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[Announce] Attack against OpenPGP encryption
by David Shaw 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

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[Announce] Attack against OpenPGP encryption
by David Shaw 11 Feb '05

11 Feb '05

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[Announce] Attack against OpenPGP encryption
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

--- begin forwarded text

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Desire safety on Net? (n) code has the solution
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

I'm starting get the hang of this. I mean, fertilizer...crypto, crypto...fertilizer: They're both *munitions*, right? Right? :-) Cheers, RAH -------- <http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=117201#> Express India Desire safety on Net? (n) code has the solution Express News Service Ahmedabad, February 9: ADDRESSING a wide spectrum of needs of the Net-dependent business world ranging from online buying to signing and sending web forms, (n) code solutions, promoted by IT branch of the Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizer Company Limited, has launched its nationwide services at NASSCOM, India Leadership Forum 2005. (n) code solutions has been recently licensed by the IT ministry as certifying authority for providing digital signature certificates to individuals and organisations. Digital certificates can be explained as digital passports, which help in authentication of the bearer on the Internet. This also helps maintain, privacy and integrity of Net-based transactions. Digital signatures are accorded the same value as paper-based signatures of the physical world by the Indian IT Act 2000. Each of these functions help bring trust in Net-based transactions. (n) code has simultaneously released a suite of applications like, (n) procure, (n) sign, (n) form and (n) pay to make use of digital signatures to ensure safety and security in the virtual world in various ways. (n) code has also put in motion, nationwide machinery to support different market segments like banking and financial institutions, public and private sector enterprises and state and central government organisation. -- ----------------- 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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Hack License
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

<http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/review_hack.asp?p=0> Technology Review TechnologyReview.com Print Hack License By Simson Garfinkel March 2005 As cultural critic and New School University professor McKenzie Wark sees things, today's battles over copyrights, trademarks, and patents are simply the next phase in the age-old battle between the productive classes and the ruling classes that strive to turn those producers into subjects. But whereas Marx and Engels saw the battle of capitalist society as being between two social classes-the proletariat and the bourgeoisie-Wark sees one between two newly emergent classes: the hackers and a new group that Wark has added to the lexicon of the academy: the "vectoralist class." Wark's opus A Hacker Manifesto brings together England's Enclosure Movement, Das Kapital, and the corporate ownership of information-a process that Duke University law professor James Boyle called "the Second Enclosure Movement"-to create a unified theory of domination, struggle, and freedom. Hacking is not a product of the computer age, writes Wark, but an ancient rite in which abstractions are created and information is transformed. The very creation of private property was a hack, he argues-a legal hack-and like many other hacks, once this abstraction was created, it was taken over by the ruling class and used as a tool of subjugation. So who are these vectoralists? They are the people who control the vectors by which information flows throughout our society. Information wants to be free, Wark writes, quoting (without attribution) one of the best-known hacker aphorisms. But by blocking the free vectors and charging for use of the others, vectoralists extract value from practically every human endeavor. There is no denying that vectoralist organizations exist: by charging for the distribution of newspapers or Web pages, such organizations collect money whenever we inform ourselves. By charging for the distribution of music, they collect money off the expression of human culture. Yes, today many Web pages and songs can be accessed over the Internet for free. But others cannot be. The essence of the successful vectoralist, writes Wark, is in this person's ability to rework laws and technology so that some vectors can flourish while other vectors-the free ones-are systematically eliminated. But does Wark have it right? By calling his little red book A Hacker Manifesto, Wark hopes to remind us of Marx and Mao. Does this concept of "vector" have what it takes to start a social movement? Are we on the cusp of a Hacker Rebellion? The Communists of the 1840s had more or less settled on the ground rules of their ideology-the communal ownership of property and social payments based on need-by the time Marx and Engels wrote their infamous tract. By contrast, many individuals who identify themselves as hackers today are sure to find Wark's description circumscribed and incomplete. When I was an undergraduate at MIT in the 1980s, hackers were first and foremost people who perpetrated stunts. It was a group of hackers that managed to bury a self-inflating weather balloon near the 50-yard line at the 1982 Harvard-Yale game; two