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RE: A Call for a Chorus of Voices
by Ernest Hua 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

It seems like every bozo in Congress is leaning toward the "you can't do crypto" solution, which we know, just by the laws of nature, cannot work. Why is it, that no one has even suggested taking off the figurative handcuffs on what the NSA can or cannot use without court orders? The more cynical side of me says that they are already using it (yes, this means that they are already collecting it), and so it's not worth fighting for because that would only legalize something they're already doing. The more innocent side of me says that maybe they are jockeying to compromise on this: They already have huge sorting and correlation engines just waiting for Congress critters to say, "Okay, now you can legally turn on these toys ...". (Oh, ok, sir ... actually, we already did ... and you'll be proud of us, sir ... we caught every last one of dem fern'ner's ... oh ... you did, eh ... well, just remember to ask for permission next time ...) Ern

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Congress mulls crypto restrictions in response to attacks
by Declan McCullagh 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46816,00.html Congress Mulls Stiff Crypto Laws By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)wired.com) 1:45 p.m. Sep. 13, 2001 PDT WASHINGTON -- The encryption wars have begun. For nearly a decade, privacy mavens have been worrying that a terrorist attack could prompt Congress to ban communications-scrambling products that frustrate both police wiretaps and U.S. intelligence agencies. Tuesday's catastrophe, which shed more blood on American soil than any event since the Civil War, appears to have started that process. Some politicians and defense hawks are warning that extremists such as Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials say is a crypto-aficionado and the top suspect in Tuesday's attacks, enjoy unfettered access to privacy-protecting software and hardware that render their communications unintelligible to eavesdroppers. In a floor speech on Thursday, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called for a global prohibition on encryption products without backdoors for government surveillance. "This is something that we need international cooperation on and we need to have movement on in order to get the information that allows us to anticipate and prevent what occurred in New York and in Washington," Gregg said, according to a copy of his remarks that an aide provided. President Clinton appointed an ambassador-rank official, David Aaron, to try this approach, but eventually the administration abandoned the project. Gregg said encryption makers "have as much at risk as we have at risk as a nation, and they should understand that as a matter of citizenship, they have an obligation" to include decryption methods for government agents. Gregg, who previously headed the appropriations committee overseeing the Justice Department, said that such access would only take place with "court oversight." [...] Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish think tank that has won accolades from all recent Republican presidents, says that this week's terrorist attacks demonstrate the government must be able to penetrate communications it intercepts. "I'm certainly of the view that we need to let the U.S. government have access to encrypted material under appropriate circumstances and regulations," says Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan. [...] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: A Call for a Chorus of Voices
by Nomen Nescio 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

