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China charges U.S. monopolizes the Internet, seeks global control
by R.A. Hettinga 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

<http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453432.0569444443.html> World Tribune.com China charges U.S. monopolizes the Internet, seeks global control Special to World Tribune.com EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COMWednesday, March 2, 2005 China's ambassador to the United Nations last week called for international controls on the Internet. Chinese Ambassador Sha Zukang told a UN conference that controls should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations. "It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning," he said at the conference on Internet governance. Sha said China opposes the "monopolization" of the Internet by one state, a reference to the Untied States, which ultimately controls the digital medium. "It is of crucial importance to conduct research on establishing a multilateral governance mechanism that is more rational and just and more conducive to the Internet development in a direction of stable, secure and responsible functioning and more conducive to the continuous technological innovation," he said. China's communist government fears the Internet would dilute Beijing's control over its population, as information passes unfiltered throughout the country and outside of strict government censorship. China strictly prohibits any public criticism of the ruling communist party and closely monitors and censors Internet usage. Periodically, Chinese security forces raid Internet cafes and arrest people who violate Chinese rules. Sha said China has 94 million Internet users out of a worldwide total of about 810 million. -- ----------------- 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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[IP] Books -- The New Hows and Whys of Global Eavesdropping (fwd from dave@farber.net)
by Eugen Leitl 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

----- Forwarded message from David Farber <dave(a)farber.net> -----

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Re: [FoRK] X.509 certificate collision via MD5 collisions (fwd from jeff@k2.com)
by hal＠finney.org 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

Eugen forwards from FoRK: > >Colliding X.509 Certificates version 1.0 > >1st March 2005 > >Arjen Lenstra, Xiaoyun Wang, and Benne de Weger > > > >http://eprint.iacr.org/2005/067 > > > >We announce a method for the construction of pairs of valid X.509 > >certificates in which the ?to be signed? parts form a collision for > >the MD5 hash function. As a result the issuer signatures in the > >certificates will be the same when the issuer uses MD5 as its hash > >function. The real news of the paper was the announcement that Wang's techniques will be revealed this May at Eurocrypt. I'm looking forward to finding out what the secret is! Presumably everyone will receive MD5 collision finding software at around that time. The cert collision is not a surprise, people anticipated this possibility shortly after the MD5 collisions were announced. And notice that Xiaoyun Wang was an author of this paper; she was of course the lead author on the original MD5 collision paper and presumably the originator of the technique for finding MD5 collisions. Using her technology it is straightforward to do this kind of thing. But no one else could have written this paper at this time. The only nontrivial part (given the remarkable ability to generate MD5 collisions) was arranging that both keys were valid RSA moduli with known factors. The did this by generating random bignums and trying to factor them. And keep in mind that her methods find random-ish collisions. They don't find matches to existing hashes, and (as far as we know) they don't find structured collisions as would be necessary to get two certs with different and plausible-sounding names in them. >From what I've read (mostly http://eprint.iacr.org/2004/264) the way these collisions are found is to start with analysis of the structure of the hash, and decide on an XOR difference between the two inputs. This implicitly makes certain assumptions about where and when carries and other nonlinearities will occur in the hash calculation. Then you do a search for inputs which match that pattern of carries and for which the pre-determined XOR difference yields an actual collision. This doesn't give you much ability to control the content of the two inputs that you create. Hal

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Academics, artists back file-sharing firms before high court
by R.A. Hettinga 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

