September 2004 - cypherpunks-legacy

Big Brother in perfidous Albion
by Eugen Leitl 03 Sep '04

03 Sep '04

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/08/31/constantsurveillance.ap/index.html Big Brother watches Britain Will the technology find acceptance in U.S.? Tuesday, August 31, 2004 Posted: 10:55 AM EDT (1455 GMT) LONDON, England (AP) -- The teenagers who stabbed wealthy Joao Da Costa Mitendele to death before burgling his home were careful to conceal the crime. They used a pretty girl to gain access to his apartment, where they wore rubber gloves while committing their crimes. What they hadn't counted on was the phalanx of video cameras that silently watched and recorded them leaving the local subway station, buying those gloves and approaching 45-year-old Mitendele's apartment in suburban north London. The same cameras caught their hasty return journey to the station half an hour later. The tapes sealed the fate of the so-called "Honey Trap" gang when played in court earlier this year. Seven of the group were convicted of offenses ranging from manslaughter to conspiracy to rob and sent to jail for a minimum of seven years each. Big Brother is always watching in Britain. An estimated 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras observe people going about their everyday business, from getting on a bus to lining up at the bank to driving around London. It's widely estimated that the average Briton is scrutinized by 300 cameras a day. The phenomenon is enabled by the arrival of digital video, cheap memory and sophisticated software. And Britain is acknowledged as the world leader of Orwellian surveillance -- perhaps because it has the experience of Irish terrorism, and is on guard for even worse today. Authorities maintain the cameras deter crime, and despite some claims to contrary and the outrage of civil libertarians, the public seems willing to accept the constant monitoring for the greater good. In the past two months, British police used or publicized CCTV imagery during investigations into a 12-year-old robbing a store at gunpoint, the disappearance of a doctor, attacks by a serial rapist, a father and son hit by a train, laptops stolen from a school and a soccer riot. Cameras loom over city centers, shopping malls, train stations, university grounds, public parks, beaches, airports, offices and schools. "Britain, almost without anyone noticing, has become the surveillance capital possibly of the world, certainly of Europe," said Barry Hugill, a spokesman for the civil rights group Liberty. The cameras are concentrated mostly in the main cities. In London alone, the train stations contain 1,800 cameras. And there are more than 6,000 cameras in the London Underground -- including at Edgware Station in north London where Mitendele's killers were caught on tape -- and 260 around Parliament. "The uses are absolutely phenomenal. In some places, there are cameras in schools in the classroom so parents can be shown the footage if a child misbehaves," said Peter Fry, spokesman for the CCTV Users Group. The ability to store images digitally has played a key role in fostering the industry's growth. Gas stations around the country are testing automatic number plate recognition to catch people who fill up but don't pay. The technology is also being used to enforce London's $9 charge for vehicles entering the city center. A police database scans license plate numbers for everything from suspected terrorists to traffic offenders. Other video-cam networks use software that instructs the cameras to pick up unusual activity. "They can identify something, like a bag in an airport, that shouldn't be part of the scene," said Fry. In London's busy Soho district, officials are using wireless CCTV cameras that can be moved in less than an hour, allowing police to quickly target crime hotspots. The portable cameras are also cheaper to install than fixed cameras. Some critics say the scheme will simply push crime further out but Simon Norbury, head of IT at Westminster City Council, said the cameras' mobility would keep criminals on their toes. "As the problem