July 2018 - cypherpunks-legacy

[liberationtech] Twitter has released the source code to TextSecure under the GPL
by Nick Merrill 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://techpresident.com/news/21537/twitter-buys-crypto-tech-then-open-sour… huzzah! _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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"Spam Kings" Released by O'Reilly
by Kathryn Barrett 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

For Immediate Release For more information, a review copy, cover art, or an interview with the author, contact: Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7094 or kathrynb(a)oreilly.com The Real Story Behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and @*#?% Enlargements O'Reilly Releases "Spam Kings" Sebastopol, CA--At one time, spammer Davis Wolfgang Hawke grossed more than $600,000 per month selling herbal male enhancement products over the Internet. His customers came from all walks of life--CEOs, mutual fund managers, soldiers, housewives, landscapers--in other words, people who should have known better. Most people consider spam to be at least an irritation; many consider it to be more: a scourge, a significant drain on resources and money, a violation of the sanctity of one's personal computer, even an assault against one's moral sensibilities. With spam making up more than sixty percent of today's email traffic, it is indeed a problem, but is the problem solely the fault of the spammers? Brian McWilliams, author of "Spam Kings: The Real Story Behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills, and @*#?% Enlargements" (O'Reilly, US $22.95, hardback), explores the shadowy world of the people responsible for today's junk email epidemic. McWilliams reveals the motivations and practices of the people who fill our email in-boxes with spam, but he also points out, "Hawke's customer list just underscores one of the key issues of the book. Spammers are willing to put up with all sorts of wrath and attacks because they honestly believe customers want what they have to offer." McWilliams, an experienced investigative journalist who gained international attention in 2002 when he wrote about the contents of Saddam Hussein's email in-box for "Wired News," offers a fascinating account of activities of spam entrepreneurs in search of easy money. He chronicles the careers of several spam kings, including Hawke, the notorious Jewish- born neo-Nazi leader. The book traces this twenty-year old neophyte's rise in the trade, which would make him a major player in the penis enlargement pill market--and eventually a millionaire and the target of lawsuits from AOL and others. "Like a lot of people, I get tons of junk email," McWilliams explains. "But in May, 2003, I was deluged with over one hundred spams for pills from the same company, all in a two-week span. I managed to trace the messages to a firm in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire. I discovered spammers practically in my backyard, and I decided to tell the world about it." "I set out to write about the dozen or so spammers whom I thought were the best representatives of this strange species," McWilliams continues. "But in the process of researching the book, I was surprised to learn how interconnected many of them were. There's definitely less than seven degrees of separation between the spam kings--and sometimes even between the spammers and their antagonists, the anti-spammers." In addition to Hawke, McWilliams introduces readers to other bizarre denizens of the spam underworld, including Sanford Wallace, one of the original spam kings, who insists that spam is a First Amendment right; Jason Vale, the champion arm-wrestler and cancer survivor whose spam messages promote Laetrile as a cure for cancer; Alan Moore, known as Dr. Fatburn to his diet-pill customers; Rodona Garst, middle-class, white-collar suburbanite by day, running stock pump-and-dump scams in her spare time; and a fascinating assortment of others. But "Spam Kings" isn't just about spammers; it also tells the story of anti-spam cyber-activists, like Susan Gunn, a computer novice in California whose outrage led her to join a group of anti-spammers. McWilliams reports that in September 2004, the FTC recommended that Congress consider creating a bounty system for people who help catch spammers. Says McWilliams, "At present, anti-spammers hunt down spammers as unpaid volunteers, but that could change if Congress decides to put a bounty on a spammer's pelt." In June, 2004, McWilliams notes, "AOL revealed that one of its employees had sold AOL's entire member database to spammers. One of the people who bought that list was Davis Hawke, the central figure of 'Spam Kings.' Hawke's partner, Brad Bournival, was the unidentified source who cooperated with law enforcement and enabled them to arrest two men in June for the theft. The case is still pending, with indictments due any day." McWilliams acknowledges that there are much bigger problems in the world than spam, "But on the Internet, it's arguably THE biggest problem, since junk email is limiting our ability to communicate, and communication is the whole point of the Internet." McWilliams believes that eventually technology will reduce spam back to a minor nuisance. "But in the meantime," he