In these days after the World Trade Center attacks, calls are being heard for restrictions on access to the technologies of privacy. As more and more communications go by e-mail, chat rooms and cell phones, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are beginning to rely on surveillance of these systems in order to collect information about dangers to society. Early reports suggest that some of the information about the terrorists has come from monitored cell phone signals. These monitoring and surveillance operations are threatened by new technologies based on cryptography. No longer just for spies, cryptography can be used to encrypt e-mail, chat messages, and even telephone communications so that they are hidden from outsiders. Exotic cryptographic technologies potentially provide even more protection for terrorists as they plan and coordinate attacks. Osama bin Laden, the figure most often named as a possible mastermind of the terrorist strikes, is said to have trained his operatives in the use of these technologies in order to communicate securely. They encrypt messages and then use the related technology called steganography to embed them undetectably in pictures, music and other seemingly innocent data. They are said to use anonymous mail accounts to deliver these messages to chat rooms and bulletin boards where they can be downloaded by other agents. This allows the group members to communicate completely undetectably. Not only that, it preserves the terrorist "cell" structure - different members don't have to know the identity or even email addresses of others in order to communicate. All they need to know is in what public forum to look for and leave messages. Their identities are completely protected through these technologies. Clearly, cryptographic privacy and anonymity are tremendously valuable to terrorists, and tremendously obstructive to the efforts of law enforcement to use electronic surveillance. Representatives of these organizations have warned for years that criminals and terrorists would begin making use of cryptographic technologies, and their fears have now been realized. Under the present circumstances, legislators are beginning to call for restrictions on access to cryptographic technology. Old proposals are being revived to require that all encryption systems contain a "back door" which would allow law enforcement access to the contents of a communication. We face many dangers at this moment. The smoking ruins where some of our proudest buildings once stood, temporary tombs to thousands of innocent dead, plainly demonstrate the difficulties ahead. Under the circumstances it is appropriate for us to consider the balance between security and freedom which we will adopt as we prosecute a new kind of war. As in past wars, sacrifices will be necessary for all of us. No one should underestimate the hardships ahead. At the same time, it is important to remember what we are fighting for. It's not just revenge for the people killed and the buildings destroyed. We are fighting for our way of life. If we ignore terrorism, we will live in fear, always wondering what new horror will be dropping from the skies. We will be restricted in how we live, what we do, where we go. Our legacy as free Americans will be lost. This is why we fight. We fight for freedom. Given these goals, restricting access to cryptography must be understood to be a complex issue. It's not as simple as taking tools out of the hand of bin Laden and other terrorists. Cracking down on cryptography will reduce the freedom of all Americans while failing to effectively eliminate the use of the technology by those who threaten us. The fundamental problem is that the tools already exist which allow terrorists to communicate securely. Many of them are in the form of free software, distributed on hundreds of thousands of computers around the world, which can be run on any ordinary PC. Much of it was developed by private individuals for their own use, and then donated to the world. Any new law to limit cryptographic technology would have no effect on the use of this large base of existing software and hardware. Steganography and related technologies will make it impossible to detect the use of now-forbidden software. The new breed of terrorists from bin Laden's training schools will continue to be able to use these tools. Laws will be ineffective in preventing their use. The only real effect of these laws would be to prevent honest Americans from communicating with true privacy. They are the ones who would honor the ban and they would be the only ones effected. They would have their privacy taken away while bin Laden and his associates are able to communicate with perfect secrecy. While not many citizens make use of cryptographic technology now, experts predict that it will be increasingly important in the future. In an Internet where attacks of all sorts are becoming ever more sophisticated and numerous, cryptography will be a central technology in building the secure systems of the future. Limiting and restricting cryptography will only make the Internet less secure. When proposals for restrictions on cryptography first surfaced in the 1990s, security experts carefully analyzed the suggestions. The response, virtually unanimous, was that putting back doors in cryptography would reduce its reliability, security, and efficiency, while increasing costs. Any back door is a potential security hole. The hackers and crackers who are expert at exploiting flaws are going to be given a new set of targets for their attacks. Indeed, in the years since, a number of incidents have confirmed these fears. Last year, for example, the widely used PGP encryption software was found to have a vulnerability related to the "Additional Decryption Key", a feature added to the commercial version for back door access to messages by corporate management. Attackers could specify fake Additional Decryption Keys and get them accepted by the software, allowing them to read any message sent. The inherent complexity in the implementation of the Additional Decryption Key feature left a security hole open, exactly as had been predicted. Any requirement for government access back doors would undoubtedly lead to similar weaknesses in other systems. And next time the problems might not be found by someone who was willing to reveal them publicly so that they could be fixed. In a world where all fielded cryptographic technology had mandatory back doors, discovery of an exploit could be used for financial gain, information warfare, or even new forms of terrorism. It is certain that the Chinese and other competitors on the world stage would put their best analysts on the job of finding weaknesses which they could exploit in the future. Restrictions on cryptography would weaken our Internet infrastructure without achieving their goal of precluding use of the technology by those who threaten us. They are a bad idea for both of these reasons, but there is a more fundamental objection as well. The point of our war on terrorism is to preserve our freedom, our way of life. We cannot allow ourselves to take shortcuts in this battle which eliminate fundamental freedoms. And nothing is more fundamental than our freedom of speech and communication. It is enshrined in the very first amendment to the constitution. Cryptography is fundamentally a form of free speech. It is the freedom to speak privately and anonymously. Yes, it can be exploited by criminals. But that is the price we must pay as a country which is dedicated to the ideals of freedom. We accept the risk of allowing criminals their freedom to communicate because we value and cherish this as a fundamental right. We will not allow our country to be turned into an Orwellian surveillance state, where every word we speak and every deed we do occurs under the eyes of government agents. The very idea is anathema to Americans. But this is exactly what is being called for by those who propose to forbid citizens to communicate in a manner which cannot be heard and understood by the government. We face challenges ahead, and we must find a balance between security and freedom. But we must not allow ourselves to be blinded by fear and panic, so that we discard truly fundamental freedoms in what will ultimately be a futile attempt to increase security. This would be the worst of both worlds. We would have lost a major element of freedom of speech, the freedom to communicate without government surveillance. And we would have failed to effectively prevent terrorists from using cryptographic technologies to their own ends.

