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[i2p] weekly status notes [feb 8] (fwd from jrandom@i2p.net)
by Eugen Leitl 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

----- Forwarded message from jrandom <jrandom(a)i2p.net> -----

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Identity thieves can lurk at Wi-Fi spots
by R.A. Hettinga 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-02-06-evil-twin-usat_x.htm> USA Today Identity thieves can lurk at Wi-Fi spots By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY SAN FRANCISCO - Coffee shop Web surfers beware: An evil twin may be lurking near your favorite wireless hotspot. Thieves are using wireless devices to impersonate legitimate Internet access points to steal credit card numbers and other personal information, security experts warn. So-called evil-twin attacks don't require technical expertise. Anyone armed with a wireless laptop and software widely available on the Internet can broadcast a radio signal that overpowers the hot spot. How to avoid an 'evil twin'?? Install personal firewall and security patches. Use hot spots for Web surfing only. Enter passwords only into Web sites that include an SSL key at bottom right. Turn off or remove wireless card if you are not using a hot spot. Avoid hot spots where it's difficult to tell who's connected, such as at hotels and airport clubs. If hot spot is not working properly, assume password is compromised. Change password and report incident to hot spot provider. Do not use insecure applications such as e-mail instant messaging while at hot spots. Source: AirDefense Then, masquerading as the real thing, they view the activities of wireless users within several hundred feet of the hot spot. "It could be someone sitting next to you on a plane or in a parking lot across the street from a coffee shop," says Jon Green, director of technical marketing at Aruba Wireless Networks, which makes radio-wave-scanning equipment that detects and shuts down bogus hot spots. "Wireless networks are wide open," says Steve Lewack, director of technology services for Columbus Regional Medical Center in Columbus, Ga. The facility uses software and sensors to monitor 480 wireless devices used by medical personnel at 110 access points. Last month, it stopped about 120 attempts to steal financial information from medical personnel and patients - double the number of incidents from a few months earlier. The recent surge in evil-twin attacks parallels phishing scams - fraudulent e-mail messages designed to trick consumers into divulging personal information. Though the problem is in its infancy, it has caught the attention of some businesses heavily dependent on wireless communications. But most consumers aren't aware of the threat, security expert Green says. Wi-Fi, or wireless Internet, sends Web pages via radio waves. Hot spots are an area within range of a Wi-Fi antenna. As the technology has grown - there are now about 20,000 hot spots in the USA, up from 12,000 a year ago - so too have security concerns. Anil Khatod, CEO of AirDefense, a maker of software and sensors, estimates break-ins number in the hundreds each month in the USA. Companies employing hundreds of people with wireless laptops are especially vulnerable to evil-twin scams. When a worker's information is filched, it can expose a corporate network. "It presents a serious, hidden danger to Web users," says Phil Nobles, a wireless-security expert at Cranfield University in England who has researched the threat. "It's hard to nab the perpetrator, and the victim has no idea what happened." -- ----------------- 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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How Privacy Went Public
by R.A. Hettinga 08 Feb '05

