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Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27826-2004Dec26?language=printer> The Washington Post washingtonpost.com Jet Is an Open Secret in Terror War By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, December 27, 2004; Page A01 The airplane is a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort favored by CEOs and celebrities. But since 2001 it has been seen at military airports from Pakistan to Indonesia to Jordan, sometimes being boarded by hooded and handcuffed passengers. The plane's owner of record, Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., lists directors and officers who appear to exist only on paper. And each one of those directors and officers has a recently issued Social Security number and an address consisting only of a post office box, according to an extensive search of state, federal and commercial records. Bryan P. Dyess, Steven E. Kent, Timothy R. Sperling and Audrey M. Tailor are names without residential, work, telephone or corporate histories -- just the kind of "sterile identities," said current and former intelligence officials, that the CIA uses to conceal involvement in clandestine operations. In this case, the agency is flying captured terrorist suspects from one country to another for detention and interrogation. The CIA calls this activity "rendition." Premier Executive's Gulfstream helps make it possible. According to civilian aircraft landing permits, the jet has permission to use U.S. military airfields worldwide. Since Sept. 11, 2001, secret renditions have become a principal weapon in the CIA's arsenal against suspected al Qaeda terrorists, according to congressional testimony by CIA officials. But as the practice has grown, the agency has had significantly more difficulty keeping it secret. According to airport officials, public documents and hobbyist plane spotters, the Gulfstream V, with tail number N379P, has been used to whisk detainees into or out of Jakarta, Indonesia; Pakistan; Egypt; and Sweden, usually at night, and has landed at well-known U.S. government refueling stops. As the outlines of the rendition system have been revealed, criticism of the practice has grown. Human rights groups are working on legal challenges to renditions, said Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, because one of their purposes is to transfer captives to countries that use harsh interrogation methods outlawed in the United States. That, he said, is prohibited by the U.N. Convention on Torture. The CIA has the authority to carry out renditions under a presidential directive dating to the Clinton administration, which the Bush administration has reviewed and renewed. The CIA declined to comment for this article. "Our policymakers would never confront the issue," said Michael Scheuer, a former CIA counterterrorism officer who has been involved with renditions and supports the practice. "We would say, 'Where do you want us to take these people?' The mind-set of the bureaucracy was, 'Let someone else do the dirty work.' " The story of the Gulfstream V offers a rare glimpse into the CIA's secret operations, a world that current and former CIA officers said should not have been so easy to document. Not only have the plane's movements been tracked around the world, but the on-paper officers of Premier Executive Transport Services are also connected to a larger roster of false identities. Each of the officers of Premier Executive is linked in public records to one of five post office box numbers in Arlington, Oakton, Chevy Chase and the District. A total of 325 names are registered to the five post office boxes. An extensive database search of a sample of 44 of those names turned up none of the information that usually emerges in such a search: no previous addresses, no past or current telephone numbers, no business or corporate records. In addition, although most names were attached to dates of birth in the 1940s, '50s or '60s, all were given Social Security numbers between 1998 and 2003. The Washington Post showed its research to the CIA, including a chart connecting Premier Executive's officers, the post office boxes, the 325 names, the recent Social Security numbers and an entity called Executive Support OFC. A CIA spokesman declined to comment. According to former CIA operatives experienced in using "proprietary," or front, companies, the CIA likely used, or intended to use, some of the 325 names to hide other activities, the nature of which could not be learned. The former operatives also noted that the agency devotes more effort to producing cover identities for its operatives in the field, which are supposed to stand up under scrutiny, than to hiding its ownership of a plane. The CIA's plane secret began to unravel less than six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. On Oct. 26, 2001, Masood Anwar, a Pakistani journalist with the News in Islamabad, broke a story asserting that Pakistani intelligence officers had handed over to U.S. authorities a Yemeni microbiologist, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, who was wanted in connection with the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole. The report noted that an aircraft bearing tail number N379P, and parked in a remote area of a little-used terminal at the Karachi airport, had whisked Mohammed away about 2:40 a.m. Oct. 23. The tail number was also obtained by The Post's correspondent in Pakistan but not published. The News article ricocheted among spy-hunters and Web bloggers as a curiosity for those interested in divining the mechanics of the new U.S.