January 2005 - cypherpunks-legacy

FBI Keeping Records on Pre-9/11 Travelers
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050115/D87K6FAG3.html> My Way News FBI Keeping Records on Pre-9/11 Travelers Jan 14, 7:45 PM (ET) By LESLIE MILLER WASHINGTON (AP) - If you're among the millions of Americans who took airline flights in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI probably knows about it - and possibly where you stayed, whom you traveled with, what credit card you used and even whether you ordered a kosher meal. The bureau is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001 in its permanent investigative database, according to information obtained by a privacy group and made available to The Associated Press. Privacy advocates say they're troubled by the possibility that the FBI could be analyzing personal information about people without their knowledge or permission. "The FBI collected a vast amount of information about millions of people with no indication that they had done anything unlawful," said Marcia Hofmann, attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which learned about the data through a Freedom of Information Act request. "The fact that they're hanging on to the information is inexcusable," Hofmann said on Friday. FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the bureau was required to retain its records. "There are rules that have been set by the National Archives with regard to the retention of records by government agencies," Carter said. Hofmann, though, said the FBI still had a legal responsibility to tell people that it had obtained information about them and to let them have access to it. As part of its investigation into the terrorist attacks, the FBI asked for, and got, the records from a number of airlines shortly after Sept. 11. The FBI also got one set of data through a federal grand jury subpoena. The privacy center in May requested records of the FBI's acquisition of the data. The bureau last week turned over 12 pages of information, much of it blanked out for security reasons. The 12 pages do show that the bureau obtained 82.1 million passenger manifests, or lists of people who flew on planes, between January and September 2001, in addition to the 257.5 million passenger name records. Citing privacy concerns, the FBI didn't reveal which airlines turned over the information, which airline employees turned it over and which FBI special agents got it. The data are called passenger name records, or PNR, and can include a variety of information such as credit card numbers, travel itineraries, addresses, telephone numbers and meal requests. David Hardy, the FBI's chief of the record/information dissemination section of the records management division, said in a legal document dated Jan. 5 that the data were being stored and combined with other information from the Sept. 11 investigation, dubbed PENTTBOMB. "I have been advised that the Airline Data Sets have been entered by the Cyber Division into a 'Data Warehouse' and have been intertwined for analytical purposes with the information from several other PENTTBOMB Data Sets," Hardy wrote in a statement to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where the privacy center filed its suit. Hofmann, the attorney for the privacy group, said the FBI had a legitimate reason for collecting information to get a better picture of the hijackers' travel patterns and possible associates. But, she said, "it wouldn't seem that there's any reason to keep that information now." The FBI's Carter said he couldn't comment on what may be happening to the data because the bureau is involved in a lawsuit by the privacy center. Daniel Solove, a George Washington University Law School professor and author of a book on privacy, said not enough is known about what the FBI is doing with the data to determine if there is a problem. "Data just sits around and who knows what people are doing with it?" Solove said. "The public is left completely out of the loop, not told what this data is for. The agency is basically saying 'Trust us.'" Solove suggested there was irony in Congress last year ordering the FBI to more quickly purge information obtained in background checks of gun buyers. That, he said, can be useful in tracking down criminals. "Congress wants to protect guns at great cost, but when it comes to privacy and civil liberties generally, it doesn't register on the same level," Solove said. --- On the Net: Electronic Privacy Information Center: http://www.epic.org FBI: http://www.doj.gov -- ----------------- 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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Terrorism as an Excuse
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/comment/lott2005011…> The National Review January 14, 2005, 9:24 a.m. Terrorism as an Excuse Another CBS campaign. By John R. Lott Jr. Who could oppose laws preventing terrorists from getting guns? Obviously no one. But it would be nice if laws accomplished something more than simply making it more difficult for Americans to own guns. Ironically the day before CBS finally released its report on the 60 Minutes Memogate scandal, 60 Minutes was again stirring up fears about how terrorists would use 50-caliber rifles to attack Americans. Last year it was the semi-automatic assault-weapons ban before it expired. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D., N.Y.) claimed the ban was "the most effective measures against terrorism that we have." Of course, nothing happened when the law expired last year. There was nothing unique about the guns that are banned under the law. Though the phrase "assault weapon" conjures up images of the rapid-fire machine guns used by the military, in fact the weapons covered by the ban function the same as any semiautomatic hunting rifle; they fire the exact same bullets with the exact same rapidity and produce the exact same damage as hunting rifles. Back in the mid-1980s it was the hysteria over "plastic guns" when the Austrian company Glock began exporting pistols to the United States. Labeled as "terrorist specials" by the press, fear spread that their plastic frame and grip would make them invisible to metal detectors. Glocks are now common and there are good reasons they are one of the favorite pistols of American police officers. The "plastic gun" ban did