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DigiCash Saves PayPal?
by R. A. Hettinga 21 Nov '03

21 Nov '03

>And Greg Aharonian, San Francisco-based patent expert, said eBay could get >the case dismissed if it finds a company or institution that developed its >own "trusted intermediary" or similar electronic payment system even >before AT&T researchers filed for their patent. Bingo. Somebody at First Data should haul out the old DigiCash pitch-ware they probably have laying around, and beat AT&T over the head with it... Cheers, RAH ------ <http://finance.lycos.com/qc/news/story.aspx?story=36570023> Lycos AT&T: EBay, PayPal Infringe on Patents E-mail orPrint this story 20 November 2003, 6:03pm ET By RACHEL KONRAD AP Business Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- AT&T Corp. reached out and smacked eBay Inc. with a patent infringement lawsuit Thursday, claiming the online auction company has been using a payment system that the telecommunications giant developed more than a decade ago. The case, filed in federal court in Delaware, comes on the heels of an August verdict in which a Virginia judge ordered eBay to pay $29.5 million to an inventor who accused the company of stealing his ideas for fixed price sales formats. AT&T's suit demands that eBay pay an undisclosed amount in licensing fees because its lucrative PayPal division functions as a "trusted intermediary" between buyers and sellers who may not know each other. The system _ widely regarded as critical to eBay's gangbuster growth and a boon to e-commerce in general _ lets buyers provide credit card or bank account information to a reliable third party instead of individual sellers around the world. Buyers merely have to trust PayPal, and they don't have to worry about disreputable sellers using sensitive financial data for fraudulent purposes. AT&T says three senior engineers working for the phone company filed for a patent in 1991 for exactly such a process, which they called "Mediation of Transactions by a Communication System." The patent was granted in 1994, AT&T said. EBay spokesman Chris Donlay dismissed the lawsuit as "meritless," and he said customers should count on continuing to use PayPal. EBay acquired PayPal in October 2002, and the division immediately became an engine of profits for San Jose-based eBay, one of the few Silicon Valley companies to emerge unscathed from the dot-com collapse. PayPal produced $106.4 million in revenue in the third quarter of 2003, nearly twice what it generated in the same period last year. More than 11 million people used PayPal to conduct transactions from July to September, according to eBay's most recent earnings statement. Before PayPal, eBay relied on a similar system called Billpoint, which is also named in the lawsuit. Mentioned Last Change INDU 9605.7913.63 (0.14%) EBAY 51.800.23 (0.44%) T 19.630.53 (2.77%) AT&T spokesman Gary Morgenstern said the lawsuit is the result of more than a year of negotiations between the two companies. EBay refused to pay any licensing fees, he said. "AT&T invests hundreds of millions of dollars every year in our research and development efforts, which have yielded a sizable portfolio of patents _ that's what we're vigorously protecting here," Morgenstern said. "EBay and PayPal have refused to compensate us for patented technology, and so we're forced to take this to the courts." Numerous inventors and small companies have sued or threatened to sue eBay, and legal experts have been skeptical of many such claims. But some said the newest plaintiff's heft gives the AT&T lawsuit the credibility that cases brought by obscure inventors and operators of now-defunct dot-coms lacked. "To be sure, AT&T's involvement makes this case different from others," said Neil A. Smith of the San Francisco-based law firm Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk & Rabkin. "AT&T's a well respected company that doesn't just wave around patent lawsuits unless there's some merit." Others, however, said that AT&T is unlikely to even force a settlement _ which is the way Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com resolved what might have been the last such high-profile legal skirmish over Internet sales strategies. That case, involving Amazon's "one-click" checkout method, was filed in 1999 and settled last year. The companies have refused to disclose the terms. David Pressman, a San Francisco patent lawyer and author of "Patent It Yourself," said at least half of all patent infringement lawsuits are won by the defense or eventually dropped before reaching the courtroom. And Greg Aharonian, San Francisco-based patent expert, said eBay could get the case dismissed if it finds a company or institution that developed its own "trusted intermediary" or similar electronic payment system even before AT&T researchers filed for their patent. "The question is, did anyone else have trusted third parties in the 1980s? My gut reaction is that they existed," said Aharonian, publisher of the daily Internet Patent News Service newsletter. "Some university professor could have written an article on this, but no one paid attention and no banks adopted it. Something like that could invalidate the lawsuit completely." ___ On the Net: http://www.att.com http://www.ebay.com -- ----------------- 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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Congress about to pass anti-spam bill -- the details
by Declan McCullagh 21 Nov '03

