July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[Politech] Data retention: Not just ISPs, but Google, domain registrars, and more? [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The Bush administration has made it entirely clear that new laws forcing Internet service providers to save certain customer records for police convenience will be a priority this year. The concept is called data retention (also known as treating all Americans as suspects). This is not entirely new. The Bush Justice Department has been quietly shopping it around since at least mid-2005; I wrote about it at the time: http://news.com.com/Your+ISP+as+Net+watchdog/2100-1028_3-5748649.html But bureaucracies take a while to really get organized, and it wasn't until last year that Gonzales and Mueller got their talking points lined up and found some uncritical sympathizers in the U.S. Congress to carry their water for them. Here's a timeline: http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6118283.html This brings us to the key questions: What's the scope? Who will have to comply, and what type of data will be forcibly retained? Certainly broadband Internet service providers will be regulated. But how about coffee shops, bookstores, companies (like CNET) that provide free open wireless points, or even private individuals who do? Will they have to keep logs of who connects and what their users do? FBI and DOJ have also talked about search engines being forced to comply: http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6126877.html This may not be a big deal for Google, which seems to want to retain all user search data until the heat death of the universe, but it does limit the valuable competition over privacy-friendly practices that's taking place among search engines. AOL says it deletes personally identifiable search data after 30 days (and does not keep backups), and Ixquick.com is trying to differentiate itself from its rivals by embracing what its CEO told me was "the privacy cause": http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6034626.html http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6103486.html Domain name registrars have also been mentioned as targets of regulation. Rep. Bart Stupak, a privacy-impaired Democrat now in a position to make some mischief as chairman of an oversight subcommittee, said in September that: "If we do compel data retention, is there any reason Web hosting sites should be treated differently than ISPs?" See: http://energycommerce.house.gov/Subcommittees/ovin.shtml http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6119878.html GoDaddy's general counsel was on the panel and, unfortunately for the well-being of thousands of her customers, chose to curry favor by agreeing with this constitutionally-challenged politico rather than standing on principle. She allowed that such a law would be "productive" for law enforcement but should not include the content of communications. Unfortunately, in the realpolitik of Washington, that's tantamount to an enthusiastic endorsement. And Gonzales has already signaled that he's interested in more than just what IP address was assigned to what user. That's defined as non-content data, and it's readily accessible to Joe Local Cop (not to mention an FBI agent) armed with a simple subpoena, no judge's signature required. But last week (and nobody really noticed this), Gonzales suggested he wants to force data retention laws on ISPs for data that "could be accessed with a court order." See: http://news.com.com/2100-1036_3-6151325.html By talking about a court order instead of a subpoena, Gonzales seemed to be implying content data instead of just IP addresses. A subpoena is merely a request for documents signed by a lawyer; a court order is signed by a judge and compliance isn't exactly optional. Federal law draws a distinction: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00002000--aa000-. html I admit my interpretation relies on Gonzales being precise with his words (though the alternative is realizing our nation's top law enforcement officer knows less about court practices than a first year law student). If I'm right, Gonzales is contemplating the content of email you send, the content of web pages you visit, the content of IMs you send, the content of VoIP calls you -- all recorded, or some subset recorded, for future police convenience. Earlier today, Eric Wenger, a trial attorney with the Justice Department's computer crime unit, showed up at a bar association meeting and said the DOJ does not have a position on "what records would have to be retained": http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6152598.html One last thought: If all ISPs must keep track of what their users are doing, then criminals, terrorists, First Amendment supporters and all other miscreants would be more likely to use anonymizing proxies like Tor or anonymizer.com. If the DOJ is serious about this anti-privacy campaign, banning the use or operation of anonymizing services might be a next step (after all, data retention probably doesn't help track someone if he's using Tor). Unlikely? Probably. But not impossible. Remember, back in 1997, one House of Representatives committee voted to ban all encryption without backdoors for the DOJ, a step that made about as much sense as today's data retention mandates: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-961969.html -Declan _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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None
by Robert J. Berger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

