July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

Secrecy News -- 08/27/12
by Steven Aftergood 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Format Note: If you cannot easily read the text below, or you prefer to receive Secrecy News in another format, please reply to this email to let us know. SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2012, Issue No. 85 August 27, 2012 Secrecy News Blog: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ ** GUIDANCE ON NUCLEAR TARGETING IS "TIGHTLY CONTROLLED" ** SCI NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT REQUIRES PREPUBLICATION REVIEW ** PRESIDENTIAL CLAIMS OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE, AND MORE FROM CRS GUIDANCE ON NUCLEAR TARGETING IS "TIGHTLY CONTROLLED" U.S. government guidance on the targeting of nuclear weapons is perhaps the most tightly held of all national security secrets, and "fewer than twenty" copies of the President's instructions on the subject are extant within the entire Department of Defense. Following a November 2011 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) asked "How many military and civilian personnel in the executive branch have full or partial access to nuclear employment and targeting guidance?" In newly published responses to questions for the record, Under Secretary of Defense James N. Miller said the answer was "a very small group of personnel in the executive branch." http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2011_hr/nw-qfr.pdf "Even within the Department of Defense (DOD), access to this sensitive material is tightly controlled," Dr. Miller added. "Within the Department of Defense, fewer than twenty copies of the President's guidance are distributed in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and U.S. Strategic Command." The nuclear weapons guidance issued by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to implement the President's instructions is somewhat more broadly disseminated. "Fewer than 200 copies of the most recent amplifying guidance issued by the Secretary of Defense were produced, and distribution was limited primarily to Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, U.S. Strategic Command, and other Combatant Commanders. The Chairman's guidance is distributed more widely within DOD (fewer than 200 copies), as the document assigns responsibilities to several defense agencies and the intelligence community. Commander, U.S. Strategic Command must issue guidance to his planners and forces in the field, so distribution is somewhat wider because of that need." What about congressional access? "How many personnel in the legislative branch have full or partial access to each level of guidance?", Rep. Turner asked. Dr. Miller declined to answer that question directly. "There is a long history of debate about providing the legislative branch access to this material," he said. "As a result, instances of providing access to a member of Congress and senior staff personnel have been quite limited and under restrictive terms." In fact, the history of debate over congressional access to nuclear targeting information was never conclusively resolved, as far as is publicly known. In 2000, then-Sen. Robert Kerrey criticized the Department of Defense repeatedly for refusing to provide the information. http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2000/12/iaf122200.html "As elected representatives of the people, and with a Constitutional role in determining national security policy, Congress should have an understanding of the principles underpinning our nuclear policy. Both the guidance provided by the President and the details of the SIOP [nuclear weapons targeting plan] are necessary for us to make informed national security decisions," Sen. Kerrey said on the Senate floor on June 30, 2000. http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/kerrey.html Sen. Kerrey wrote to then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen seeking an explanation of the Department's policy on congressional access to nuclear targeting information. http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2000/kerrey2.html But no reply was ever received. In the newly released questions for the record, which address a multiplicity of nuclear policy issues, Rep. Turner also asked "How many military personnel have full or partial access to STRATCOM's OPLAN 8010?", referring to the U.S. Strategic Command nuclear war plan. "Full access to all portions of OPLAN 8010 is limited to our most senior leadership," replied Gen. C. Robert Kehler, STRATCOM Commander. For background on OPLAN 8010, see "Obama and the Nuclear War Plan" by Hans M. Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, February 2010: http://fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/publications1/WarPlanIssueBrief2010.pdf SCI NONDISCLOSURE AGREEMENT REQUIRES PREPUBLICATION REVIEW If the former Navy SEAL who co-authored a new book about killing of Osama bin Laden signed a non-disclosure agreement for access to "sensitive compartmented information" (i.e., classified intelligence information), then he was obliged to submit his manuscript to the government for prepublication review even if he believed that it contained no classified information. A sample SCI non-disclosure agreement that is used by the Department of Defense is here: http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dd_1847_1.pdf If the book did contain classified information, then the author could conceivably be subject to criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act. But even if it did not contain classified information, its publication without prior review could be deemed a breach of contract, with the proceeds subject to seizure by the government. The government's authority to enforce a non-disclosure agreement in this way was affirmed by a federal court most recently in the case of USA v. Ishmael Jones. In that case, Jones (the pseudonym of a former CIA officer) published his manuscript without completing the prepublication review process. Last week, Adm. William H. McRaven of U.S. Special Operations Command condemned the