<http://www.the-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20050302&Category=AP…> The Lexington Dispatch Article published Mar 2, 2005 Academics, artists back file-sharing firms before high court By ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writer Several major technology companies, consumer groups and academics want the U.S. Supreme Court to stay out of a long-running legal dispute between online file-sharing firms and the entertainment industry. Recording companies and Hollywood movie studios are appealing to the high court to reverse lower court decisions that absolved Grokster Inc. and StreamCast Networks of responsibility when their customers illegally swap songs and movies using their software. The tech firms and others argue that a court victory by the entertainment companies would stifle innovation in the technology sector. In briefs filed Tuesday, Grokster, StreamCast and their supporters urged the court not to reinterpret the legal doctrine it established in the 1984 Sony Betamax case. At the time, the court ruled that Sony's video recorder was legal because it had legitimate uses apart from making unauthorized copies of movies and television shows. The entertainment industry has asked the court to reconcile the 20-year-old ruling to protect copyright holders it says are hard-pressed to safeguard their intellectual property in today's digital and online world. But such a move is exactly what the file-sharing firms and their supporters hope to avoid. "A rule like this will make it almost impossible for anyone to innovate or create new products unless they have the blessing of the copyright holders," said Grokster attorney Michael Page during a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "And when the copyright holders also control the distribution systems, that blessing will not be forthcoming." A group of 17 computer science and engineering professors at nine universities, including Harold Abelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Edward W. Felten of Princeton and David J. Farber of Carnegie Mellon, stressed in their brief that they feared if the court sided with the entertainment companies it could chill technological progress in computers and the Internet. "If this court should announce a more restrictive rule, those who create the latest advances in technology will halt or significantly scale back their work, for fear of massive copyright infringement damages," the professors' brief asserts. Four consumer and public-interest groups also weighed in, arguing that any steps to change the Betamax doctrine would give Hollywood and other copyright owners the power to censor information technology that ultimately could benefit consumers. Entertainment companies "would turn this into a surveillance society in which every file is fingerprinted, every user is tagged, every transaction is monitored," said Mark Cooper, a spokesman for the Consumer Federation of America. Others who filed briefs in support of Grokster and StreamCast included a group of law professors, the National Association of Shareholder and Consumer Attorneys, the National Venture Capital Association, Creative Commons and trade groups representing technology companies such as Intel Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. A brief by several telecom firms argues "only Congress has the constitutional mandate and institutional capacity to address peer-to-peer technology in a way that promotes the good and punishes the bad." Intel also submitted a separate brief, where it argues that any changes to the Sony Betamax decision would put the onus on it and other companies to "anticipate the potential uses of their innovations ..." and then redesign their technology to make sure it doesn't violate copyright laws. That "would stifle innovation and dramatically increase the cost of such technologies and of the consumer and enterprise products based on those technologies," the company argued. Several recording artists, conservative family groups, professional sports leagues, state attorneys general from 39 states, the U.S. government, university professors and online services that legally sell music or movies have filed briefs in support of the entertainment industry. The justices are scheduled to hear arguments in the case March 29. -- ----------------- 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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'Perfect storm' for new privacy laws?
by R.A. Hettinga 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