moves, we move with it and can blitz it," said Norbury. In the next phase of the Soho trial, the cameras will be viewed and controlled by a mobile response unit, allowing quick deployment of officers in the event of an incident. The abduction was recorded by this parking lot surveillance camera in the U.S. The abduction was recorded by this parking lot surveillance camera in the U.S. Soho resident Brooke Hartney, 24, a cafe manager, said she felt comforted by the cameras, including a fixed one right outside her apartment bedroom window. "I do feel safer knowing that Big Brother is watching. I'd walk around here at 5 a.m. but I wouldn't out in the suburbs," Hartney said. "I guess I just take the cameras for granted and hope that they are going to help me one way or another if I need it." An earlier form of CCTV -- back in the day of videotapes monitored, changed and rewound by workers -- was embraced in Britain after two deadly IRA bombings in London in 1992 and 1993. CCTV also caught the 1993 abduction of toddler James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys who were later convicted of his murder. Some British communities have even asked for cameras to be installed on their streets, seeking to scare off prostitutes and drug dealers. In his new book, "The Naked Lunch, Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an Anxious Age," American author Jeffrey Rosen expressed amazement at the easy acceptance. "Instead of being perceived as an Orwellian intrusion, the cameras in Britain ... were hailed as the people's technology, a friendly eye in the sky, not Big Brother but a kindly and watchful uncle or aunt," he wrote. Now Britain is beginning to export its expertise. Fry's industry group has just incorporated in the United States, and reports particular interest from universities and schools. Britain contributed to the network of more than 1,000 cameras that watched over the Olympics in Athens. The London-based Autonomy Corp., whose clients include the U.S. National Security Agency, provided technology that examines words and phrases collected by surveillance cameras and in communications traffic. In much of the rest of the world, the technology is viewed with more suspicion. The use of cameras to film people in the street is banned in Germany -- although it uses cameras to catch speeders _ Canada, Denmark and several other countries. In the United States, CCTV is use primarily at airports, casinos and in city centers -- Manhattan has almost 2,400 cameras patrolling its streets. However, not everyone in Britain is happy with the seemingly relentless march of CCTV across the country. Last year, a 47-year-old man won $14,400 in damages following public airing of CCTV footage of police preventing his suicide attempt. There have also been incidents of nightclubs selling footage of couples having sex to TV stations. The Trades Union Council has warned of a rise in the illegal use of cameras to monitor employee behavior. Will Kittow, 38, a van driver enjoying a coffee break in Soho, said he was concerned about how many times he is captured on film driving around London and just who else has access to the information recorded by CCTV that is enough to send him a parking ticket. "All this information is going somewhere. It doesn't take a genius to work out that it is going to be misused, even if it is only petty larceny," said Kittow. Ian Brown, a researcher at the Foundation for Information Policy Research, said that CCTV has been shown to work only in detecting car theft and shoplifting. It doesn't prevent rape or assault, he said. A study by crime reduction charity NACRO found the technology reduced crime by only 3 percent to 4 percent while better street lighting led to a 20 percent reduction. The Home Office is conducting its own evaluation. "Much of it is deeply intrusive," said Brown. "There's an illusion that it makes people safe when it does no such thing." Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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[FoRK] Veeery Intewesting... (fwd from beberg@mithral.com)
by Eugen Leitl 03 Sep '04

