July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[IP] Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation,,Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop
by Dave Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ebruary 09, 2006 Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop San Francisco - Google today announced a new "feature" of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new "Search Across Computers" feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password. "Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers," said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don't configure Google Desktop very carefully?and most people won't?Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business, and in many cases you wouldn't even be notified in time to challenge it. Other litigants?your spouse, your business partners or rivals, whoever?could also try to cut out the middleman (you) and subpoena Google for your files." The privacy problem arises because the Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers?much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it's on your computer at home. And even that lower level of legal protection could disappear if Google uses your data for marketing purposes. Google says it is not yet scanning the files it copies from your hard drive in order to serve targeted advertising, but it hasn't ruled out the possibility, and Google's current privacy policy appears to allow it. "This Google product highlights a key privacy problem in the digital age," said Cindy Cohn, EFF's Legal Director. "Many Internet innovations involve storing personal files on a service provider's computer, but under outdated laws, consumers who want to use these new technologies have to surrender their privacy rights. If Google wants consumers to trust it to store copies of personal computer files, emails, search histories and chat logs, and still 'not be evil,' it should stand with EFF and demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world." For more on Google's data collection: http://news.com.com/FAQ+When+Google+is+not+your+friend/2100-1025_3-6034666.… ml?tag=nl http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/01/21/google_subpoena_roils… he_web http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/01/2… EDGEPGPHA61.DTL http://news.com.com/%20Bill+would+force+Web+sites+to+delete+personal+info/2… 0-1028_3-6036951.html Contact: Kevin Bankston Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation bankston(a)eff.org Posted at 11:04 AM -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFD7U8WtcdvoAezhUsRAjVJAJ9KYWeyLaMUL0TuVkQFtDeR2rJ1gQCeL74l rXxU4njmkesIu7YpiumUhQk= =Gdqa -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------- 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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EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 5.19, 10 October 2007
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 5.19, 10 October 2007 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. EDRI Statement and Call for Action on new CoE Rec. failing to uphold FoE 2. WIPO General Assembly adopted the PCDA proposals 3. French ISPs agree to spy on Internet users to stop online piracy 4. The days of the Austrian DPA are numbered 5. Italian Minister of Justice wants to close sarcastic blog 6. UK fails to implement properly the EU data protection directive 7. German DP Commissioner against Google-Doubleclick deal 8. UK: Decrypt data or go to prison! 9. European Parliament resolution on a European digital library 10. ENDitorial: Montreal Privacy Week: Terra Incognita or Deja Vu? 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. EDRI Statement and Call for Action on new CoE Rec. failing to uphold FoE ============================================================ Today EDRI issued a statement to express its serious concerns over a new Council of Europe Recommendation on 'promoting freedom of expression and information in the new information and communications environment'. According to EDRI, the newly adopted instrument promotes opaque "self-regulation" and other soft law instruments driven by private interests and implemented through technical mechanisms. EDRI considers this Recommendation to be damaging and a retrograde step for freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the online world. EDRI is deeply concerned that such instruments will be used to legitimize subtle means of censorship, through privatised censorship and measures to protect against so-called harmful content. As other related instruments are currently in preparation by the CoE, EDRI calls for NGOs and groups from all over the world to sign up in support of EDRI statement and take further action to help avoid the risk of more damages to freedom of expression and information in the online world. EDRI statement, call for action, and background information (10.10.2007) http://www.edri.org/coerec200711 New Council of Europe Recommendation fails to uphold online freedom of expression - European Digital Rights Statement and Call for Action(10.10.2007) - PDF format http://www.edri.org/files/EDRI-coerec200711.pdf ============================================================ 2. WIPO General Assembly adopted the PCDA proposals ============================================================ The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) member states adopted during the General Assembly on 28 September 2007 the recommendations made in June 2007 by the Provisional Committee on Proposals for a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA). The recommendations include 45 proposals that cover six activity clusters: Technical Assistance and Capacity Building; Norm-setting, Flexibilities, Public Policy and Public Knowledge; Technology Transfer, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Access to Knowledge; Assessments, Evaluation and Impact Studies; Institutional Matters including Mandate and Governance; and Other Issues. The Plan of Action started in 2004 at WIPO General Assembly with a proposal made by Argentina and Brazil and supported by twelve other members. A series of meetings followed in order to discuss proposals and the establishment of PCDA was agreed on at the 2005 session of the WIPO General Assembly, in order to speed up the discussions on the proposals. The PCDA had two meetings in 2006 to discuss the 111 submitted proposals and during the 2006 WIPO General Assembly session it received a new mandate for one year to complete the verification of the proposals that were narrowed down to 45. During the meeting of 28 September, WIPO members agreed on establishing a Committee on Development and Intellectual Property made of member states that would draft a program for the implementation of the recommendations and would have the task to monitor and assess their implementation. The Committee that will meet twice a year in a five-day session, would coordinate its activity and reporting with other WIPO bodies and would annually report and make recommendations to WIPO General Assembly. The first meeting of the Committee is expected to take place during the first part of 2008. A number of 19 proposals out of the 45 have been chosen by informal consultations within the PCDA context to be immediately implemented. The most important proposals are related to the establishment of norms, to technology transfers and to the structure that needs to be created in order to support and integrate the development of the organisation, as it was explained by Alberto Dumont, the Argentinean Ambassador. He also considered that the Plan of Action would have effects not only on WIPO activities but also on the activities of other international organisations such as the World Health Organisation in the work related to public health, intellectual property and innovation. Dr. Kamil Idris, the Director General of WIPO considered this decision as a "milestone decision" that is "an important and positive step towards ensuring that the international intellectual property system continues to serve the public good by encouraging and rewarding innovation and creativity in a balanced and effective manner." A significant impact upon the adoption of this Plan of Action was played by national and international NGOs. Wend Wendland, head of WIPO's programme on traditional knowledge, confirmed that the NGOs have succeeded in influencing the discussions and the priorities for WIPO, in helping developing countries better understand Intellectual Property and in increasing the focus on "new beneficiaries" of the IP system. Member States Adopt a Development Agenda for WIPO (1.10.2007) http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2007/article_0071.html WIPO action plan for development is on the track (only in French 4.10.2007) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=771&res=1024_ff&print=0 NGOs Having Major Impact On WIPO Agenda, Panel Says (5.10.2007) http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=775&res=1024_ff&print=0 Report of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA) (17.09.2007) http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=85452 EDRI-gram: PCDA brings a major change in the WIPO mandate (20.06.