July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 6.18, 24 September 2008
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 6.18, 24 September 2008 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. Google reduces search data retention time to 9 months, but not enough 2. International workshop in Budapest challenges data retention 3. Spain: Indexing torrent files is not copyright infringement 4. The EU commissioners ask for a friendly environment in online retailing 5. French file EDVIGE revised after huge civil society mobilization 6. House of the German Pirate Party spokesman raided by Police 7. European Competition Commissioner: We investigate Google-Yahoo deal 8. ENDitorial: A stupid law and a perverse "criminal" sentence 9. Recommended Reading 10. Agenda 11. About ============================================================ 1. Google reduces search data retention time to 9 months, but not enough ============================================================ Following the demands of EU privacy protection authorities, Google announced on 9 September it would reduce the search data retention time from 18 to 9 months. This is the second reduction Google applies in the past 2 years, having already reduced the retention period from indefinite to 18 months in 2007. However, the company still does not meet the Article 29 Working Party's recommendations. On 4 April 2008, the Article 29 Working Party published an opinion on search engines, recommending a maximum retention period of 6 months and reaffirming the applicability of the European data protection law. "Search engine providers must delete or irreversibly anonymise personal data once they no longer serve the specified and legitimate purpose they were collected for." As a result, on 8 September 2008, Google answered announcing that the IP addresses associated with requests on the search engine will be anonymised after 9 months and that a link to Google's privacy policy appeared now on its homepage. The company did not provide any details regarding the way this anonymisation will work which, taking into consideration previous statements, will just consist in deleting the last 8 bits of a user's IP address. But if this does not go together with the anonymisation of the cookie values, then the entire process is useless, as Christopher Soghoian, a student fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society explains: "Even though the 9-month-old search logs have been 'anonymized', because the cookie values remain, it is trivial to match the newer search results to the older searches, and thus completely reverse the anonymization process." Although the Article 29 Working Party has appreciated Google's willingness to collaborate with data protection authorities, they consider there are still strong disagreements. Alex Turk, chairman of the Article 29 Working Party, says in a public press release on 16 September 2008 that despite the progress done, Google has still a lot of work to do to guarantee the rights of Internet users and the respect of their privacy. Some of the issues that raise concern are that Google considers that the European law on data protection is not applicable to itself and that IP addresses are confidential data, but not personal data. The company has not offered a clear justification for retaining personal data beyond the recommended 6 months period and has not made any improvement to its anonymisation mechanisms, which are still insufficient. Furthermore, it did not show any intention to improve and clarify the methods used to gather the consent of its users. The Article 29 Working Party established in 2007 that the IP address is related to an "identifiable person", and should thus be considered personal data. Therefore, Google should ask its users' prior permission before storing the information. Google argued there was a question of quality of service. "While we're glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we're also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data. (...) As the period prior to anonymisation gets shorter, privacy benefits are less significant and the utility lost from the data grows" wrote Peter Fleisher, the company's global privacy lawyer on the Google blog. Another step to protect user privacy (9.08.2008) http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/another-step-to-protect-user-privacy… Google cuts data retention after EU privacy warning (10.09.2008) http://euobserver.com/22/26718 Google tries to please privacy watchdogs (10.09.2008) http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/google-tries-please-privacy-watchdog… Article 29 Working Party - Google: The Beginning of a Dialogue (16.09.2008) http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_16_09_08_en.pdf Debunking Google's log anonymization propaganda (11.09.2008) http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-10038963-46.html?tag=mncol;title EDRi-gram: Google limits the search data retention period (28.03.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.6/google-data-retention ============================================================ 2. International workshop in Budapest challenges data retention ============================================================ 70 international experts and e-activists met in Budapest on Friday 19 September to discuss EU-wide policies on data retention and to develop strategies for defending and enhancing privacy. Hosted by the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at the Central European University in Budapest, the workshop "Data retention on the Internet: Challenges for small, alternative and citizen-based internet service providers (ISPs)" brought together scholars, lawyers, policy experts, digital rights advocates and a large number of grassroots/activist ISPs. EDRI was represented through its board member Meryem Marzouki and Digital Rights Ireland, Electronic Frontier Finland, Iuridicum Remedium, Netzwerk Neue Medien and Greennet. According to European Union (EU) Directive 2006/24/EC, all telecommunication operators and ISPs in the EU have to retain the email and telephone connection data of their customers and users for up to two years. Data about every citizen's communication is stored without a specific reason. According to workshop participant TJ McIntyre from Digital Rights Ireland, this allows the creation of a "comprehensive digital dossier about every individual." Workshop participants exchanged information about the implementation of the Directive in different EU member states and explored options of challenging data retention on three different levels: legal complaints and court cases, technological by-passes, and public campaigns. On the legal side, the workshop brought together organizations that are challenging data retention laws in five different countries and allowed them to exchange experiences and increase future collaborations. In the technical realm, different options of minimizing the risks of data retention, or circumventing it altogether, were introduced. The workshop also contributed to the preparation for an international day of action against data retention - entitled "Freedom not Fear" - on 11 October. Many of the groups and organizations that were represented at the workshop agreed to organize a protest action or a public event on that day. The workshop was the first to bring together members of non-commercial ISPs from different countries with members of international campaigns and NGOs to discuss together the new policy environment and this sector's particular concerns. The EU directive forces these ISPs to compromise on their most fundamental objective - protecting their users' privacy from state and corporate data gathering. Grassroots ISPs continued to meet on the weekend following the workshop and developed strategies on how to maximise privacy protection despite data retention obligations. The workshop was