- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Update on anti-terror bill: House about to vote on a *new* bill
by Declan McCullagh 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> -----

1 0

OK, folks, the Bert-Osama connection is for real
by Xeni Jardin 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

new evidence emerges: <http://www.tctubantia.nl/CDA/regioportal/1,2078,1654__772741_,00.html> (from Frank Davis on the pho list.) This Dutch news article features a crystal-clear photo of the poster whose author must have used this file, from an "Evil Bert" parody site as a source image: < http://www.angelfire.com/de/cheatsbert/p3laden.html> other legit wire service photos of the Osama bin Bert poster from a Bangladesh anti-American rally: <http://harvard.pawlo.com/bangladesh.jpg> <http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/p/nm/20011009/wl/imdf09102001085522a.html> So does this mean we carpet-bomb Sesame Street as a community that harbors, aids, and abets those who facilitate terrorism? ----------- Xeni Jardin xeni(a)xeni.net | www.xeni.net | YIM: xeni_jardin

6 7

Govt not accountable: Jewell libel suit against FBI denied
by Dynamite Bob 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011011/aponline055635_000.h… Court Upholds Ruling in Jewell Suit The Associated Press Thursday, Oct. 11, 2001; 5:56 a.m. EDT ATLANTA The state Court of Appeals has upheld a judge's ruling that Richard Jewell was a public figure when a newspaper identified him as a suspect in the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park. The decision Wednesday was a setback for Jewell, who filed a libel suit against The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the FBI cleared him of wrongdoing three months after the bombing. The appeals court also threw out a lower court's order that reporters for the Journal-Constitution must identify their sources of information about Jewell. Jewell, who was working as a park security guard during the 1996 Olympics, spotted the backpack that held the bomb that exploded on July 27, 1996, killing one woman and injuring 111 people. While he was initially hailed as a hero for helping evacuate the park, he was later investigated by the FBI and identified as a suspect by the newspaper. The Justice Department cleared him three months later. Jewell's lawyer, Lin Wood, said he would ask the Georgia Supreme Court and, if necessary, the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. Jewell has settled similar lawsuits against ABC, NBC, CNN and Piedmont College, his former employer.

1 0

Re: Bunker Buster
by Scott Renfro 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

On Fri, Oct 12, 2001 at 11:38:23AM -0500, Paul E. Robichaux wrote: > > The GBU-28 is basically a 155mm artillery barrel packed full of explosives. > Well, OK, not really, but that's what the first set of GBU-28s used in Gulf > War I were. Slap some guidance fins and a standard LGB kit on it, and voila! Actually, the tubes were from decommissioned M110A2 8-inch howitzers (203mm) cut down to 19 feet in length (just in case anyone's estimating yield at home, the 8-inch tube gives about 70% more volume than 155mm -- about a cubic yard).

1 0

[MPUNKS] Cypherpunks 011013 at Stanford: Anti-Terrorism & Security Policy
by Dave Del Torto 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