disclosure of classified information by former special operators, as well as other forms of activism that tended to politicize the service. "While as retired or former service members, they are well within their rights to advocate for certain causes or write books about their adventures, it is disappointing when these actions either try to represent the broader S.O.F. community, or expose sensitive information that could threaten the lives of their fellow warriors," McRaven wrote in an email to all special operation personnel. http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=117635 "We will pursue every option available to hold members accountable, including criminal prosecution where appropriate," he wrote, as reported by Kimberly Dozier of the Associated Press. "Today, U.S. Special Operations Forces are in 78 countries around the world supporting U.S. policy objectives," Adm. McRaven told Congress last March. The SOCOM budget request for FY2013 is $10.4 billion. "The FY 2013 budget includes 21 construction projects in nine states, one overseas, and one at a classified location," Adm. McRaven said in the 2012 SOCOM posture statement. http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2012_hr/030612mcraven.pdf PRESIDENTIAL CLAIMS OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE, AND MORE FROM CRS New and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service that Congress has not made available to the public include the following. Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege: History, Law, Practice, and Recent Developments, August 21, 2012: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R42670.pdf Congress's Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure, updated August 17, 2012: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf Iraq: Politics, Governance, and Human Rights, updated August 21, 2012: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS21968.pdf An Overview of the "Patent Trolls" Debate, August 20, 2012: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42668.pdf _______________________________________________ Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. The Secrecy News Blog is at: http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/ To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, go to: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/subscribe.html To UNSUBSCRIBE, go to http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/unsubscribe.html OR email your request to saftergood(a)fas.org Secrecy News is archived at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html Support the FAS Project on Government Secrecy with a donation: http://www.fas.org/member/donate_today.html _______________________ Steven Aftergood Project on Government Secrecy Federation of American Scientists web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html email: saftergood(a)fas.org voice: (202) 454-4691 twitter: @saftergood ----- 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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Serious vulnerability in Diebold DRE voting machines...
by Joseph Lorenzo Hall 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The public (redacted) report on this should be available in one hour (10AM PDT). -Joe ---- <http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3804675> # Voting glitch said to be 'dangerous' # By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Inside Bay Area Elections officials in several states are scrambling to understand and limit the risk from a "dangerous" security hole found in Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s ATM-like touch-screen voting machines. The hole is considered more worrisome than most security problems discovered on modern voting machines, such as weak encryption, easily pickable locks and use of the same, weak password nationwide. Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable it, redistribute votes or alter its performance in myriad ways. "This one is worse than any of the others I've seen. It's more fundamental," said Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist and veteran voting-system examiner for the state of Iowa. "In the other ones, we've been arguing about the security of the locks on the front door," Jones said. "Now we find that there's no back door. This is the kind of thing where if the states don't get out in front of the hackers, there's a real threat." The Argus is withholding some details of the vulnerability at the request of several elections officials and scientists, partly because exploiting it is so simple and the tools for doing so are widely available. A Finnish computer expert working with Black Box Voting, a nonprofit organization critical of electronic voting, found the security hole in March after Emery County, Utah, was forced by state officials to accept Diebold touch screens, and a local elections official allowed the expert to examine the machines. Black Box Voting was to issue two reports today on the security hole, one of limited distribution that explains the vulnerability fully and one for public release that withholds key technical details. The computer expert, Harri Hursti, quietly sent word of the vulnerability in March to several computer scientists who advise various states on voting systems. At least two of those scientists verified some or all of Hursti's findings. Several notified their states and requested meetings with Diebold to understand the problem. [...] The result, said Iowa's Jones, is a violation of federal voting system rules. "All of us who have heard the technical details of this are really shocked. It defies reason that anyone who works with security would tolerate this design," he said. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman(a)angnewspapers.com. -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall PhD Student, UC Berkeley, School of Information <http://josephhall.org/> ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- 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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[IP] Serious vulnerability in Diebold DRE voting machines...