organized by Arne Hintz (CMCS), Oliver Leistert (University of Paderborn), and Maxigas (Zold Pok/Green Spider), in collaboration with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and EDRI. It was supported financially by the Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL, the Open Society Institute (OSI), and APC. Center for Media and Communication Studies http://cmcs.ceu.hu Association for Progressive Communications http://www.apc.org Zold Pok (Green Spider) http://www.zpok.hu EU directive paints alternative ISPs black (3.08.2008) http://www.apc.org/en/news/security/europe/eu-directive-paints-alternative-… EDRi-gram - Telecom data retention http://www.edri.org/issues/privacy/dataretention (Contribution by Arne Hintz - Center for Media and Communication Studies) ============================================================ 3. Spain: Indexing torrent files is not copyright infringement ============================================================ The case of Sharemula.com, the eDonkey website publishing links allowing users to download movies, music and software has been recently dismissed by the Provincial Court of Madrid which ruled that the website was operating legally. The case had been brought to court by the Federacisn Antipiraterma (Anti-piracy Federation) in 2006 when 15 people were arrested in Spain in relation with the operation of the site. The Spanish Brigade of Technological Investigations had claimed that the site was illegal and asked for its closure. A year ago, a Madrid court dismissed the case deciding that the site and its administrators had not infringed any law as the site included no illegal content. It had only links to P2P downloads which had no commercial purposes either. The entertainment industry, including Columbia, Disney Company Iberia, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner, Universal, Paramount, Sony, MGM and others were very displeased with the court's ruling and appealed the decision. But the Provincial Court of Madrid rejected all allegations concluding that indexing torrent files can not be viewed as copyright infringement. The court found Sharemula as not responsible for where the links went and considered that whether the site made profit or not was irrelevant. This court's decision is final and cannot be appealed. "The hearing confirms the position of the defense that linking to P2P networks does not constitute a criminal offense," said David Bravo, a lawyer in the case who emphasized the fact that the website only linked to files that were hosted elsewhere, on computers of P2P users, and did not store any copyrighted material itself. This decision represents good news for P2P-site administrators and may be a good basis for the upcoming cases against The Pirate Bay and Mininova in Europe. Auto final AP Madrid caso Sharemula (only in Spanish, 19.09.2008) http://derecho-internet.org/proyectos/procedimientos-libres/browser/defensa… Linking to P2P Downloads Confirmed Legal in Spain (19.09.2008) http://torrentfreak.com/linking-to-p2p-downloads-confirmed-legal-in-spain-0… Spanish Court Dismisses Piracy Case against Sharemula.com (24.10.2007) http://www.whichwebsite.com/2007/Oct/spanish_court_dismisses_piracy_case_ag… EDRi-gram: Website with P2P download links found legal by Spanish court (24.10.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.20/p2p-website-legal-spain ============================================================ 4. The EU commissioners ask for a friendly environment in online retailing ============================================================ A roundtable on online retailing with the interested private companies, including online music providers, and consumers organisations took place at the European Commission in Brussels on 17 September 2008 with competition commissioner Neelie Kroes and internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy. Ms Kroes expressed her concern regarding the barriers in buying music online: "Why is it possible to buy a CD from an online retailer and have it shipped to anywhere in Europe, but it is not possible to buy the same music, by the same artist, as an electronic download with similar ease? (...) Why do pan-European services find it so difficult to get a pan-European license? Why do new, innovative services find licensing to be such a hurdle?" The commissioner believes there are many reasons for this situation, including tax systems, consumer protection laws, guarantees and after-sales service. One of the issues she wanted to discuss was related to the competition rules for companies that enter into distribution agreements. She expressed her intention to check out whether the provisions for Internet sales were observed adding: "if I hear that these rules are not being respected, then I will look into these allegations immediately. And if I find any company to have breached the rules, I will ask the Commission to act and punish the companies concerned." She added that consideration had to be given on whether companies should exclude Internet-only retailers from their distribution system. "I have heard today from companies who think that that is the best way to protect a brand image. I have also heard from companies that use internet only retailers but impose strict conditions on them. And I have also heard from consumers who believe that consumers should have the right to choose." During the debate, the issue was considered as more complex as the rights and the licensing agreements were more complicated. "The world is always more complicated than we would like it to be. But that is no excuse for inaction. Collecting societies and music labels have come a long way since 1851, the time of Bourget and his sugared water, but the world has changed around them. Artists have changed, distribution has changed, and consumers have changed. There is a perception, though, that the collecting societies and the music labels have not" was Mrs. Kroes' comment. She considers the collecting societies have a vital responsibility in looking after the interests of artists. "That is only right because music is a vital part of our society and our culture. It always has been and it always will be. But where regional monopolies are not necessary - in the online world - then I want to hear more about whether the current system really helps the artists and whether it serves the consumer." She warned that the commission would intervene if musicians, record labels and retailers were not able to overcome their differences and produce a more consumer-friendly environment for digital music distribution. In his turn, McCreevy stated he had never thought " the internet was going to be such a stumbling block. This magical creation - invented by people who hadn't been born 50 years ago and developed by people, some of whom hadn't been born 25 years ago - has no natural physical frontiers or boundaries like traditional markets. But somehow it has been trapped and parcelled up by a whole series of barriers." In his opinion, it was worth considering "the idea that every single owner of a copyright - from authors and composers to music publishers and record labels - should license downloads individually through a collecting society that has an exclusive mandate for each of the 27 national territories." Along with Apple and EMI, the meeting was attended also by Alcatel-Lucent, Ebay, Louis Vuitton, Fiat and UK consumer watchdog Which? as the problems of online retailing are not limited to music. A commission report on the subject will be drafted later this year with Mr Jagger's and the others' participation and the EU executive will require responses to that report from stakeholders by 15 October 2009. Later on, the European Commission will present its legislative proposals on Internet retailing. Mick Jagger in Brussels for online retailing chat (18.09.2008) http://euobserver.com/19/26771 Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes's closing remarks at Online Commerce Roundtable (17.09.2008) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/437&forma… European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services Charlie McCREEVY's closing remarks at Online Commerce Roundtable (17.09.2008) http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/08/439&forma… ============================================================ 5. French file EDVIGE revised after huge civil society mobilization ============================================================ Following a very strong opposing movement, the decree allowing the creation of EDVIGE file has been abandoned by the French Government, but it will be replaced by a modified project called now EDVIRSP. On 1 July 2008, the French Government had announced a project creating a huge database, EDVIGE (Exploitation documentaire et valorisation de l'information ginirale - Documentary exploitation and valorisation of general information) which would have systematically gathered information on any person having applied for or exercised a political, union or economical mandate or playing a significant institutional, economical, social or religious part as well as information on any person considered by the police as a "suspect" potentially capable of disrupting the public order. The decree was very rapidly and strongly opposed by a large number of associations, organizations, political parties, unions and individuals. Almost 200 000 signatures and 1200 associations have supported a petition against the decree and 12 organizations, among which four main labour unions, main Lesbian and Gay associations, the French Human Rights League, and French EDRi-member IRIS, have filed a complaint before the French highest administrative court to have this decree cancelled. As a result, the French Government has given up the decree and the prime minister's office announced on 18 September a new decree having in view a modified file called EDVIRSP (Exploitation documentaire et valorisation de l'information relative ` la sicuriti publique - Documentary exploitation and valorisation of information related to public security). Differently from EDVIGE, the new file will explicitly exclude information related to people's health or sexual orientation, but will keep other sensitive personal data such as ethnical origin, as well as political, philosophical, religious opinions or union affiliation. In addition, it will no longer allow police to collect data in the same file on people belonging to political parties, unions or religious groups only because of their activities. The criteria for data gathering will be related to perceived security threats. Although a first victory for the opponents of EDVIGE, the new decree is still far from being satisfactory. The new text still allows the police to store data on minors starting the age of 13 if they are considered a threat to public safety. A "right to oblivion" was also introduced meaning the data gathered on minors is to be deleted when coming of age 18, except for the case when a new element occurs between 16 and 18, where the data is deleted at 21. The 12 organizations having filed the complaint against EDVIGE, together with the large coalition of petition signatories, consider it is unacceptable for the database to include minors, especially when they haven't committed any offence, and ask for stronger guarantees that citizens' rights and freedoms would be respected, starting from their right to the presumption of innocence. They continue to call for the withdrawal of the entire decree. The new project has been sent to The French Data Protection Authority (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertis) which should give its opinion in a month. Opponents to the database have called for a day of demonstrations on 16 October, on the occasion of Sainte Edwige's day of the Roman Catholic calendar. Files: from Edvige to EDVIRSP, a capital change (only in French, 21.09.2008) http://www.rue89.com/philippe-madelin/2008/09/21/fichiers-dedvige-a-edvirsp… Edvige:"insufficient rebound" (SM) (only in French, 20.09.2008) http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2008/09/20/01011-20080920FILWWW00552-edvi… EDVIGE file becomes EDVIRSP (only in French, 20.09.2008) http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/societe/20080920.OBS1990/le_fichi… Edvige file : the opponents stay vigilant (only in French, 19.09.2008) http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/09/19/fichier-edvige-les-opposan… RAS - Petition in order to obtain the abandoning of EDVIGE file (only in French) http://nonaedvige.ras.eu.org/ France drops plan for political database after row (18.09.2008) http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSLI3864020080918 EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: Massive mobilization against EDVIGE, the new French database (16.07.2008) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.14/edvige-french-database ============================================================ 6. House of the German Pirate Party spokesman raided by Police ============================================================ The Bavarian Police searched the house of the German Pirate Party spokesman on the 11 September 2008, searching for information on some leaked plans regarding a Skype wire tap project, that were published by the Party. The Pirate Party published some documents received from an anonymous whistleblower that show the Bavarian government plans to develop a Trojan horse able to eavesdrop on Skype conversations. Police wanted to find out the source of that information and they searched the house of the spokesman and took away a server, but this was fully encrypted, so there are little chances to discover the source. The search seems to be related to the two documents leaked on January 2008 that were present on the Internet and then posted on Wikileaks website. The first document is a communication by the Bavarian Ministry of Justice to the prosecutors' office, relating to cost distribution for the interception licenses between the police and the prosecution. The second document allegedly presents the offer made by Digitask, the German company developing the technology, holding information on pricing and the license model, high-level technology descriptions and other details. The recent action by the police has little chances to find the whistleblower, but confirm the authenticity of the documents. "A brave person leaks documents to the Pirate Party, to inform the public about a procedure of the Bavarian Government, which is highly likely to violate the constitution. Now this persons is hunted like a criminal. Private rooms are raided, servers get seized." stated Andreas Popp, the Chairman of the Bavarian Pirate Party. German cyberplods raid Pirate Party on Skype Trojan mole hunt (18.09.2008) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/german_police_raid_pirate_party/ Pirate Party Official Raided after Uncovering State Trojan (17.09.2008) http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-official-raided-after-uncovering-state… Chairman of the Koln Pirate Party condemned house search (only in German, 18.09.2008) http://pressemitteilung.ws/node/136096 Skype and SSL interception letters (24.01.2008) http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Skype_and_SSL_Interception_letters_-_Bavaria_-_Di… ============================================================ 7. European Competition Commissioner: We investigate Google-Yahoo deal ============================================================ Google announced in June that it had struck a deal with Yahoo, so it would sell ads on Yahoo website in return for a share of the profits. The EU anti-competition authorities confirms that they are investigating the deal between the two majors in the online advertising. The major competitors claimed that this new deal gives a dominant position for Google. This is why the agreement has also been investigated for some months by the US Department of Justice that hired a well-known Washington litigator to oversee the anti-trust proceedings. Although the companies said that the deal would have effect only in Canada and the United States, The World Association of Newspapers called for a investigation from the EU authorities, claiming: "it would hurt Yahoo's ability to compete against Google in the future." Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, confirmed the investigation :"In mid-July, we decided to open a preliminary investigation on our own initiative into potential effects of the Google-Yahoo agreement on competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) market." Google claimed that the deal would have no effect on the EEA market, since "the agreement is limited in scope to Yahoo's U.S. and Canadian websites", while Yahoo showed his cooperation with the EU authorities stating that the company "has been and will continue to work with the relevant regulatory agencies to provide officials with the necessary information about this business agreement, which we believe will strengthen competition in search and make advertisements more relevant for our users." As it was the case with the Google - Doubleclick deal, it seems that both the US and EU authorities will not investigate the privacy issues of the new Google-Yahoo agreement, even though serious concerns have already been expressed. EDRi-member Joris van Hoboken points out the Google blog entry related to the Google-Yahoo deal that claims: "neither company has access to personally identifiable user information from the other company", giving no explanation on what the two companies understand by "personally identifiable information". Since server logs are not considered by Google as personally identifiable information, it could be possible that the present deal gives Google access to Yahoo search data. EU competition officials probing Google-Yahoo deal (15.09.2008) http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSBRU00674420080915?pageNumbe… European regulators investigate Google-Yahoo advertising deal (16.09.2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/16/google.yahoo The Google-Yahoo Deal and the Privacy of End-Users (20.09.2008) http://www.jorisvanhoboken.nl/?p=189 ============================================================ 8. ENDitorial: A stupid law and a perverse "criminal" sentence ============================================================ There is no censorship in Italy, but... "Censorship" was abolished and outlawed in Italy sixtytwo years ago. Freedom of the press and of personal opinion is not only established by the Constitution, but also deeply rooted in custom and in all perceptions of civil society. There are, however, some worrying facts. The concentration in a few hands of a large part of the information system. A general, "centralized" myopia of the "dominant culture", that is partly deliberate manipulation and partly unintentional ignorance. A sly, apparently "benevolent", culture of superficiality and vagueness that tends to lull, confuse and subdue. A disturbing maverick, in this context, is the internet. Originally feared, later ambiguously applauded, anyhow misunderstood, the net remains annoying for those who are in the habit of having control and are irritated, if not scared, by a tool that they can't dominate or "tame". It would be long to repeat here what I have written several times, since I published Cassandra in 1996 and continued with eighty articles in Italian (thirteen also in English) in the "freedom and censorship" section of my website. But a recent episode deserves some comment. In this ambiguous context there are laws and "norms" that are poorly conceived and applied even worse. One, in particular, is the law on "clandestine press" (1948) to which was added, fiftythree years later (2001) a clumsy definition of "authorization" for "journalistic publications" online. Before we get into this specific subject, let's look at two articles of the Italian Constitution. In Article 3 it is stated that +All citizens have equal social status and are equal before the law.; But this isn't quite so. There are laws (in addition to "social status") that make some citizens "more equal than others". And there are several formally organized categories that have improper and unreasonable privileges. In addition to all sorts of limitations (or bureaucratic hindrance) of free enterprise, in business, society and culture, that everyone agrees should be removed, but de facto remain - and sometimes get worse. In Article 21 it is stated that +Everyone has the right to freely express thoughts in speech, writing, and by all other communication.; Also that +The press may not be controlled by authorization or submitted to censorship.; But this isn't quite so. There are "authorization" rules (as well as other hindrances and privileges) that get in the way of freedom of information and communication (generally defined as "freedom of the press" ever since the concept was established in 1848 by the "Statuto Albertino" - that in 1861 became the Constitution of what was, at the time, the Kingdom of Italy.) Within this framework, let's get to the specific case that has, quite rightly, caused a wave of protest and indignation - and to the two awkward laws that have made it possible. The facts are reported (not always accurately) in several online documents. (see the end of the article) A "criminal sentence" issued by a Court in Modica (Sicily) on 8 May 2008 condemned historian Carlo Ruta, defining his website "clandestine press" because it wasn't formally "authorized" as a newspaper or a magazine. (The site was no longer active. It had been "seized" by the police, by order of the Modica Court, in 2004). One of the absurdities in this Court decision is that the website was defined as "testata giornalistica" because it had a "heading". By that criterion, any publicly available correspondence written on "letterhead" could be criminally condemned as "clandestine press". I leave it to historians of law and politics to try to understand why, when fascism had been defeated and censorship had been abolished, in 1948 a law was passed that restricts press freedom and is in contrast to Article 21 of the Constitution. But let me "try to guess" why in April 2001 the Italian government proposed, and parliament "distractedly" approved, a poorly conceived (and never properly amended) law that extends press regulation to online communication. All governments and all political parties and parliamentary groups have always declared that they don't intend to limit or control in any way the freedom of the press and, generally, of opinion. On the sincerity and coherence of such statements we can have some doubts, but let's assume that the purpose of the messy 2001 law was not censorship. The idea was to extend to online newspapers and magazines the ambiguous "benefits" (subsidies) that exists for print - as well as the "responsibility" controls (a system that has already caused several distortions and manipulations in its "traditional" definition). This means that an online "newspaper" or "magazine" must be "registered" as such - and the editor must be a member of an officially regulated association called Ordine dei Giornalisti, a privileged "caste" that many agree should be abolished, but in spite of its absurdity continues to exist. The consequence is that, if the unclear text of the law is interpreted extensively, approximately five million Italian websites could be declared "illegal". That law has been in existence for five years and there has been no "extermination" of Italian online activity. But the fact remains that, by this or other means, "errors" are possible. Several other flaws in law or regulation have been used to "blacklist" or "seize" online activities