not ban anything since it is not possible to actually build a working plastic gun. Now it is the 50-caliber rifles' turn, especially with California outlawing the sale of these guns since the beginning of the year. For years gun-control groups have tried to ban 50-caliber rifles because of fears that criminals could use them. Such bans have not been passed these guns were simply not suited for crime. Fifty-caliber rifles are big, heavy guns, weighing at least 30 pounds and using a 29-inch barrel. They are also relatively expensive. Models that hold one bullet at a time run nearly $3,000. Semi-automatic versions cost around $7,000. Wealthy target shooters and big-game hunters, not criminals, purchase them. The bottom line is that only one person in the U.S. has been killed with such a gun, and even that one alleged case is debated. The link to terrorism supposedly provides a new possible reason to ban 50-caliber rifles. But the decision to demonize these particular guns and not say .475-caliber hunting rifles is completely arbitrary. The difference in width of these bullets is a trivial .025 inches. What's next? Banning .45-caliber pistols? Indeed the whole strategy is to gradually reduce the type of guns that people can own. Sniper Central, a site for both military snipers and law-enforcement sharpshooters, claims that "For military extreme long-range anti-personnel purposes, the .338 Lapua is king. Even the .50BMG falls short. (Do to accuracy problems with current ammo)." The .338 Lapua round simply has what is called a better bullet coefficient, it produces less drag as it travels through the air. With a 50-caliber rifle it is possible for an extremely skilled and lucky marksman to hit a target at 1,800 meters (versus 1,500 meters plus for the .338 Lapua), though most marksmen say that the effective range for any of these guns is around 1,000 meters. The worst abuse that 60 Minutes focused on was the Branch Davidians in Waco in 1993 having a 50-caliber gun. Yet, no one was harmed with the gun, and the Davidians surely had many other weapons. 60 Minutes also tried to scare people with incendiary and explosive ammunition, but the ammunition discussed is already illegal. Fighting terrorism is a noble cause, but the laws we pass must have some real link to solving the problem. Absent that, many will think that 60 Minutes and gun-control groups are simply using terrorism as an excuse to promote rules that he previously pushed. Making it difficult for law-abiding Americans to own guns should not be the only accomplishment of new laws. - John Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of The Bias Against Guns and More Guns, Less Crime. -- ----------------- 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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Victor Davis Hanson: Triangulating the War
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

The best book I read this year was Hanson's "Carnage and Culture". Recommend it highly. Cheers, RAH -------- <http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.asp?ref=/hanson/hanson200501…> Victor Davis Hanson The National Review January 14, 2005, 7:30 a.m. Triangulating the War Yesterday's genius, today's fool, tomorrow's what? Victor Davis Hanson Reading the pages of foreign-policy journals, between the long tracts on Bush's "failures" and neoconservative "arrogance," one encounters mostly predictions of defeat and calls for phased withdrawal - always with resounding criticism of the American "botched" occupation. Platitudes follow: "We can't just leave now," followed by no real advice on how a fascist society can be jumpstarted into a modern liberal republic. After all, there is no government handbook entitled, "Operation 1A: How to remove a Middle East fascist regime in three weeks, reconstruct the countryside, and hold the first elections in the nation's history - all within two years." Almost all who supported the war now are bailing on the pretext that their version of the reconstruction was not followed: While a three-week war was their idea, a 20-month messy reconstruction was surely someone else's. Yesterday genius is today's fool - and who knows next month if the elections work? Witness Afghanistan where all those who recently said the victory was "lost" to warlords are now suddenly quiet. Heads You Lose, Tails We Win Indeed, from the oscillating analyses of Iraq, the following impossible picture often emerges from our intelligentsia. It was a fatal error to disband the Iraqi army. That led to lawlessness and a loss of confidence in the American ability to restore immediate order after Saddam's fall. Yet it was also a fatal error to keep some Baathists in the newly constituted army. They were corrupt and wished reform to fail - witness the Fallujah Brigade that either betrayed us or aided the enemy. So we turned off the Sunnis by disbanding the army - and yet somehow turned off the Shiites by keeping some parts of it. Massive construction projects were hogged by gargantuan American firms, ensconced in the Green Zone that did not engage either local Iraqi workers or small companies and thus squandered precious good will. Or, indigenous contractors proved irresponsible and unreliable, evidence for why Iraq was in such bad shape to begin with. And when we did put exclusive reliance on them, it ensured only lackadaisical and half-hearted reconstruction. We also lost hearts and minds by using GPS bombs to obliterate houses full of killers and take out blocks of insurgents. And yet we lost hearts and minds by failing to act decisively and de facto turning over large enclaves to terrorists and Saddamites whom we were afraid to root out. Elections should have been held earlier; no, they must be delayed since they come too soon when the country is still unsecured. Our helmeted soldiers with sunglasses are holed up in enclaves, don't mingle, and perpetuated the heavy-handed image of snooty occupiers. But leaving the Green Zone is an open invitation to kidnapping and worse. So we are both too well hidden and yet not hidden enough. Embedded media gave us a real-time picture of the fighting. But (if one is conservative) it left open the opportunity for sensationalism on the part of wannabe crusaders, and (if one is liberal) it created too close a psychological bond with the soldiers that impaired objectivity. It was a