August 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Tilting at the Ballot Box
by R. A. Hettinga 31 Aug '04

31 Aug '04

<http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/print/0,17925,683182,00.html> Business 2.0 - Magazine Article - Printable Version - Tilting at the Ballot Box Entrepreneur David Chaum's e-money venture flopped. Now he wants to fix electronic voting. For once, is the brilliant inventor right on time? By John Heilemann, September 2004 Issue The legendary cryptographer David Chaum has just invented something amazing, and his timing is nearly perfect. At a moment when electronic voting has been turned -- by a confluence of clueless election officials, slipshod technologies, dodgy vendors, and ever vigilant geeks -- from a great leap forward into an abject fiasco, Chaum has unveiled an e-voting system that's everything the current gizmos aren't. It's incredibly secure. It guarantees anonymity. Its results are verifiable. It is, Chaum claims, "the first electronic mechanism that ensures both integrity and privacy." Indeed, as far as I can see, Chaum's invention has only one conceivable drawback: It won't be on the market in time to save us on Nov. 2. As veterans of the digital revolution will recall, solving apparently insoluble problems has always been Chaum's forte. Most famously, back in 1990, he founded the company DigiCash to commercialize his pioneering work on electronic money. Even by the standards of that heady time, Chaum's ambitions were lofty: propelling the international currency system into the digital age. But while everyone agreed that the technologies he invented were elegant and brilliant, the world, it turned out, wasn't nearly ready for the incursion of e-money. At the end of 1998, DigiCash bit the dust. Technology writer Steven Levy once described Chaum as "Don Quixote in Birkenstocks." Today the Birkenstocks are gone, but the beard, ponytail, and quixotic temperament all remain in place. Once again, the windmill he's tilting at is an entrenched and archaic system. And once again he's starting a new company to profit from his ingenuity. If there were any justice or logic in this world, his success would be guaranteed. But since the world we're talking about is national politics, I fear he faces an uphill fight. No one has thought longer or harder about e-voting than Chaum. As a graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley in the late 1970s, he wrote the first papers on the topic -- then moved on to other things. But after the Floridian fiasco of 2000, in which hanging chads and butterfly ballots vividly demonstrated how dangerously outmoded our electoral technology was, Chaum's interest was rekindled. At the time, election officials in scores of states were racing to embrace touchscreen voting terminals from suppliers such as Diebold and Sequoia. So Chaum considered the idea he was hatching "a totally academic exercise." Then, out of nowhere, all hell broke loose. Computer scientists and security experts declared the current generation of machines easily hackable and prone to tampering. In particular, the critics complained that because the machines leave no paper trail, their results are impossible to audit. (Any recount would rely on the same software that might have mangled or manipulated the votes to begin with.) Voting activists dug up a pile of evidence of past e-voting irregularities. A populist campaign, "The Computer Ate My Vote," erupted on the Internet. Meanwhile, Diebold's CEO, Walden O'Dell, unwittingly fed a thousand conspiracy theories by hosting a Bush fund-raiser -- and writing to the invited guests, "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." In the face of all this, states are scrambling to figure out what to do -- both in November and further in the future. The solution that's gained the most momentum is known as "verified voting." Here a printer attached to the touchscreen terminal spits out a hard copy of the voter's choices and displays it under a transparent barrier. Once the voter approves the receipt, it's put in a sealed ballot box, from which it can be retrieved and tallied in the case of a recount. The problem, however, as Chaum points out, is that the receipts are as vulnerable to fraud as ordinary paper ballots. "They can, for example, be tampered with between the vote and the recount," he says."In a sense, ballot-under-glass is no more secure than old-fashioned punch-card systems." Chaum's system, Votegrity, produces a paper trail too -- except Chaum throws cryptography into the mix, and that changes the equation. With Votegrity, the printer attached to the terminal generates two strips of paper, each of which holds your vote in