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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Torservers Foundation Meeting - Invitation 26.3. Dresden
by Moritz Bartl 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hi, The non-profit organization around Torservers, Zwiebelfreunde ("Friends of the Onion") will be officially founded in Dresden on 26 March 2011. The goal of the foundation is to strengthen article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by (including, not limited to) * encouraging and organizing local user groups, workshops and meetings https://www.torservers.net/wiki/usergroups * documenting and collecting Tor information material and setup guides https://www.torservers.net/wiki/guides * documenting experiences with high bandwidth Tor exit node operation, both operational and legal https://www.torservers.net/wiki/hoster/index https://www.torservers.net/wiki/hoster/bridges (* provide legal help for Tor exit node operators?) In general, if you like this, you should take a look at https://www.torservers.net/wiki/todo and join us on irc.oftc.net #torservers This is an open meeting and everyone is welcome. We will most likely have (limited supplies of) free beer. You can come as a spectator, and you can stay anonymous. To become an official founding member, you will have to put your name on a document and your signature next to it (no further identification required), and sign the German statute: https://www.torservers.net/wiki/satzung There is absolutely no requirement to be there on 15:00 sharp. If you want to be a founding member, come before 16:30. If you just want to discuss Tor(servers) and the foundation, you can also join in later. It will most likely be a long night, so better sleep until noon. Probably we will be leaving Watzke some time. If you are unsure, call me or look for Twitter updates. * Saturday, 26.03.2010 * starting 15:00, open end * Brauhaus Watzke, www.watzke.de , Am Goldenen Reiter, Hauptstra_e 1, 01139 Dresden * no preregistration necessary * Phone contact (mine): +49-176-96 373 484 http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=watzke+dresden&i… If you need a place to sleep at, no problem. Contact me, at best before Saturday. -- Moritz Bartl XMPP: moritz@torservers (net) http://www.twitter.com/torservers https://www.torservers.net/ ----- 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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Torservers Foundation Meeting - Invitation 26.3. Dresden
by Moritz Bartl 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hi, The non-profit organization around Torservers, Zwiebelfreunde ("Friends of the Onion") will be officially founded in Dresden on 26 March 2011. The goal of the foundation is to strengthen article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by (including, not limited to) * encouraging and organizing local user groups, workshops and meetings https://www.torservers.net/wiki/usergroups * documenting and collecting Tor information material and setup guides https://www.torservers.net/wiki/guides * documenting experiences with high bandwidth Tor exit node operation, both operational and legal https://www.torservers.net/wiki/hoster/index https://www.torservers.net/wiki/hoster/bridges (* provide legal help for Tor exit node operators?) In general, if you like this, you should take a look at https://www.torservers.net/wiki/todo and join us on irc.oftc.net #torservers This is an open meeting and everyone is welcome. We will most likely have (limited supplies of) free beer. You can come as a spectator, and you can stay anonymous. To become an official founding member, you will have to put your name on a document and your signature next to it (no further identification required), and sign the German statute: https://www.torservers.net/wiki/satzung There is absolutely no requirement to be there on 15:00 sharp. If you want to be a founding member, come before 16:30. If you just want to discuss Tor(servers) and the foundation, you can also join in later. It will most likely be a long night, so better sleep until noon. Probably we will be leaving Watzke some time. If you are unsure, call me or look for Twitter updates. * Saturday, 26.03.2010 * starting 15:00, open end * Brauhaus Watzke, www.watzke.de , Am Goldenen Reiter, Hauptstra_e 1, 01139 Dresden * no preregistration necessary * Phone contact (mine): +49-176-96 373 484 http://maps.google.de/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=watzke+dresden&i… If you need a place to sleep at, no problem. Contact me, at best before Saturday. -- Moritz Bartl XMPP: moritz@torservers (net) http://www.twitter.com/torservers https://www.torservers.net/ ----- 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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Serious vulnerability in Diebold DRE voting machines...