years later, Caltech hackers took over the electronic scoreboard at the Rose Bowl and displayed their own messages. (Another group had hacked the Rose Bowl 21 years before, rewriting the instructions left on 2,232 stadium seats so that Washington fans raising flip-cards for their half-time show unknowingly spelled out "Caltech.") Hackers were also spelunkers of MIT's tunnels, basements, and heating and ventilation systems. These hackers could pick locks, scale walls, and practically climb up moonbeams to reach the roofs of the Institute's tallest buildings. By the late 1980s, the media had seized on the word hacker-not to describe a prankster, but as a person who breaks into computers and takes joyrides on electronics networks. These hackers cracked computer systems, changed school grades, and transferred millions of dollars out of bank accounts before getting caught by the feds and sent to the pen. Finally, there were the kind of hackers MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum had previously called "compulsive programmers." These gods of software saw the H-word as their badge of honor. Incensed by the hacker stereotype portrayed in the media, these geeky mathlings and compiler-types fought back against this pejorative use of their word-going so far as to write in The New Hacker's Dictionary that the use of "hacker" to describe "malicious meddler" had been "deprecated" (hacker lingo meaning "made obsolete"). I remember interviewing one of these computer scientists in 1989 for the Christian Science Monitor: the researcher threatened to terminate the interview if I used the word "hacker" to describe someone who engaged in criminal activity. Although the researcher and others like him were largely successful in reclaiming their beloved bit of jargon, they were never able to fully disassociate the word from its negative connotations. Today, the word "hacker" is widely accepted to have two meanings. One reason, of course, is that malicious meddlers continue to call themselves hackers. Both Hacking Exposed, a mammoth three-author, 750-page book about to be published in its fifth edition, and Hacking: The Art of Exploitation seem to suggest that use of the word to describe someone with criminal intent is alive and well. There are very much two kinds of hackers: "white-hat hackers," who follow the programmer ethic and help people to secure their computers, and "black-hat hackers," who actually do the dirty business. The fact that it is the black hats who create the market demand for the white hats is something that most white hats fail to mention. Also overlooked is the fact that many who wear white hats today once wore black hats in their distant or not-so-distant past. The idealized hackers for whom Wark has written his manifesto also routinely engage in criminal activity-by violating the vectorial establishment's laws of intellectual property. Vectorialists are not the only victims of these crimes. And Wark's hackers are the kind of people who would use peer-to-peer networks to let a million of their closest friends download Hollywood's latest movies before they are released in theaters-a prime example of hacker power to defeat the evils of vectorial oppression. On the other hand, hackers also rent time on other networks in order to send out billions of spam messages hawking the latest in penis enlargement. When it comes to the hacker pastime of criminal computer trespass, Wark is silent. Freedom versus Free Beer Absent as well is any reference to hardware hacking-or, indeed, any reference to hardware at all. To Wark, hacking is about bits, not atoms. The power of Big Vector is its ability to control information networks like the telegraph and the Internet, not transportation networks like FedEx. The intellectual property that Wark is concerned about is the property of abstraction: movies, programs, drugs. It's information that "wants to be free." Wark comes down pretty hard on the patenting of genetic information, but presumably the patents that apply to the design of piston engines or wind turbines are another matter entirely. Hacker philosophers such as Richard Stallman and Lawrence Lessig frequently play up the fact that information can be given away without being relinquished. It is this fundamental fact that makes information different from other goods, they argue. It is why the old rules of property should not apply in the digital domain. Stallman wrote in 1985, "the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it." Stallman continues, "Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement." Stallman, more than anyone else, is rightfully credited with kicking off what we now know as the "open source movement"-which he calls "Free Software." That's "free" as in "freedom," not as in "free beer," Stallman is quick to point out. The culture of sharing software was in danger of dying out in the early 1980s when Stallman started the GNU Project and wrote "The GNU Manifesto." GNU stands for GNU's Not Unix-an all too clever recursive hacker acronym. The original goal of the project was to create a free version of the Unix operating system. But Stallman worked hard to extend the consciousness of programmers beyond mere lines of code and into the world of politics-specifically the politics of intellectual property. He staged a hacker protest at the headquarters of Lotus when that company tried to enforce copyright restrictions on user interfaces. He wrote and spoke, rallying against copyright restrictions and software patents. Like "the Party" in 1984 and real-live Communists in China, Stallman promotes his ideology in part by rewriting everyday speech. He