says, "the root of the spam problem is people; specifically, the folks who buy from spammers. There's a big market out there of what I call 'furtive shoppers'--people who want convenient, anonymous access to shady products like porn, fake Rolex watches, drugs without prescriptions, cable de-scramblers, and 'free' government grants." "Spam Kings" sheds light on the technical sleight-of-hand--forged headers, open relays, harvesting tools, and bulletproof hosting--and other sleazy business practices that spammers use; the work of top anti-spam attorneys; the surprising new partnership developing between spammers and computer hackers; and the rise of a new breed of computer viruses designed to turn the PCs of innocent bystanders into secret spam factories. Praise for "Spam Kings": "The inside story of who's behind all that junk filling up your inbox is both good reporting and a good read. All the scum-sucking bottom-dwellers of the spam underworld are represented, as well as many of the unsung heroes in the war against unwanted email. "Spam Kings" should be required reading for anyone who hates spam--which includes just about everybody except spammers." --Daniel Tynan, contributing editor, PC World "Spam Kings" deftly exposes these creeps, humanizes them, and helps us to understand how and why they do what they do. It isn't a pretty picture but is one we all should look at and understand. Read this book." --Robert X. Cringely, creator of the PBS documentary, "Triumph of the Nerds" "Like a deep-sea photographer, McWilliams brings us a shocking series of portraits of the bizzare creatures feeding and fighting at the bottom of the Internet. Anyone who has wondered what kind of person would send spam can find the answer here. The truth is stranger than fiction, and more disturbing, as their tentacles reach us daily." --Jason Catlett, founder and president of Junkbusters Corporation Further reviews of "Spam Kings" can be read at: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/spamkings/reviews.html Additional Resources: Chapter 1, "Birth of a Spam King," is available online at: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/spamkings/chapter/index.html For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bio, and samples, see: http://www.spamkings.biz For a cover graphic in JPEG format, go to: ftp://ftp.ora.com/pub/graphics/book_covers/hi-res/0596007329.jpg Spam Kings Brian McWilliams ISBN 0-596-00732-9, 333 pages, $22.95 US, $33.95 CA order(a)oreilly.com 1-800-998-9938 1-707-827-7000 http://www.oreilly.com About O'Reilly O'Reilly Media, Inc. is the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences, and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators. O'Reilly books, known for the animals on their covers, occupy a treasured place on the shelves of the developers building the next generation of software. O'Reilly conferences and summits bring alpha geeks and forward-thinking business leaders together to shape the revolutionary ideas that spark new industries. From the Internet to XML, open source, .NET, Java, and web services, O'Reilly puts technologies on the map. For more information: http://www.oreilly.com # # # O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Call for Nominations - NRC project on Information Fusion and
by Lin, Herb 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Data Mining Dave - given the interest of your constituency in this subject.. We'd surely appreciate a posting of this notice, since you have access to a broader range of people than we normally have. Thanks. herb CALL FOR NOMINATIONS for a National Research Council study on Technical and Policy Dimensions of Large-scale Government Use of Information Fusion and Data Mining PLEASE POST WIDELY (and apologies for duplicate postings) The subjects of data mining and information fusion are in the forefront of many public policy discussions about how the nation should exploit information technology for purposes such as counter-terrorism, law enforcement, and public health. Recognizing the concerns raised in such discussions, the National Research Council is launching a project that will examine technical and policy issues associated with the large-scale government use of information fusion and data mining for such purposes. In addition to examining the technical problems and needs, it will consider the social and policy issues, such as privacy, that arise with the prospect of such use and consider how alternative approaches to both technology and policy can help to resolve them. The National Research Council (NRC) is the operating arm of the National Academies (<http://www.nationalacademies.org>), which include the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The National Academies were created by congressional charter to advise the nation on matters of public policy that involve science and technology. The NRC - a non-profit organization - works outside the framework of government to ensure independent advice to the government through the use of committees composed of the nation's top scientists, engineers, and other experts -- all of whom serve pro bono in the national interest to examine specific topics and issues. Within the NRC, this project is being undertaken by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (<http://www.cstb.org>) in cooperation