IF YOU GET THIS TWICE: Sorry, it's because we're transitioning MLMs. See <http://cryptorights.org/meetingpunks> for subscription help and Cypherpunks meeting announcements from around the world. .......................................................................... SF Bay Area Cypherpunks October 2001 Physical Meeting Announcement GENERAL INFO: DATE: Saturday 13 October 2001 TIME: 1:00-6:00 PM (Pacific Time) PLACE: Tressider Student Union Courtyard Stanford University Campus Palo Alto, California, USA This Cypherpunks meeting will begin forming around 12:00 PM, and the structured Agenda will begin at approximately 1:00 PM. AGENDA: "Our agenda is a widely-held secret." As usual, this is an Open Meeting on US Soil, and everyone's invited ...yes, even the Director of Homeland Defense. ...................................................... 1. Recent Cypherpunk News Various Cypherpunks have been on the road recently, and will share important news updates and colorful stories with us about their journeys. CryptoRights Foundation representatives will also have some very good news about CRF's recent progress. ...................................................... 2. Anti-Terrorism This meeting will feature a discussion on the implications for our open society of two major legislative proposals resulting from the recent crimes against humanity in NY, DC and PA. The Mobilization Against Terrorism Act (MATA) and it's follow-on, the Uniting and Strengthening America (USA) Act, are dramatic new proposals creating major arguments in Congress. They include provisions that: * Define "computer intrusions" as a (federal) Terrorism offense. * Add convicted krackers to a central federal DNA database. * Remove wiretap restrictions on email scanning, web surveillance and voicemail inspections by law enforcement. * Remove controls on roving (person-specific) wiretaps, implying wiretap capability in all communications infrastructures. * Allow LEAs to share wiretap data with any Executive Branch employee. * Make domestic surveillance easier under FISA (Foreign Intel Surv Act) * Provide US intelligence agencies with access to Grand Jury documents. * Let the President designate US Citizens as FISA surveillance targets. * Create free speech restrictions on "expert advice" to USG-defined "terrorists". * Authorize the CIA to "hire terrorists". In addition to MATA and USAA, the Administration has established a new (soon to be Cabinet) position heading the Office of Homeland Defense (OHD) for coordination of law enforcement and intelligence efforts, including centralization of databases storing information about US Citizens. These new initiatives have all been positioned and marketed to voters as making Americans safer from the scourge of global Terrorism, but we'll be asking the tough, skeptical questions: Q: Will these initiatives really make our lives more secure or simply make the US a Police State? Q: Assuming these proposals work, are they worth sacrificing our civil liberties? We'll also discuss the amendments proposed by Russell Feingold (D-WI) to the USAA which: * Bar police from performing court-ordered "secret searches". * Narrow the ability the bill gives employers, schools and public libraries to spy on users, rather than allowing spying on all "computer trespassers". * Protect medical/academic records by requiring a judge's permission instead of giving police access to all "tangible" data. * Modify "roving wiretaps" to permit eavesdropping only when the target is on specific hardware but not when others use it. In addition, our resident legal eagles will help us evaluate the Constitutionality of these measures, and we'll also include a discussion the Snake-Oil Protection Act (aka the DMCA), and the wisdom of letting people who do not design security systems write legislation affecting everyone's security. Background info: USAA <http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200110/100401a.html> MATA <http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2001/September/492ag.htm> OHD <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011008.html> DMCA <http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf> EFF Analysis by Lee Tien and Shari Steele: <http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/20010926_eff_wiretap_pr.html> ...................................................... 3. CRF Human Rights Security Policy Design Session #1 A good security policy is essential to good security in any organization and many organizations don't know where to start. CryptoRights is designing a comprehensive security policy template for our human rights NGO clients, and we need the active participation of the Cypherpunk Community. Please send and/or bring non-proprietary policy documents/doc fragments, FAQs, URLs, papers you've written or read, books you use and any other resources you can think of regarding security policy design. We'll spread it all out on the floor and begin brainstorming and creating the ultimate security policy document in the first session of many. This document will be a showplace for Cypherpunk core competency. CRF and its client NGOs and partners will be able to use it or portions of it to bootstrap the wide adoption of a variety of communications security tools, in order to establish their utility for the global society. To add to the overall complexity of such a project, we also have to contend with the new politics in the post-9/11 world. It's going to have to be an amazingly flexible and comprehensive document built from many different security professionals' experiences and contributions. Our many design challenges include: * Flexible threat model definitions * Encryption tool interfaces and training requirements * Fieldworker security and travel considerations * NGO security team qualifications and administrator credentials * Law enforcement issues * Integration with small/wearable platforms * Revocation issues * Authentication guidelines and procedures for online documents * Physical security considerations * Interfacing with other NGO security infrastructures * Surveillance and counter-surveillance * Protections from terrorists * Field intelligence and urban counter-intelligence * Human rights trustgroup trust models * Evidence authentication and encryption frameworks * E-commerce and digital cash for human rights NGOs * Voice encryption and radio/telephony tradecraft * Human rights public key infrastructure management * Secret sharing requirements and guidelines * Keyservers * Hardware security tokens * Biometrics * Privacy policy * Remailers and identity management guidelines and technology * IPsec and DNSsec capabilities * ...and more Bring, laptops, pads of paper, whiteboard markers and your thinking caps! Submissions are welcome anytime, even after the meeting (we'll have more): Email to: <mailto:sec-policy@cryptorights.org> or Anonymous FTP uploads to: <ftp://cryptorights.org>. Please support and participate in this important community initiative! .......................................................................... LOCATION: The Stanford meeting location will be familiar to those who've been to our outdoor summer meetings before, but for those who haven't been, it's on the Stanford University campus (in Palo Alto, California), at the end of Santa Theresa, at the tables outside Tressider Union, just west of Dinkelspiel Auditorium. We meet at the tables on the West side of the building, inside the horseshoe "U" formed by the Tressider building. Ask anyone on campus where "Tressider" or the "Student Union" is and they'll help you find it. If the weather is bad, we'll meet inside. Food/beverages are available at the cafe and mini-market inside. Location Maps: Tressider Union (overview): http://www.stanford.edu/home/map/search_map.html?keyword=&ACADEMIC=Tresidde… Tressider Union (zoomed detail view): http://www.stanford.edu/home/map/stanford_zoom_map.html?234,312 Printable Stanford Map (407k). http://www.stanford.edu/home/visitors/campus_map.pdf GPS Coordinates: 37d23:40 N 122d04:49 W .......................................................................... HELP? If you get lost, or have questions, comments or last-minute agenda requests, please contact your friendly meeting organizers: Dave Del Torto <ddt(a)cryptorights.org> Cell: +1.415.730.3583 Bill Stewart <bill(a)cryptorights.org> Cell: +1.415.307.7119 .......................................................................... Heads-Up for November! The November meeting will be indoors, somewhere in San Francisco (location TBD). Two very special events are being planned: (1) We hope to have the much-awaited Second Part of Black Unicorn's presentation at the June meeting of his Analysis of Cocaine Smuggling. In light of recent events, the national security implications of his conclusions are more significant than ever. (2) Eric Blossom may present some very important CRF research and development work on a Software Defined Radio for evaluating the security of wireless devices. If you didn't see Eric's talk at HAL2001, you shouldn't miss this. Early running code will be demonstrated. END