encrypted form. Overlaid on top of one another and seen through a custom viewfinder, the strips, through some cryptographic voodoo, reveal your choices in plain English. Once you've verified your vote, the strips are separated, you pick one to take home as a receipt, and the bar-code-like image on that strip is stored digitally. When the time comes to tally the votes, the images are decrypted (using a complicated Chaumian mathematical process that's all but tamperproof). Meanwhile, the encoded images are posted on the Web, so that you can go online afterward and confirm that your vote was counted by using a serial number on your strip. There's no denying that Votegrity teeters on the brink of genius. By letting voters take receipts, Chaum's system would erect formidable hurdles to election fraud -- while simultaneously, through encryption, preserving the sacrosanct anonymity of the ballot box. That said, I can think of at least three glaring reasons to be skeptical of Votegrity's prospects. First, the system isn't exactly a paragon of simplicity; it took nearly four hours of explication by Chaum for me to get my head fully around it. Second, election officials are by inclination a deeply conservative lot, especially around new technology. A system combining cryptography and the Web isn't likely to set their pulses racing -- or cause their checkbooks to spring open. Third, there's verified voting. Whatever the imperfections of ballot-under-glass, I suspect that many people who distrust e-voting will consider it a good-enough safeguard. And as the history of technology makes abundantly clear, in a contest between perfect and good enough, the latter wins every time. Naturally, Chaum disagrees. Given the intensity of the uproar over the current touchscreen terminals, he believes that states will have no choice but to adopt a more sophisticated system. "The more people swear that the machines should be trusted, the less trust there is," he says. "Forget whether they're really secure or reliable. What matters is that major chunks of the public don't believe they are. We've got a crisis of voter confidence on our hands -- and it's not going to go away." As for verified voting, Chaum simply says, "I don't think a system that's equivalent to punch cards is going to cut it at this point." Depending on what happens in November, Chaum could be proven right. With the election only two months off, the backlash against e-voting has produced a situation bordering on chaos. At the start of the year, it appeared that some 50 million voters-roughly 30 percent of the total -- would be casting their ballots digitally. Now, who knows? In California, the secretary of state has banned the Diebold machines from use and decertified all the rest. In other states, there are movements afoot to require verified voting. In still others, officials are pressing ahead with the machines despite the hue and cry. All of which suggests one thing: If the election turns out to be as close as most polls suggest, we may be headed for a multistate postelection conflagration, complete with protests and litigation, that will make the contretemps over Florida in 2000 look like a schoolyard spat. For Chaum, who's in the process of rounding up investors and hiring executives for the firm he's starting around Votegrity, such a conflagration would be, perversely, the best news imaginable. Not that he's the kind of guy who'd root for such an outcome. A bone-deep do-gooder, a privacy crusader, he's an unabashed idealist whose desire to make the world better is so earnest it's slightly painful. When I asked him why he was still tilting at windmills even after the anguish of DigiCash, he smiled, shrugged, and softly replied, "This is really important stuff -- someone's got to do it." On that point he'll get no argument from me. No matter what transpires on Election Day and in its aftermath, Chaum and his allies have already rendered an invaluable service: not only exposing the flaws of e-voting today, but pointing toward something better for tomorrow. Coming up with that something -- a digital system that's secure, private, and verifiable -- will plainly be no mean feat. As more and more geeks take up the challenge, the odds will inevitably decline that Chaum's will be the system that triumphs. But I can't help hoping that, for once in his life, he kicks the windmill's ass.? John Heilemann wrote "Pride Before the Fall." His next book is "The Valley." -- ----------------- 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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Pigradio survey of anonymizing systems
by Major Variola (ret) 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