that were disliked by authorities or powerful private lobbies. What makes the "Modica affair" unique is that, so far, it's the only case of the 1948 "clandestine press" law and its 2001 extension being applied to a website. Obviously protest and indignation must not relate only to this individual case, but above all to its general implications. The editor-owner of that website is not in jail. The "penalty" is a 250 euro fine, plus legal expenses. But obviously the problem is that, for totally unacceptable reasons, he has a "criminal" record and his site has disappeared. It's rather nearsighted to be complaining about this episode after having paid little attention to the fact that there is a nonsensical, and never properly amended, law. And there are other situations of Italian, or even foreign, websites being "removed" or made inaccessible, for a variety of unreasonable motives, with a too easy "voluntary" cooperation of internet providers who are more concerned with the protection of their business than with the rights and privacy of their customers. Why was there such a violent aggression on that particular website? It's improper to "guess" making unproven assumptions. But the fact is that the "cancelled" content was about collusion of politics with mafia - probably irksome for some powerful interests. But let's assume, for the sake of this argument, that it was only a "mistake" in the interpretation of an unclear law. The fact remains that such "errors" are possible - and unacceptable in a civilized country. There are many "tricks" that make it possible to limit, though not totally destroy, freedom of opinion and information. There is, by the way, a not irrelevant "technical detail". It is possible, by several different means, to make available online whatever has been "prohibited". "Seizing" or "cancelling" has little, if any, effect on criminals or other "wrongdoers". This sort of persecution is very painful for honest people who want to freely express "uncomfortable" opinions, irrelevant for the mischievous, ranging from the extreme of terrorism and organized crime to all sorts of frauds and spamming. In the (unproven) hypothesis of an absurd legal procedure being influenced by someone who wants to remove uncomfortable information or opinion, the irony is that it backfires, because the resulting "noise" spreads more widely than the original source. But that, of course, doesn't justify the perversity of the Court's decision or the clumsiness of the law. It's hard to tell how much all this is caused by the ignorance of "powerful" people who don't understand what the net is and how it works - or by an insidious desire to repress freedom of opinion and control sources of information. But the fact is that, no matter how disguised, repressive intentions exist even in the most free and open societies - and watchdogs need to be consistent over time, with constant observation of how things evolve, not just short-lived "indignation" over an occasional episode, soon to be forgotten while abuses continue. And we should never forget that censorship isn't only evil, it is also stupid. Cassandra (1996) http://gandalf.it/free/casseng.htm Bad legislation - again (05.2001) http://gandalf.it/offline/off37-en.htm Italy - blog condemned for clandestine press (only in Italian,16.06.2008) http://punto-informatico.it/2321322/PI/News/italia-blog-condannato-stampa-c… "Clandestine press": an unacceptable decision (only in Italian, 9.09.2008) http://www.mcreporter.info/stampa/c_ruta2.htm Only a journalist can run a website in Italy? (21.05.2008) http://blog.andreamonti.eu/?p=64 (Contribution by Giancarlo Livraghi - EDRi-member ALCEI Italy) ============================================================ 9. Recommended Reading ============================================================ The Shape of Things to Come by Tony Bunyan Seven years from 11 September 2001 and from the launch of the "war on terorism" this major new report The Shape of Things to Come (60 pages) examines the proposals of the Future Group and their effect on civil liberties. It shows how European governments and EU policy-makers are pursuing unfettered powers to access and gather masses of personal data on the everyday life of everyone - on the grounds that we can all be safe and secure from perceived "threats". The Statewatch report calls for a "meaningful and wide-ranging debate" before it is "too late" for privacy and civil liberties. Press release http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/sep/the-shape-of-things-to-come-prel.pdf Eight page Conclusions http://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/sep/the-shape-of-things-to-come-conclus… Copy of full report (pdf) http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/the-shape-of-things-to-come.pdf ============================================================ 10. Agenda ============================================================ 24-28 September 2008, Athens, Greece World Summit on the Knowledge Society http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/summit.htm 30 September 2008, Vienna, Austria Book launch and award presentation, quintessenz writing contest: "At the end of the line" - a science fiction anthology pertaining to civil rights, surveillance and data protection http://sf.quintessenz.at/ 11 October 2008, Worldwide Action day "Freedom not fear" Protests, demonstrations and activities against the surveillance mania http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2008 13-15 October 2008, Strasbourg, France First PrivacyOS "Open Space" Conference EDRi is a partner of the PrivacyOS project - a thematic network for privacy protection infrastructure within the current European Commission4s ICT Policy Support Programme. http://www.privacyos.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=bl… 15-17 October 2008, Strasbourg, France 30th International Data Protection and Privacy Conference http://www.privacyconference2008.org/ 18 October 2008, Berne, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland 2008 http://www.BigBrotherAwards.ch/ 20-21 October 2008, Strasbourg, France European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG) http://www.eurodig.org/ 20-21 October 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands Marking the public domain: relinquishment & certification Third Communia Workshop http://communia-project.eu/node/109 21 October 2008, Brussels, Belgium Workshop"International Transfers of Personal Data" Organized by the European Commission with the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party and the United States Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration. http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/events/news_events_en.htm#personal_da… 24 October 2008, Bielefeld, Germany Big Brother Awards Germany 2008 http://www.BigBrotherAwards.de/ 25 October 2008, Vienna, Austria Big Brother Awards Austria 2008 http://www.BigBrotherAwards.at/ 3-6 December 2008, Hyderabad, India Third Internet Governance Forum http://www.intgovforum.org 9-10 December 2008, Madrid, Spain Future Internet Assembly http://www.future-internet.eu/home/future-internet-assembly/madrid-dec-2008… http://www.fi-madrid.eu/ 10-11 December 2008: Tilburg, Netherlands Tilting perspectives on regulating technologies, Tilburg Institute for Law and Technology, and Society, Tilburg University http://www.tilburguniversity.nl/tilt/conference 27-30 December 2008 Berlin, Germany 25C3: Nothing to hide The 25th Chaos Communication Congress http://events.ccc.de/congress/2008/ 18-20 March 2009, Athens, Greece WebSci'09: Society On-Line http://www.websci09.org/ ============================================================ 11. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 28 members based or with offices in 17 different countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing ----- 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