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.12/pcda-change-wipo ============================================================ 3. French ISPs agree to spy on Internet users to stop online piracy ============================================================ The Association of the French ISPs (AFA) agreed to propose concrete solutions to stop illegal downloading, following the discussion on 3 October 2007 with the Commission fighting Internet piracy led by Denis Olivennes. The solutions included the introduction of a system to detect the Internet users that illegally post copyrighted contents on the Internet. On 5 September 2007, this French Commission received its formal mission from the French government to find ways of combating illegal downloads on the Internet and thus support the legal cinema and music offer. By taking the decision to create this mission, the French government wanted to show its determination to take initiatives against online piracy and support the cultural industry. "The idea that everything is possible must come to an end. We cannot let the idea that culture must be free of charge and that creation (...) has no price, therefore no value" stated Christine Albanel, Minister of Culture. On that occasion she also suggested to offer Internet users an alternative like that of the offer of limited music downloading made by Neuf Cegetel in partnership with Universal. Denis Olivennes, President-Director General of FNAC, the largest French retailer of cultural and consumer electronics products, was appointed president of this Commission (called Olivennes mission). The Commission led by Olivennes is to consider issues such as price, interoperability, DRM and any aspects that can favour legal downloading. As the issue of contraventions for illegal downloading was eliminated from the copyright law (DADVSI), the Olivennes mission has also the task to come up with tools and measures to address this subject. One topic that was excluded for the mission was that of the global licence considered dangerous by the Minister of Culture and to which President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to oppose during his election campaign. During the meeting with the Commission, AFA suggested the introduction of a system to detect the Internet users that illegally post copyrighted contents on the Internet, such as music or movies, based on "radar" robot computers that would react as if their users wanted to download content on P2P networks. The system would use different ISP accounts and dynamic addresses in order to keep anonymous. The Association did not however want to monitor the system suggesting that it should be placed outside the ISPs networks. The system "must be administered by a police authority as it touches questions of individual liberty" stated Dahlia Kownator, AFA general delegate .On the other hand the association opposed to any type of content filtering which is considered an inefficient tool, especially as regards the encrypted transmission . Another suggestion made by the AFA was that warning messages could be sent to Internet users by a public authority as it was done in the US. AFA also agreed to contraventions as a last measure, but with the parallel development of legal opportunities to buy content on the Internet. The idea of contraventions is favoured however by the National Union of the Phonographic that hopes the idea will be resumed. Not surprisingly its General Director, Hervi Rony considers there is the need of rapid sanctions for the Internet user who makes illegal downloads. He believes that there should be a legal way to fine such downloading, something similar to a fine for speeding. ISPs favourable to anti-pirates "radars" (only in French, 5.10.2007) http://www.01net.com/editorial/360819/les-fournisseurs-d-acces-favorables-a… The government reopen the illegal downloading file (only in French, 5.09.2007) http://www.01net.com/editorial/358286/le-gouvernement-rouvre-le-dossier-du-… ============================================================ 4. The days of the Austrian DPA are numbered ============================================================ The lack of adequate independence of the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzkommission) is an issue the European Commission deals with since a complaint was filed by the data protection association Arge Daten back in October 2003. In July 2005 the Commission started infringement procedures against Austria for a faulty implementation of Article 28 (1) second sentence of the data protection directive (95/46/EG) which requires that data protection authorities shall exercise their functions with complete independence. The Austrian Data Protection Commission is, in terms of organisation and staff, integrated in the Federal Chancellery. According to a draft law, aiming to change various regulations of the Austrian Constitution that was open for public consultation until mid September, the DPA will be closed down. Some of the duties of the DPA are planned to be assigned to nine administration courts (one in each of the nine Austrian provinces) that will be established with this new law. By which organisation(s) the remaining duties will be fulfilled remains unclear. In its bi-annual activity report for the years 2005 - 2007 the DPA strongly opposes these plans, arguing that the possibilities to assign the duties of the DPA to administration courts are limited, since these courts can only deal with complaints about unlawful behaviour of administrative bodies. Complaints about unlawful behaviour of private sector entities will then be dealt with by civil courts. This will not only make it difficult for citizens to find the responsible court but also increases the barrier and costs to execute ones' rights, since (administration) court procedures are by far more formal than the very informal procedures of the existing Data Protection Authority. While it remains unclear which organisation(s) will fulfil the remaining duties of the DPA the draft law includes provisions to create "independent" institutions that are not bound to directives of their superior institutions. But superior institutions will be granted the right to examine all procedures of the "independent" institution and to withdraw the "independent" institutions for "important reasons". If this draft law comes into force without substantial corrections this will lead to an even lower level of enforcement of data protection rights than Austria enjoys today. This level is rather low in Austria since the DPA suffers of a lack of staff while its workload constantly increases. In a comparison of the number of staff of European DPAs in relation to inhabitants of their countries, the Austrian DPA is on rank 27 (24 in the year 2004) out of 31 countries. On the average, similar sized countries have DPAs with 40 staff members, the Austrian DPA only has 20. While in most other countries the number of staff increased between 2004 and 2006 it remained the same in Austria, but even worse, the important position of the contact person to international organisations like the Article 29 working party had to be given up due to new duties that were assigned to the DPA. Concluding, it has to be said that the draft law, that will result in shutting down the Austrian DPA, seems to be a consistent step further in a history of non-ambitious data protection policy. While Austria's officials are proud to be rated again number one in E-Government they should rather be ashamed of being tail-light in data protection. Austrian Data Protection Authority http://www.dsk.gv.at Arge Daten http://www.argedaten.at EDRI-gram: EC: data protection inadequate in Austria and Germany (24.08.2005) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.17/DPA Draft law - on the Austrian Parliament webpage http://www.parlinkom.gv.at/portal/page?