08 Feb '05

<http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006265> OpinionJournal WSJ Online Wall Street Journal AT LAW How Privacy Went Public Penumbras and emanations make strange bedfellows. BY JAMES TARANTO Tuesday, February 8, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST Last week a state judge held that New York City's refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the constitutional right to privacy. When the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court mandated the recognition of same-sex marriage in 2003, it too cited the right to privacy. Whatever the merits of gay marriage, this is a case of judicial activism run amok, for the contemporary right to privacy has its roots precisely in the traditional definition of marriage. "Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of contraceptives?" Justice William O. Douglas asked rhetorically in the 1965 U.S. Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut. Then he answered: "The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship." But the court did not long confine those "notions of privacy" to "the marriage relationship." In less than a decade it expanded the right of marital privacy into a right of reproductive privacy. In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) the court held that unmarried couples have the same right as married ones to obtain and use contraceptives, and the following year, in Roe v. Wade, the justices declared that the right to privacy includes abortion. In 1986 the justices refused to take the next step of recognizing a right to sexual privacy. In Bowers v. Hardwick, they upheld a state law prohibiting homosexual sodomy between consenting adults. But in 1992 the Supreme Court set the stage for overturning Bowers. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey--a decision for which Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Souter claimed joint authorship--the court essentially upheld Roe, while asserting a new, breathtakingly expansive formulation of the right to privacy. "Intimate and personal choices," the justices wrote, are "central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." Justice Kennedy cited this language in his majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case that found sodomy laws were unconstitutional after all. The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet taken up the question of same-sex marriage. But as Justice Antonin Scalia argued in his Lawrence dissent, it's hard to see how one could square a ban on same-sex marriage with what he mockingly called "the famed sweet-mystery-of-life passage." If the Constitution guarantees no less than the right to "define one's own concept of . . . the universe," how can government limit the definition of marriage to a man and a woman, or for that matter limit it at all? (Justice O'Connor argued in Lawrence that "preserving the traditional institution of marriage" is in fact a "legitimate state interest," but it's telling that none of the other five justices in the majority joined her concurrence.) None of these cases rest on solid legal ground. As Justice Douglas acknowledged in Griswold, the right to privacy is to be found not in the Constitution but in its "penumbras" and "emanations." At the same time, there is a strong political consensus against the government intruding into people's bedrooms. If Griswold and Lawrence disappeared from the books tomorrow, it's unlikely any state would rush to re-enact laws against contraceptives or consensual sodomy. Abortion and same-sex marriage, by contrast, do spark strong opposition, but not on privacy grounds. Abortion opponents argue that life before birth is worthy of legal protection, while the case against same-sex marriage is that it confers public approval on gay relationships--approval the New York and Massachusetts courts have given without public consent. When judges find rights in hidden constitutional meanings, they run a twofold risk. If they limit those rights, striking balances and compromises between such competing values as privacy vs. life or privacy vs. morality, they act as politicians, only without democratic accountability. The alternative, to let those rights expand without limit, seems more principled and thus is more appealing. But it ignores democracy's most important principle of all: the right of the people to govern themselves. Mr. Taranto is editor of OpinionJournal.com. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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As Piracy Battle Nears Supreme Court, the Messages Grow Manic
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/technology/07sharing.html?th=&pagewanted=…> The New York Times February 7, 2005 As Piracy Battle Nears Supreme Court, the Messages Grow Manic By TOM ZELLER Jr. Garret the Ferret is one hip copyright crusader. The cartoon character urges young cybercitizens toward ethical downloading and - in baggy jeans and a gold "G" medallion - reminds them that copying and sharing software is uncool. He is also a byproduct of the long-roiling public relations battle between copyright owners, who say they are threatened by digital piracy, and technology advocates opposed to strict controls on the copying of digital media, and on the kinds of software that make piracy so easy. With the Supreme Court scheduled next month to hear a pivotal case pitting copyright holders (represented by MGM Studios) against the makers of file-sharing software (Grokster and StreamCast Networks), some participants are putting their message machines into high gear. But winning hearts and minds - of teenagers, consumers and lawmakers - has never been a simple matter. "It's hard for two reasons," said Rick Weingarten, the director of the Office for Information Technology Policy at the American Library Association, which has been exploring ways to strike a balance in the copyright and antipiracy messages being aimed at young people. "Copyright law is not the easiest thing to explain, and it's hard to put a bumper sticker on it," Mr. Weingarten said. "But, you're also talking about the future, and it's hard to explain to a consumer that there could one day be a lot of restrictions on what you can do with new technology." One side must make people care about obscure technological innovations that they say will be stifled by legislative action or an adverse Supreme Court ruling. The other side battles the image of greedy corporate profiteers and the perception that freely downloading copyrighted works is something other than theft. "It was easier before the computer," said Dan Glickman, the president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, which has ramped up its antipiracy efforts in recent weeks with a new round of lawsuits and a media campaign warning would-be thieves to "think again." Two weeks ago, the association also began offering a free, downloadable program that allows parents to scan computers for file-sharing software and potentially pirated media files. "People knew they couldn't steal a video tape out of Blockbuster," Mr. Glickman said, "but the principles are still the same." Not to be outdone, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights advocacy group that is representing StreamCast Networks in the Grokster case, unveiled its Endangered Gizmos campaign to coincide with the filing of dozens of MGM-friendly amicus briefs with the Supreme Court late last month. The campaign displays cheeky taxonomies of "extinct" or "endangered" techno-species like the original file-sharing service Napster, which was sued into submission, and the Streambox VCR, which allowed users to record streaming media off the Internet and suffered a similar fate. The foundation hopes to convince consumers and lawmakers that there are cultural costs to giving copyright holders too much power. "So many of the issues that we deal with are really abstruse," said Wendy Seltzer, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the principal creator of the Endangered Gizmos campaign. "And yet they touch a whole segment of the public that we want to reach out to." Whether any of these