1 0

Anthrax #4 reported in NYC, NBC employee
by Xeni Jardin 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

CNN has reporting that one person at NBC HQ in NYC has been tested positive for anthrax. Reports say she received a suspicious letter that tested negative, but she soon tested positive. XJ

3 2

RE: Bunker Buster
by Paul E. Robichaux 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

Someone's conflated the B61-11 with the GBU-28. The B61-11, referred to in the FAS article, is an air-delivered tactical nuclear weapon with selectable yield. Getting it 15ft underground would probably do the trick. The GBU-28 is basically a 155mm artillery barrel packed full of explosives. Well, OK, not really, but that's what the first set of GBU-28s used in Gulf War I were. Slap some guidance fins and a standard LGB kit on it, and voila! The hardened steel of the barrel makes for a dandy ground penetrator. > -----Original Message----- > From: Ken Brown [mailto:k.brown@ccs.bbk.ac.uk] > Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 6:37 AM > To: cypherpunks(a)lne.com > Subject: Re: Bunker Buster > > > Max Inux wrote: > > > > These things are TOUGH MOTHER FUCKER that go big boom. > > > > -Max > > > > http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/n19980326_980417.html > > [...] > > > A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful > > measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into > the soil, > > which were 6 and 10 feet, > > If those figures are true (If I had a new weapon I wouldn't > publish exact details of its capabilities) then it achieves > rather less penetration than Barnes Wallis's tallboy bombs of > 1944 (one of which sank the Tirpitz). > > If they use these things they'll surely use them as simple > deep penetration bombs? The "nuclear" part of it, if any, > will be the depleted uranium inner casing, presumably a way > of making it smaller. Penetration of any bunker the Taliban > are likely to have with such a bomb will destroy it anyway, > and putting a exploding nuke in will just kill the sheep on > the surrounding hillsides. We're not talking about Cheyenne > Mountain here. > > The old WW2 deep penetration bombs were huge things with > fins, like a cartoon bomb in a comic > (http://www.computing.dundee.ac.uk/staff/irmurray/pictures/617 bombs.jpg) The larger 1945 version of the Tallboy, called the Grand Slam, supposedly penetrated over 7 metres of concrete when used in action - but it did weigh ten tons & hit the ground at twice the speed of sound. Apparently the shock of the impact did as much damage as the explosion, causing structures to break up up to hundreds of metres away, literally an "earthquake bomb". Of course it is always possible that Dr. Strangelove is still in the employ of the US military and that some insane looney with a grudge against sheep does want to use nukes. Sensible arguments about the idiocy of developing new exploding nukes can be found all over the web - the first google hit on B61-11 is http://www.brook.edu/FP/PROJECTS/NUCWCOST/lasg.htm and worth reading. FAS, as always, has heaps of stuff. Ken Brown

1 0

bunkerbuster: not just for nukes
by citizenQ 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