<dave(a)farber.net> Subject: The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about [I hope everyone has written their Congressmen to not dare give immunity to these anti-freedom activities! -Rob] Case Dismissed? The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball Newsweek Updated: 4:00 a.m. PT Sept 20, 2007 <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20884696/site/newsweek/> Sept. 20, 2007 - The nationbs biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence communitybs warrantless surveillance programs. The campaignbwhich involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firmsbhas taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed. If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence communitybor risk potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over personal information about their customers to the government without a judicial warrant. b Itbs not an exaggeration to say the U.S. intelligence community is in a near-panic about this,b said one communications industry lawyer familiar with the debate who asked not to be publicly identified because of the sensitivity surrounding the issue. But critics say the language proposed by the White Housebdrafted in close cooperation with the industry officialsbis so extraordinarily broad that it would provide retroactive immunity for all past telecom actions related to the surveillance program. Its practical effect, they argue, would be to shut down any independent judicial or state inquires into how the companies have assisted the government in eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks. b Itbs clear the goal is to kill our case," said Cindy Cohn, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based privacy group that filed the main lawsuit against the telecoms after The New York Times first disclosed, in December 2005, that President Bush had approved a secret program to monitor the phone conversations of U.S. residents without first seeking judicial warrants. The White House subsequently confirmed that it had authorized the National Security Agency to conduct what it called a b terrorist surveillance programb aimed at communications between suspected terrorists overseas and individuals inside the United States. But the administration has also intervened, unsuccessfully so far, to try to block the lawsuit from proceeding and has consistently refused to discuss any details about the extent of the programbrebuffing repeated congressional requests for key legal memos about it. <snip> ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[Dewayne-Net] The secret lobbying campaign your phone
by dewayne＠warpspeed.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

company doesn't want you to know about [Note: This item comes from reader Robert Berger. DLH]

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[IP] The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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[RISKS] Risks Digest 26.79
by RISKS List Owner 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Tuesday 17 April 2012 Volume 26 : Issue 79 ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks) Peter G. Neumann, moderator, chmn ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. ***** This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as <http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/26.79.html> The current issue can be found at <http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt> Contents: Hospital generator failure following earthquake (Jonathan Hunt) For want of an isolating ground, a railroad was shutdown (Danny Burstein) Insider attack on smart meters (PGN) UK Government to give consumers control over smart meter data amidst privacy concerns (Bob Waixel) Why one in five U.S. adults don't use the Internet (CNN) 60% of Wikipedia entries about companies contain errors: correcting them isn't easy (Science News) Computer Fraud Act Case Dismissed (Donn Parker) GPS is a humanitarian weapon system (jidanni) DHS chief contemplating proactive cyber attacks (Steve Johnson via Richard Forno) MintChip -- a virtual cryptocurrency backed up by a government (Mark Thorson) ICANN data breach exposes gTLD applicant data ... (ars technica) CIA's Secret Fear: High-Tech Border Checks Will Blow Spies' Cover (Robert Schaefer) "Apple under fire for backing off IPv6 support" (Gene Wirchenko) CISPA, Cybersecurity, and the Devil in the Dark (Lauren Weinstein) Web freedom faces greatest threat ever, warns Google's Sergey Brin (The Guardian) DARPA Challenge Seeks Robots to Drive Into Disasters (ACM TechNews) Walled gardens look rosy for Facebook, Apple -- and would-be censors (The Guardian) Re: Unraveling a massive click fraud scheme (Martin Ward) "Did first DDOS attack sink the Titanic?" (Gene Wirchenko) Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks) ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [liberationtech] What I've learned from Cryptocat
by Gregory Maxwell 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On Mon, Aug 6, 2012 at 6:53 PM, Nadim Kobeissi <nadim(a)nadim.cc> wrote: > The blog post suggests that becoming a local browser app means that > Cryptocat no longer uses JavaScript cryptography. This is nonsense: > JavaScript is a *language*, and since browser apps/plugins are written in an > HTML5 framework, we will still be using JavaScript to implement > cryptographic functions. The only thing that has changed is *the method of > code delivery.* This makes me a little sad. Previously, I understood what cryptocat was for: It was an insecure system, which was still probably significantly more secure than the common default unencrypted system, for use where deployment/usability issues meant it the choice was insecure-hosted-software or totally-insecure-plaintext. Non-server-replaceable systems like OTR were strictly preferable, of course, but in reality aren't ubiquitously used like they ought to be. With it becoming a browser extensionb it seems like it would gain much, although not all, of the usability challenges that precluded using OTR in the first place and in those places where the extension can't be pre-installed we still have short term SSL CA trust challenges (for the on-demand distribution of the extension). It also still retains many of the JS crypto specific technical challenges (no mlock, so no way to prevent long term keying material from hitting disk; generational GC so overwriting can't be trusted to reduce cold boot attack exposure). No doubt you'll find this an unwanted barb when you're already working hard trying to make good software to protect people, and that isn't my intention... but I don't know how to illustrate my confusion otherwise. _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. You may ask for a reminder here: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Government says EFF suit against AT&T might reveal secrets!