by Joseph Lorenzo Hall 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The public (redacted) report on this should be available in one hour (10AM PDT). -Joe ---- <http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_3804675> # Voting glitch said to be 'dangerous' # By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Inside Bay Area Elections officials in several states are scrambling to understand and limit the risk from a "dangerous" security hole found in Diebold Election Systems Inc.'s ATM-like touch-screen voting machines. The hole is considered more worrisome than most security problems discovered on modern voting machines, such as weak encryption, easily pickable locks and use of the same, weak password nationwide. Armed with a little basic knowledge of Diebold voting systems and a standard component available at any computer store, someone with a minute or two of access to a Diebold touch screen could load virtually any software into the machine and disable it, redistribute votes or alter its performance in myriad ways. "This one is worse than any of the others I've seen. It's more fundamental," said Douglas Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist and veteran voting-system examiner for the state of Iowa. "In the other ones, we've been arguing about the security of the locks on the front door," Jones said. "Now we find that there's no back door. This is the kind of thing where if the states don't get out in front of the hackers, there's a real threat." The Argus is withholding some details of the vulnerability at the request of several elections officials and scientists, partly because exploiting it is so simple and the tools for doing so are widely available. A Finnish computer expert working with Black Box Voting, a nonprofit organization critical of electronic voting, found the security hole in March after Emery County, Utah, was forced by state officials to accept Diebold touch screens, and a local elections official allowed the expert to examine the machines. Black Box Voting was to issue two reports today on the security hole, one of limited distribution that explains the vulnerability fully and one for public release that withholds key technical details. The computer expert, Harri Hursti, quietly sent word of the vulnerability in March to several computer scientists who advise various states on voting systems. At least two of those scientists verified some or all of Hursti's findings. Several notified their states and requested meetings with Diebold to understand the problem. [...] The result, said Iowa's Jones, is a violation of federal voting system rules. "All of us who have heard the technical details of this are really shocked. It defies reason that anyone who works with security would tolerate this design," he said. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman(a)angnewspapers.com. -- Joseph Lorenzo Hall PhD Student, UC Berkeley, School of Information <http://josephhall.org/> ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- 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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[IP] Serious vulnerability in Diebold DRE voting machines...
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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[gsc] R.I.P. - Orlin Grabbe
by unlinQ Marketing 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

We have heard an unconfirmed rumor that J. Orlin Grabbe passed away about 3 weeks ago in Costa Rica, apparently of heart-related problems. His web site, http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ which was snappshotted, was last updated on March 6th. I hear an obituary is being compiled by former LFC people. His brother, Crockett's web site is at http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/~cgrabbe/ A controversial figure in the world of finance and banking, Orlin was one of the driving forces behind Laissez Faire City and founder of the Digital Monetary Trust. He will probably be more widely known for his work on derivatives while a professor at Wharton. After DMT Orlin focused on his interesting news web site replete with art (especially nudes) and writing papers in theoretical physics. I hope Grabbe gets the credit he deserved. We will provide additional information as it becomes know to us. Hopefully others on the list will add their stories of Orlin and personal contacts. -- unlinQ Financial Services Marketing Group

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For IP: Spying on phone calls started *before 9/11*
by Brett Glass 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Spy Agency Sought U.S. Call Records Before 9/11, Lawyers Say June 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court. The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages. ``The Bush Administration asserted this became necessary after 9/11,'' plaintiff's lawyer Carl Mayer said in a telephone interview. ``This undermines that assertion.'' The lawsuit is related to an alleged NSA program to record and store data on calls placed by subscribers. More than 30 suits have been filed over claims that the carriers, the three biggest U.S. telephone companies, violated the privacy rights of their customers by cooperating with the NSA in an effort to track alleged terrorists. ``The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T may neither confirm nor deny AT&T's participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause `exceptionally grave harm to national security' and would violate both civil and criminal statutes,'' AT&T spokesman Dave Pacholczyk said in an e-mail. U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller and NSA spokesman Don Weber declined to comment. More at: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news? pid=20601087&sid=abIV0cO64zJE ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- 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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[IP] Spying on phone calls started *before 9/11*
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Begin forwarded message:

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