>cpaul writes: > >> THE US 'ANNOUNCED' THEIR INTENTION TO USE B61-11 BUNKER BUSTERS ON LAST >> NIGHT'S NEWS BULLETINS (BUT SOMEHOW FORGOT TO REFER TO THE FACT THAT THEY >> ARE CLASSIFIED AS TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS) > Confirmation? >Yes, I noticed this as well. I wonder how many euphemisms we will now >hear for the word "nuclear" until the American public is informed after >the fact how wonderfully the weapons have worked. > Possibly confused with this bunker buster: Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) BLU-113 Penetrator The Guided Bomb Unit-28 (GBU-28) is a special weapon developed for penetrating hardened Iraqi command centers located deep underground. The GBU-28 is a 5,000-pound laser-guided conventional munition that uses a 4,400-pound penetrating warhead. The bombs are modified Army artillery tubes, weigh 4,637 pounds, and contain 630 pounds of high explosives. They are fitted with GBU-27 LGB kits, 14.5 inches in diameter and almost 19 feet long. The operator illuminates a target with a laser designator and then the munition guides to a spot of laser energy reflected from the target. Much more likely. Hard to imagine a scenario where tacnukes would be deployed. >These things are TOUGH MOTHER FUCKER that go big boom. > >-Max > >http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/n19980326_980417.html > >EIELSON AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska (AFNS) -- A B-2 Spirit bomber dropped two >B61-11 bomb shells to test their improved ground penetration capability >March 17 at the Stuart Creek Impact Area, 35 miles southeast of Fairbanks.

2 1

House update on anti-terror bills: Look out
by Declan McCullagh 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

From a House staffer: >Friends, less than 20 minutes ago the House leadership announced we would >be considering the Senate bill which has none of the privacy protections >that Bob Barr and others worked to put in the House bill an contains >language attacking financial privacy and even allowing the government >expanded access to educational records. Votes on the rule are expected >soon and killing the rule is the best way to kill this bill.

1 0

Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility?
by mikecabot＠fastcircle.com 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

Quote: "Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility," [SUN CEO Scott Mcnealy] said. "We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country." Unquote. Yeech. Here's the text and URL of the whole Reuters story: Sun's McNealy touts Java-based ID system By Reuters October 11, 2001, 12:05 p.m. PT McNealy defends Liberty Alliance project Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems ORLANDO, Fla.--Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, said Thursday his long-held belief the United States needs a national identity system has gained a lot of traction since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "This is more than a sea change," McNealy said to reporters at an industry conference in Orlando, Fla. "I have not spoken to one person who hasn't flipped a switch to say, 'You're darn right, I want to know who's getting on a plane with me.'" Sun developed the Java programming language, which someday could provide the language needed for a smart-card identification system to deal with computers at airports, shopping malls, research facilities and other locations where McNealy said anonymity could prove dangerous. "Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility," he said. "We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country." Civil libertarians have heaped scorn on McNealy, but he dismissed their concerns. "I'm tired of the outrage. If you get on a plane, I want to know who you are. If you rent a crop duster, I want to know who you are," he said. McNealy said it would be the job of Congress to decide when people can be anonymous and when they cannot. He warned that the United States faces "a huge efficiency tax" for security if it does not adopt a simple system of identification. "Hiring 50 humans isn't going to solve that problem," he said. McNealy appeared at a symposium sponsored by Gartner, the high-tech consulting company. McNealy also responded to remarks made at the conference the previous day by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Ballmer said Sun's Liberty Alliance project, an identity authentication and authorization service meant to speed online transactions, "has absolutely no probability of mattering to the world." Microsoft will compete with a similar service called Passport. Microsoft will go it alone on its service, while Sun is working with dozens of companies from eBay to General Motors. McNealy said the number of partners could grow into the thousands. He said the strength of his system was that each partner would maintain its own customer list and could arrange data sharing with one another on their own terms. "Hertz and United Airlines can work out their own deal instead of going to Microsoft and saying, 'How much do we have to pay you?'" McNealy said. Microsoft believes its customer base of 120 million will make it dominant in the field. Sun is betting the flexibility of its system will make it more appealing to merchants. Story Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. URL: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-7491959.html?tag=mn_hd _______________________________________________________________________________ WANT YOUR OWN FREE AND SECURE WEB EMAIL ADDRESS? Visit http://www.fastcircle.com

2 1