_pageid=908,6614640&SUCHE=J&_dad=por… Bi-annual report of the Austrian DPA for the years 2005 - 2007 http://www.dsk.gv.at/Datenschutzbericht2007.pdf (contribution from Andreas Krish - EDRI-member VIBE! - Austria) ============================================================ 5. Italian Minister of Justice wants to close sarcastic blog ============================================================ The Italian Police, following a complaint from Clemente Mastella, the Minister of Justice, has asked for the closing down of blog Mastellatiodio.blogspot.com (translation - I hate you Mastella) which has been placing material on the Minister that he considers as defamatory. If found so, the blog authors might face penal consequences. The site, which was opened in California, but is hosted on an Italian server, was considered by Mastella as neo-Nazi, as he said it during a TV transmission. He also stated that the blog was trying to show him as the bad character of the country and asked whether this was "good politics". The authors of the blog have rejected these accusations considering that the contents of the comments posted on the blog have nothing to do with neo-Nazism or inciting to violence as the minister considers. "The title of our blog is clearly of symbolic nature". They believe that censoring their blog would be "a severe and scandalous precedent for the democracy of this country. We are really curious to know what laws of the Italian Republic we have violated". They also think that as compared to other blogs, like anti-Bush or anti-Blair blogs, their is a very innocent one. They appeal to their readers to defend the blog and create banners against its closing down. The latest comments posted on the blog are mostly favourable to it, people showing their intention to support it and even place the information on other blogs in case it is shut down. There are some different opinions but it seems that the difference is not related to the effects that the action of shutting down the blog would have on the freedom of expression but rather to the different opinions that people have on the ministers' political actions. Apparently the Police has already addressed Google for the shutting down of the anti-Mastella blog, but the blog is still available on the blogspot platform. Mastella: close down that blog (only in Italian, 4.10.2007) http://punto-informatico.it/p.aspx?i=2079987 Anti-Mastella blog close down asked (only in Italian, 3.10.2007) http://www.corriere.it/politica/07_ottobre_03/mastella_blog_chiuso.shtml Addio? (only in Italian, 3.10.2007) http://mastellatiodio.blogspot.com/2007/10/addio_03.html ============================================================ 6. UK fails to properly implement the EU data protection directive ============================================================ The European Commission (EC) is concerned about the way the UK has implemented the provisions for protecting personal data, according to information revealed by out-law.com following freedom of information requests. An investigation has been initiated by the EC three years ago regarding the way the UK legislation has implemented 11 articles of the 34-article European data protection directive. This investigation has been kept secret by the UK authorities, that have concluded through the Ministry of Justice that UK "has implemented the Directive fully." Dr. Chris Pounder of Pinsent Masons explained the wrong interpretation of the authorities: "All UK Governments involved in implementing the Directive have had a policy of minimising the Data Protection Directive's effect. The number of problems raised by the Commission seem to indicate that the UK Government may have misjudged the situation and minimised the effect of too many obligations". The situation could be more complicated after the implementation of the Data retention directive through a new law that came into force on 1 October 2007. This UK law will oblige the electronic communications companies to keep a one-year log of certain communication data such as: the number from which a call is made, the customer's name and address, any number dialled, the date and time of a call or the geographic location data for mobile calls. The UK data retention law will not apply to the content of communication or to the Internet data, but the latter will probably be included by 15 March 2009 - the limit day in the European directive. The information commissioner, Richard Thomas, will have the obligation, under the new law to monitor the security of the data kept according to the new data retention provisions. However, the lack of strong powers of the information commissioner is one of the key concerns the European Commission has addressed in its investigation on the UK data protection legislation. Europe's concern over UK data protection 'defects' revealed (1.10.2007) http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/story/0,,2180823,00.html Europe claims UK botched one third of Data Protection Directive (17.09.2007) http://www.out-law.com/page-8472 Data retention law makes little difference to telcos, says trade body (1.10.2007) http://www.out-law.com/page-8513 EDRI-gram: Data retention for one year for UK telecom companies (1.08.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.15/data-retention-UK ============================================================ 7. German DP Commissioner against Google-Doubleclick deal ============================================================ The Data Protection Commissioner of the German state of Shleswig-Holstein Thilo Weichert publicly opposed the Google's acquisition of Doubleclick in a letter to EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Mr. Weichert declared that: "At present we have to assume that in the event of a takeover of DoubleClick the databases of that company will be integrated into those of Google, with the result that fundamental provisions of the European Data Protection Directive will be violated." The Commissioner is concerned that creating a user profile and a detailed analysis of personal data will be much easier after the merge. "Such an approach contradicts fundamental data privacy principles of the European Union: limited specific use, transparency, the right to object, the protection of sensitive data and the right to having data deleted." He added that even before the merge, the companies could have used behavioural targeting and therefore not meet their obligations under European law on data protection regarding sensitive data or deleting data that is no longer required. He concluded that "The merger of the two Internet companies would thus lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights" in the European Union and asked for a direct intervention in this case. Mr. Weichert's open letter comes at the time when the European Commission has already sent questionnaires to Google customers on the matter, even before Google has actually filed to the European Union's top antitrust regulator for the purchase. Also BEUC (the European Bureau of Consumers' Unions) asked the EU support in checking the privacy aspects of this deal. Meanwhile, Google is defending the deal in the US Senate where an investigation has started regarding the creation of a possible online advertising monopoly. Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond claimed that: "Google's acquisition of DoubleClick will help advance these goals while protecting consumer privacy and enabling greater innovation, competition, and growth." Microsoft's General Counsel Brad Smith told Senators that the deal "would put Google in control of 80% of the market for both text and banner adverts on the Internet." Google also presented in a written submission to the Senators its plans to better protect the privacy of its consumers, following consultations with consumer and industry groups. One of the suggestions would be to use a "crumbled cookie", which would be "a way of storing personal information separately without identifying it all as coming from one person or machine." Data protection advocates protest against Google's DoubleClick deal (28.09.2007) http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/96722/ Google defends DoubleClick bid (28.09.2007) http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2199848/google-defends-doubleclick-bid Google proposes 'crumbled cookies' in privacy pledge (1.10.2007) http://www.out-law.com/page-8511 EDRI-gram: EU asks the customers' opinion on the DoubleClick - Google affair (12.09.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.17/doubleclick-google ============================================================ 8. UK: Decrypt data or go to prison! ============================================================ The controversial Part 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) in UK is in force starting with 1 October 2007. This new regulation gives the power to police forces to ask for the disclosure of encryption keys, or force suspects to decrypt encrypted data. RIPA was adopted in 2000, but Part 3 was not in force until last year when the UK government has started a public consultation on its enforcement. Despite the negative comments received from the security experts and the major concerns that the adoption of such a measure will push businesses outside UK, the authorities decided to uphold their initial position and to apply the law starting with 1 October 2007. Section 49 of RIPA Part 3 foresees that people are obliged by law to provide to the law enforcement authorities, when served with a notice either the key to decrypt the materials or the materials as such. If they refused, a five-year imprisonment penalty could be applied for cases involving anti-terrorism efforts or a maximum two-year sentence for other cases. The UK Government has pushed the application, considering that the terrorist, paedophiles, and hardened criminal could use encryption to hide their actions, but a criminal that refuses to decrypt its incriminating data could, in this way, serve less time in jail. "The measures in Part III are intended to ensure that the ability of public authorities to protect the public and the effectiveness of their other statutory powers are not undermined by the use of technologies to protect electronic information" explained the Home Office. The Home Office said that the process will be overseen by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, the Intelligence Services Commissioner and the Chief Surveillance Commissioner. The law also foresees that someone that has received a notice based on Section 49 can be prevented to disclose this information to anyone else, except his attorney. RIPA can be applied only on UK territory, thus to data hosted on UK servers or stored on devices located within the UK. UK can now demand data decryption on penalty of jail time (1.10.2007) http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071001-uk-can-now-demand-data-decryp… EDRI-gram : UK Government asks for the encryption keys (24.05.