by Perry E. Metzger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The US government wants to intervene to request dismissal of EFF's lawsuit against AT&T -- the one alleging that it violated federal law by permitting warrantless wiretapping. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004612.php One wonders what sort of state secret could still be secret here now that the basics of the story have been revealed. Everyone knows that if they're tapping phones they have to be doing it *somewhere*. The most interesting thing, though, is the intervention itself, which implies that EFF is right and AT&T *was* allowing the NSA to put in equipment wherever it liked. The New York Times is also covering the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/us/29nsa.html Though sadly that link will stop working soon as part of the New York Times's effort to lose market share. -- Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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Government says EFF suit against AT&T might reveal secrets!
by Perry E. Metzger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The US government wants to intervene to request dismissal of EFF's lawsuit against AT&T -- the one alleging that it violated federal law by permitting warrantless wiretapping. http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004612.php One wonders what sort of state secret could still be secret here now that the basics of the story have been revealed. Everyone knows that if they're tapping phones they have to be doing it *somewhere*. The most interesting thing, though, is the intervention itself, which implies that EFF is right and AT&T *was* allowing the NSA to put in equipment wherever it liked. The New York Times is also covering the story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/us/29nsa.html Though sadly that link will stop working soon as part of the New York Times's effort to lose market share. -- Perry E. Metzger perry(a)piermont.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[tor-talk] Orbot 1.0.6-RC3 with Tor 0.2.3.7-alpha
by Nathan Freitas 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 We think this might be final, but would appreciate some more testing and feedback. The major new features are: - - Nodes: exit/exclude/entrance node specification with strict is working - - Wizard update: a new user interface process for the first-time user - - Tor Tethering: if wifi or usb tethering is on, Orbot can route traffic through Tor (aka "make your phone a Tor hotspot!" feature) - - Settings for proxying Tor through another proxy is also now exposed in Settings - - And of course, support for all the other updates in 0.2.3.7-alpha Has been primarily tested on Android 1.6 to 2.3.x, with some limited testing on 3.x tablets. Android APK binary: https://github.com/guardianproject/Orbot/Orbot-1.0.6-Tor-0.2.3.7-alpha-RC3.… sig: http://cloud.github.com/downloads/guardianproject/Orbot/Orbot-1.0.6-Tor-0.2… Best, +n8fr8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk6wznIACgkQhemw+yiNNc5u8QCfc2iQqXBZAdcfjmG+5vTvgLXB WpYAniGPikLhNq+xzyijsmpOowTFBC63 =g9/o -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[tor-talk] Orbot 1.0.6-RC3 with Tor 0.2.3.7-alpha
by Nathan Freitas 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 We think this might be final, but would appreciate some more testing and feedback. The major new features are: - - Nodes: exit/exclude/entrance node specification with strict is working - - Wizard update: a new user interface process for the first-time user - - Tor Tethering: if wifi or usb tethering is on, Orbot can route traffic through Tor (aka "make your phone a Tor hotspot!" feature) - - Settings for proxying Tor through another proxy is also now exposed in Settings - - And of course, support for all the other updates in 0.2.3.7-alpha Has been primarily tested on Android 1.6 to 2.3.x, with some limited testing on 3.x tablets. Android APK binary: https://github.com/guardianproject/Orbot/Orbot-1.0.6-Tor-0.2.3.7-alpha-RC3.… sig: http://cloud.github.com/downloads/guardianproject/Orbot/Orbot-1.0.6-Tor-0.2… Best, +n8fr8 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk6wznIACgkQhemw+yiNNc5u8QCfc2iQqXBZAdcfjmG+5vTvgLXB WpYAniGPikLhNq+xzyijsmpOowTFBC63 =g9/o -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ tor-talk mailing list tor-talk(a)lists.torproject.org https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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