mistake to postpone Iraqi sovereignty for so long; but it is an equal mistake to rush into elections while the country is so insecure. The CIA is impotent, out-of-touch, and clownish; somehow it mind-controlled Allawi, Chalabi, and a host of other Iraqi "puppets." The litany from the mercurial Beltway always goes on: There were enough troops to take out Saddam in three weeks, but not enough to restore order to the countryside - but still too many that resulted in too high an American profile on the streets of Baghdad. The transformations of Donald Rumsfeld (this week's genius, last week's fool) have left us stripped down and bereft of the muscle needed. Yet new, more mobile brigades in strikers and special forces with laptops are preferable to old armored divisions on the streets of Iraqi. We cannot flee, but must not stay. Iraqis publicly say we should leave, but privately beg us to remain. We were after cheap oil, but gas prices somehow climbed almost immediately after we went in. Democracy won't work with these people, but somehow we are seeing three elections in the wake of the Taliban, Arafat, and Saddam. There are many constants in all this pessimistic confusion - beside the fact that we are becoming a near hysterical society. First, our miraculous efforts in toppling the Taliban and Saddam have apparently made us forget war is always a litany of mistakes. No conflict is conducted according to either antebellum planning or can proceed with the benefit of hindsight. Iraq was not Yemen or Qatar, but rather the most wicked regime in the world, in the heart of the Arab world, full of oil, terrorists, and mass graves. There were no helpful neighbors to keep a lid on their own infiltrating jihadists. Instead we had to go into the heart of the caliphate, take out a mass murderer, restore civil society after 30 years of brutality, and ward off Sunni and Baathist fomenters in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria - all the while keeping out Iranian-Shiite agents bent on stopping democracy. The wonder is not that there is violence and gloom in Iraq, but that less than two years after Saddam was removed, elections are still on track. The Follies of World War II Second, our very success creates ever increasing expectations of perfection for a postmodern America used to instant gratification. We now look back in awe at World War II, the model of military success, in which within four years an unprepared United States won two global wars, at sea, on the ground, and in the air, in three continents against Japan, Italy, and Germany, and supplied both England and the Soviet Union. But our forefathers experienced disaster after disaster in a tale of heartbreak, almost as inglorious as the Korean mess or Vietnam tragedy. And they did things to win we perhaps claim we would now not: Shoot German prisoners in the Bulge, firebomb Axis cities, drop the bomb - almost anything to stop fascists from slaughtering even more millions of innocents. Our armored vehicles were deathtraps and only improved days before the surrender. American torpedoes were often duds. Unescorted daylight bombing proved a disaster, but continued. Amphibious assaults like Anzio and Tarawa were bloodbaths and emblematic of terrible planning and command. The recapture of Manila was clumsy and far too costly. Okinawa was the worst of all operations, and yet was begun just over fourth months before the surrender - without any planning for Kamikazes who were shortly to kill 5,000 American sailors. Patton, the one general that could have ended the western war in 1944, was relieved and then subordinated to an auxiliary position with near fatal results for the drive from Normandy; mediocrities like Mark Clark flourished and were promoted. Admiral King resisted the life-saving convoy system and unnecessarily sacrificed merchant ships; while Bull Halsey almost lost his unprepared fleet to a storm. The war's aftermath seemed worse, to be overseen by an untried president who was considered an abject lightweight. Not-so-quite collateral damage had ruined entire cities. Europe nearly starved in winter 1945-6. Millions were on the road in mass exoduses. After spending billions to destroy Nazi Germany we had to spend billions more to rebuild it - and repair the devastation it had wrought on its neighbors. Our so-called partisan friends in Yugoslavia and Greece turned out to be hard-core Communist killers. Soon enough we learned that the guerrillas in the mountains of Europe whom we had idolized, in fact, fought as much for Communism as against fascism - but never for democracy. But at least there was clear-cut strategic success? Oh? The war started to keep Eastern Europe free of Nazis and ended up ensuring that it was enslaved by Stalinists. Poland was neither free in 1940 nor in 1946. By early 1946 we were already considering putting former Luftwaffe pilots in American jets - improved with ample borrowing from Nazi technology - to protect Europe from the Red Army carried westward on GM trucks. We put Nazis on trials for war crimes even as we invited their scientists to our shores to match their counterparts in the Soviet Union who were building even more lethal weapons to destroy us. Our utopian idea of a global U.N. immediately deteriorated into a mess - decades of vetoes in the Security Council by Stalinists and Maoists, even as former colonial states turned thugocracies in the General Assembly ganged up on Israel and the survivors of the Holocaust. After Americans had liberated France and restored his country, General de Gaulle created the myth of the French resistance and immediately triangulated with our enemies to reforge some pathetic sort of French grandeur. An exhausted England turned over to us a collapsing empire, with the warning that it might all turn Communist. Tired of the war and postbellum costs, Americans suddenly were asked to wage a new Cold War to keep a shrinking West and its allies free. The Department of War turned into the Department of Defense, along with weird new things like the U.S. Air Force, Strategic Air Command, Food for Peace, Alliance for Progress, Voice of America, and thousands of other costly entities never dreamed of just a few years earlier. And yet our greatest generation thought by and large they had done pretty well. We in contrast would have given up in despair in 1942, New York Times