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.10/ukencryption Law requiring disclosure of decryption keys in force (2.10.2007) http://www.out-law.com/page-8515 ============================================================ 9. European Parliament resolution on a European digital library ============================================================ The European Parliament (EP) adopted on 27 September 2007 a resolution that endorses the 2005 European Commission's Communication i2010: Digital Libraries supporting the digital libraries initiative that aims at making European information resources easier and more interesting to use in an online environment The Commission's "2010 Digital Libraries Initiative" came from the heads of states and governments of France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Spain in April 2005 and covered digitised and born digital material. The EP resolution, based on a report by French MEP Marie-Hilhne Descamps entitled "i2010: towards a European digital library" emphasised the need for more books to be put online and urged the Commission to speed up the process of creating the European Digital Library. The Parliamentarians viewed European Digital Library as the one-stop shop for accessing literary and scientific works online and asked "all European libraries to make available to the European Digital Library works that are free of rights which they already hold in digital form". The proposal acknowledged the fact that although the European cultural heritage is largely made up of works in the public domain, it is not limited to this category alone. It welcomes the establishment of the high-level expert group and "supports its proposals to list all orphan and out-of-print works and to develop mechanisms to facilitate the search for right holders." According to the EP Resolution "the project symbolises Europe united in diversity (and) contributes to the enhancement and strengthening of an authentic European identity" and could be built upon other European projects already existing (The European library, TEL-ME-MOR, Europeana). European Parliament resolution of 27 September 2007 on i2010: towards a European digital library (27.09.2007) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT%20TA%20P6-… Parliamentarians call for more books to be put online (27.09.2007) http://www.euractiv.com/en/culture/parliamentarians-call-books-put-online/a… European culture at the click of your finger (21.09.2007) http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/story_page/037-10388-260-09-38-90… EDRI-gram: Copyright clearing for EU digital libraries project (25.04.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/copyright-digital-libraries ============================================================ 10. ENDitorial: Montreal Privacy Week: Terra Incognita or Deja Vu? ============================================================ More than 600 persons from 50 countries gathered in Montreal to participate to the 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, on 25-28 September 2007, making this year venue attended by a record number of interested parties. The theme of the conference, 'Privacy Horizons: Terra Incognita', certainly played a role in this attraction. The audience has not been disappointed by presentations and panels indeed exploring currently challenging issues in the field of privacy and data protection, such as nanotechnology, ubiquitous computing, the body as data..., not to mention already well known, but continuously concerning issues like globalization, public safety and the interpenetration between law an technology. The host of the Conference, Canadian Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and her team invited US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as keynote speaker of the opening ceremony. The Big Neighbour representative's speech was not disappointing either, or rather not surprising, as even those who haven't listened may infer from his own blog report. Far more worth attending were most of the other sessions and panels. In particular, I went back home with confirmation and further food for thought on three main ideas. First, the well renowned security expert Bruce Schneier (BT Counterpane, USA) insisted on the fact that the world has changed without us having changed accordingly the framing of the debate, and that the dichotomy is not anymore between privacy and security but rather between freedom and control. Second, Law professor Joel Reidenberg (Fordham University School of Law, USA) advocated the need for a 'design liability' when privacy and data protection principles breaches are implemented by design in a given architecture. Although Reidenberg generally advocates too much in favour of so-called "co-regulation" and "codes of conducts" for my taste, this 'design liability' concept should certainly be developed and implemented, as a mean to work towards more privacy-friendly services, tools and standards. Third, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology holder Ian Kerr (University of Ottawa, Canada) gave a very interesting panorama of the privacy issues with ubiquitous computing, highlighting how the current hierarchy between the personal (body data), the territorial (property and good data) and the informational (basic biographical data) spheres, as considered e.g. by the Canadian Supreme Court, may be questioned in the near future with new services and technologies making these spheres merge. "Here be dragons", then. The whole idea of the Terra Incognita/Dragon for this conference came, as we learnt through Jennifer Stoddart acknowledgements from Stephanie Perrin (Director of Integrity Policy, Integrity and Risk Management, Service Canada), who chaired this year edition of the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference, also held in Montreal in May 2007. It is then no surprise that Stephanie shared with the audience of the Civil Society Privacy Workshop, held the day before and in liaison with the DPA Conference, her impression of 'deja vu'! As a matter of fact, this civil society event, under the global theme of 'Privacy Rights in a World Under Surveillance' was the confirmation of Bruce Schneier's intuition that the whole debate should be reframed according to new world paradigm. If civil society groups do not seriously work on this, they risk to go on meeting each year simply to acknowledge that the situation is worse than the previous year! Trying to open up civil society discussions on privacy to new actors, from both other regions and cultures than simply north-western, anglo- saxon countries and other backgrounds than privacy stricto sensu, would certainly help. This would at least help understand issues as framed during another event I attended in Montreal this same week, which was the inaugural conference of Data Protection Commissioners from La Francophonie, where I was invited by the 'Commission d'acchs ` l'information du Quibec (Quebec DPA, probably the only DPA authority also acting as the access to information authority) to give a talk on 'Protecting Personal Data in a Virtual World: French and European Perspectives'. La Francophonie is a political space comprising 53 member 13 observer States and governments from the 5 continents (many of which no one would have thought they have any link with French language and culture, but anyhow...). By attending this conference, one may realize - if not already aware - how much the privacy and personal data protection debate needs to find viable arguments to answer basic problems of democracy: how to ensure transparent elections, how to guarantee a working civil status registry, to name a few, in countries where life is a daily struggle. This is not to say that privacy, personal data protection, and other related issues are a luxury, but to help realize that different arguments should be worked out when privacy is not anymore opposed to security, but rather to corruption, illiteracy, etc. At the end of this event attended by representatives from 27 countries from La Francophonie, 14 of them having a DPA, the new international association of DPA from La Francophonie was created, with its bureau composed by Quebec DPA (presidency), French DPA (general secretariat), Burkina Faso DPA and Swiss DPA (vice-presidencies). The association will have its seat in Paris. 