messages is getting through is an open question. Survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research group in Washington, show that among those who actively download music, 58 percent still say they do not care if the material is copyright protected. Among the general public, 57 percent say they are unfamiliar with concepts like "fair use" - the kernel of copyright law that allows people to copy protected materials under certain conditions, and which digital rights groups contend has been inappropriately constricted by the recording and film industries. The fight has given rise to grass-roots organizations like Downhill Battle, a nonprofit group based in Worcester, Mass., that conducts a robust trade in T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters and other paraphernalia that chide the music and film industries for what it considers wanton profiteering at the expense of artists and consumers. In a challenge to fair-use restrictions, the group made digitized, downloadable copies of "Eyes on the Prize, Part I: Awakenings" - the first installment of a 1987 documentary on the civil rights movement - and is encouraging mass, noncommercial screenings of it tomorrow. The film has largely been absent from television and video rental shelves while the production company, Blackside Inc., of Boston, works to renew (and pay for) permissions on the hundreds of copyrighted elements used in the film - from archival news footage to songs like "Happy Birthday." Blackside was not pleased with the copying and distribution of its film, and persuaded the group to remove it from its Web site last week. But fear and confusion over the legal issues has led at least one county in Virginia to stop a teacher from showing the school's legally acquired copy of the film to students and community members. "The school district didn't understand that they have fair-use rights," said Tiffiniy Cheng, a director of Downhill Battle, which lists more than two dozen venues that, it says, have committed to screening the film. But the nagging fear of legal action, even among right-minded users of digital materials, has made it difficult for copyright holders to foster a positive public image - even though they see lawsuits as critical to stamping out theft. "It would be ideal if our educational efforts got more attention," said Mitch Bainwol, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has waged a well-publicized legal campaign against file sharers. "But the lawsuits get more coverage because of the nature of the controversy." Those on the digital rights side of the debate recognize the content industry's image problem - and they are not above exploiting it. But they know that their own image is troubled, too. Indeed, all but the most strident digital anarchists agree that illegal file sharing is wrong. Yet those who argue for strong fair-use protections are often portrayed by opponents as supporters of theft. "They can so easily be painted as favoring piracy," said Susan Crawford, a professor of Internet law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School in New York and a member of the advisory board for Public Knowledge, a Washington group that has fought legislation that it argues would stifle new technological advances. "They have to deal with a concept that's even harder to visualize - innovation - and they have not found a sound bite or a picture that puts across a message to people." For groups like Public Knowledge, antipiracy tactics like the entertainment industry's case against Grokster and StreamCast or legislation like the Induce Act, which stalled in Congress last year and which opponents argued would have stifled technological innovation by making developers of file-sharing software subject to lawsuits, present a morass of legal and technical nuance that is hard to reduce to sound bites. That is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken to turning the gizmos they see threatened by the Grokster lawsuit into pandas and spotted owls. "That's an image," Ms. Crawford said. "They can play on people's love for gadgets," although she added that it's not quite the humanizing stroke one might hope for. "It's an uphill battle to visualize innovation," she said. The Business Software Alliance, the powerful consortium of software manufacturers, might well agree with that sentiment. The group clearly wants to stamp out the use of pirated software - a recent study by International Data Corporation estimated that 36 percent of software installed on computers worldwide was pirated. But it is also interested in fostering the development of new technologies that, in addition to having perfectly legal uses, could also be abused by pirates. "It's easy for one side to say well, let's just limit the functionality of technology, because we only care about the pain it's causing our business," said Emery Simon, the director for general policy at the alliance. "On the flip side, you can say, well, technology is the superceding and overarching good. Both are right, and both are wrong." In addressing those rights and wrongs, the alliance has mounted some of the more ambitious public campaigns of any group - including the introduction of Garret the Ferret into schools. The group has also relicensed its use of the cartoon character Dilbert, which it has used to reach out to professional engineers, via Web sites like BSAengineers.com and through bulk mailings, to warn them against using pirated software. "We hope that the engineers that got the Dilbert flier will take the message home," said Debbi Mayster, the alliance's communications manager. It did not work for everyone. Bryan Fields, a partner and chief engineer with Illiana.net, an Internet service provider to customers in Illinois and Indiana, is one recipient who did not appreciate the gesture. He said in an e-mail message that he did not like seeing Dilbert, "who stands for everything that's wrong with soul-sucking corporations, acting as a mouthpiece for the most evil of them all - the B.S.A." -- ----------------- 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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Why Felons Deserve the Right to Vote
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/opinion/7mon3.html?th=&pagewanted=print&p…> The New York Times February 7, 2005 EDITORIAL Why Felons Deserve the Right to Vote n a watershed moment for the debate over whether convicted felons should be allowed to vote, the American Correctional Association has issued a welcome statement calling on states to end the practice of withholding voting rights from parolees and people who have completed their prison terms. Noting that society expects people to become responsible members of society once they are released from prison, the organization, which represents corrections officials, also called on states to cut through the confusing thicket of disenfranchisement laws by explaining clearly to inmates how they get their rights back after completing their sentences. Some five million Americans are barred from the polls by a bewildering patchwork of state laws that strip convicted felons of the right to vote, often temporarily, but sometimes for life. These laws serve no correctional purpose - and may actually contribute to recidivism by keeping ex-offenders and their families disengaged from the civic mainstream. This notion is clearly supported by data showing that former offenders who vote are less likely to return to jail. This lesson has long since been absorbed by democracies abroad, some valuing the franchise so much that they take ballot boxes right to the prisons. Several states are now reconsidering laws barring convicted felons from voting. In Maryland, for instance, the legislature is considering a bill that would eliminate a lifetime ban that remains in place for some offenders. The Maryland bill should pass. And other states should follow suit. -- ----------------- 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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[fc-announce] Transportation, Taxes, and Conference Events
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