columnists and NPR pundits pontificating "I told you so" as if we were better off sitting out the war all along. Iraqi options Finally, the United States has a number of options in Iraq. In fact, the paradoxes are ever more confronting our enemies. There is a glaring problem for the terrorists in Iraq: 75 percent of the country wants elections. The Sunni clerics wish to delay them on the strange logic that they either cannot or will not stop their brethren who are trying to derail the voting through which their cause will lose. But such appeals appear increasingly empty - almost like the Secessionists complaining about Northern voters in 1860 might imperil the Union. And no one is all that sure that there really is a purist Sunni block of millions of obstructionists, rather than just ordinary Iraqis who want to vote and are in fear of extremists who claim their allegiance. Saudi Arabia unleashed terrorists to stop democracy in Iraq, and is now worried their young Frankensteins hate their creators just as much. So we are inching ahead as global television soon will air an elected and autonomous government fighting fascists for the chance of democracy. If the Kurds and the Shiite majorities vote for us to leave, then we must - but to do so would be to ensure the return of the Baathists, the domination of Wahhabi fundamentalism, or the Lebanonization of the country. And so they probably won't. There is much talk of an Iranian takeover, but no evidence that an Iraqi Shiite sees himself as more an Iranian than an Arab. All this we cannot see at the present as we in our weariness lament the losses of almost 1,100 combat dead and billions committed to people who appear from 30-second media streams to be singularly ungracious and not our sort of folk. We dwell on unmistakable lapses, never on amazing successes - just as we were consumed with Afghanistan in its dark moments, but now ignore its road to success. But never mind all this: The long-term prospects are still as bright as things seem gloomy in the short-term - but only if we emulate our grandfathers and press on with the third Middle East election in the last six months. - Victor Davis Hanson is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is victorhanson.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'

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Hanging the Pirates
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2005/0131/096_print.html> Forbes Security Hanging the Pirates 01.31.05 Paul Kocher has a way to save Hollywood from illegal copying. Over the past few months top brass from Hollywood and Japan's consumer electronics giants have been hashing out their futures in hotel meeting rooms in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Topic A is the politically charged debate over the standard for the new high-definition DVDs, which the film industry hopes will swell the current $24 billion DVD market, as hi-def becomes the norm. Most of the players want to get something decided on within a year. But, as big as the stakes are in those discussions, the movie studios are even more keen on the outcome of the talks on the 39th floor of Toshiba's Tokyo headquarters. By the Numbers Price of Piracy Illegal file-sharing hits music far harder than film--for now. $21 billion n DVD sales in U.S. in 2004, a 200% increase since 2000. $12 billion CD sales in U.S., a 17% decline since 2000. $3 billion Amount movie studios lose to piracy each year. $4 billion Amount music publishers lose to piracy each year. Sources: Adams Media Research; RIAA; MPAA. There, a select security committee representing both hardware and film makers has an extremely rare opportunity to stop digital piracy from doing to movies what it did to music. Napster and its ilk have helped knock 17% off of record label sales in the past three years. With DVD's basic encryption already cracked and one-quarter of American homes now capable of broadband-speed downloads, it's inevitable that one day the latest Harry Potter film will be swapped as easily as U2's new hit. "This is the number one priority at the highest levels," says Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Home Entertainment. "The studios want to have more control over protecting our content." One of the most important people involved in that discussion is Paul Kocher, the 31-year-old president of Cryptography Research, a tiny San Francisco consulting and licensing firm that brought in $6 million last year. Kocher is soft-spoken, young and obscure, but his credibility in the encryption business is sterling. Eight years ago, fresh out of Stanford, Kocher cowrote Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the protocol that secures the vast majority of commerce on the Internet. What Kocher is pushing is the concept of renewable security. Any attempt to erect a one-time, rigid barrier between thieves and content, he says, is useless, including the current method pushed through by the Japanese consumer electronics companies. "With very few exceptions, all the major security systems being used by the studios today are either broken and can't be fixed, or they're not deployed widely enough to be worth hacking," says Kocher. Under the existing Content Scrambling System, electronics makers install the exact same encryption code into nearly every DVD player. But that was broken by European hackers in 1999 and the trick disseminated widely on the Internet. Even the least sophisticated user can now download a program that easily copies protected movies. Kocher's alternative is to allow for constant change. His system, called self-protecting digital content, places the security on the disc instead of in the player. A software "recipe" running into the millions of steps is burned onto every new movie disc. Each DVD player would contain a small chip costing only a few extra cents that would follow the recipe faithfully. If the DVD player decides the disc is secure, it will decode it and play the movie. But each film could have a different recipe. So if a pirate breaks the code on Spider-Man 2, he wouldn't necessarily be able to break the code on Elf. The studios would always be one step ahead of the thieves; at the very least it would take pirates more time to break each film. Not a big deal: Studios make most of their money from DVDs in the first three months, anyway. "A lot