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners: 'Privacy Horizons: Terra Incognita' (English and French, 25-28.09.2007) http://www.privacyconference2007.gc.ca Michael Chertoff's blog on his speech in Montreal (28.09.2007) http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/2007/09/global-approach.html Civil Society Privacy Workshop: 'Privacy Rights in a World Under Surveillance' (25.09.2007) http://www.thepublicvoice.org/events/montreal07 Data Protection Commissioners' Francophonie conference: 'The protection of personal data, an absolute necessity to democracy and development' (in French only, 24.09.2007) http://www.cai.gouv.qc.ca/CCPDF Meryem Marzouki's talk at DP Commissioner's Francophonie conference: 'Protecting Personal Data in a Virtual World: French and European Perspectives' (French and English, 24.09.2007) http://www-polytic.lip6.fr/article.php3?id_article=190 (Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI member IRIS - France) ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 12-13 October 2007, Brussles, Belgium Reinventing data protection http://www.vub.ac.be/iPAVUB/ 12 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany FoeBuD organises the 8th German Big Brother Awards and celebrates a great gala. The winners will be chosen from more than 500 proposals. http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/ 12 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany DVD (Deutsche Vereinigung f|r Datenschutz e.V.) held their congress "Datenschutztag 2007" to celebrate 30 years of German Data Protection Act and also the 30 year jubilee of DVD e.V. Registration at: tagung2007(a)datenschutzverein.de http://www.datenschutzverein.de 13-14 October 2007, Bielefeld, Germany FIfF (Forum InformatikerInnen f|r Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung e.V.) holds their 23rd annual congress also in Bielefeld. This year's motto is "Datensammelwut" (data acquisitiveness) Registration at: 2007(a)fiff.de http://fiff.hbxt.de/23-jahrestagung-des-fiff 25 October 2007, Vienna, Austria quintessenz, VIBE!AT and LUGA organise the 8th Big Brother Awards. The gala will take place at the Rabenhof Theatre. http://www.bigbrotherawards.at 27-28 October 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria Openfest - 5th annual conference for FOSS and free knowledge share http://openfest.org/ 29-30 October 2007, Geneva, Switzerland WIPO - International Conference on IP and the Creative Industries http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2007/ip_ind_ge/program.html 11 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil GigaNet'07 - Global Internet Governance Academic Network 2nd Annual Symposium http://www.igloo.org/giganet 12-15 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The Government of Brazil will host the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. http://www.intgovforum.org/ http://cgi.br/igf/ 4-5 December 2007, Rome, Italy First QualiPSo Conference - Fostering trust and quality of Open Source Software systems http://www.qualipso.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid… 5-7 December 2007, Pisa, Italy Second DELOS Conference on Digital Libraries http://www.delos.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=606&Itemid=… 17 January 2008, London, UK Nanontechnology for security and the crime prevention III http://www.nano.org.uk/events/ionevents.htm#security ============================================================ 12. 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

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Re: [tahoe-dev] Resurrecting Mojo Nation
by Brian Warner 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 6/9/12 9:07 PM, Jack Byer wrote: > Are there any fundamental reason why a system like Mojo Nation > couldn't work now that certain capabilities are available that weren't > a decade ago? Oh, one other thought: another challenge of Mojo Nation was that each file involved hundreds or thousands of backend blocks, and the overhead of finding/tracking/downloading all of them was pretty bad. If I remember right, the blocks came in fixed sizes (powers of two, up to maybe 1MB), and each included a little bit of data about all segments of the file (to avoid the "chunking" reliability problem). The result was high alacrity (you had to download the whole file before any part of it became readable, so no streaming) and really bad disk IO patterns on both upload and download. The very first simplification we made in the Tahoe design process was to use a small number (N=10) of variable-sized shares (sharesize=filesize/k), and to locate those shares algorithmically (both to decide where to put them, and to find them again during download). That means fewer things to keep track of, and nobody trying to actually keep track of them all the time. In a more market-driven scheme, you need to be able to push shares to cheap+reliable servers, find them again later, and also find the copies that servers have bought from each other. Shares move around on you, even when no clients are looking at them. That means more overhead: instead of being able to determine offline (permuted ring) where shares are likely to be, you have to actually ask everyone. To do this efficiently requires log(N) DHT cleverness (where you don't actually ask *everybody*), which allows some of them to lie (which they will, because they don't want you to discover the competition's cheaper copies). So the flexible share-placement required by a free storage market probably comes at the cost of complexity and share-tracking overhead. cheers, -Brian _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- 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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Re: [tahoe-dev] Resurrecting Mojo Nation
by Brian Warner 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

On 6/9/12 9:07 PM, Jack Byer wrote: > Are there any fundamental reason why a system like Mojo Nation > couldn't work now that certain capabilities are available that weren't > a decade ago? Oh, one other thought: another challenge of Mojo Nation was that each file involved hundreds or thousands of backend blocks, and the overhead of finding/tracking/downloading all of them was pretty bad. If I remember right, the blocks came in fixed sizes (powers of two, up to maybe 1MB), and each included a little bit of data about all segments of the file (to avoid the "chunking" reliability problem). The result was high alacrity (you had to download the whole file before any part of it became readable, so no streaming) and really bad disk IO patterns on both upload and download. The very first simplification we made in the Tahoe design process was to use a small number (N=10) of variable-sized shares (sharesize=filesize/k), and to locate those shares algorithmically (both to decide where to put them, and to find them again during download). That means fewer things to keep track of, and nobody trying to actually keep track of them all the time. In a more market-driven scheme, you need to be able to push shares to cheap+reliable servers, find them again later, and also find the copies that servers have bought from each other. Shares move around on you, even when no clients are looking at them. That means more overhead: instead of being able to determine offline (permuted ring) where shares are likely to be, you have to actually ask everyone. To do this efficiently requires log(N) DHT cleverness (where you don't actually ask *everybody*), which allows some of them to lie (which they will, because they don't want you to discover the competition's cheaper copies). So the flexible share-placement required by a free storage market probably comes at the cost of complexity and share-tracking overhead. cheers, -Brian _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org https://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- 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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Seattle cypherpunks group