went so far as to publish an official list of "Confusing or Loaded Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding"- words like "commercial," "consumer," "content," "creator," "open," and "intellectual property." For example, he writes, instead of using the phrase "copyright protection," one should instead use "copyright restrictions," as in the sentence: "Congress recently extended the term of copyright restrictions by 20 years." These tactics turned off supporters and were put to good use as counterpropaganda by his detractors-such as a software executive who once accused Stallman of being a Communist because of his collectivist software ideology. The emergence of the term "open source" amounted to a slap in Stallman's face: after all, it was a direct attempt to separate the mechanism of Free Software from Stallman's barefoot politics of free love, his vehement attacks on the beliefs and conduct of the Republican party, and his vigorous defense of personal freedom. Using Wark's framework, this all makes a kind of sense. Stallman is not opposed to big business and capitalism: he is opposed to big vector and the vectoralist agenda of creating a body of intellectual property law that eliminates the possibility of alternatives. Anyone committed to freedom must be opposed to the vectoralist class, because it profits through control. >From this Wark-Stallman view that intellectual property is really just a self-enriching tool evolves the conclusion that the world of computers would be better off without the majority of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other legal means for restricting intellectual property. Lessig, meanwhile, takes these mechanisms of restriction in a different direction. In The Future of Ideas he argues that a combination of legal and technical restrictions are fencing off our cultural heritage. In the not-so-distant future, perhaps, the very phrase "free expression" will become an oxymoron, as any self-respecting expression will necessarily have to pay licensing fees for numerous ideas, phrases, images, and even thoughts from well-funded copyright holders. Lessig failed in his attempt to fight the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act in the U.S. Supreme Court-the act that will keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain for another 20 years. But despite this serious setback, Lessig has succeeded in convincing thousands of professionals to put their signatures on his so-called "Creative Commons" licenses, which allow colleagues and other professionals to freely cite from and reprint one another's work, and even make derivative works. Hardware Hacks The problem here is that sharing may work for software, but it doesn't work for hardware. Moore's Law has driven much of the computer revolution, but it requires that companies like Intel spend more and more money each year to create the next generation of superfast chips. Take away Intel's copyright and patent protection, and knock-off companies would create clone Intel processors for a fraction of the cost. These chips would be dramatically cheaper than Intel's, and Intel would not have the money to create the next generation of still-faster devices. Moore's Law depends upon vectoral control. Wark's opus doesn't just ignore hardware-it ignores hardware hacking, the tradition of modifying circuits and computers to do things that the original designers never intended. Hardware hackers are pros at both adding new features and removing arbitrary restrictions-like the region codes on DVD players that won't let European DVDs play in U.S. players. Yet increasingly, hardware is where the action is. Books such as Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering are exposing secrets to the masses that once were strictly the province of MIT and Caltech midnight seminars. Hardware hackers are largely motivated by exactly the same antivectoralist tendencies as the hackers creating file-sharing networks: the desire to get around restrictions that have been artificially imposed upon their beloved technology. Hackers are people who use technical means to break restrictive rules and, as a result, create new possibilities. They are agents of disruptive change, no matter whether they hack code, networks, video-game consoles or copyright. By failing to address hardware and its hackers, Wark's work once again falls short of its title. And what of information yearning to be free? The quotation comes from Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, speaking at the first Hacker's Conference back in 1984. According to a transcript of the conference printed in Brand's May 1985 issue, the full quotation was: "On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other." If I might be so bold as to rekngineer Brand's quotation while looking through Wark's glasses, it's the hackers who want information to be free, and it's the vectoralists who want information to be expensive. Having known and admired Stallman for more than 20 years, I've long understood the concept of the hacker. Wark's contribution in his misnamed volume is the identification of the hacker's enemy, the vectoral class. It is a battle, I fear, that we cannot win. But it is one that must be fought. Simson Garfinkel is a researcher in the field of computer security. He is the author of Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in the 21st Century (2000). He is currently a doctoral candidate at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. -- ----------------- 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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Polanski wins video link battle