03 Sep '04

----- Forwarded message from Adam L Beberg <beberg(a)mithral.com> -----

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Re: The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo (fwd)
by Major Variola (ret) 02 Sep '04

02 Sep '04

At 10:55 PM 9/1/04 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: >Puerto Ricans in the ethnic neighborhoods along the shore >might get uppity and take over the naval base, which everybody knew >had Nuke-u-lur Weapons even though they'd never admit it, >and the naval base might not be able to defend itself against a mob, >so he convinced the town council that they needed to buy a tank. Its quite clear (from the Empire Wars in the middle east) that the 2nd amendment requires citizens to bear RPGs to defeat tyranny. Alas, even neutered rifles are illegal in many places; thus among the first order of business will be to raid the Armories for the right tools. ---- And I'm tired of all these soldiers here And everything's broken, And no one speaks english.. -Tom Waits

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Re: The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo (fwd)
by Tyler Durden 02 Sep '04

02 Sep '04

>a. there is no "we", except individuals with the freedom to chose their >own actions. Bullshit. Live in New York for a while and you'll see there's a "we". >b. cops have guns. So do we, and guns they're not allowed to have. (Well, we're not allowed to have 'em either...) >Yeah, "Not totally." Just like Red China isn't a total totalitarian state, >and it allowed the students at Tienamen Sq to demonstrate. We're not too >far away from that, except these cops don't (yet?) have tanks and as far >as has been reported in the media, haven't murdered anyone in the >protests, and that the arrested have been let out a few days later rather >than tortured. This ain't Red China. We're armed and not peaceful. We're not cream of the crop, true-believer Beijing DaXue types like the Chinese kids in TianAnMen Fang. If we grew up here we know how to fight back, and we will after a certain point. >It's certainly inching towards totalitarianism and away from "the right of >the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a >redress" (not, there's nothing in that text about protest pens, open your >bag searches, show me your ID, or protest permits.) Well, I didn't say it was going to be a downhill ride. But you're clearly "not from around here, are you boy"? Try growing up in Washington Heights and Brooklyn, and you'll understand why the cops were nervous enough to even try this kind of shit. This ain't the nice little suburb you do your contract programming in...this is New York City. We only obey the law because we know there's a thin line between order and chaos in this town. -TD > > >----------------------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. >------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, Tyler Durden wrote: > > > Not totally. That cop on a scooter rightfully got the crap kicked out of >him > > for mowing down demonstrators. > > > > They can gain local, temporary control but if we take to the streets en > > masse then there's not much they can do, and they know it. _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

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Re: The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo (fwd)
by Tyler Durden 02 Sep '04

02 Sep '04

>Wheee! NYC==Police State for the last week for those of you living under >rocks... Not totally. That cop on a scooter rightfully got the crap kicked out of him for mowing down demonstrators. They can gain local, temporary control but if we take to the streets en masse then there's not much they can do, and they know it. -TD _________________________________________________________________ Check out Election 2004 for up-to-date election news, plus voter tools and more! http://special.msn.com/msn/election2004.armx

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Re: The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo (fwd)
by Sunder 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

Wheee! NYC==Police State for the last week for those of you living under rocks... ----------------------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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 15:26:13 -0400 From: Edward Potter To: grimmwerks Cc: wwwac <wwwac(a)lists.wwwac.org> Subject: Re: [wwwac] Yes, it's relevent! The cages on the Hudson, AKA Little Guantanamo He's out. You can't get near the place today. I tell people what happened and they can't believe it. I would not have believed it either, except I was there for 11 hours. Then another 15 hours downtown. Excellent first hand account here: http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/107675/index.php If I had not been arrested, I would not have known anything like this was going on. 1000- 2000 people, in barb-wire cages, at this very moment on the Hudson River. No joke. Totally surrounded by police. ACLU lawyers, Reporters, everyone being denied access. Just starting to hit the media. -ed On Sep 1, 2004, at 2:57 PM, grimmwerks wrote: > I read the same thing - and the guy with the bike is STILL there? And > held > on what grounds? Has any pics surfaced yet? > > > On 9/1/04 2:51 PM, "Edward Potter" <ejp(a)well.com> wrote: > >> I cross posted this to the Politics list, just getting so little media >> coverage, and yes, I met a few Java Programmers there, plus the guy >> that has the bike that writes messages by WifI got nailed by the >> police >> too (writing "America Home of the Free") ... so I guess hopefully the >> word gets out. >> --------------- >> >> Does anyone on this list know there are now up to 2000 people >> imprisoned in barb-wire cages on the Hudson River that don't know what >> their charges are, have not had any rights read to them and are being >> denied any access to any legal representation? >> >> I was there, it was real. It would blow your mind. YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN >> ANYTHING LIKE IT IN AMERICA BEFORE. >> >> Or as the police call it: Little Guantanamo >> >> Keep up with the news here: >> http://nyc.indymedia.org > > > ## The World Wide Web Artists' Consortium - http://www.wwwac.org/ ## ## To Unsubscribe, send email to: wwwac-unsubscribe(a)lists.wwwac.org ##

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Re: Remailers an unsolveable paradox?
by Major Variola (ret) 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