1 0

[btns] Version 11 of draft-ietf-btns-connection-latching posted
by Nicolas Williams 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-btns-connection-latching-11.txt Diffs: http://tools.ietf.org//rfcdiff?url1=http://www.ietf.org/id/draft-ietf-btns-… Changes made: - Added section 5.5 and updated sections 5.2 and 5.4 to reflect the new consensus on how to handle latch stat transitions to the BROKEN state in the absence of new APIs. - Added recommendation to break latches when IKE DPD concludes their remote peers are dead or rebooted. - Updated the latch state diagram to mention DPD. - Added Security Considerations sub-section to cover DoS attacks. - While updating section 2.2 text about the BROKEN state I noticed that a MUST in section 2.3 was not reflected in 2.2, so I updated that section 2.2 text accordingly. Nico -- _______________________________________________ btns mailing list btns(a)ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/btns ----- 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

1 0

Re: [silk] bloody hell.
by Udhay Shankar N 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote [ at 07:23 AM 11/18/2003 ]: >That's all I can say after reading this - I'm speechless. > >http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1086397,00.html?=rss http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3280611.stm BBC NEWS | Technology | Mobile users told to 'chase Bush' Last Updated: Tuesday, 18 November, 2003, 14:20 GMT Protesters angry about the "security bubble" around President George Bush on his UK visit are being asked to use gadgets to be heard and seen. The Chasing Bush campaign is asking people to "disrupt the PR" of the visit by spoiling stage-managed photos. They are being encouraged to send location reports and images by mobile to be posted on the Chasing Bush site. "We want to give people a chance to be a visible voice of dissatisfaction," said campaign organiser Tim Ireland. Not smiling Technologies like text messaging and weblogs have been successfully used in the past to co-ordinate routes and meet-up points for mass protests. But the gadgets are now being used more proactively to make protests more visible and disrupt any potential stage-managing of the President's visit. "We have been described as a second generation smart mob. We are encouraging people to use camera phones and send us e-mails with photos," campaign co-organiser Richard Wild explained to BBC News Online. "We are trying to spoil the PR, so we are not doing anything directly, but encouraging people to protest by turning their backs in press photos so they can't be used." The campaign organisers have also asked people to go into protest "exclusion zones" to send SMS updates and on-location reports about his appearances, and events at protests. "We want to show everyone in the world we are doing this and we using the web channels to influence mainstream channels as much as possible," said Mr Ireland. All the messages and pictures will be posted on the website as soon as they are received. The site has been designed to be low bandwidth so it can be updated in real time via appropriate mobile phones using GRPS or laptops from anywhere, said Mr Wild. Bush's 'bubble' The massive security measures for the President's visit are unprecedented. A huge #5m police operation has been mounted with 14,000 officers covering the visit. Tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected at an anti-war march on Thursday. Protests about Bush's visit began on Monday The security measures have been put in place in response to fears about public disorder, but also a heightened terrorist threat from al-Qaeda. A ring of 700 of the President's own secret service agents and security advisers will surround him in a mobile "bubble" amid fears of terror attacks. Some newspapers and websites were reporting mobile phone signals could be blocked for fear they could remote-control a bomb. But Scotland Yard has denied reports that police were considering shutting mobile phone masts during protests. A spokesperson told BBC News Online they were "not prepared to discuss matters of security". Although it "would be extremely unusual to do that, and authority would have to be cleared with all the appropriate regulators." -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

1 0

Ripple currency development begins
by Ryan Fugger 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