<http://news.com.com/2102-1029_3-5593225.html?tag=st.util.print> CNET News http://www.news.com/ 'Perfect storm' for new privacy laws? By Robert Lemos http://news.com.com/Perfect+storm+for+new+privacy+laws/2100-1029_3-5593225.… Story last modified Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 PST 2005 A series of security break-ins is kick-starting a political drive to reshape federal laws that dictate how companies protect personal information--and what they have to do if that data leaks out. What began with the leak of tens of thousands of records from data broker ChoicePoint earlier this month was quickly compounded by a series of rapid-fire incidents involving Bank of America, Science Applications International Corp., an online payroll services company and the T-Mobile Sidekick of hotel heiress Paris Hilton. That avalanche of high-profile breaches in the last month has captured the attention of a growing number of U.S. senators, mainly Democrats, who have called for new laws as a response. Sen. Arlen Specter has pledged to convene hearings in his Judiciary committee, often an initial step in the legislative process. An aide to the Pennsylvania Republican said Monday that a hearing is being scheduled and is expected to be held soon. News.context What's new: An avalanche of high-profile breaches in the last month has captured the attention of a growing number of U.S. lawmakers. Bottom line:Advocates hope it will spur greater regulation of the shadowy industry that creates digital dossiers on Americans. More stories on data theft "Ten days after the ChoicePoint breach of personal data involving between 145,000 and 500,000 people was revealed, today another breach of data was revealed, this time by loss," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said in response to Bank of America's admission that it had misplaced backup tapes containing 1.2 million customer records. "These two instances dramatize the need to take steps for the protection of an individual's personal data. The Congress needs to address it." At the federal level, privacy laws tend to be created erratically, spurred by one well-publicized emotional anecdote after another. Congress approved the Video Privacy Protection Act in 1988 after a newspaper published Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork's video rental records. The murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, whose killer found her address through DMV records, led to the Drivers Privacy Protection Act. Advocates of greater regulation are hoping the latest security breaches will be just as politically potent. "I don't think Congress can ignore what's happened," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, D.C. "This may be the first mass disclosure of personal information that triggers congressional action." For ChoicePoint and similar data aggregators, including Acxiom and Westlaw (a research service operated by Thomson West), the recent breaches could hardly come at a worse time. The start of a new congressional session often leaves politicians casting about for new issues, and a pair of recent books has cast a critical light on the typically shadowy industry that creates digital dossiers on Americans. The price of ChoicePoint shares have plummeted about 15 percent, from a high of nearly $48 to around $40, since the scandal became public. Rival Acxiom's shares also have suffered, and a Westlaw "People-Find" service came under attack last week from Sen. Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York. An "Exxon Valdez of privacy"? "I don't think it's right to wait until there's an Exxon Valdez of privacy," Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said nearly five years ago, back when Congress was more concerned with Web companies than data brokers. Now that kind of privacy disaster finally has arrived, at least according to congressional Democrats. One possible response from Congress would be an attempt to extend an existing federal law, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which deals with credit-reporting agencies such as Equifax, to cover data- aggregators like ChoicePoint and Acxiom. "Records that look a lot like credit reports--which is the basis of ChoicePoint and Acxiom's business model--have escaped regulation," EPIC's Rotenberg said. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is readying legislation to revise the FCRA, which Congress already altered last year. Earlier this month, Nelson wrote to the Federal Trade Commission to ask for its help in revising the FCRA "to reflect the modern information age, where consumer information can be transmitted and assembled electronically and cheaply" (PDF here). Data breaks High-profile breaches are finally waking lawmakers up to the need to make sure personal data is securely protected on computers. ChoicePoint Date: February 2005 Incident: Data collection company confirms that information from its consumer database has been stolen. At risk: Names, addresses and Social Security numbers of more than 150,000 Americans. Bank of America Date: February 2005 Incident: Bank loses backup tapes detailing the financial records of credit cards held by federal employees. At risk: More than 1.2 million records in SmartPay charge card program, which has annual transactions totaling more than $21 billion. PayMaxx Date: February 2005 Incident: Flaws in the online W-2 service of PayMaxx expose customers' payroll records. At risk: Discoverer of the flaws claims they affect more than 25,000 people. PayMaxx says only a small number of companies is involved. T-Mobile: Paris Hilton Date: February 2005 Incident: Information from heiress Paris Hilton's Sidekick is posted online. Breach comes amid reports that a flaw opens up T-Mobile voice mail. At risk: Phone numbers and e-mail addresses of celebrities such as Eminem and Lindsay Lohan. SAIC Date: February 2005 Incident: Desktop computers are stolen from the offices of Science Applications International Corp. At risk: Personal information of current and past stockholders in the government contractor. T-Mobile Date: January 2005 Incident: The carrier admitted that a hacker had gained access to customers' personal information. At risk: Names and Social Security numbers of 400 T-Mobile subscribers. George Mason University Date: January 2005 Incident: Attackers broke into a server that held details used on identity cards at the Virginia school. At risk: Names, photos and Social Security numbers of more than 30,000 students, faculty and staff. California Department of Social Services Date: October 2004 Incident: Breach