21 Nov '03

[...] ' 1037. (a) IN GENERAL.Whoever, in or affecting inter- 23 state or foreign commerce, knowingly 24 November 21, 2003 (2:42 p.m.) 13 (1) accesses a protected computer without au- 1 thorization, and intentionally initiates the trans- 2 mission of multiple commercial electronic mail mes- 3 sages from or through such computer, 4 (2) uses a protected computer to relay or re- 5 transmit multiple commercial electronic mail mes- 6 sages, with the intent to deceive or mislead recipi- 7 ents, or any Internet access service, as to the origin 8 of such messages, 9 (3) materially falsifies header information in 10 multiple commercial electronic mail messages and in- 11 tentionally initiates the transmission of such mes- 12 sages, 13 (4) registers, using information that materially 14 falsifies the identity of the actual registrant, for 5 15 or more electronic mail accounts or online user ac- 16 counts or 2 or more domain names, and inten- 17 tionally initiates the transmission of multiple com- 18 mercial electronic mail messages from any combina- 19 tion of such accounts or domain names, or 20 (5) falsely represents oneself to be the reg- 21 istrant or the legitimate successor in interest to the 22 registrant of 5 or more Internet protocol addresses, 23 and intentionally initiates the transmission of mul- 24 S:\WPSHR\LEGCNSL\XYWRITE\CON03\SPAMCOMP.3 November 21, 2003 (2:42 p.m.) 14 tiple commercial electronic mail messages from such 1 addresses, 2 or conspires to do so, shall be punished as provided in 3 subsection (b). 4 (b) PENALTIES.The punishment for an offense 5 under subsection (a) is 6 (1) a fine under this title, imprisonment for 7 not more than 5 years, or both, if 8 (A) the offense is committed in further- 9 ance of any felony under the laws of the United 10 States or of any State; or 11 (B) the defendant has previously been 12 convicted under this section or section 1030, or 13 under the law of any State for conduct involv- 14 ing the transmission of multiple commercial 15 electronic mail messages or unauthorized access 16 to a computer system; 17 (2) a fine under this title, imprisonment for 18 not more than 3 years, or both, if 19 (A) the offense is an offense under sub- 20 section (a)(1); 21 S:\WPSHR\LEGCNSL\XYWRITE\CON03\SPAMCOMP.3 [...]

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[mnet-devel] Grid Of Trust -- pre-design (fwd from amichrisde@yahoo.de)
by Eugen Leitl 21 Nov '03

21 Nov '03

----- Forwarded message from Some Guy <amichrisde(a)yahoo.de> -----

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test mail-pls ignore
by Sarad AV 21 Nov '03

21 Nov '03

test. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/

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Re: Freedomphone
by Morlock Elloi 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

> From what I've gathered from the diagrams in [1], it seems to be using > AES-256 > in counter-mode XORed together with Twofish counter-mode output, Twofish also > being keyed with a 256 bit value. I sense paranoia here - but being paranoid > myself sometimes I very much welcome this decision! Those two keys are All I'd ask for in addition is ability for both sides to type in 10-40 digit secret key that they communicated in any way they chose, and have that XORed as well ... ===== end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/

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Re: Freedomphone
by Steve Schear 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

At 01:39 PM 11/19/2003 -0500, Jack Lloyd wrote: > > > "We allow everyone to check the security for themselves, because > > > we're the only ones who publish the source code," said Rop Gonggrijp > >"We are currently performing a internal round of reviews with a expert >group of security researchers and cryptographers. Depending on the results >of this review and the time it takes us to implement the relevant >recommendations, our current plan is to have the Source available for >Download: 23.11.2003" (http://www.cryptophone.de/html/downloads_en.html) > >We'll see. If and when this is accomplished the source could then be used, if it can't already, for PC-PC secure communications. A practical replacement for SpeakFreely may be at hand. The limitation of either direct phone or ISDN connection requirement is a problem though. steve