by codehead＠ix.netcom.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Matthew, I'm pulling together a local cypherpunks group in Seattle. If you know anyone in the area who is interested in issues of cryptography and privacy, could you please pass this announcement on? Thanks, Emily Sandblade P.S. If you're ever in the area, I'd love to have you as a speaker. ===================================== ***Please circulate to all interested parties*** Announcing the first meeting of 2001 of Cypherpunks-Seattle. When: April 14, 2001 12:30 - 4:00 p.m. Where: Bellevue Las Margaritas 437 - 108th Avenue N. E., downtown Bellevue Space is limited, please RSVP to seacypherpunks(a)ix.netcom.com Agenda - Introductions and Open Discussion E-Gold and other Alternative Currency Systems Problems and Tradeoffs in Public Key Infrastructures E-Gold and other Alternative Currency Systems E-gold has enjoyed increasing success as the first viable free-market electronic currency. It is privately backed, and does not rely on any particular government's political stability to retain its value. Vince Callaway, who wears hats as both an independent in- and out-exchange provider for e-gold and Norfed and a software engineer, will discuss the background of free-market currencies, some of the current operating paradigms, and will touch on some of the future prospects for these currencies. Vince has the distinction of having been an early BBS sysop, moving into becoming Tacoma's first internet provider in 1991. He has been involved both in getting Washington State's leginfo site created, and was instrumental in getting a digital signature law passed in Washington. Vince also operates a PGP key server. Problems and Tradeoffs in Public Key Infrastructures This could hardly come at a better time, after the announcement that Verisign issued a Class 3 Digital Certificate to someone who purported to be from Microsoft, but wasn't. This certificate can be used to code-sign things like ActiveX controls, macros, and applications. Anyone in possession of that certificate could present malicious code to an unsuspecting user and fool that user into accepting it into his computer. ("After all, it said it was from Microsoft.") Albert Yang will discuss what PKI--Public Key Infrastructures--can and cannot do. He will briefly cover the basics of how PKI works, where it fails, and when and how certificates can be trusted--and defeated. In addition, Albert has promised to give a glimpse of some of the new PKI developments on the horizon. Albert is currently a security architect and PKI consultant with Baltimore Technology. Previously, he was a consultant with RSA. He has several years of background in Linux, BSD, and web site design and programming. The cypherpunks meeting is an Open Meeting on US Soil and it is free for anyone to attend. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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[tahoe-dev] Hack Fest Day One report
by Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Folks: Here are some notes about Hack Fest Day One. b" David-Sarah did a lot of trac ticket gardening. You can see their changes by browsing the Trac Timeline B9 (which, by the way, is one of my favorite ways of keeping up with Tahoe-LAFS development). I haven't looked at all of their updates to tickets yet. b" Andrew Miller wrote a unit test for his path to make "tahoe backup" follow a limited number of symlinks, and updated his patch on #641. He didn't set the "review-needed" flag. I'm not sure why not -- perhaps that means he doesn't think the patch is (yet?) suitable for trunk. We have a conversation about how to handle symlinks. There are three possible features: 1. Traverse symlinks when doing a "tahoe backup". That's what amiller's patch does, and it raises the question of how to handle cycles encountered while traversing the local filesystem to do a backup. The main use case for this is amiller's desire to use symlinks as a way to specify which directories should be backed up -- he can put symlinks into one directory pointing to several other directories, then ask tahoe to backup that one directory. 2. Have a special file to notify "tahoe backup" to skip the current directory. It could be named ".tahoeignore" (analogous to .gitignore) and "tahoe backup" would refuse to backup any directory containing a .tahoeignore file, nor traverse through that one to others. 3. A way to restore filesystem details other than the names and contents of files, such as symlinks, ownership, permissions, timestamps, etc. This is the topic of ticket #1325. b" There was some discussion of whether people wanted "tahoe backup" (which stores your files and directories individually so that you can browse, restore, and share access to them separately) to handle more and more of the local filesystem metadata (#1325) or if instead people who want that should just switch to using a more "archive oriented" backup tool like duplicity, which bundles all of your files and directories, along with their metadata, into a tarball before storing it on Tahoe-LAFS. I tend to "not want to go there" and send people off to use duplicity or Shawn Willden's Grid Backup or something if that's what they want, but everyone else seemed to think it would be a good idea to add more of these features to "tahoe backup". The reason I gave at the time for not wanting to go there is that there is such a mismatch between the Tahoe-LAFS model, with immutable files, capability access control, metadata on edges rather than on nodes, a full graph instead of a tree, etc., and the traditional Unix filesystem with its mutable files, ownership and permission bits, metadata on nodes instead of on edges, tree-plus-symlinks, etc. I later thought that there is another reason I don't like the idea extending "tahoe backup" in that direction, which is that I like for the data which lives in Tahoe-LAFS to be meaningful independent of any given "source machine" (for example things like "UID of owner" are either meaningless or incorrect unless you decide to interpret them in the context of a "source system" which happens to have the right meaning for that UID), and also independent of any given source operating system type. For example a long-standing bug that really annoys me (someone fix it during Hack Fest!) is that "tahoe backup" reads the "metadata-change-time" if on Unix, or else reads the "file-creation-time" if on Windows, and then sticks the resulting timestamp into an field named "ctime" in Tahoe-LAFS (#897). The result is meaningless unless you choose to interpret in terms of being either "in Unix" or "in Windows". Annoying! The thing is in the cloud -- it isn't in either Unix or Windows while it is there. I guess in general, I think of the data stored in Tahoe-LAFS as being shareable among multiple people, and meaningful within different contexts -- different "source machines" and even different "source operating system types", and being meaningful outside of the context of any source machine at all -- just purely "in the cloud". It is perhaps not impossible, but certainly more work, to handle extended filesystem metadata correctly, compared to making a traditional "backup and restore" app. In a traditional "backup and restore" app like duplicity, the data "in the cloud" can't be shared or used other than by first restoring it to a system that is of a sufficiently similar type to its source system. b" On the topic of issue 1., above, I suggested an alternative way to prevent cycling endlessly through the local filesystem. The primary proposal -- already partially implemented by amiller -- is to have a limit on how many symlinks you'll cross over before you stop. If you stop, you should probably print out a complete listing of how you got to where you are, and which steps were traversing symlinks, so that the user can figure out if this was really a cycle and if so how they want to break the cycle. My alternative proposal is that for each directory that you visit, learn its device id and inode number and use those as a unique identifier for this directory in the context of this run of "tahoe backup", and if you encounter a directory for the second time then use the same within-tahoe-lafs-directory that you created for it the first time. That's way better! It is almost elegant. But as Brian then pointed out, it can't work. Because all directories (except for the root dir) that are produced by a "tahoe backup" are immutable. You can't have a cycle of immutable directories, because it is impossible to get a link to an immutable directory before providing the initial and final contents of it. b" This led me to off-handedly comment that such a thing would be possible with Petrification a.k.a. revocation of write authority (#954) which inspired David-Sarah to announce that they were going to implement #954 during Hack Fest. That would be very ambitious, but David-Sarah often says that they will do ambitious things and then does them. I remember that the "Drop-Upload" feature was implemented in a single afternoon by David-Sarah at The Second Tahoe-LAFS Summit. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about the possibility of getting #954 soon. It would be the first big addition to the vocabulary of what you can express with Tahoe-LAFS caps. b" I started this tutorial on "How To Write Tests": B2, because of the increasing number of patches that are ready except for tests B3. The tutorial is already enough to get you started, but you'll probably come to a spot where you say "Hey NOW WHAT?". Please do that, so that I -- or someone -- will extend the tutorial. b" I did a lot of tinkering with packaging and build system and docs. I care a lot about this stuff, and I hope you do too, and I could use help, but I'm not going to explain it all in this letter because currently new work is being done at Hack Fest faster than I'm finishing this letter describing the work that is being done. :-) You can find out all about it by reading the trac Timeline. One thing I definitely need help with is building binary packages of dependencies on various platforms, especially with Python 2.7. Please see the table of precompiled packages hosted on tahoe-lafs.org: b4. b" Lebek did some wiki gardening and fixed a bug in FTP -- #1688. b" Brian posted a fix for #1689, which is good to see as #1689 was one of those regressions in handling of mutables that we shipped in v1.9.x. b" Marlowe reviewed some docs patches and resumed working on the Tahoe-LAFS Weekly News. Yay! b" John Dougherty posted his first review. b: Okay, that's at least part of what we've done so far. There are still approximately 48 hours of Hack Fest to go. Jump in! Regards, Zooko B9 https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/timeline?from=03%2F31%2F12&daysback=… B2 https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/HowToWriteTests B3 https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2012-March/007205.html b4 https://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe-lafs/deps/tahoe-lafs-dep-eggs/README.ht… tickets mentioned in this email: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/641# tahoe backup should be able to backup symlinks https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/954# revocable write authority https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/897# "tahoe backup" thinks "ctime" means "creation time" https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1325# make `tahoe backup` keep more filesystem metadata https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1688# ftpd returns 0 for all timestamps https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1689# assertion failure _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- 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

Seattle cypherpunks group
by codehead＠ix.netcom.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Matthew, I'm pulling together a local cypherpunks group in Seattle. If you know anyone in the area who is interested in issues of cryptography and privacy, could you please pass this announcement on? Thanks, Emily Sandblade P.S. If you're ever in the area, I'd love to have you as a speaker. ===================================== ***Please circulate to all interested parties*** Announcing the first meeting of 2001 of Cypherpunks-Seattle. When: April 14, 2001 12:30 - 4:00 p.m. Where: Bellevue Las Margaritas 437 - 108th Avenue N. E., downtown Bellevue Space is limited, please RSVP to seacypherpunks(a)ix.netcom.com Agenda - Introductions and Open Discussion E-Gold and other Alternative Currency Systems Problems and Tradeoffs in Public Key Infrastructures E-Gold and other Alternative Currency Systems E-gold has enjoyed increasing success as the first viable free-market electronic currency. It is privately backed, and does not rely on any particular government's political stability to retain its value. Vince Callaway, who wears hats as both an independent in- and out-exchange provider for e-gold and Norfed and a software engineer, will discuss the background of free-market currencies, some of the current operating paradigms, and will touch on some of the future prospects for these currencies. Vince has the distinction of having been an early BBS sysop, moving into becoming Tacoma's first internet provider in 1991. He has been involved both in getting Washington State's leginfo site created, and was instrumental in getting a digital signature law passed in Washington. Vince also operates a PGP key server. Problems and Tradeoffs in Public Key Infrastructures This could hardly come at a better time, after the announcement that Verisign issued a Class 3 Digital Certificate to someone who purported to be from Microsoft, but wasn't. This certificate can be used to code-sign things like ActiveX controls, macros, and applications. Anyone in possession of that certificate could present malicious code to an unsuspecting user and fool that user into accepting it into his computer. ("After all, it said it was from Microsoft.") Albert Yang will discuss what PKI--Public Key Infrastructures--can and cannot do. He will briefly cover the basics of how PKI works, where it fails, and when and how certificates can be trusted--and defeated. In addition, Albert has promised to give a glimpse of some of the new PKI developments on the horizon. Albert is currently a security architect and PKI consultant with Baltimore Technology. Previously, he was a consultant with RSA. He has several years of background in Linux, BSD, and web site design and programming. The cypherpunks meeting is an Open Meeting on US Soil and it is free for anyone to attend. ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, 2175 Bayfield Drive, Columbus, OH 43229 (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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[tahoe-dev] Hack Fest Day One report
by Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Folks: Here are some notes about Hack Fest Day One. b" David-Sarah did a lot of trac ticket gardening. You can see their changes by browsing the Trac Timeline B9 (which, by the way, is one of my favorite ways of keeping up with Tahoe-LAFS development). I haven't looked at all of their updates to tickets yet. b" Andrew Miller wrote a unit test for his path to make "tahoe backup" follow a limited number of symlinks, and updated his patch on #641. He didn't set the "review-needed" flag. I'm not sure why not -- perhaps that means he doesn't think the patch is (yet?) suitable for trunk. We have a conversation about how to handle symlinks. There are three possible features: 1. Traverse symlinks when doing a "tahoe backup". That's what amiller's patch does, and it raises the question of how to handle cycles encountered while traversing the local filesystem to do a backup. The main use case for this is amiller's desire to use symlinks as a way to specify which directories should be backed up -- he can put symlinks into one directory pointing to several other directories, then ask tahoe to backup that one directory. 2. Have a special file to notify "tahoe backup" to skip the current directory. It could be named ".tahoeignore" (analogous to .gitignore) and "tahoe backup" would refuse to backup any directory containing a .tahoeignore file, nor traverse through that one to others. 3. A way to restore filesystem details other than the names and contents of files, such as symlinks, ownership, permissions, timestamps, etc. This is the topic of ticket #1325. b" There was some discussion of whether people wanted "tahoe backup" (which stores your files and directories individually so that you can browse, restore, and share access to them separately) to handle more and more of the local filesystem metadata (#1325) or if instead people who want that should just switch to using a more "archive oriented" backup tool like duplicity, which bundles all of your files and directories, along with their metadata, into a tarball before storing it on Tahoe-LAFS. I tend to "not want to go there" and send people off to use duplicity or Shawn Willden's Grid Backup or something if that's what they want, but everyone else seemed to think it would be a good idea to add more of these features to "tahoe backup". The reason I gave at the time for not wanting to go there is that there is such a mismatch between the Tahoe-LAFS model, with immutable files, capability access control, metadata on edges rather than on nodes, a full graph instead of a tree, etc., and the traditional Unix filesystem with its mutable files, ownership and permission bits, metadata on nodes instead of on edges, tree-plus-symlinks, etc. I later thought that there is another reason I don't like the idea extending "tahoe backup" in that direction, which is that I like for the data which lives in Tahoe-LAFS to be meaningful independent of any given "source machine" (for example things like "UID of owner" are either meaningless or incorrect unless you decide to interpret them in the context of a "source system" which happens to have the right meaning for that UID), and also independent of any given source operating system type. For example a long-standing bug that really annoys me (someone fix it during Hack Fest!) is that "tahoe backup" reads the "metadata-change-time" if on Unix, or else reads the "file-creation-time" if on Windows, and then sticks the resulting timestamp into an field named "ctime" in Tahoe-LAFS (#897). The result is meaningless unless you choose to interpret in terms of being either "in Unix" or "in Windows". Annoying! The thing is in the cloud -- it isn't in either Unix or Windows while it is there. I guess in general, I think of the data stored in Tahoe-LAFS as being shareable among multiple people, and meaningful within different contexts -- different "source machines" and even different "source operating system types", and being meaningful outside of the context of any source machine at all -- just purely "in the cloud". It is perhaps not impossible, but certainly more work, to handle extended filesystem metadata correctly, compared to making a traditional "backup and restore" app. In a traditional "backup and restore" app like duplicity, the data "in the cloud" can't be shared or used other than by first restoring it to a system that is of a sufficiently similar type to its source system. b" On the topic of issue 1., above, I suggested an alternative way to prevent cycling endlessly through the local filesystem. The primary proposal -- already partially implemented by amiller -- is to have a limit on how many symlinks you'll cross over before you stop. If you stop, you should probably print out a complete listing of how you got to where you are, and which steps were traversing symlinks, so that the user can figure out if this was really a cycle and if so how they want to break the cycle. My alternative proposal is that for each directory that you visit, learn its device id and inode number and use those as a unique identifier for this directory in the context of this run of "tahoe backup", and if you encounter a directory for the second time then use the same within-tahoe-lafs-directory that you created for it the first time. That's way better! It is almost elegant. But as Brian then pointed out, it can't work. Because all directories (except for the root dir) that are produced by a "tahoe backup" are immutable. You can't have a cycle of immutable directories, because it is impossible to get a link to an immutable directory before providing the initial and final contents of it. b" This led me to off-handedly comment that such a thing would be possible with Petrification a.k.a. revocation of write authority (#954) which inspired David-Sarah to announce that they were going to implement #954 during Hack Fest. That would be very ambitious, but David-Sarah often says that they will do ambitious things and then does them. I remember that the "Drop-Upload" feature was implemented in a single afternoon by David-Sarah at The Second Tahoe-LAFS Summit. Anyway, I'm pretty excited about the possibility of getting #954 soon. It would be the first big addition to the vocabulary of what you can express with Tahoe-LAFS caps. b" I started this tutorial on "How To Write Tests": B2, because of the increasing number of patches that are ready except for tests B3. The tutorial is already enough to get you started, but you'll probably come to a spot where you say "Hey NOW WHAT?". Please do that, so that I -- or someone -- will extend the tutorial. b" I did a lot of tinkering with packaging and build system and docs. I care a lot about this stuff, and I hope you do too, and I could use help, but I'm not going to explain it all in this letter because currently new work is being done at Hack Fest faster than I'm finishing this letter describing the work that is being done. :-) You can find out all about it by reading the trac Timeline. One thing I definitely need help with is building binary packages of dependencies on various platforms, especially with Python 2.7. Please see the table of precompiled packages hosted on tahoe-lafs.org: b4. b" Lebek did some wiki gardening and fixed a bug in FTP -- #1688. b" Brian posted a fix for #1689, which is good to see as #1689 was one of those regressions in handling of mutables that we shipped in v1.9.x. b" Marlowe reviewed some docs patches and resumed working on the Tahoe-LAFS Weekly News. Yay! b" John Dougherty posted his first review. b: Okay, that's at least part of what we've done so far. There are still approximately 48 hours of Hack Fest to go. Jump in! Regards, Zooko B9 https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/timeline?from=03%2F31%2F12&daysback=… B2 https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/wiki/HowToWriteTests B3 https://tahoe-lafs.org/pipermail/tahoe-dev/2012-March/007205.html b4 https://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe-lafs/deps/tahoe-lafs-dep-eggs/README.ht… tickets mentioned in this email: https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/641# tahoe backup should be able to backup symlinks https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/954# revocable write authority https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/897# "tahoe backup" thinks "ctime" means "creation time" https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1325# make `tahoe backup` keep more filesystem metadata https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1688# ftpd returns 0 for all timestamps https://tahoe-lafs.org/trac/tahoe-lafs/ticket/1689# assertion failure _______________________________________________ tahoe-dev mailing list tahoe-dev(a)tahoe-lafs.org http://tahoe-lafs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tahoe-dev ----- 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] "MUMBLE AND THE BANDWIDTH" b Anonymous CB Radio with Mumble and Tor
by Nathan Freitas 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

The first results of our work using Mumble VoIP over Tor: https://guardianproject.info/2013/01/31/anonymous-cb-radio-with-mumble-and-… We are working on the open-source Plumble for Android client to enable Force TCP over SOCKS mode, with the Opus low-bandwidth codec: https://github.com/Morlunk/Plumble/issues/60 Looks promising! +n _______________________________________________ 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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Re: [IP] NYT: U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records
by Brock N. Meeks 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hail hardy and good f-ing luck to the Feds. As a reporter I when dealing with sensitive sources I NEVER called them on a phone that could be traced to them or myself nor would I ever have them call me on a phone that could be traced back to them. And here I'm talking about sources that handling information that was classified or "hot" in some big way; not talking about a congressional staffer or agency employee leaking me a draft copy of a GAO report or something like that. I would instruct sources, either during face to face meetings or "talking" to a group of potential sources (like law enforcement) in an electronic forum, to buy phone cards and make calls to me from public phones or from disposable cell phones. I had more than two dozen Federal Air Marshals as sources and they all communicated with me using phone cards. Yes, all very James Bond, to be sure. But for years I was afraid that just this sort of thing might happen one day, either legally or illegally. I know several other reporters that operate like this as well. --Brock On 8/2/06 5:28 PM, "David Farber" <dave(a)farber.net> wrote: > > >Begin forwarded message: > >From: Brad Malin <b.malin(a)vanderbilt.edu> >Date: August 2, 2006 2:15:42 PM EDT >To: David Farber <dave(a)farber.net> >Subject: NYT: U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records > >If I was going to be a confidential source, I would do so through an >encrypted channel. > >-brad > > >http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/washington/02phones.html > >U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records > >By ADAM LIPTAK >Published: August 2, 2006 > >A federal prosecutor may inspect the telephone records of two New >York Times >reporters in an effort to identify their confidential sources, a >federal >appeals court in New York ruled yesterday. > >The 2-to-1 decision, from a court historically sympathetic to claims >that >journalists should be entitled to protect their sources, reversed a >lower >court and dealt a further setback to news organizations, which have >lately >been on a losing streak in the federal courts. > >The dissenting judge said that the government had failed to >demonstrate it >truly needed the records and that efforts to obtain reportersb phone >records >could alter the way news gathering was conducted. > ><snip> > > > >------------------------------------- >You are subscribed as bmeeks(a)cox.net >To manage your subscription, go to >http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip > >Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- >people/ ------------------------------------- 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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