of a researcher's computer at the University of California at Berkeley exposed personal data related to the state's In Home Support Services. At risk: Contact information and Social Security numbers of up to 1.4 million providers and clients. Another approach would be to borrow from the principles underlying a current California law. The Security Breach Information Act requires companies to disclose incidents in which a California resident's confidential information has been jeopardized. Feinstein introduced such a bill in Congress in June 2003, but without any luck so far. The bill's backers now hope that it will enjoy a wider appeal. Called the Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act, Feinstein's measure says that any corporation, government agency or person generally must provide a written or e-mailed notice if "unencrypted personal information was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person." State attorneys general would be authorized to file lawsuits against suspected violators. "The consumer data industry has been in the sights of proregulatory activists for some time now," said Jim Harper, director of information policy at the free-market Cato Institute. "And the ChoicePoint debacle could not have been a fatter, slower pitch across the plate." Harper is skeptical of federal proposals to create more regulations, saying that state laws tend to be more effective and have fewer loopholes. Instead, Harper advocates the use of tort law, under which private citizens can sue alleged wrongdoers for damages, to provide an incentive for data-marts to strengthen security. A California woman, Eileen Goldberg, did just that earlier this month in a suit she filed against ChoicePoint, with her claim that the company was negligent in protecting consumers from scam artists who purchased data from it. Not all privacy disasters result in federal legislation. In the case of Amy Boyer, a woman shot by a stalker who obtained her work address from an online investigation service, Sen. Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, responded by introducing a proposal called "Amy Boyer's Law." Gregg's legislation, which would have restricted the disclosure of Social Security numbers, eventually was attacked by both industry groups and by privacy advocates who said it didn't go far enough. It did not become law. Business lobbyists already are preparing for a defensive battle. "We're all concerned about data security, especially when you're talking about sensitive information getting out," said Michael Zaneis, director of congressional and public affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "We want to make sure that we don't have any knee-jerk reactions leading to the passage of quick legislation with unintended consequences." Another wrinkle in the political landscape is the growing reliance of federal watchdogs, such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, on identity-verification services purchased from companies like ChoicePoint and Acxiom. That reliance may make the Bush administration less willing to embrace aggressive regulation in the area. ChoicePoint declined to comment for this article, citing pending litigation. However, in a statement posted to its site, the database company stressed that it has entered discussions with other members of its industry on how to minimize fraud, and has started re-verifying its customers' credentials to weed out potentially fraudulent applicants. "We have already begun sharing our experiences, observations and ideas with several of the other major corporations in our industry, and we will seek to lead an industrywide initiative to develop, adopt and deploy new measures that will identify and halt identity theft and fraud," ChoicePoint said in the statement. In addition, ChoicePoint offered support for a broader national debate that could include legislation to allow independent oversight and increased accountability of entities that handle data, increased penalties for the intentional misuse of personal information, and mandatory notification by government and business of any unauthorized access to personal data. California as precedent? The current atmosphere at a national level is similar to the state of affairs in California that led to the passage of the Security Breach Information Act (S.B. 1386)--the law that recently forced ChoicePoint to disclose the October breach. The ChoicePoint debacle could not have been a fatter, slower pitch across the plate. --Jim Harper, director of information policy, the Cato Institute In April 2002, a hacker gained access to the state's Stephen P. Teale Data Center, stealing the payroll information of California's more than 225,000 state employees, including legislators and their staff. The State Controller's office discovered the breach in early May, but didn't notify workers until May 25, leaving their financial identities open to misuse. Within four months, a bill authored by former state Sen. Stephen Peace and then-Assemblyman Joseph Simitian had been signed by Gov. Gray Davis. The bill took effect on July 1, 2003. Bank of America's recent admission that the company lost backup tapes with as many as 1.2 million records could have similar scope as the Teale breach, even though there is no evidence so far that the financial data has been misused. The tapes contained information on the customers and accounts of the U.S. government's SmartPay credit card program, which has more than a 2.1 million cardholders and annual transactions totaling more than $21 billion, according to the General Services Administration. "There is a good chance we'll see some new regulations, especially because the Bank of America incident hits closer to home--their (lawmakers') information was included on the tapes that were lost," said Jordana Beebe, communications director for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a nonprofit consumer group. If the industry does not lock down people's data, whether by legislative mandate or by responding to customer concerns, business could suffer, said Chris Voice, chief technology officer at security company Entrust. "It is becoming a matter of survival from a business perspective that if your customers lose trust, they will go to someone who will guard their information better," Voice said. -- ----------------- 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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[FoRK] X.509 certificate collision via MD5 collisions (fwd from jeff@k2.com)
by Eugen Leitl 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