with the NRC's Committee on National Statistics (<http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cnstat/>). For this project, a broad range of perspectives is required on the committee that will oversee this project. Individuals with expertise are sought in fields such as distributed systems, databases and information retrieval, data mining, intelligent agents, system security, systems integration and architecture, economics, sociology, statistics, political science, intellectual property, privacy, and civil liberties. Committee membership (limited to about 15 individuals) will be based on personal expertise and a dedication to drawing conclusions based on the analysis of data and information, and not on satisfying requirements for political representativeness. And, while it seeks nominations from a wide variety of sources, the National Research Council reserves the exclusive right to determine the membership of the committee. In accordance with NRC policy for all of its studies, committee members will also be vetted for both bias and direct financial conflicts of interest, both in selecting the members initially and also by the committee itself in closed session, when it meets for the first time. Committee members should be ** willing and able to work collegially with other committee members of differing perspectives to reach consensus on information-based analysis. They should have a demonstrated ability to consider opposing views carefully and respectfully, and be willing and able to act as an individual rather than a representative of any organization or movement. ** sufficiently senior in their fields to warrant broad respect for their intellect, fairness, and stature. ** able to put in the time needed on this project (perhaps 6 meetings, each of 2-3 days, over the course of 18-21 months, plus inter-meeting work such as reading and commenting on report draft materials). During the course of the project, the study committee expects to hear from many other individuals through panel briefings, testimony, white papers and other channels for input. Obviously, committee membership is limited (probably 15 or so individuals) and thus additional perspectives will be sought through briefings, a major convening, and a call for input that will be issued shortly. A good illustration of the kinds of persons sought for this project is provided by the committee assembled in 1994-1996 to study national cryptography policy, another highly controversial area. The committee was chaired by a former Deputy Secretary of State, and included (among others) a former Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, a former Attorney General of the United States, a former Deputy Attorney General, the inventor of public-key cryptography, the director of research and development for the Digital Equipment Corporation, and the creator of Lotus Notes. Persons of comparable stature are sought for this project as well. (This report can be found at <http://books.nap.edu/catalog/5131.html>.) Please forward nominations (self-nominations acceptable) to DMIF-INPUT(a)NAS.EDU. Submitted nominations should include contact information, biographies (including relevant published works, public statements, and current or former positions of relevance), and indications of relevant expertise and the perspective on the subject that the nominee will bring. The "subject" line of the e-mail should say "committee nomination." While nominations may be submitted at any time, nominations received after November 22, 2004, or without the information described above, may not be fully considered. More information about the project can be found at http://www.cstb.org/project_infofusion.html. ___________________________________________ Herb Lin, Senior Scientist Computer Science and Telecommunications Board The National Academies (202) 334-3191 voice || (202) 334-2318 fax || hlin(a)nas.edu www.cstb.org || Where the nation turns for independent and informed assessments of computing, communications, and public policy ------------------------------------- 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> ______________________________________________________________ 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 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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[IP] Call for Nominations - NRC project on Information Fusion and
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Data Mining X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net Begin forwarded message:

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[liberationtech] Twitter has released the source code to TextSecure under the GPL
by Nick Merrill 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://techpresident.com/news/21537/twitter-buys-crypto-tech-then-open-sour… huzzah! _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: [Freedombox-discuss] This white space spectrum chip might be uninteresting