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RE: A Brevital Moment (was..Ignore Aimee Farr)
by Ernest Hua 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

Well said ... and I would imagine that May and Co. have very logical, reasonable and laudible goals. The problem here, is that the moderates on the list does not want to be defined by the extremes. (I am quite certain there will be some flaming to follow, as the indignations let loose.) The one question I would ask those who spout "XXX needs killing" is whether you really want to make a difference or just stand up for an isolated principle? You just might be right, but maybe no one noticed, and the ignorant masses (a.k.a. sheeples) just walked right over you (and your rights) anyway. Even in your world, it is not acceptable to point a gun at someone and demand that they act with reason or even enlightened self interest. Ernest (dusting off my flame proof vest) Hua -----Original Message----- From: Aimee Farr [mailto:aimee.farr@pobox.com] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:26 PM To: citizenQ Cc: cypherpunks(a)lne.com Subject: A Brevital Moment (was..Ignore Aimee Farr) Mr. Ziplip wrote: > Tim - > > Behavioral psychologists will tell you that the best way to > extinguish an undesirable behavior is to IGNORE it. > > If Farr's posturings and baitings are truly to be made > ineffective, the best course of action amongst the cpunks who > care is to killfile the postings and refuse to engage on ANY level. My post was not "bait." The reason we have anything left of the amendments so frequently talked about in here is due to the independence of the judiciary. While you can question aforesaid independence, threatening the judiciary is beyond the pale. There are some posts in here that give me 'pause for psycholinguistic analysis.' As such, I worry that they could be misconstrued (Type 5...Type 6, compulsive or possible syndicate bombers even...) by some hypersensitive, uneducated people not intimately familiar with the history and quirks of this list -- in what has become a hypersensitive environment. Bell's "Assassination Politics" put cypherpunks on some protective intelligence agendas. It would not be implausible to assume you were being monitored to see if you "run" with the seeded assassination memes, if only for analytical purposes. These matters are taken seriously by those charged with the care of protected persons. (Contrary to what some here would have you believe, subtlety can get you a much higher threat-rating than overtly threatening correspondence.) > Rising to the bait, debating whether such-and-such a purpose is > behind Farr's postings, speculating on Farr's true intent, all > this does is spur on the postings, the baiting, the provocation. > Just say "no" to responding to ANY of Farr's postings, and I > would almost put money that the behavior will extinguish within a week. Baiting? Provocation? No, a caveat. Do not tolerate behavior of that nature. It subjects you all to scrutiny and mischaracterization. What about Mr. K-S that hides behind his hushmail jacket and asks for names and addresses.....why doesn't somebody cuss him out? ~Aimee

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ScienceDaily Magazine -- Quantum Computer Could Solve Problems In A Few Months That Would Take Conventional Computers Millions Of Years
by Jim Choate 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/09/010913074828.htm -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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A Brevital Moment (was..Ignore Aimee Farr)
by Nomen Nescio 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

> What about Mr. K-S that hides behind his hushmail jacket and asks for names > and addresses.....why doesn't somebody cuss him out? > > ~Aimee Hmmm! Could it be that most people who aren't sheeple agree with him?