The pigs want to be able to send anonymous messages over IP or POTS using their emergency 700 Mhz comm system: http://www.ncs.gov/informationportal/Web_Proxy_Report.doc

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John gets hassled, but those with $ are not
by Major Variola (ret) 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

JY reports on the Fed nervousness about his publications; but anyone with a few hundred $ can buy a CDROM or nicely printed map of the same info. [listsig: surveillance, 1st amendment, everyone is a reporter] MAP DETAILS This 2003/2004 edition of the N. American Natural Gas System map is the most comprehensive (and eye-catching) gas system map on the market. http://public.resdata.com/rdimaps/html/DetailTemp.asp?d=1062&i=1715 The Electric Power System Atlas of North America on CD-ROM offers the most-detailed, most-comprehensive overview of the United States, Canadian and Mexican electric infrastructure available today, giving you the tools you need to make crucial analytical or market decisions. This atlas provides complete information for competitive analysis, plant siting, transportation to and from power plants, regional fuel mix, and territory coverage. It's convenient, portable, and easy to use. It displays 292 separate maps, plus 26 insets of important regions including major metropolitan areas such as Dallas, Los Angeles and New York. http://public.resdata.com/rdimaps/html/DetailTemp.asp?d=1&i=1520

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drooling at tracking immigrant$, with contact$
by Major Variola (ret) 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/Vendor_Day_List_FIN818.pdf The following list of companies have expressed an interest in the US-VISIT System requirement by participating in the Industry Conference and/or responding to the sources sought RFI. This list is being provided in an attempt to promote open dialogue for potential teaming and/or subcontracting discussions/arrangements. This listing does not imply that any of these companies have committed to submitting any proposal, nor is there any obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services from those listed. To add your name to the list, or to modify information that is contained within, please contact the US-VISIT Program Office at (202) 305- 0845. Sample: Oki America, Inc. 2000 Bishops Gate Blvd Mount Laurel, NJ 08054 Guy Dela Rosa Manager, Business Development 856-222-7016 delarosa322(a)oki.com Optimos Incorporated 4455 Brookfield Corporate Dr. Chantilly, VA 20151 Marc Blackman *703-488-6957 703-488-6958 mblackman(a)optimos.com Oracle Corporation 1910 Oracle Way Reston, VA 20190 Jennifer Bognet Account Manager *703-364-2212 703-217-9441 jennifer.bognet(a)oracle.com Orkland Corp., The 7799 Leesburg Pike Falls Church, VA 22043 Peter Rath 703-610-4550 prath(a)orkland.com

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RIAA can't stomache cassette recorders
by Major Variola (ret) 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

"We remain concerned about any devices or software that permit listeners to transform a broadcast into a music library," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said. http://wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,64761,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_6

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Re: JYA in NYT
by Nomen Nescio 30 Aug '04