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can you hear me now?
by Major Variola (ret.) 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

"The ultimate in paranoia is not when everyone is against you but when everything is against you." ---PKD An appeals court this week put the brakes on an FBI surveillance technique that turns an automobile driver's on-board vehicle navigation system into a covert eavesdropping device, after finding that the spying effectively disables the system's emergency and roadside assistance features ...in which agents obtained a court order compelling a telematics company to secretly activate the stolen vehicle recovery feature in a customer's car. The feature, designed to listen-in on car thieves as they cruise around in a stolen auto, turns on a dashboard microphone and pipes conversations out over a cellphone connection -- normally to the company's response center, but in this case to an FBI listening post. http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/34100.html

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israeli torture center reason for no satellite pix?
by Major Variola (ret.) 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

The US has restrictions on even commercial satellite photos of Israel. http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1084796,00.html might indicate why --the torture center is airbrushed out of other pix. ---- The price of empire is death.

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Cisco pushes for license to surf
by Eugen Leitl 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

Dumb, dumb idea. Almost as bad as Palladium. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/1… BUGP6351V31.DTL Cisco security initiative 4 major firms working to head off Net attacks David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, November 19, 2003 In an unusual alliance among staunch competitors, Cisco Systems will collaborate with three of the largest computer security firms to fight virus and worm attacks. Cisco, Network Associates, Symantec and Trend Micro will develop a new system for protecting networks against infection. The system, which the four firms hope to start selling early next year, will be able to block network access to any computer or device that doesn't have its own security measures in place. Hackers' increasing sophistication -- as well as a little competitive pressure -- drove the companies to work together. In a conference call Tuesday, the chief executives of all four firms said virulent programs like Blaster and Slammer demanded a more coordinated defense, with security programs and hardware working together off a shared set of standards. "Clearly, nothing like this can be done without collaboration among industry leaders," said John Thompson, CEO of Symantec Corp. Cisco helped bring the competing security firms together by describing the initiative to customers and asking them to lobby Network Associates, Symantec and Trend Micro to participate, said Bob Gleichauf, Cisco's chief technology officer for security. And knowing that their competitors were interested, none of the firms wanted to be left out in the cold, he said. "Everybody realized that it was in their interests and in the customers' interests to do this," Gleichauf said in an interview. Other security firms will be allowed to join the initiative by licensing the necessary software. The system under development will allow a computer network to check the safety of incoming traffic. Any device trying to connect to the network will be checked to see whether it has security measures already in place. Those that don't can be denied access, shunted off into a quarantined segment of the network or forced to download a security program. The announcement of the collaboration had little effect on the companies' stocks. Cisco closed down 1.45 percent at $21.73. Network Associates slid 5.44 percent to $13.03, Symantec Corp. dropped 7.13 percent to $61.35, and Trend Micro gained 3.43 percent to close at $24.41. E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker(a)sfchronicle.com. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: Freedomphone
by Major Variola (ret) 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

At 12:59 PM 11/19/03 -0800, Steve Schear wrote: >If and when this is accomplished the source could then be used, if it can't >already, for PC-PC secure communications. They claim to be releasing code for PCs for free. A practical replacement for >SpeakFreely may be at hand. The limitation of either direct phone or ISDN >connection requirement is a problem though. Since they use GSM *data* services, and since quality affects *delay* in their setup, they may be hindered by users acceptance. However, it might also be a reminder to the users of why they payed the kiloEuros. Read their FAQ. They have total clue. No one should think less of them for trying to make a Euro at first, paid by users well able to pay the price, endure the problems, and Metcalfe's law inconveniences. That's techonomics -CD players cost a kilobuck at first, and not every content was available. ----- An RPG a day keeps the invaders away.

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