This email is going out to all who have expressed interest in the Ripple decentralized currency project (http://ripple.sf.net/) I hope you are all doing well. Since I got bogged down trying to define a protocol for communication between hosts in a Ripple peer network, it seemed like a good idea to go back and start with a simpler single-host prototype. The other developer on the project is two-thirds done the initial coding in Python using the Django framework. We will be developing the initial single-host version of Ripple as proprietary software -- we don't want to allow multiple Ripple hosts that can't talk to each other. The fully decentralized multi-host protocol and software, if and when it is necessary, would be appropriately free and open. Our goal in either case is to build and administer a commercially viable Ripple payment service. Anyone wishing to put some energy (or money) into the project for a share of the venture, please let me know. Thanks for all your help, Ryan ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Mark Baker. Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA. http://www.markbaker.ca Coactus; Web-inspired integration strategies http://www.coactus.com _______________________________________________ FoRK mailing list http://xent.com/mailman/listinfo/fork ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.leitl.org 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]

1 0

[FoRK] [rfugger@gmail.com: Ripple currency development begins]
by Mark Baker 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

A very munchkin-esque project. It appears to need a bootstrap though; the last thing I need is another social network to maintain. ----- Forwarded message from Ryan Fugger <rfugger(a)gmail.com> -----

1 0

[Politech] FBI activates cell phones' microphones for surveillance when no call is being made? [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

I've placed some relevant documents here: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/fbi.ardito.roving.bug.opinion.120106.txt http://www.politechbot.com/docs/fbi.ardito.affidavit.p1.120106.pdf http://www.politechbot.com/docs/fbi.ardito.affidavit.p2.120106.pdf --- http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6140191.html FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool December 1, 2006, 2:20 PM PST The FBI appears to have begun using a novel form of electronic surveillance in criminal investigations: remotely activating a mobile phone's microphone and using it to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him. Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia. The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone. Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set. While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years. The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call." [...remainder snipped...] _______________________________________________ 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]

1 0

[Politech] Judge rules defendant can't be forced to divulge PGP passphrase [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

I haven't been very prolific with Politech recently, in part because I'm trying to send out only more important items rather than routine news stories. This one meets the importance test. Text of article: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html First three grafs: A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can't force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination. Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury's subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with the Alienware laptop. "Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him," the judge wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this week. "Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop." Link to court opinion: http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf Orin Kerr's this-ruling-is-wrong post: http://volokh.com/posts/1197670606.shtml Link to Michael Froomkin's old law review article touching on this: http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/seminar/papers/anon/intlaw_paper.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 http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

1 0

[IP] Technical risks of the Protect America Act
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

________________________________________ From: Matt Blaze [mab(a)crypto.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 10:20 AM To: David Farber Subject: Technical risks of the Protect America Act IP readers may be interested in a technical analysis of the risks of the surveillance infrastructure envisioned by the US Protect America Act, written by Steve Bellovin, Whit Diffie, Susan Landau, Peter Neumann and me, to appear in the Jan/Feb 2008 IEEE Security and privacy. A PDF preprint can be found at: http://www.crypto.com/papers/paa-ieee.pdf My take is blogged at http://www.crypto.com/blog/wiretap_risks/ -matt ------------------------------------------- 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