of security systems are hard and brittle," says Robert Baldwin, head of the security firm Plus Five Consulting. "Paul's is more like a willow tree. It bends and recovers." No studio executive contacted would comment on Kocher's scheme on the record, but it looks likely to be the backbone of any eventual security standard. A group including IBM, Toshiba, Time Warner and Microsoft is also angling to get a complementary encryption scheme called AACS into every future player. It will likely be written to work with Kocher's idea. Consumer electronics firms, which dictated the last encryption format, never had much to lose from security leaks. Film executives like the fact that Kocher's scheme gives them a stronger hand. Now they will be able to decide how much security they want on each disc and when it needs to be updated. Kocher, son of a physics professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis, says he learned about computing because he stayed home a lot, too lazy to bike the two miles into town. He initially wanted to be a veterinarian. "It's not a good job from a financial perspective, but it includes the interesting parts of medicine, and if you make a mistake you haven't done in someone's grandma," says Kocher. He ran out of money while at Stanford, so he started doing security consulting for Microsoft and RSA Security. By the time Kocher graduated from Stanford, he was already well-known as a protigi of Martin Hellman, the co-inventor of public key encryption, the most widely used security technique on the Internet. A year after college Netscape asked Kocher to redesign from scratch the security behind e-commerce. On the old version thieves could intervene in a transaction, weaken the encryption and steal information. Kocher redesigned the system to ensure that seller and buyer are working off of the strongest encryption possible, and that if someone interferes, the sale fails. "With all the problems on the Internet, SSL has stood as an industrial-strength protocol," says Taher Elgamal, who worked with Kocher on SSL. With SSL Kocher had full control over how the protocol would turn out. Things aren't so straightforward with the new DVD standards. Kocher is in the middle of a battle between Sony and Toshiba to define the new standards. Both sides are in favor of renewable security, but they haven't decided how to get it. For example, downloading fixes over an Internet connection is one idea that has been floated by Microsoft and others. With players like Sony, Microsoft and Intel all trying to impose their own agendas, there's a risk the compromises could result in a less secure standard. For the most part Kocher has avoided political battles, sitting through the endless, heated standards meetings and tapping on his Treo from the side of the room, interrupting quietly now and then to endorse his fix. There's money in this for him, just not that much--given that he's looking at only several cents per disc for his firm if Cryptography's solution is ultimately used. That could eventually work out to $75 million based on the current 1.5 billion copies sold worldwide. More lucrative would be the consulting fees from the studios when they eventually start deciding what kind of security they want on each title. That's unlikely to happen until high-definition DVDs get traction, sometime around 2007. "The formats have to decide to build in a system that will make it possible to fix problems later," says Kocher. "When you have the tools to handle security risks, they'll inevitably get used." -- ----------------- 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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Sun creates worlds smallest SSL Web server
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=38DE2210-C6D9-4A59-B84F-9858…> - Computer Business Review Sun creates world's smallest SSL Web server Sun Microsystems Inc has created what can truly be called a microsystem. The tiny server, nicknamed "Sizzle" (from Slim SSL), is the size and shape of a quarter. It was created by Sun's engineers as a proof-of-concept machine for embedded applications and will be presented at the Pervasive Computing and Communications show in March. 14 Jan 2005, 10:47 GMT - Sizzle is a wireless Web server and is based on an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Crossbow Technology Inc. The server has 8Kb of main memory, which implements a stripped-down operating system plus a Web server and an SSL server. Crossbow has created its own operating system, called TinyOS, for these remote computers, often referred to as motes. The mote that Sun is using in Sizzle is called the MICA2DOT, and it is powered by a three-volt button battery, like the kind in your motherboard to keep your BIOS settings alive. It is unclear if Sun is using TinyOS or a stripped-down version of Solaris or Linux to create its micro Web server. Sun is adding 128Kb of flash memory to the mote, and it is implementing a version of SSL based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) that Sun says makes public key cryptography suitable on a very tiny machine with extremely limited capabilities. Sizzle can complete an SSL handshake in under four seconds, and can do it in under two seconds with sessions that are reused; the Web server can transfer about 450 bytes per second. While you may not be able to run Yahoo on it, you can build vast arrays of sensors with ad hoc networking, which is what motes are for. -- ----------------- 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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Brin needs killing, XIIV
by Eugen Leitl 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

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

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Isle of Man welcomes US online punters