--- begin forwarded text User-Agent: Microsoft-Entourage/11.1.0.040913 From: "Stuart E. Schechter" <ses(a)ll.mit.edu> To: "fc-announce(a)ifca.ai" <fc-announce(a)ifca.ai> Subject: [fc-announce] Transportation, Taxes, and Conference Events Sender: fc-announce-admin(a)ifca.ai Date: Mon, 07 Feb 2005 15:12:11 -0500 IMPORTANT NOTES FOR THOSE ATTENDING FC05 Transportation ============== We would like to accommodate attendees with discounted transportation to and from the airport. Please fill out the following survey if you would like to arrange for discounted transportation or give your opinion on conference activities. We need your answers this week. http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB2244SFRHAFQ Dominica departure tax ====================== Please note that there is a departure tax of approximately EC$50/US$22 payable at the airport on you way out of Dominica. You'll be reminded of the exact figure at the conference. New York Times article ====================== Dominica was recently featured in Saturday's New York times. (Ignore the red herring of their reference to the Dominican Republic early in the article.) It's a great read to get yourself in the mood for your upcoming trip. http://nytimes.com/2005/02/06/travel/06dominica.html?pagewanted=all [Learn to] Scuba dive ===================== Please contact me at stuart.schechter(a)gmail.com if you are interested in a discover-scuba social on Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon, if you are interested in getting a full open water certification on Dominica, or if you are already certified and want to dive with other attendees. Registration ============ With three weeks to go before the conference registration has already exceeded our totals from last year by more than 10%. We're glad to see you're as excited as we are and we're looking forward to a great conference. Best regards Stuart Schechter General Chair Financial Cryptography and Data Security 2005 _______________________________________________ fc-announce mailing list fc-announce(a)ifca.ai http://mail.ifca.ai/mailman/listinfo/fc-announce --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- 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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CodeCon Reminder
by Len Sassaman 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