by Paul Gardner-Stephen 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Hello John, All, We have been thinking about related issues in the Serval Project. Being based in .AU, we don't (yet) have the luxury of white spaces. Also, as we are also targeting disaster use cases we have to be able to work in situations where geodatabases may not be available or accessible for whatever reason. So our initial efforts that are being sponsored by the NLnet Foundation are being focussed on the ISM band at 915MHz, that is available in a number of countries (.US and .AU are of particular interest). This band has fairly generous rules, and is capable of fairly long distance communications. Our very early tests, using what we know is sub-optimal forward error correction, and with purposely poorly placed antennae (on a couch or a desk inside a house, similar to the kinds of places a freedombox would be expected to be plugged in) already show that it is possible to maintain links through O(10) houses. This is important, because WiFi does only O(1) house, PI*r^2 = O(1) houses covered (including your own), and so you need Almost Everyone to join to form a mesh. But assuming a range of O(10) houses, PI*r^2 = PI*10^10 = O(100) houses, and so you need only about 1% up-take to enable metropolitan networks to be feasible. That seems much more likely than the ~100% up-take needed to make a WiFi mesh. The trade-off is the relatively low bandwidths that are feasible. We are using 250kbit, and that is about as high as is feasible. However, it isn't as bad as it sounds, because we can use some clever frequency hopping and related tricks to create a "multi-threaded" radio environment, where there can be 50 senders operating in the band for 250k x 50 = 12.5mbit total throughput, with the nice property that no one node can consume all the bandwidth. I can provide some further explanation on this if it is of interest. We are using the RFD900 radios that run open-source firmware, and our GPL Serval Mesh software on top of that to give us a fully open stack, complete with our baked in crypto layer that the Serval Mesh is based on, and could be integrated into the FB stack if desired at some point. We are beginning to make a few Mesh Helper prototypes, that combine an RFD900 radio + OpenWRT 802.11n router and battery, and will be testing these in New Zealand over the next couple of weeks, and can feedback here if people would like to hear more about how it goes. Or alternatively, I will blog about it. There are already a couple of blog posts that show some of what we have been up to already, e.g.: http://servalpaul.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/breaking-wifi-barrier-serval-mesh… http://servalpaul.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/building-serval-mesh-helper-devic… If anyone is interested in knowing more, or helping us out (there is a fair bit of radio firmware rewriting to be done to realise the full potential), just drop me a line. Paul. On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 9:38 AM, John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> wrote: >> http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2243662/white-space-spectrum-chip-approved-f… >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/13/weightless_neul/ >> >> If this could somehow be incorporated in the Novena freedom box that Bdale is trying to whip up... > > (0) White Space spectrum doesn't have to be used with the Weightless > chips or protocol. The idea is that anybody can use it with any > modulation that stays within the bandplan. Whitespace does not equal > Weightless, though they of course neglect to tell you that. > > (1) this is a proprietary standard, all tied up in patents. You > aren't allowed to know how it actually works, and you can't use it > without paying one or many patent holders (some of whom may only > surface years from now and start demanding royalties). It's a classic > proprietary radio hardware ploy in that regard. > > (2) this is low speed (14 megabits max -- but that's for two devices > sitting right next to each other in a faraday cage, I'm sure) yet it > uses large amounts of bandwidth, hundreds of megahertz). It's > bleeding edge, and probably full of bugs and interoperability > problems. It is the very first entrant in using "white space" and of > course later entrants are likely to be more efficient, more standard, > better debugged, cheaper, better integrated, and more open. > > (3) The FCC's white space stuff is a catch-22. You can't use this > radio spectrum until you have found out, via some out-of-band > mechanism, both exactly where you are on earth (like with a GPS chip) and > accessed some global database of what frequencies are available at > your GPS locations. This has multiple painful results: > > * You need a GPS. > * You need Internet access independent of this chip. > * You need to contact a centralized service, and tell it your GPS location. > * Your communication can easily be censored by either pressuring or > spoofing that centralized service, or by cutting off your > Internet access so you can't find out what frequencies to use. > Not to mention spoofing your GPS. > * Your use of the spectrum can be remotely monitored by monitoring > the centralized service (who checks in from what locations). And > since the centralized service is proprietary and/or government > provided, it will probably also require some kind of "credential" > that proves you have paid your "licensing fees" or some such, > which can also be used to identify your device uniquely. Even if > they *don't* feed you bad results based on your identity, they > will know where you are and that you are using device # > 123-456-789-1011 there, consistently over a period of years. If > you bought device 123-456-789-1011 with a credit card or had it > delivered to an address, those records will be available to > inquisitive totalitarian governments, tying the device to > an individual person and their whole dossier. > > All of these suck for a FreedomBox. What we would want is a > communications medium that anyone can use, anyone can build into > devices, with public specs, that uses scarce bandwith efficiently, and > that you can just turn on and start using immediately to talk between > two nodes (or among two hundred nodes) that wish to communicate. > Weightless ain't that. WiFi is much closer, particularly as its > early patents expire. > > Oh, and: > > * White space communication is illegal everywhere except the United > States. While I think we certainly need protection from the US > government, there are also lots of other governments that are > egregious at suppressing basic human rights. We should build stuff > that works worldwide. > > For more details, see the documents here: > > http://www.weightless.org/media/resources > > John > > _______________________________________________ > Freedombox-discuss mailing list > Freedombox-discuss(a)lists.alioth.debian.org > http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss _______________________________________________ Freedombox-discuss mailing list Freedombox-discuss(a)lists.alioth.debian.org http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss ----- 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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Northern Light Focus
by csr＠cs.northernlight.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Dear Northern Light Customer, I have had the personal privilege of hearing from many of you over the past five years regarding the many different ways you have benefited from our search and content services. So it is with gratitude and hope that I share with you the new direction that Northern Light is taking today. As of January 16, 2002, NorthernLight.com is discontinuing free public access to our Web search in order to focus on delivering authoritative and timely news and archive content that you can rely on. We are refining our business to focus more exclusively on the needs of business researchers and enterprise customers. I hope you find that this change makes NorthernLight.com an even more valuable resource for your research requirements, as we simplify our service by reducing the clutter, including the advertising distractions. As consumers of quality research content, you may be wondering what this change means to you. I am pleased to inform you that our Special Collection will continue to be available for free searching and pay-per-view access from Northern Light's Web site. And in the very near future, we will be introducing a consumer subscription option to our customers, allowing you to download 50 documents per month for a small monthly fee. In addition, advanced search forms, real-time news, Search Alerts, and Special Editions will still be available at no cost to NorthernLight.com visitors. If you are interested in learning more about becoming an enterprise customer, with access to Web search, flat-rate content packages for the corporate desktop, customized usage tracking, and numerous other enterprise benefits, please contact enterprise(a)northernlight.com, or call (800) 804-6533. Or you can read more about it here: http://www.northernlight.com/docs/acct_help_enterp.html Thank you for being with us through the years, and I hope you will continue with us for many more. Cordially, David Seuss, CEO Northern Light Technology, LLC ----- End forwarded message -----

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Re: [IP] Can't we just get some answers or facts about this?
by unknown＠example.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

INTEL -- responding to continuedmis information on IP Please remove my name or identifying information if forwarding this to IP or elsewhere. I work closely enough to this industry to fear repercussions. Yes. This is one of the technologies used on the Pentium D: http://www.intel.com/standards/case/case_dtcp.htm It embeds a private key in each CPU. The key cannot be directly extracted, only used for signature and decryption operations. The idea is that your computer receives encrypted data from the set-top box, and can route it to a variety of other targets---but it's always encrypted when it leaves. So that might include other PCs in your home, or a television, or a monitor, or a storage device. It even works over IP, counting hops to ensure it doesn't leave your home. There is a similar technology by Macrovision which appears to also be supported. So does it *contain* DRM? Well, if DRM is policy, no. Does it contain content-protection technology? Absolutely. Does it contain technology to help restrict you from using media you purchased in accordance in fair and legal ways? Yes. ------------------------------------- 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> ______________________________________________________________ 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]

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[IP] DO READ Can't we just get some answers or facts about this?