1 0

[IP] US plans massive data sweep
by Dave Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: US plans massive data sweep Date: Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:44:53 -0500 (EST) From: TruChaos(a)aol.com To: dave(a)farber.net *US plans massive data sweep* Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails. Will it go too far? By Mark Clayton The US government is developing a massive computer system that can collect huge amounts of data and, by linking far-flung information from blogs and e-mail to government records and intelligence reports, search for patterns of terrorist activity. The system - parts of which are operational, parts of which are still under development - is already credited with helping to foil some plots. It is the federal government's latest attempt to use broad data-collection and powerful analysis in the fight against terrorism. But by delving deeply into the digital minutiae of American life, the program is also raising concerns that the government is intruding too deeply into citizens' privacy. "We don't realize that, as we live our lives and make little choices, like buying groceries, buying on Amazon, Googling, we're leaving traces everywhere," says Lee Tien, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "We have an attitude that no one will connect all those dots. But these programs are about connecting those dots - analyzing and aggregating them - in a way that we haven't thought about. It's one of the underlying fundamental issues we have yet to come to grips with." The core of this effort is a little-known system called Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight, and Semantic Enhancement (ADVISE). Only a few public documents mention it. ADVISE is a research and development program within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), part of its three-year-old "Threat and Vulnerability, Testing and Assessment" portfolio. The TVTA received nearly $50 million in federal funding this year. DHS officials are circumspect when talking about ADVISE. "I've heard of it," says Peter Sand, director of privacy technology. "I don't know the actual status right now. But if it's a system that's been discussed, then it's something we're involved in at some level." Data-mining is a key technology A major part of ADVISE involves data-mining - or "dataveillance," as some call it. It means sifting through data to look for patterns. If a supermarket finds that customers who buy cider also tend to buy fresh-baked bread, it might group the two together. To prevent fraud, credit-card issuers use data-mining to look for patterns of suspicious activity. What sets ADVISE apart is its scope. It would collect a vast array of corporate and public online information - from financial records to CNN news stories - and cross-reference it against US intelligence and law-enforcement records. The system would then store it as "entities" - linked data about people, places, things, organizations, and events, according to a report summarizing a 2004 DHS conference in Alexandria, Va. The storage requirements alone are huge - enough to retain information about 1 quadrillion entities, the report estimated. If each entity were a penny, they would collectively form a cube a half-mile high - roughly double the height of the Empire State Building. But ADVISE and related DHS technologies aim to do much more, according to Joseph Kielman, manager of the TVTA portfolio. The key is not merely to identify terrorists, or sift for key words, but to identify critical patterns in data that illumine their motives and intentions, he wrote in a presentation at a November conference in Richland, Wash. For example: Is a burst of Internet traffic between a few people the plotting of terrorists, or just bloggers arguing? ADVISE algorithms would try to determine that before flagging the data pattern for a human analyst's review. At least a few pieces of ADVISE are already operational. Consider Starlight, which along with other "visualization" software tools can give human analysts a graphical view of data. Viewing data in this way could reveal patterns not obvious in text or number form. Understanding the relationships among people, organizations, places, and things - using social-behavior analysis and other techniques - is essential to going beyond mere data-mining to comprehensive "knowledge discovery in databases," Dr. Kielman wrote in his November report. He declined to be interviewed for this article. One data program has foiled terrorists Starlight has already helped foil some terror plots, says Jim Thomas, one of its developers and director of the government's new National Visualization Analytics Center in Richland, Wash. He can't elaborate because the cases are classified, he adds. But "there's no question that the technology we've invented here at the lab has been used to protect our freedoms - and that's pretty cool." As envisioned, ADVISE and its analytical tools would be used by other agencies to look for terrorists. "All federal, state, local and private-sector security entities will be able to share and collaborate in real time with distributed data warehouses that will provide full support for analysis and action" for the ADVISE system, says the 2004 workshop report. Some antiterror efforts die - others just change names Defense Department November 2002 - The New York Times identifies a counterterrorism program called Total Information Awareness. September 2003 - After terminating TIA on privacy grounds, Congress shuts down its successor, Terrorism Information Awareness, for the same reasons. Department of Homeland Security February 2003 - The department's Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announces it's replacing its 1990s-era Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS I). July 2004 - TSA cancels CAPPS II because of privacy concerns. August 2004 - TSA says it will begin testing a similar system - Secure Flight - with built-in privacy features. July 2005 - Government auditors charge that Secure Flight is violating privacy laws by holding information on 43,000 people not suspected of terrorism. A program in the shadows Yet the scope of ADVISE - its stage of development, cost, and most other details - is so obscure that critics say it poses a major privacy challenge. "We just don't know enough about this technology, how it works, or what it is used for," says Marcia Hofmann of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "It matters to a lot of people that these programs and software exist. We don't really know to what extent the government is mining personal data." Even congressmen with direct oversight of DHS, who favor data mining, say they don't know enough about the program. "I am not fully briefed on ADVISE," wrote Rep. Curt Weldon (R) of Pennsylvania, vice chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, in an e-mail. "I'll get briefed this week." Privacy concerns have torpedoed federal data-mining efforts in the past. In 2002, news reports revealed that the Defense Department was working on Total Information Awareness, a project aimed at collecting and sifting vast amounts of personal and government data for clues to terrorism. An uproar caused Congress to cancel the TIA program a year later. Echoes of a past controversial plan ADVISE "looks very much like TIA," Mr. Tien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes in an e-mail. "There's the same emphasis on broad collection and pattern analysis." But Mr. Sand, the DHS official, emphasizes that privacy protection would be built-in. "Before a system leaves the department there's been a privacy review.... That's our focus." Some computer scientists support the concepts behind ADVISE. "This sort of technology does protect against a real threat," says Jeffrey Ullman, professor emeritus of computer science at Stanford University. "If a computer suspects me of being a terrorist, but just says maybe an analyst should look at it ... well, that's no big deal. This is the type of thing we need to be willing to do, to give up a certain amount of privacy." Others are less sure. "It isn't a bad idea, but you have to do it in a way that demonstrates its utility - and with provable privacy protection," says Latanya Sweeney, founder of the Data Privacy Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. But since speaking on privacy at the 2004 DHS workshop, she now doubts the department is building privacy into ADVISE. "At this point, ADVISE has no funding for privacy technology." She cites a recent request for proposal by the Office of Naval Research on behalf of DHS. Although it doesn't mention ADVISE by name, the proposal outlines data-technology research that meshes closely with technology cited in ADVISE documents. Neither the proposal - nor any other she has seen - provides any funding for provable privacy technology, she adds. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0209/p01s02-uspo.html ------------------------------------- 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]

1 0

[Politech] Judge rules defendant can't be forced to divulge PGP passphrase [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

I haven't been very prolific with Politech recently, in part because I'm trying to send out only more important items rather than routine news stories. This one meets the importance test. Text of article: http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html First three grafs: A federal judge in Vermont has ruled that prosecutors can't force a criminal defendant accused of having illegal images on his hard drive to divulge his PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) passphrase. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerome Niedermeier ruled that a man charged with transporting child pornography on his laptop across the Canadian border has a Fifth Amendment right not to turn over the passphrase to prosecutors. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to avoid self-incrimination. Niedermeier tossed out a grand jury's subpoena that directed Sebastien Boucher to provide "any passwords" used with the Alienware laptop. "Compelling Boucher to enter the password forces him to produce evidence that could be used to incriminate him," the judge wrote in an order dated November 29 that went unnoticed until this week. "Producing the password, as if it were a key to a locked container, forces Boucher to produce the contents of his laptop." Link to court opinion: http://www.volokh.com/files/Boucher.pdf Orin Kerr's this-ruling-is-wrong post: http://volokh.com/posts/1197670606.shtml Link to Michael Froomkin's old law review article touching on this: http://osaka.law.miami.edu/~froomkin/seminar/papers/anon/intlaw_paper.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 http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

1 0