----- Forwarded message from Jeffrey Kay <jeff(a)k2.com> -----

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Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S.
by R.A. Hettinga 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4519090> NPR : Legal Affairs Electronic Anklets Track Asylum Seekers in U.S. by Daniel Zwerdling Audio for this story will be available at approx. 10:00 a.m. ET Morning Edition, March 2, 2005 7 The Department of Homeland Security is experimenting with a controversial new method to keep better track of immigrants awaiting appeals on their applications to remain in the United States. It is requiring aliens in eight cities to wear electronic monitors 24 hours a day. The ankle bracelets are the same monitors that some rapists and other convicted criminals have to wear on parole. But the government's pilot project is putting monitors on aliens who have never been accused of a crime. So far, the Department of Homeland Security has put electronic monitors on more than 1,700 immigrants. Victor Cerda, director of Detention and Removal Operations at Homeland Security, says the anklets will help prevent tens of thousands of immigrants who are ordered to leave the country each year from "absconding" -- going into hiding to avoid deportation. But critics say Cerda and other Homeland Security officials have exaggerated the extent of the problem. They point to a Justice Department study that put much of the blame on immigration officials, saying they'd failed to keep adequate records to track illegal aliens. Another Take on Ankle Monitors Sarah Barry fled Liberia's civil war in the early 1990s. She's now awaiting a decision on her appeal of a government deportation order. Barry says she's glad to be able to wear an ankle monitor. Hear why: Hear Sarah Barry Alternatives to Anklets A three-year pilot program in New York City tested how supervision affected immigrants' rates of appearance in court and compliance with court rulings. The program found that supervision -- regular phone calls from program workers, reminders about court dates, referrals to legal representatives and other such measures -- is more cost effective than detention and almost doubles the rate of compliance. Read the Vera Institute of Justice Report on Community Supervision Related NPR Stories Feb. 9, 2005 Panel: U.S. Mistreats Asylum Seekers Nov. 23, 2004 Special Report: Jailed Immigrants Allege Abuse E-mail this Page archives transcripts stations shop about help Copyright 2005 NPR Terms of Use Permissions Privacy Policy More Legal Affairs Supreme Court Ends Death Penalty for Juveniles Federal Judge's Husband, Mother Murdered More ; More Politics & Society Supreme Court Ends Death Penalty for Juveniles Vermont State Official Asks Tough Questions on Iraq More ; More By Daniel Zwerdling Hudson Jail Disciplines Guards in Detainee Abuse Case Letters: Detainee Abuses, Cronkite on the Mike Todd Party More ; find your local member station: (or enter zip code) News Politics & Society Business People & Places Health & Science Books Music Arts & Culture Diversions Opinion Morning Edition All Things Considered Day to Day Talk of the Nation Fresh Air News & Notes with Ed Gordon Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! Performance Today Motley Fool Radio More Programs Hourly Newscast Program Stream24-Hour schedule Audio Help Contact NPR Sponsor NPR Press Room Submit Ideas Corrections Ombudsman Get NPR Headlines via RSS Text-only -- ----------------- 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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William F. Buckley: Death of a comic