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

INTEL -- responding to continuedmis information on IP X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.730) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net Begin forwarded message:

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[IP] Guardian Observer (London) on Google Privacy Issues
by David Farber 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1582719,00.html Our internet secrets stored for decades Privacy groups want the law changed to stop Google using, or divulging to outside agencies, the vast amount of personal data it has access to. By Conal Walsh Sunday October 2, 2005 The Observer Google took a further step away from its folksy image when it hired its first professional lobbyist in Washington earlier this year. But it turned out to be a timely move. The world's biggest search engine has been under attack on many fronts in 2005 - and its activities have spawned a cottage industry of Google critics, who complain above all that the company's dramatic rise to prominence is a threat to our privacy. Much protest focuses on the company's use of 'cookies' - pieces of programming code - which Google plants on your computer's hard drive when you use its service. The cookies enable Google to keep a record of your web-searching history. They don't expire until 2038, meaning that potentially sensitive information on your interests and peccadilloes could be stored for upwards of 30 years. It is sobering to think what fraudsters, identity thieves, blackmailers or government snoopers could do with this information if they got access to it. Privacy groups are up in arms. 'We need to re-evaluate the role of big search engines, email portals, and all the rest of it,' says Daniel Brandt, of the website Google Watch. 'They all track everything. Google was the first to do it, arrogantly and without any apologies; now everyone assumes that if Google does it, they can do it too.' Lauren Weinstein, founder of the US-based People for Internet Responsibility, says out-of-date privacy laws fail to capture the information-gathering powers of youthful but powerful new media companies. 'The relevant laws are generally so weak - if they exist at all - that it's difficult to file complaints when you can't find out what data they're keeping and how they are using it,' says Weinstein. Google says these fears are unfounded, that it respects privacy and keeps strictly within relevant privacy laws. Personal data are logged on computer files but 'no humans' access it, says the company; safeguards are in place to prevent employees from examining traffic data without special permission from senior managers. Nor is personal information shared with outsiders. All Google's records are impenetrable to hackers. Besides, say Google devotees, open access and the empowerment of the individual are central to the whole philosophy of the company; it would never seek to misuse or betray its users' secrets. Life, though, can be complicated. In repressive countries such as China, Google and other portals have little choice but to accommodate the authorities, which regularly censor the internet and spy on users. In the US, Google has declined to say how often it responds to requests for information from America's intelligence and law enforcement agencies. And there are concerns that what Google is building with its data-retention operation is a vast marketing database, which one day could be exploited ruthlessly. Simmering discontent turned into open confrontation earlier this year when Google launched Gmail, a free email service designed to compete with Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail. To ordinary punters, the great advantage of Gmail was the enormous two gigabytes of storage space it offered, enabling users to keep all their old messages. But Google planned to make the service pay by scanning customers' emails for keywords in order to send them targeted advertisements - a flagrant breach of privacy, according to opponents. The Consumer Federation of America demanded that Google rethink the scheme, while California politician Liz Figueroa called for changes in the law to protect users' 'most intimate and private email thoughts'. The London-based campaigners Privacy International filed complaints with data protection agencies in several countries, including Britain. The UK Information Commissioner took no action after consulting with Google, but campaigners argue that government bodies operating with a small staff and obsolete laws are no match for a technology superpower like Google, which is expanding at an almost exponential rate and continues to innovate in its use of personal data. In claims denied by Google, Privacy International's Simon Davies asserts that there is 'an absence of contractual commitment to the security of data' and 'fundamental problems in achieving lawful customer consent'. For now, campaigners may have to console themselves with a story of the biter bit. Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, was reportedly enraged this month when an online newspaper published his address and other personal details - having found them on Google. ------------------------------------- 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/ ------------------------------------- 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/ ------------------------------------- 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/ ------------------------------------- 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> ______________________________________________________________ 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]

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