. On the other hand, agriculture is clearly not the sole political variable. In recent elections, residents of suburbs voted more for Republicans than did residents of more crowded cities -- and they did so in inverse proportion to their population density. The statistician's perennial caveat is that "correlation is not causation." but there is little doubt that there is connection, largely unexplained, between ideology and demography. Depressingly deterministic as it is, this correlation, if it continues, may mean that future elections will be decided by immigration patterns, reproductive rates and technologies that allow more businesses and workers to locate in suburban and rural locations. I would be happy to be proven wrong. - -- - ----------------- 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: 1308 iQA/AwUBQaAGc8PxH8jf3ohaEQIb6gCg95Yqg4TVod8pKoa812Cd6e3ppUUAoKai Qb55aSALy/TSylMGgEcQkZyb =HZoT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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