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/isle_man_gambling/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; eCommerce ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/isle_man_gambling/ Isle of Man welcomes US online punters By Lester Haines (lester.haines at theregister.co.uk) Published Thursday 13th January 2005 15:37 GMT The Isle of Man now allows US punters to gamble in online casinos based on the island, the NY Times reports. The announcement will rattle US authorities opposed to American citizens having a flutter beyond the reach of US legislation. Indeed, US prosecutors have launched a series of actions against operations doing business with foreign online casinos. Some credit cards, Amex (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/18/gambling_block/) included, do not allow customers to gamble on the web at all. In response, the WTO recently declared (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/us_gambling_wto_rumble/) that this prohibition of cross-border trade breaks breached the 1994 general agreement on trade and services, and ruled in favour of Caribbean nation Antigua and Barbuda in the matter. The Isle of Man has operated online casinos since 2001, initially attracting some big-bucks operators including MGM Mirage. However, after an initial boom, a flattened market provoked many, MGM among them, to shut down their Irish Sea operations. The island's new policy came into force on 1 January, and is clearly an attempt to revitalise the online gambling economy. Tim Craine, the head of electronic business for the Isle of Man, said: "There's a lot of business looking to relocate to a reputable, regulated jurisdiction. We're hoping to capitalize on that business by changing our policy." Craine confirmed that the Isle of Man is particularly looking to attract representatives of the burgeoning online poker business (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/12/online_poker/) currently worth between $2m and $2.5m per day worldwide. . Related stories Punters warm to online poker (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/12/online_poker/) Online roulette has Germans in a spin (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/15/spielbank_wiesbaden/) WTO rules against US gambling laws (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/11/us_gambling_wto_rumble/) UK Gov unwraps Gambling Bill (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/19/gambling_bill/) Amex prevents punters gambling online (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/18/gambling_block/) Online poker ace scores #4,500 - per week (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/15/online_poker_ace/) Irish punters enjoy online betting (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/05/irish_online_betting/) -- ----------------- 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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US slaps on the wardriver-busting paint
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/wi_fi_paint/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Security ; Network Security ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/13/wi_fi_paint/ US slaps on the wardriver-busting paint By Lester Haines (lester.haines at theregister.co.uk) Published Thursday 13th January 2005 11:52 GMT Security-minded US decorators' supply outfit Force Field Wireless (http://forcefieldwireless.com) claims to have developed a DIY solution to the international menace of marauding geek wardrivers - DefendAir paint "laced with copper and aluminum fibers that form an electromagnetic shield, blocking most radio waves and protecting wireless networks". According to a South Florida Sun Sentinel report (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/sfl-sbgizmos09jan09,0,2849380.st…) one coat of the water-based paint "shields Wi-Fi, WiMax and Bluetooth networks operating at frequencies from 100 megahertz to 2.4 gigahertz", while two or three applications are "good for networks operating at up to five gigahertz". Simple as that. Of course, there are a few downsides to this miracle product. First up, you must be careful how you slap it on. Force Field Wireless rep Harold Wray admits that "radio waves find leaks", while the company asks users to be aware that the product "must be applied selectively" otherwise it "might hinder the performance of radios, televisions and cell phones". Reg readers can make of this apparent contradiction what they will, and are asked to direct any technically-based sceptisicm to Force Field Wireless, and not to Vulture Central. Thankyou. Another snagette is that DefendAir is available only in grey - a fact sufficient to provoke what is known in the UK as "interior designers' wobbly". Mercifully, it can be used as a primer, so those who require wireless peace of mind plus bold fashion statement can rest assured that coat of "Wardriver Crimson" will cover it up quite nicely. It only remains for us to say that DefendAir costs a cool $69 per gallon (US gallon, presumably). Still, that's a small price to pay for the absolute certainty that High School students are not right now sitting across the street recording your credit card details for later deployment in the online purchase of pornography, drugs and semi-automatic weapons. . Related stories Business frets over wireless security (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/01/wifi_security_worries/) UK scientists roll out Wi-Fi proof wallpaper (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/12/wifi_wallpaper/) Michigan wardrivers await sentencing (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/06/michigan_wardrivers_guilty/) Wi-Fi 'sniper rifle' debuts at DEFCON (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/03/wi-fi_aerial_gun/) -- ----------------- 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: [IP] No expectation of privacy in public? In a pig's eye! (fwd from dave@farber.net)
by Trei, Peter 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

Bill Stewart wrote: > At 12:30 PM 1/12/2005, Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > >Just out of curiosity, if the man doesn't need a warrent > >to place a surveilance device, shouldn't it be within your rights > >to tamper with, disable or remove such a device if you discover one? > > Do you mean that if you discover an unsolicited gift of > consumer electronics attached to your car, > do you have the right to play with it just as you would if > it came in the mail? I would certainly expect so... Attaching it to another car would seem a suitable prank - someone who travels a lot, on an irregular path - a pizza delivery guy, or a real estate agent. Or perhaps a long distance truck. It would take some chutzpa, but tacking onto a cops car would send a message.... Peter Trei

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Do You Own Yourself?