30 Aug '04

http://nytimes.com/2004/08/29/nyregion/29pipeline.html August 29, 2004 Mapping Natural Gas Lines: Advise the Public, Tip Off the Terrorists By IAN URBINA John Young says he is an agent for change, hoping to point out places where the government needs to bolster national security. Since 1996, he has been posting documents on his Web site, ranging from detailed maps of nuclear storage facilities in New Mexico to aerial photographs of police preparations for the Republican National Convention. He has never attracted much attention from the authorities, and what he does is fully legal. But last month, Mr. Young, a 68-year-old architect originally from Odessa, Tex., began publishing maps and pictures of natural gas pipelines in New York City on his site (www.cryptome.org) One photograph was of a large sign in Midtown Manhattan warning about the presence of a major gas main, a sign that had been meant to prevent deadly accidents. Within a week, the company that owns the pipeline took the sign down. "They posted the signs because they thought someone might accidentally blow the pipeline up,'' Mr. Young said. "Now, they're taking them down because they think someone might intentionally blow it up.'' For Mr. Young - and for a range of experts across the country - the strange and unnoticed little episode in Manhattan underscores one of the great tensions of the post-9/11 world: how to balance the desire for secrecy with decisions on what is best for public safety. Few issues highlight that tension better than the topic of natural gas. Private industry and local governments have spent much of the last several decades trying to make natural gas pipelines safer by publicizing where they are. Natural gas, highly explosive and transported in pipes underneath unknowing residents or uncharted along waterways, has been the cause of scores of lethal accidents - fiery explosions caused by misdirected backhoes or wayward boat anchors. But recent concerns have pushed in the opposite direction. Increasingly, gas companies have been clearing their Web sites of pipeline maps previously used by contractors before excavating. Almost all nautical charts once indicated where gas pipes run. Fewer do now. "Federal regulations require companies to make these lines as obvious as possible and educate the public about where they are,'' said Kelly Swan, a spokesman for Williams, the company that owns the pipe supplying Manhattan. "But local laws indicate that we were allowed to get rid of that particular sign, and after the recent publicity about it, we did.'' Edward M. Stroz, a retired F.B.I. agent who runs his own consulting firm on security issues, said many infrastructure companies found themselves caught between old risks and new threats. "The challenge is to make this infrastructure not so obvious that it's almost inviting to terrorists,'' he said, "while also not pulling so much information out of public reach that accidents occur.'' Natural gas arrives in New York City through six so-called city gates, reached after traveling thousands of miles in pipes running from deposits deep beneath southeastern Texas and Sable Island, off the east coast of Nova Scotia. Here it enters a local grid of smaller pipes owned by Consolidated Edison in Manhattan, the Bronx and portions of Queens, and owned by Keyspan in the rest of the city. The gas is used for heating, cooking, and increasingly for fuel in city power plants. But natural gas is also at risk of sabotage. "This tactic actually comes from our own playbook,'' said Thomas C. Reed, the former secretary of the Air Force under President Gerald R. Ford and the author of "At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War.'' In 1982, the C.I.A. hacked into the software that controlled Soviet natural gas pipelines, causing vital pumps, turbines and valves to go haywire, he explained. The result, Mr. Reed said, was the largest nonnuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space and a major blow to Soviet sales of natural gas to Western Europe. "The tactic was a stroke of genius,'' he said. Jose Padilla, the former Chicago gang member who grew up in Brooklyn, and who was accused of becoming an operative for Al Qaeda, intended to use natural gas to blow up three tall buildings, the authorities say. According to government documents, Mr. Padilla intended to rent apartments in three high-rise buildings that used natural gas, fill each apartment with fumes and detonate the three buildings simultaneously using timers. Security experts have repeatedly pointed to the natural gas pipeline system as a dangerous Achilles' heel in the domestic infrastructure. A report by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2002 said that city gates and compressor stations, which keep the gas moving through the pipelines, were most vulnerable. These critical nodes, the report explained, are usually above ground and sometimes protected only by chain-link fences and padlocks. If even one or two of these locations were disabled in any major city, the report said, it could result in a wide blackout since most new turbines being brought online in major cities are powered by natural gas. A 2002 report conducted by the National Academy of Sciences drew the same conclusion, explaining that restoring power after an attack on the natural gas system could take several weeks since spare parts for many of the mechanisms, especially those at compressor stations, are expensive, hard to find and often made only overseas. The report also predicted logistical challenges: every nonelectronic pilot light in the city would have to be manually relighted to avoid explosions. "We take security of natural gas very seriously,'' a Con Ed spokesman, Joe Petta, said. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Con Ed has added fencing, cameras, and patrols around gas pipeline facilities, he said. The utility has also begun inspecting pipeline valves monthly, and four times a year it tests responses to city gate failures, he said. "None of that will help,'' said Mr. Young, standing about 30 feet and a chain-link fence from one of the four central pipes that feed natural gas to Manhattan. Even if certain facilities were patrolled around the clock, he said, and most are not, the rest of the system is still exposed. "The fact that pipelines run largely underground reduces their exposure to external threats,'' said a study concerning infrastructure safety conducted by the Congressional Research Service in 2002. But required markings alert emergency workers, homeowners and terrorists to the location of pipelines. This is today's central conundrum, Mr. Young said, adding that he will continue posting on his Web site the results of his daily prowls searching for weak spots. In the meantime, he added, "I imagine law enforcement will probably be keeping an eye on me.'' In fact, Mr. Young got his first visit from F.B.I. agents several weeks ago. But the issue was not all the nuclear reactor information he has put in the public domain. Rather, they wanted to talk about the natural gas pipeline maps, he said. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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[IP] Surveillance blimp currently up over NYC (fwd from dave@farber.net)
by Eugen Leitl 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

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

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Re: JYA in NYT
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