e'd like to remind those of you planning to attend this year's event that CodeCon is fast approaching. CodeCon is the premier event in 2005 for application developer community. It is a workshop for developers of real-world applications with working code and active development projects. Past presentations at CodeCon have included the file distribution software BitTorrent; the Peek-A-Booty anti-censorship application; the email encryption system PGP Universal; and Audacity, a powerful audio editing tool. Some of this year's highlights include Off-The-Record Messaging, a privacy-enhancing encryption protocol for instant-message systems; SciTools, a web-based toolkit for genetic design and analysis; and Incoherence, a novel stereo sound visualization tool. CodeCon registration is discounted this year: $80 for cash at the door registrations. Registration will be available every day of the conference, though ticket are limited, and attendees are encouraged to register on the first day to secure admission. CodeCon will be held February 11-13, noon-6pm, at Club NV (525 Howard Street) in San Francisco. For more information, please visit http://www.codecon.org.

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[IP] Hacking Fingerprint Readers (fwd from dave@farber.net)
by Eugen Leitl 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

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

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Riggs Sale to PNC Is Called Off
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

<http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB110779147630847722,00.html> The Wall Street Journal February 7, 2005 12:19 p.m. EST MARKETS Riggs Sale to PNC Is Called Off By MITCHELL PACELLE and NIKHIL DEOGUN Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL February 7, 2005 12:19 p.m. WASHINGTON -- The sale of beleaguered Riggs National Corp. to PNC Financial Services Group has been called off. The board of Riggs unanimously rejected PNC's demands to alter the terms of the agreement, the company said in a news release. In addition, Riggs is suing PNC in Superior Court for the District of Columbia saying it has been damaged by PNC's decisions not to proceed with the merger after Riggs had devoted the past six months to preparing for the merger and taking various actions at PNC's behest. Riggs's banking subsidiary has been embroiled in a massive money-laundering scandal for the past several months and recently pleaded guilty to a criminal count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act. Investors had hoped that the guilty plea, part of a settlement of a Justice Department investigation that also included a $16 million fine, would clear the way for PNC to complete its acquisition of Riggs, a venerable financial institution in the nation's capital. PNC struck its deal to buy Riggs last July -- in a transaction valued at the time at $779 million in cash and stock -- just as the Riggs scandal was starting to reverberate. However, in recent weeks PNC has balked at going ahead with the deal at the agreed-to price, saying the business has undergone "material" deterioration. In what appears to be a pre-emptive strike, Riggs is making the first legal move, saying PNC isn't living up to the terms of the agreement. PNC had been proposing a revised tentative agreement that would offer Riggs shareholders $19.32 a share and a contingent security of 83 cents a share, according to the news release. But this proposal, in addition to being well below the earlier offer, would possibly have been subject to further revision and was contingent on other factors as well. PNC officials couldn't be reached for immediate comment. Like most merger agreements, PNC's deal with Riggs includes a "material adverse change clause" that entitles it to walk away should there be a dramatic change in the business. However, recent legal history has shown that it is difficult for a buyer to back out of a deal by invoking a "MAC" clause. In 2001, a Delaware Chancery Court ruled that Tyson Foods Inc. couldn't terminate its planned acquisition of IBP Inc. because of a decline in IBP's earnings and accounting irregularities at an IBP unit. To avoid a costly legal battle, companies end up renegotiating transactions if there is a significant deterioration in a seller's business. After settling the Justice Department's criminal investigation on Jan. 27, Riggs, which is controlled by the Allbritton family, said that it expected to make an announcement about the "status" of the agreement on or about Feb. 4. That date passed without any statement. Now Riggs is likely to try to drum up interest from other bidders. Riggs had been prohibited from entering into discussions with other parties under terms of the agreement with PNC. It is now, however, sending a letter to the board saying it now believes it can enter into merger discussions with other banks. Separately, Riggs said it expects to report a loss for the fourth quarter and for 2004 and plans to shut its London branch as it focuses on domestic banking. -- ----------------- 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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Quantum crypto firm charts way to mainstream
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Feb '05