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re: Sick Wacko in the Whitehouse
by An Metet 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

> Our only hope is that his is an "assisted living" situation, surrounded by > enough possibly more intelligent and experienced men and women to prevent the > most heinous missteps. Rather thin ice to be treading then. One should hope that his handlers put a stop to him soonest. An invasion of Afganistan will likely as not result in a suitcase nuke becoming the next Manhattan Project.

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The price of trinitite in Afghanistan
by Alfred Qeada 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

At 08:50 PM 9/13/01 -0400, An Metet wrote: > The evening news says Dubbya is asking Congress for >20 billion for his little war, and it sounds like the >moron is actually going to try to invade Afganistan. I >hope, in one respect, they actually do it. It will be >amusing to watch the body bags coming home as the Afgans >kick Yankee butt just like they did Ivan's. Yeah, and women there might be able to earn a living selling bread in a year. Its not like the US won't stomache a few more body bags now. Osama forgot that: when you toast that many that fast, you can motivate incredible shit. Better to have boiled the frog slowly. Same goes for the latent rights-raping scum in Congress. They better not try cooking the frog. The futures options on trinitite in Afghanistan have seriously dropped...

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Re: A Brevital Moment (was..Ignore Aimee Farr)
by Alfred Qeada 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

At 08:26 PM 9/13/01 -0500, Agent Farr wrote: >Bell's "Assassination Politics" put cypherpunks on some protective >intelligence agendas. Longtime fans would recognize that this was rent-seeking, one gang vs. another: the federal gang's ability to put 1e7 on O.B-L's noggin. vs. distributed anonymous (ie, citizen's AP) "Most Wanted" Monopolists *hate* competition, by definition. .... When they outlaw Bournouille's law, only birds will fly...

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Re: A Brevital Moment (was..Ignore Aimee Farr)
by keyser-soze＠hushmail.com 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 08:26 PM 9/13/2001 -0500, Aimee Farr wrote: >Bell's "Assassination Politics" put cypherpunks on some protective intelligence agendas. It would not be implausible to assume you were being monitored to see if you "run" with the seeded assassination memes, if only for analytical purposes. These matters are taken seriously by those charged with the care of protected persons. (Contrary to what some here would have you believe, subtlety can get you a much higher threat-rating than overtly threatening correspondence.) Jim is a fool though not a dangerous one. No one should consider implementing any betting pools till there is enough cover traffic from "legit" digital cash apps. If one were to be created this would be an ideal time and Ben Laden the ideal target. How many Americans would consider creating such a pool to be evil? > Rising to the bait, debating whether such-and-such a purpose is > behind Farr's postings, speculating on Farr's true intent, all > this does is spur on the postings, the baiting, the provocation. > Just say "no" to responding to ANY of Farr's postings, and I > would almost put money that the behavior will extinguish within a week. >Baiting? Provocation? No, a caveat. Do not tolerate behavior of that nature. It subjects you all to scrutiny and mischaracterization. >What about Mr. K-S that hides behind his hushmail jacket Don't forget the power tie ;-) >and asks for names and addresses.....why doesn't somebody cuss him out? What, for protected speech and actions? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: Hush 2.0 wmAEARECACAFAjuhY2gZHGtleXNlci1zb3plQGh1c2htYWlsLmNvbQAKCRAg4ui5IoBV nx+xAJ44c2wiLze9qfZr+5VQ08KgXKMiQgCeIJIIs5n2g/C1ECaDCcGh+GxYi9o= =G0uG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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