by R.A. Hettinga 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/wfbuckley/printwfb20050301.shtml> Townhall.com Death of a comic William F. Buckley (back to web version) | Send March 1, 2005 If what was before the house was just the formal news bulletin, a famous person who had left Earth for other bournes, then OK, let him go with conventional solemnities. I once attended funeral services at which the rabbi didn't remember the name of the deceased, so that he mourned the passage of Priscilla, remarking the good she had left behind in her lifetime -- never mind that the lady who lay in the coffin was called Jane; never mind, the incantations were generic. But Hunter Thompson would never be confused with anyone else, and when his wife was led through the police cordon to his room, she reported to the press that "he did it (fired the .45-caliber pistol) in his mouth," leaving "his face beautiful. It was not grisly or gruesome by any means. He lived a beautiful life." He didn't. What he did do was inspire devotional encomiums from people who included blood relatives (my son), and superstar mentors (Tom Wolfe). Wolfe spoke first of his stylistic achievements. He wrote "in a style and a voice no one had ever heard before." And Wolfe found in Hunter's life an originality perversely appealing. It was "one long barbaric yawp, to use Whitman's term, of the drug-fueled freedom from and mockery of all conventional proprieties." What he wrote was "'gonzo.' He was sui generis." "In the l9th century Mark Twain was king of all the gonzo-writers. In the 20th century it was Hunter Thompson, whom I would nominate as the century's greatest comic writer in the English language." Writing in The New York Sun, John Avlon spoke of Thompson's determination "to puncture the pretenses of the powerful with ruthless humor, a loyalty to deeper truth, and a hatred of hypocrisy. Beneath what could be called amoral behavior there was in fact an inflexible moral code. The intensity of his writing unsentimentally highlighted the real stakes of this life." What deeper truths? Henry Allen of the Washington Post wrote that "People will forgive almost anything of writers who can astonish them and make them laugh." What was it, in Thompson, that we were forgiving? Is that question answered in Allen's sentence that "despite his rants about the onanistic squalor of journalism, (Thompson) had the bearing of an adventurer striding out to the very edges of madness and menace"? Laughable stuff? Thompson had a gift for vitriol. All -- everything -- was subsumed in his exercise of that art. Consider one entire paragraph on Richard Nixon. "For years I've regarded (Nixon's) very existence as a monument to all the rancid genes and broken chromosomes that corrupt the possibilities of the American Dream; he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad. I couldn't imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn't quite reach the lever on the voting machine." We were asked to believe (by the San Francisco Chronicle) that in reading Thompson we are reading the work of a hero of an entire generation of American students. Concerning that claim a little skepticism is surely in order. After all, an exhibitionist can be spectacular, and even lionized, in the Animal Houses. Hunter Thompson elicited the same kind of admiration one would feel for a streaker at Queen Victoria's funeral. Here is a passage from Thompson, in which he seeks amusement by recounting the end of a long day with a visiting British friend, identifying himself as "the journalist": The journalist is driving, ignoring his passenger (the visiting Brit), who is now nearly naked after taking off most of his clothing, which he holds out the window, trying to wind-wash the Mace out of it. His eyes are bright red and his face and chest are soaked with the beer he's been using to rinse the awful chemical off his flesh. The front of his woolen trousers is soaked with vomit; his body is racked with fits of coughing and wild choking sobs. The journalist rams the big car through traffic and into a spot in front of the terminal, then he reaches over to open the door on the passenger's side and shoves the Englishman out, snarling: 'Bug off, you worthless faggot! You twisted pig-(expletive deleted), all the way to Bowling Green, you scum-sucking foreign geek.' One can be sorry that Hunter Thompson died as he did, but not sorry, surely, that he stopped writing. William F. Buckley, Jr. is editor-at-large of National Review. -- ----------------- 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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Re: OS X in a Classified Environment... (fwd from bryan.jones@m.cc.utah.edu)
by Eugen Leitl 02 Mar '05