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/entertainment/4253457.stm> The BBC Thursday, 10 February, 2005, 12:51 GMT Polanski wins video link battle Film director Roman Polanski will give evidence in a libel case via video link from France, the Law Lords have ruled. Mr Polanski is bringing libel action against the magazine Vanity Fair in the English High Court. But to avoid the risk of extradition to the US, where he is wanted on an outstanding child sex offence, the director will give evidence from Paris. The Law Lords ruled on Thursday that Mr Polanski should not be denied access to justice because of extradition fears. " Despite his fugitive status, a fugitive from justice is entitled to invoke the assistance of the court " Lord Nicholls Mr Polanski, 71, fled the US more than 25 years ago after admitting having sex with 13-year-old girl. As a French citizen, Mr Polanski cannot be extradited to the US from France, but that protection would not apply were he to travel to the UK. Mr Polanski has issued libel proceedings against Conde Naste, publishers of Vanity Fair, over an article published in July 2002. After issuing his libel writ, Mr Polanski sought a High Court order allowing him to give evidence via a video conferencing (VCF) link from France. In granting the order, Mr Justice Eady said that, although the reason underlying the application was unattractive, this did not justify depriving Mr Polanski of the chance to have his case heard. That decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal, but restored on Thursday by the House of Lords in a 3-2 majority ruling. Constitutional right Lord Nicholls said: "Despite his fugitive status, a fugitive from justice is entitled to invoke the assistance of the court and its procedures in protection of his civil rights." The fact that Mr Polanski was guilty of a serious crime and feared extradition did not take the case outside the general rule. Lord Hope said the director had an undoubted constitutional right, as a citizen of France, not to be extradited. "That is his right and he wishes to exercise it," he said. "He is not trying to hide from anybody. It is incorrect, then, to say that his sole aim in seeking this order is to avoid being extradited." 'Quite wrong' Baroness Hale said there was a strong public interest in allowing a claim to be properly litigated. She said: "New technology such as VCF is not a revolutionary departure from the norm to be kept strictly in check, but simply another tool for securing effective access to justice for everyone." "If we had a rule that people such as the appellant were not entitled to access to justice at all, then of course that tool should be denied him. But we do not and it should not." Disagreeing, Lord Slynn said the video link facility should be refused where the sole reason for asking for it was to escape a criminal conviction or sentence. Lord Carswell said it would be "quite wrong" to allow him to give his evidence in a special way to avoid the consequences of his criminal act. Roman Polanski won a best director Oscar for The Pianist in 2003, following earlier nominations for Chinatown (1974) and Tess (1979), and a best adapted screenplay nomination for Rosemary's Baby (1968). -- ----------------- 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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Data, Net tax plan divides Republicans
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

<http://news.com.com/2102-1028_3-5569545.html?tag=st.util.print> CNET News Data, Net tax plan divides Republicans By Declan McCullagh A recent congressional report saying that new taxes could be levied on all Internet and data connections is pitting two influential groups of Republicans against each other. Sixteen members of Congress have slammed a suggestion from Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation that a tax originally created to pay for the Spanish-American War could be extended to all Internet and data connections this year. In a letter to the committee sent Tuesday, the House members said they were "perplexed" that the committee would "gratuitously suggest tax increases" that would slow the growth of the U.S. economy. The committee is headed by two Republicans, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rep. William Thomas of California. "Consumers who now enjoy freedom from regressive taxes on Internet access are not tax cheats," the letter says. It charges the committee with finding ways to justify tax hikes when its report was supposed to be about identifying people who were dodging taxes. "I think the problem lies not with the senators but with staff that is involving itself gratuitously in proposals to raise taxes on the Internet," Rep. Chris Cox, a California Republican who signed the letter, said in a telephone interview with CNET News.com. George Yin, the tax committee's chief of staff, was not immediately available for comment. Currently, the 3 percent excise tax applies only to traditional telephone service. But because of technological convergence and the dropping popularity of landlines, the Joint Committee on Taxation said extending the century-old tax to broadband and data links was an "option." The committee's report, published in late January, said that tax law could be rewritten so the telecommunications levy would cover "all data communications services to end users," including broadband; dial-up; fiber; cable modems; cellular; voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and DSL, or digital subscriber line, links. Another option it listed was extending the tax only to VoIP providers, including