07 Feb '05

<http://news.zdnet.com/2102-1009_22-5564288.html?tag=printthis> Quantum crypto firm charts way to mainstream By Michael Kanellos URL: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5564288.html Magiq Technologies is creating a new line of products this year that it says could help make quantum encryption--theoretically impossible to crack--more palatable to mainstream customers. The New York-based company said it has signed a deal with Cavium Networks, under which Cavium's network security chips will be included inside Magiq's servers and networking boards. Magiq and Cavium will also create reference designs for networking boards and cards, with all of the necessary silicon to create a quantum encryption system. These will be marketed to networking gear makers, which, Magiq hopes, will include the boards inside future boxes. "We have operability tests going on with major vendors," said Andy Hammond, vice president of marketing at Magiq. "Our goal in life is to increase the adoption rate of this technology." By the fall, Magiq expects to be able to provide functioning beta, or test, products that include its quantum encryption boards. Volume sales to manufacturers are scheduled to begin in 2006. Quantum encryption involves sending data by way of photons, the smallest unit of light. The photons are polarized, or oriented, in different directions. Eavesdroppers cause detectable changes in the orientation, which in turn prevents them from getting secret information, as dictated by Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which says you can't observe something without changing it. For added measure, the data is encrypted before sending. "There is no cracking it. This is like the apple falling down," said Audrius Berzanskis, Magiq's vice president of security engineering, meaning that it was like one of Sir Isaac Newton's natural laws. This doesn't mean quantum encryption systems are unconditionally foolproof, he added. Hypothetically, radio transmitters or some other technology could intercept signals before they are sent. Still, these are computer architecture issues: Unlike traditional encryption systems, applying brute-force calculations to a message encrypted using quantum methods will not eventually yield its contents to an unauthorized party. However, quantum encryption systems are pricey. The two-box system Magiq sells goes for $70,000. Academic institutions and government agencies have been the primary customers, the company said. Whether demand will go mainstream is still a matter of debate. Nearly foolproof encryption has its obvious attractions. Various security experts have stated, however, that the strength of today's cryptography is the least of the security world's worries. "Security is a chain; it's only as strong as the weakest link. Currently encryption is the strongest link we have. Everything else is worse: software, networks, people. There's absolutely no value in taking the strongest link and making it even stronger," Bruce Schneier, chief technology officer at Counterpane Internet Security, wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com on quantum cryptography in general. "It's like putting a huge stake in the ground and hoping the enemy runs right into it," he noted. Speed also has been a problem for quantum encryption. The deal with Cavium will ideally boost the performance of the Magiq products and lower the costs by standardizing some of the engineering. Cavium's chips, for instance, will assume encryption tasks now performed in software. Reference designs also allow potential customers to skirt some independent design tasks. -- ----------------- 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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