02 Mar '05

----- Forwarded message from Bryan Jones <bryan.jones(a)m.cc.utah.edu> -----

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Revenge of the Son of HERF: Microwave 'Gun' Could End High-Speed Police Chases
by R.A. Hettinga 01 Mar '05

01 Mar '05

<http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/print?id=538452> ABC News: Microwave 'Gun' Could End High-Speed Police Chases Company Develops Technology to Zap Fleeing Cars With Invisible Energy Beams By PAUL ENG Mar. 1, 2005 - The idea of a powerful ray gun has been a staple of science-fiction writing for decades. But a "weapon" that shoots invisible beams of energy could be making its way into law-enforcement hands soon. The technology isn't exactly something that would replace a police officer's handgun. In fact, the system being developed by Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, Calif., couldn't even be crammed into a standard pistol holster. But the developers say their device, which uses technology more closely related to flash cooking than Flash Gordon, may help stop criminals and terrorists in their tracks. James Tatoian, chief executive of Eureka, says the High Power Electromagnetic System is designed to disable cars -- say, those fleeing from police officers -- using bursts of microwave energy. "Basically, since the 1970s, every car is built with some sort of microprocessor-controlled system -- like the ignition control and fuel pump control a lot of vital car systems," says Tatoian. "If you introduce a parasitic current into their wires, it leads to a power surge which in turn burns out those microprocessors." Once the car's chips are disabled, the vehicle will gradually slow to a halt, allowing police or other security forces to safely approach and apprehend the driver. A New Type of Nuker Tatoian is quick to admit that the company's experimental device isn't the first or only directed energy system designed to attack cars. Others have developed similar concepts and prototypes before. And some, like Eureka, are continuing their work using partial funding from a U.S. military research project that seeks to study the feasibility of "less than lethal" weapons. But Tatoian believes his designers and researchers have come a lot further in terms of power, portability and usability than other alternative solutions. "It's still in development stages, but the system is about 200 pounds in total weight. It will fit in a car with the [microwave] antenna mounted on the roof," says Tatoian. "It's also worthwhile to say that produces about 10 to 15 kilovolts per meter." During tests of the early unit, that was enough power to burn out chips in cars up to 100 meters distant. More importantly, the Eureka system is "tunable" "What's interesting is that every car has its own set of vulnerable frequencies -- in the range of 350 megahertz to 1,300 megahertz," says Tatoian. "The most ideal case [for our system] is where police officers pursuing a vehicle know the make and model of the car, they then can dial in the right frequencies that that car is vulnerable to in order to stop it." Better Than Busted Tires? Such capabilities have caught the interest of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which has helped Eureka study the High Power Electromagnetic System. "Everything works on paper and in the lab," says Cmdr. Charles "Sid" Heal, who is in charge of studying new technology for the sheriff's department. "If this thing works [in the field] as well as described, it would tremendously help reduce risky high-speed pursuits." As seen in recent news video coverage, police typically try to end high-speed chases with a so-called "spike strip" designed to puncture and deflate the tires of a fleeing vehicle. While spike stripes can be effective in stopping suspects' cars, Heal points out they can be difficult to deploy properly and safely. "With spike strips, you have to lay them down before the suspect gets there," says Heal. "And that raises the basic question, if you know where they're going, then why chase [the suspects] at all?" But if police cruisers and helicopters were equipped with a working version of Eureka's system, the nature of "hot pursuits" could change dramatically. "It changes the strategy of how to safely end car chases," says Heal. "We can pick and choose where and when to disable the car where it would put the least amount of risk to the safety of our officers, the suspects and the public." The Bumps in the Road Still, Tatoian and Heal admit that there are quite a few questions and concerns that will need to be addressed before police can stop fleeing suspects with a push of a power button. For one, Tatoian still needs to figure out whether the system will work in "real world" conditions. And there are plenty of factors that Eureka engineers will have to consider in further research and design. For example, while Tatoian is confident that every car has particular "vulnerable frequencies," so far they've only been able to test the theory on about 13 cars. And with thousands of different makes and models of vehicles on the road today, it may be impossible to identify and isolate the right combination for each car. And for the energy beam to be effective, researchers will have to deal with factors that are beyond their control. "The difficult part of the technology is in 'coupling' -- getting the microwave energy into the chips so they overload," says Heal. "A vast majority of cars today are coated with rust coatings, thick paint or have bodies made of plastic -- all not good conductors of energy." Tatoian believes that these concerns can be answered -- especially with the help of Heal and the officers in the L.A. sheriff's department. One possible theory that Eureka and Heal's department would like to test is whether there are specific spots on cars that are particularly vulnerable to microwave energy. Smokey and the Zapper? Both Tatoian and Heal expect that by the end of this year, Eureka Aerospace will be able to field a prototype that will test these theories and other concerns. "When Dr. Tatoian is ready, we'll take this out to our chase test facility," says Heal. "Our officers are all jazzed on it." But even if all the technical bugs get worked out, Heal says it still might take quite a while before the system becomes another high-tech, non-lethal tool for police officers on highway patrol. Heal pointed to a recent university study which documents that police departments used less-than-lethal weapons -- Tasers, bean bags, batons, pepper spray -- more than 60,000 times in the last 10 years. "One of the things we found out -- which we're often accused of by detractors of less-than-lethal weapons -- is that when we get a new device, we tend to overuse it," says Heal. "We'll have to go through fairly rigorous steps before we implement new technology -- including involving our legal department." In other words, lawyers ultimately will have the final say if highway police really do live up to their "smokey" nickname. -- ----------------- 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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