Internet-only ones like Skype. Congress enacted the so-called "luxury" excise tax at 1 cent a phone call to pay for the Spanish-American War back in 1898, when only a few thousand phone lines existed in the country. It was repealed in 1902, but was reimposed at 1 cent a call in 1914 to pay for World War I and eventually became permanent at a rate of 3 percent in 1990. Republicans signing the letter to the tax committee include Chris Cannon, R-Utah; Walter Jones, R-N.C.; Chip Pickering, R-Miss.; Ron Paul, R-Texas; Jeff Miller, R-Fla.; Mark Foley, R-Fla.; Mike Rogers, R-Mich.; Fred Upton, R-Mich; Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.; Jerry Weller, R-Ill.; Rob Simmons, R-Conn.; Charles Bass, R-N.H.; and Vito Fossella, R-N.Y. Two Democrats, John Lewis, D-Ga. and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. also signed the letter. Members of the Joint Committee on Taxation include Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Max Baucus, D-Mont.; John Rockefeller, D-W.Va.; and representatives Bill Thomas, R-Calif.; and Charles Rangel, D-N.Y. -- ----------------- 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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Vegas casino bets on RFID
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

<http://news.com.com/2102-7355_3-5568288.html?tag=st.util.print> Vegas casino bets on RFID By Alorie Gilbert Casino mogul Steve Wynn has pulled out all the stops for his new $2.7 billion mega-resort in Las Vegas: an 18-hole championship golf course, a private lake and mountain, and a bronze tower housing 2,700 plush guest rooms. But when its doors open in April, the Wynn Las Vegas will have one unique feature that few visitors are likely to notice--high-tech betting chips designed to deter counterfeiting, card-counting and other bad behavior. The fancy new chips look just like regular ones, only they contain radio devices that signal secret serial numbers. Special equipment linked to the casino's computer systems and placed throughout the property will identify legitimate chips and detect fakes, said Rick Doptis, vice president of table games for the Wynn. News.context What's new: Betting chips are getting a high-tech RFID makeover designed to deter counterfeiting and misbehavior at the tables. Bottom line:Despite this, RFID technology is still relatively rare in casinos--until that killer application arrives. More stories on RFID "Security-wise, it will be huge for us," Doptis said. The technology behind these chips is known as radio frequency identification, or RFID, and it's been used for years to track livestock, enable employee security badges and pay tolls. The casino industry is just the latest to find new uses for RFID technology. Retail chains, led by Wal-Mart Stores, are using it to monitor merchandise. Libraries are incorporating it into book collections to speed checkouts and re-shelving. The United States and other nations are incorporating it into passports to catch counterfeits. One company even offers to inject people with RFID chips linked to their medical records to ensure they receive proper medical care. In casinos, RFID technology is still relatively rare and in search of a killer application to spur adoption. Yet some tech-savvy casino executives envision RFID transforming the way they operate table games, including blackjack, craps and roulette, over the next four or five years. For one thing, there's the counterfeiting problem, on which there is scant data. The Nevada Gaming Commission gets about a dozen complaints every year related to counterfeit chips, said Keith Copher, the agency's chief of enforcement. Last year, a casino in Reno quickly lost $26,000 in such a scheme--one of the biggest hits reported to the commission in recent years. And counterfeiting is on the rise at overseas casinos, Copher noted. The RFID technology would let dealers or cashiers see when the value of the chips in front of them don't match the scanners' tally. However, financial losses due to counterfeit chips are usually minor, and few perpetrators get away with it, Copher said. Perhaps that's why the Wynn has found a dual purpose for the high-tech chips: The casino is also using the chips to help account for the chips they issue on credit to players, since managing credit risk is a huge part of any big casino's operations. The Wynn plans to take note of the serial numbers of the chips they lend and of the name of players who cash them in. If someone else returns the chips, it could signal that the original player is using their credit line with the casino to make loans to others--something casinos generally frown upon. That sort of security doesn't come cheap: The Wynn is spending about $2 million on the chips. That's about double the price of regular chips, and doesn't include addition equipment the Wynn will need to purchase, such as RFID readers, computers and networking gear. Eye in the sky The technology could also help casinos catch card players who sneak extra betting chips onto the table after hands are dealt or players who count cards. That's one reason the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas plans to switch on a new set of RFID-equipped betting chips and tables next month. The casino is installing RFID readers and PCs at game tables. With antennas placed under each player's place at the table, dealers can take a quick inventory of chips that have been wagered at the push of a button. The PCs display all the initial bets, deterring players from sneaking extra chips into their pile after hands are dealt. Yet the benefits of RFID go beyond security. It may also help casinos boost profits