At 10:03 AM 8/29/04 -0400, Sunder wrote: >Let's dissect this mother. Lets. >> "This tactic actually comes from our own playbook,'' said Thomas C. One man's blowback is another man's feedback. "Can you hear me now?" -UBL >Or did we sheeple forget about that incident there? What incident? Where's Afghanistan? Oh, that place we bombed between Yugoslavia and Iraq, you mean? Is goat-polo an olympic sport yet? >> to use natural gas to blow up three tall buildings, the authorities >> say. According to government documents, Mr. Padilla intended to rent >> apartments in three high-rise buildings that used natural gas, fill >> each apartment with fumes and detonate the three buildings >> simultaneously using timers. Undergrad chem question: How many 40 litre tanks of propane does it take to take out a few corner apts? Admittedly wiring the city for natural gas is more convenient, but any kind of barbeque is fun. Anyway you want to hit NYC infrastructure in the winter, when even the oil-burning heaters need electricity. -------- Sometimes a lesser devil goes and a greater devil takes over Moqtada al-Sadr The only language the American people understand is dead Americans. -EC

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OT: Any Questions? Read This! - Long Bush track record (fwd)
by Sunder 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 29 Aug 2004 13:09:45 -0400 Subject: OT: Any Questions? Read This! - Long Bush track record I tried to find something wrong with this email... looks like facts to me. If anyone can find where this is Anti-Bush, let me know. Looks like reality speaks for itself. Dear Citizen: Just so you know: I attacked and took over 2 countries. I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury. I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history (not easy!). I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period. I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market. I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner. In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history (tough to beat my dad's, but I did). After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history. I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history. In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs. I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history. I set the all-time record for most real estate foreclosures in a 12-month period. I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history. I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president, since the advent of TV. I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history. I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed. I cut health care benefits for war veterans. I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind. I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history. I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history. Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The poorest multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.) I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously struggle against bankruptcy. I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world. I am the first president in US history to order a US attack AND military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the vast majority of the international community. I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States, called the "Bureau of Homeland Security"(only one letter away from BS). I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history (Ronnie was tough to beat, but I did it!!). I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission. I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board. I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant. I withdrew from the World Court of Law. I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoner! s of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions. I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections. I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations. The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation). I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history. I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1) I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government. I took the world's sympathy for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history). I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability. I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts. I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for gov't contracts. I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US! history. I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down. RECORDS AND REFERENCES: I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available). I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war. I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use. (wink,wink) All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my fathers library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view. Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. With Love, GEORGE W. BUSH The White House, Washington, DC [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type IMAGE/JPEG] [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type IMAGE/JPEG]

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proof of censoring decisions they don't like under natsec
by Sunder 29 Aug '04

29 Aug '04

http://www.thememoryhole.org/feds/justice_redaction.htm >>> Anybody who has read many official documents.including those making headlines in the last year or more.has seen plenty of redactions (those portions that are blacked out or otherwise made unreadable). This, we're told, is for legitimate reasons, such as "national security" or "protecting intelligence sources and methods." But now we have absolute, incontrovertible proof that the government also censors completely innocuous material simply because they don't like it. The Justice Department tipped its hand in its ongoing legal war with the ACLU over the Patriot Act. Because the matter is so sensitive, the Justice Dept is allowed to black out those passages in the ACLU's court filings that it feels should not be publicly released. Ostensibly, they would use their powers of censorship only to remove material that truly could jeopardize US operations. But in reality, what did they do? They blacked out a quotation from a Supreme Court decision: "The danger to political dissent is acute where the Government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect 'domestic security.' Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent." The mind reels at such a blatant abuse of power (and at the sheer chutzpah of using national security as an excuse to censor a quotation about using national security as an excuse to stifle dissent). It's hard to imagine a more public, open document than a decision written by the Supreme Court. It is incontestably public property: widely reprinted online and on paper; poured over by generations of judges, attorneys, prosecutors, and law students; quoted for centuries to come in court cases and political essays. Yet the Justice Department had the incomprehensible arrogance and gall to strip this quotation from a court document, as if it represented a grave threat to the republic. Luckily, the court slapped down this redaction and several others. If it hadn't, we would've been left with the impression that this was a legitimate redaction, that whatever was underneath the thick black ink was something so incredibly sensitive and damaging that it must be kept from our eyes. Now we know the truth. Think about this the next time you see a black mark on a public document. ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. /|\ \|/ :They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country /\|/\ <--*-->:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/ /|\ : \|/ + v + : War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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