by R.A. Hettinga 14 Jan '05

14 Jan '05

<http://www.lawfulpath.com/ref/ownyourself.shtml> The Lawful Path Do You Own Yourself? by Butler Shaffer One of my favorite quotations comes from Thomas Pynchon: "If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don4t have to worry about answers." Our world is in the mess it is in today because most of us have internalized the fine art of asking the wrong questions. Contrary to the thinking that would have us believe that the conflict, violence, tyranny, and destructiveness that permeates modern society is the result of "bad" or "hateful" people, disparities in wealth, or lack of education, all of our social problems are the direct consequence of a general failure to respect the inviolability of one another4s property interests! I begin my Property classes with the question: "do you own yourself?" Most of my students eagerly nod their heads in the affirmative, until I warn them that, by the time we finish examining this question at the end of the year, they will find their answer most troubling, whatever it may be today. "If you do own yourself, then why do you allow the state to control your life and other property interests? And if you answer that you do not own yourself, then what possible objection can you raise to anything that the state may do to you?" We then proceed to an examination of the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. The question of whether Dred Scott was a self-owning individual, or the property of another, is the same question at the core of the debate on abortion. Is the fetus a self-owning person, or an extension of the property boundaries of the mother? The same property analysis can be used to distinguish "victimizing" from "victimless" crimes: murder, rape, arson, burglary, battery, theft, and the like, are victimizing crimes because someone4s property boundaries were violated. In a victimless crime, by contrast, no trespass to a property interest occurs. If one pursues the substance of the "issues" that make up political and legal debates today, one always finds a property question at stake: is person "x" entitled to make decisions over what is his, or will the state restrain his decision-making in some way? Regulating what people can and cannot put into their bodies, or how they are to conduct their business or social activities, or how they are to educate their children, are all centered around property questions. "Property" is not simply some social invention, like Emily Post4s guide to etiquette, but a way of describing conditions that are essential to all living things. Every living thing must occupy space and consume energy from outside itself if it is to survive, and it must do so to the exclusion of all other living things on the planet. I didn4t dream this up. My thinking was not consulted before the life system developed. The world was operating on the property principle when I arrived and, like the rest of us, I had to work out my answers to that most fundamental, pragmatic of all social questions: who gets to make decisions about what? The essence of "ownership" is to be found in control: who gets to be the ultimate decision maker about people and "things" in the world? Observe the rest of nature: trees, birds, fish, plants, other mammals, bacteria, all stake out claims to space and sources of energy in the world, and will defend such claims against intruders, particularly members of their own species. This is not because they are mean-spirited or uncooperative: quite the contrary, many of us have discovered that cooperation is a great way of increasing the availability of the energy we need to live well. We have found out that, if we will respect the property claims of one another and work together, each of us can enjoy more property in our lives than if we try to function independently of one another. Such a discovery has permitted us to create economic systems. There is no way that I could have produced, by myself, the computer upon which I am writing this article. Had I devoted my entire life to the undertaking, I would have been unable even to have conceived of its technology. Many other men and women, equally unable to have undertaken the task by themselves, cooperated without even knowing one another in its creation. Lest you think that my writing would have to have been accomplished through the use of a pencil, think again: I would also have been unable to produce a pencil on my own, as Leonard Read once illustrated in a wonderful, brief essay. Such cooperative undertakings have been possible because of a truth acknowledged by students of marketplace economic systems, particularly the Austrians about human nature: each of us acts only in anticipation of being better off afterwards as a result of our actions. Toward whatever ends we choose to act, and such ends are constantly rearranging their priorities within us, their satisfaction is always expressed in terms inextricably tied to decision making over something one owns (or seeks to own). Whether I wish to acquire some item of wealth, or to give it away; whether I choose to write some great novel or paint some wondrous work of art; or whether I just wish to lie around and look at flowers, each such act is premised on the fact that we cannot act in the world without doing so through property interests. It is in anticipation of being able to more fully express our sense of what is important to us, both materially and spiritually, that we cooperate with one another. "Property" also provides a means for maximizing both individual liberty and peace in society. For once we identify who the owner of some item of property is, that person4s will is inviolate as to such property interest. He or she can do what they choose with respect to what is theirs. If I own a barn, I can set fire to it should I so choose. If