through savvier marketing. "Vegas has a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude... They want to make sure the product is bulletproof." --Tim Richards, vice-president of marketing, Progressive Gaming International Take the Hard Rock Hotel. In addition to monitoring wagers, the casino plans to use its new RFID system to "rate players"--monitor gamblers to reward them with free rooms, meals and other perks based on how much and how often they wager. As the technology advances, RFID could also help track how well they play. The casinos generally reserve the most enticing rewards for their most "valuable" players--those that bet and lose the most--to keep them coming back. At the moment, these incentive programs are somewhat limited, because the process of rating players is so labor-intensive. Casinos employ special staff to observe the tables and take note (by hand) of how much players bet and how well they play--typically focusing on high-stakes players. In addition, such ratings are often inaccurate. As a result, casinos overshoot the perks they lavish on players by 20 to 30 percent. RFID could change that by giving casinos a more accurate and efficient tool to rate players and by allowing them to enlist more table-game players to participate in incentive or "comp" programs. Such programs are roughly the equivalent of an airline's frequent flyer program or a grocery chain's loyalty card, encouraging repeat business. "It will allow casinos to be more aggressive from a marketing standpoint," said Tim Richards, vice-president of marketing at Progressive Gaming International, a supplier of the next-generation betting chips. Many in the gaming industry point to the lowly slot machine--which has evolved into a fancy computer--as the desirable model. With slots, casinos have made a science over the last decade of monitoring players and keeping them interested in the machines with a constant stream of rewards and freebies. In part, that development has helped slots generate the lion's share of casinos' revenue--up to 80 or 90 percent in a typical casino, according to Richards. "We're trying to bring that same kind of thinking to table games," said Bart Pestrichello, vice president of casino operations at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. "It's to reward players based on their actual bets and decisions." Keeping a closer eye on table wagers could also help casinos crack down on card counting. Armed with all kinds of data, RFID systems could analyze game activity against statistical models and alert management of a suspicious winning streak. The technology can also be used to catch dealer mistakes, check dealer productivity and deter chip theft. Still on the drawing board Despite all the promises of RFID, few casinos have yet to put it to use. Part of the problem is that the technology is expensive. The cost hovers around $8,000 per table, Progressive Gaming's Richards said. That's just for the chips and readers, and doesn't include the extra computers and networking equipment. Then there are technical problems. It takes about seven seconds for an RFID-equipped game table to read 100 chips--far too slow to capture quick table action. But Progressive Gaming and a competitor called Shuffle Master are developing systems that take closer to two or three seconds per reading--fast enough to capture the outcome of each hand. This year, the companies each plan to release new versions of their RFID systems that are faster and more affordable than today's models. "Vegas has a little bit of a wait-and-see attitude," Richards said. "They very much view themselves as the primetime casinos, and they want to make sure the product is bulletproof." Progressive Gaming's goal is to sell at least 5,000 RFID-enabled gaming tables by 2010. It's wiring up the Hard Rock--one of the first casinos in Las Vegas to adopt RFID betting chips. Shuffle Master is making big bets too. The Las Vegas company acquired key two RFID-related patents last year for $12.5 million and has teamed up with RFID equipment maker Gaming Partners International to develop new products. Gaming Partners is supplying the Wynn with its RFID system. Executives at both companies say broader adoption is coming but is about five years off. Yet another potential barrier to RFID at casinos is concern over privacy. Wherever it goes, RFID seems to generate objections from consumer activists, who worry that the technology will give corporations and governments too much power to pry into people's lives. But few people expect total privacy at casinos, where surveillance cameras might easily outnumber the cocktail waitresses roaming the floor. With casinos already keeping such a close eye on their visitors, would RFID chips really be much cause for concern? In addition, RFID systems only recognize people who use player's cards. The cards are part of complimentary programs, which are completely voluntary. Still, you can imagine some disturbing scenarios. For instance, an RFID reader might make a nifty tool for a thief, who could covertly scan people strolling along the Strip for his next hold-up victim. Could casinos be setting their patrons up for this kind of trouble? The question seemed to stump Rick Doptis at the Wynn. "I would have no idea as to that," Doptis said. "We go to great lengths to protect customer safety. Our parking lots and grounds are surveyed like no other on the planet. We do everything we can to protect our guests. But theft is a factor." -- ----------------- 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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Parents protest student computer ID tags