At 01:30 PM 9/1/04 +0200, Nomen Nescio wrote: > Yet we need >to make sure we're not abused too much since sooner or later laws >will catch up with the remailers should abuse sky-rocket. You need a Bill of Rights that specifies freedom of expression, and judges that understand it. Since you appear to be European, where eg singers can be busted for singing political songs, these ideas may be foreign to you. > Using techniques like Hashcash should be >more or less mandatory even today to make it harder to mailbomb or >send large amounts spam? Why is it not? Because when someone tells us that something is *mandatory*, we tell them to fuck off, and we put them on our watch list. OTOH nothing prevents you from 1. implementing a hashcash-based node 2. automatically filtering what you receive. > Regardless of what any hardcore cypherpunk or old-timers in the >remailer community may think about any ideas imposing restrains on >the useability of remailers something just have to be made about the >abuse of the system. Will no one think of the chiiildren? > Making sure we have robust remailing services in one shape or >another and at the same time have some kind of at least indirect >acceptance from legislators and also a low degree of spam flowing >through are essential goals. Any legislator seeking to control how people use a communications medium needs killing. > The average naive and ignorant redneck will never ever understand >the principal arguments for free speech that makes remailers useful. That's why mob rule^H^H^H^H democracy loses to the constitution. If you don't have the latter, you suffer the former. >The average american do not think and analyze what is told to him. Well duh. > Since providing a true non-censoring remailing service and at the >same time safeguard against spam and abuse are therotically >incompatible I guess remailers are indeed a paradox waiting to be >shut down sooner or later by politicians if we're not open to at >least discuss some aspects of how these services are operated. Why not use one of those "are you human" visually-distorted checks that various websites use? That is robust to automated spam. Adding *voluntary* hashcash to remailer injection nodes is another layer of defense in depth against spammers. BTW, while spam is abuse, is a threatening message really abuse, or just uncomfortable feedback?

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Re: Remailers an unsolveable paradox?
by hal＠finney.org 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

Spam is the least of the problems for remailers when it comes to abuse. You should be more concerned about possible liability for illegal messages. In a way, spam has actually made the remailer operator's life easier as people today are used to receiving annoying and obscene email. Ten years ago, when I ran a remailer, people were genuinely shocked to receive unsolicited pornography. Yes, it's hard to believe today, but in those quaint times, when the Internet was in black and white, most users got only a few email messages a day and they were all from their friends, family and co-workers. As far as spam, next-generation remailers should incorporate hashcash, www.hashcash.org, to make sending an anonymous message relatively costly. Let it take a minute or more to generate the "stamp" necessary for a message to enter the remailer system and spam will not be a problem, while legitimate users will have no barrier. Hal

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making your own stamps
by Major Variola (ret) 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0831041_photostamps_1.html?link=eaf

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RE: Remailers an unsolveable paradox?
by Tyler Durden 01 Sep '04