I must first get another4s permission, such other person is the owner. Individual liberty means that my decision making is immune from the coercion of others, and coercion is always expressed in terms of property trespasses. At the same time, the property principle limits the scope of my decision making by confining it to that which is mine to control. This is why problems such as industrial "pollution" are usually misconceived, reflecting the truth of Pynchon4s earlier quote. A factory owner who fails to confine the unwanted byproducts of his activities to his own land, is not behaving as a property owner, but as a trespasser. Economists have an apt phrase for this: socializing the costs. He is behaving like any other collectivist, choosing to extend his decision making over the property of others! But not all of us choose to pursue our self-interests through cooperation with others. Cooperation can exist only when our relationships with others are on a voluntary basis which, in turn, requires a mutual respect for the inviolability of one another4s property boundaries. Those who seek to advance their interests in non-cooperative ways, create another system: politics. If you can manage to drag your mind away from the drivel placed there by your high school civics class teacher, and look at political systems in terms of what they in fact do, you will discover this: every such system is founded upon a disrespect for privately owned property! All political systems are collectivist in nature, for each presumes a rightful authority to violate the will, including confiscation, of property owners. One can no more conceive of "politics" without "theft" than of "war" without "violence." Every political system is defined in terms of how property is to be controlled in a given society. In communist systems, the state confiscates all the means of production. In less-ambitious socialist systems, the state confiscates the more important means of production (e.g., railroads, communications, steel mills, etc.). Under fascism, "title" to property remains in private hands, but "control" over such property is exercised by the state. Thus, fascism has given us state regulatory systems, in which property owners, be they farmers, homeowners, or businesses, have the illusion of owning what they believe to be "theirs," while the state increasingly exercises the real ownership authority (i.e., control). In welfare state systems, the state confiscates part of the income of individuals and redistributes it to others. As stated earlier, property is an existential fact. Whatever the society in which we live, someone will make determinations as to who will live where, what resources can be consumed by whom (and when), and how such property will be controlled. Such decisions can either be made by individual property owners, over what is theirs to control, or by the state presuming the authority to control the lives of each of us. When such decisions are made by the state, it is claiming ownership over our lives. It is at this point that I let the students in on the secret the political establishment would prefer not to have revealed: the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution did not end slavery, but only nationalized it! That most Americans acquiesce in such political arrangements, and take great offense should anyone dare to explain their implications, has led me to the conclusion that America may be the last of the collectivist societies to wither away. Most Americans, sad to say, seem unprepared to deny the state4s authority to direct their lives and property as political officials see fit. The reason for this, as my first-day question to students is designed to elicit, is that most of us refuse to insist upon self-ownership. We may, of course, choose to accept our role as state-owned chattels, particularly if we are well-treated by our masters. We may be so conditioned in our obeisance that, like cattle entering the slaughterhouse, we may pause to lick the hand of the butcher out of gratitude for having been well cared for. On the other hand, we may decide to reclaim our self-ownership by taking back the control over our lives that we have long since abandoned. Perhaps the insanity of our social destructiveness, including the Bush Administration4s deranged declaration of a permanent war against the rest of the world, will bring about an examination of alternative ways of living together in conditions of peace and liberty. Our political systems cannot bring about such harmonious and life-sustaining ways because they are premised on a rejection of the principle of self-ownership. In a society of self-owning individuals, there would be no place for politicians, bureaucrats, and other state functionaries. Like the rest of us, they would have to confine their lives to minding their own business, and deriving whatever benefit they could from persons who chose to cooperate with them. There is one person who can restore you to a state of self-ownership, however, and that person is you. To do so, you need only assert your claim, not as some empty gesture, but in full understanding of the existential meaning of such a claim, including the willingness to take full control of and responsibility for your life. While your claim will likely evoke cries of contempt from many, you may also find yourself energized by a life force that permeates all of nature; an ilan vital that reminds us that life manifests itself only through individuals, and not as collective monstrosities; that life belongs to the living, not to the state or any other abstraction. February 25, 2002 Butler Shaffer [send him e-mail] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. -- ----------------- 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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