by R.A. Hettinga 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2005-02-10-id-tag-protest_x.…> USA Today Parents protest student computer ID tags By Lisa Leff, Associated Press SUTTER, Calif. - The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will take away their children's privacy. The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory. Similar devices have recently been used to monitor youngsters in some parts of Japan. But few American school districts have embraced such a monitoring system, and civil libertarians hope to keep it that way. "If this school doesn't stand up, then other schools might adopt it," Nicole Ozer, a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union, warned school board members at a meeting Tuesday night. "You might be a small community, but you are one of the first communities to use this technology." The system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety. Principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the existing ID's so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check out library books. But some parents see a system that can monitor their children's movements on campus as something straight out of Orwell. "There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory," said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained. "Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can't trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored, and someone is always going to be watching you?" Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU. Graham, who also serves as the superintendent of the single-school district, told the parents that their children could be disciplined for boycotting the badges - and that he doesn't understand what all their angst is about. "Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught," Graham said, recounting the angry phone calls and notes he has received from parents. Each student is required to wear identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID number to a teacher's handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna posted above a classroom door. Graham also asked to have a chip reader installed in locker room bathrooms to reduce vandalism, although that reader is not functional yet. And while he has ordered everyone on campus to wear the badges, he said only the 7th and 8th grade classrooms are being monitored thus far. In addition to the privacy concerns, parents are worried that the information on and inside the badges could wind up in the wrong hands and endanger their children, and that radio frequency technology might carry health risks. Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like a global-positioning device. The 15-digit ID number that confirms attendance is encrypted, he said, and not linked to other personal information such as an address or telephone number. What's more, he says that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment: If he thinks ID badges will improve things, he says, then badges there will be. "You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. This is not stylish," he said. This latest adaptation of radio frequency ID technology was developed by InCom Corp., a local company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan student, and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote it at a national convention of school administrators next month. InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company's co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town's high school. Brittan's technology aide also works part-time for InCom. Not everyone in this close-knit farming town northwest of Sacramento is against the system. Some said they welcomed the IDs as a security measure. "This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can happen here," said Tim Crabtree, an area parent. -- ----------------- 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: What is a cypherpunk?
by Major Variola (ret) 10 Feb '05

10 Feb '05

A cypherpunk is one who is amused at the phrase "illicit Iraqi passports". Given that the government of .iq has been replaced by a conquerer's puppet goverment, who exactly has authority to issue passports there? And why does this belief about the 1-to-1-ness of passports to meat puppets or other identities fnord persist? A CP is not an anarchist; and anarchists are ill defined by current authors, since the word merely means no head, rather than no rules, as Herr May frequently reminded. (In fact, the rules would de facto be set by the local gangster, rather than a DC based gang claiming to be the head. A better form is libertarian archy, but that is perhaps another thread.) A CP, removing arguable claims about political idealogy, is one who understands the potential effects of certain techs on societies, for good or bad. And is not, like a good sci fi writer, afraid to consider the consequences. And, ideally, a CP is one who can write code, and does so, code that might be useful for free sentients, not even necessarily free (in the beer sense) code. (Albeit 'tis hard to write useful code in the uninspectable sense of not-free, and inspectability facilitates beer-free copying ) But this is an ideal, and perhaps three meanings of "free" in one rant is too many for most readers. At 12:04 PM 2/7/05 -0500, R.A. Hettinga wrote: >While officials in Baghdad and Washington berate Iraq's neighbours for >failing to block insurgency movements across their borders, one of the most >dangerous security lapses thrives in Baghdad's heart - a trade in illicit >Iraqi passports.

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