01 Sep '04

Some good points, Johnny. I'm not convinced Spam and the remailers are inherently incompatible. Or at least, I'm thinking there's a sort of uncertainty principle that should work between legit remailable messages and spam. it may be a tricky business, but I suspect that the need of spammers to send out huge numbers of messages may be exploitable. Hell...they may in some ways be an asset if handled correctly: Much easier to hide remailed messages in larger torrents than in sparsely trafficked remailer networks. And of course, it may be that the need to sell goods (ie, from a specific URL) means that anonymity is not so useful, particularly if there are time+bandwidth constraints on portions of the network (eg a remailer has a max bandwidth that gets throttled back if there's a large woosh of traffic in a certain period of time). So I don't think the problem is unsolvable, but I agree with your essential point that it needs looking into. -TD >From: Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: Remailers an unsolveable paradox? >Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 13:30:01 +0200 (CEST) > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >Are remailers an unsolveable paradox? > > We want to be able to provide the means for whistleblowers and >others to communicate in a secure and anonymous fashion. Yet we need >to make sure we're not abused too much since sooner or later laws >will catch up with the remailers should abuse sky-rocket. > > Once upon a time all email servers were open relays. This was a >friendly time and spam wasn't invented. As time changed the focus >turned on securing the relaying procedures and has continued until >this day. Yet as we know the flow of spam (most of it coming directly >or indirectly from US) continued to increase, despite even existing >legislation today. > > What are the possible solutions for the remailers? Make all >remailers middleman only and adding the ability to opt-in for >delivery outside the network? Having a network of middleman remailers >and some nymservers that only delivers to other nymserver or opted-in >servers will at least provide some means for people to communicate >between themselves. It would in practise destroy the ability to >contact anyone outside the network though, making the network an >isolated place for a few. Using techniques like Hashcash should be >more or less mandatory even today to make it harder to mailbomb or >send large amounts spam? Why is it not? > > Regardless of what any hardcore cypherpunk or old-timers in the >remailer community may think about any ideas imposing restrains on >the useability of remailers something just have to be made about the >abuse of the system. I also predict that the abuse will increase so >time is ticking in a sense. > > Making sure we have robust remailing services in one shape or >another and at the same time have some kind of at least indirect >acceptance from legislators and also a low degree of spam flowing >through are essential goals. > > The average naive and ignorant redneck will never ever understand >the principal arguments for free speech that makes remailers useful. >The average american do not think and analyze what is told to him. >You will probably today find millions of americans who believe that >Saddam and Al-Qaeda did business just because Bush and the >administration lied about that initially, even though it's more or >less confirmed today that those links were not there. > > The rednecks also vote however (to some extent) and that's why it >will be a piece of cake to strike against the remailers if the >politicians would like to. And they will, if and when serious abuse >were to happen more often utilizing remailers. What would happen if >it was found (or simply suspected or claimed) that some terror deed >was planned using remailers? How long time would it take for us to >see new laws being proposed? Not long. And don't forget that anyone >(like Tom Ridge himself) could send bogues messages through the >system trying to > > Since providing a true non-censoring remailing service and at the >same time safeguard against spam and abuse are therotically >incompatible I guess remailers are indeed a paradox waiting to be >shut down sooner or later by politicians if we're not open to at >least discuss some aspects of how these services are operated. > > >Johnny Doelittle > > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: Tom Ridge Special v1.01 > >iQA/AwUBQTWdszVaKWz2Ji/mEQJlUwCfT/jWnw/p2ydTJTKMYKA5/hs+Dm8AoNoE >r9bl2EtJ3CQpZPgfkSPfGBWB >=B8dt >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > > > > > Effective today, Lemuria will be going middlemen. > > > > Sometime around the middle of the month, Lemuria will go away. > > > > This is final. > > > > > > The main reasons are that I've lost my faith in the usefulness of > > the remailer network. I have indications that the remailer network > > is > > being massively abused, on the scale where the legitimate mails are > > a tiny fraction that would be better served using other means. > > > > There are two main reasons for my thoughts. One is I have looked at > > the bounces I receive, and compared their numbers to my statistics. > > According to that data, without having run a statistically > > significant analysis, the major traffic coming through Lemuria is > > Spam, with > > threats and harrassment a second. I realize that in the no-bounces, > > the fraction of legitimate mails will be higher, but even assuming > > a factor of 10, it is still a negligable part. > > > > Second, I've the mail attached below yesterday. In case you can't > > read german, it is essentially spam advertising the mixmaster > > software and some book and/or software I haven't tested, might be a > > mixmaster > > client, might be a trojan. This is a sign for me that the anonymous > > remailer network is being used systematically for abuse, on a large > > scale. I don't want to be a part of that. > > > > As mixmaster has no features whatsoever to prevent this crap, and > > the "encrypted only" switch doesn't do what it should do, and > > legitimate traffic is close to zero anyways, I'll be taking Lemuria > > down and > > leaving the remailer community. > > > > It was an interesting time, and between frog, the SciTol fanatics > > (from both sides) and a couple really cool people, I've learned a > > lot about society that I'm not sure I really needed to know. :) _________________________________________________________________ On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement

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