-declared war on terrorism. At 7:54:04 p.m. Oct. 26, the News article was posted on FreeRepublic.com, which bills itself as "a conservative news forum." Thirteen minutes later, a chat-room participant posted the plane's registered owners: Premier Executive Transport Services Inc., of 339 Washington St., Dedham, Mass. "Sounds like a nice generic name," one blogger wrote in response. "Kind of like Air America" -- a reference to the CIA's secret civilian airlines that flew supplies, food and personnel into Southeast Asia, including Laos, during the Vietnam War. Eight weeks later, on Dec. 18, 2001, American-accented men wearing hoods and working with special Swedish security police brought two Egyptian nationals onto a Gulfstream V that was parked at night at Stockholm's Bromma Airport, according to Swedish officials and airport personnel interviewed by Swedish television's "Cold Facts" program. The account was confirmed independently by The Post. The plane's tail number: N379P. Wearing red overalls and bound with handcuffs and leg irons, the men, who had applied for political asylum in Sweden, were flown to Cairo, according to Swedish officials and documents. Ahmed Agiza was convicted by Egypt's Supreme Military Court of terrorism-related charges; Muhammad Zery was set free. Both say they were tortured while in Egyptian custody. Sweden has opened an investigation into the decision to allow them to be rendered. A month later, in January 2002, a U.S.-registered Gulfstream V landed at Jakarta's military airport. According to Indonesian officials, the plane carried away Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian traveling on a Pakistani passport and suspected of being an al Qaeda operative who had worked with shoe bomber suspect Richard C. Reid. Without a hearing, he was flown to Egypt. His status and whereabouts are unknown. The plane's tail number was not noted, but the CIA is believed to have only one of the expensive jets. Over the past year, the Gulfstream V's flights have been tracked by plane spotters standing at the end of runways with high-powered binoculars and cameras to record the flights of military and private aircraft. These hobbyists list their findings on specialized Web pages. According to them, since October 2001 the plane has landed in Islamabad; Karachi; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Dubai; Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Baghdad; Kuwait City; Baku, Azerbaijan; and Rabat, Morocco. It has stopped frequently at Dulles International Airport, at Jordan's military airport in Amman and at airports in Frankfurt, Germany; Glasglow, Scotland, and Larnaca, Cyprus. Premier Executive Transport Services was incorporated in Delaware by the Prentice-Hall Corporation System Inc. on Jan. 10, 1994. On Jan. 23, 1996, Dean Plakias, a lawyer with Hill & Plakias in Dedham, filed incorporation papers with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts listing the company's president as Bryan P. Dyess. According to public documents, Premier Executive ordered a new Gulfstream V in 1998. It was delivered in November 1999 with tail number N581GA, and reregistered for unknown reasons on March 2000 with a new tail number, N379P. It began flights in June 2000, and changed the tail number again in December 2003. Plakias did not return several telephone messages seeking comment. He told the Boston Globe recently that he simply filed the required paperwork. "I'm not at liberty to discuss the affairs of the client business, mainly for reasons I don't know," he told the Globe. Asked whether the company exists, Plakias responded: "Millions of companies are set up in Massachusetts that are just paper companies." A lawyer in Washington, whose name is listed on a 1996 IRS form on record at the Secretary of the Commonwealth's office in Massachusetts -- and whose name is whited out on some copies of the forms -- hung up the phone last week when asked about the company. Three weeks ago, on Dec. 1, the plane, complete with a new tail number, was transferred to a new owner, Bayard Foreign Marketing of Portland, Ore., according to FAA records. Its registered agent in Portland, Scott Caplan, did not return phone calls. Like the officers at Premier Executive, Bayard's sole listed corporate officer, Leonard T. Bayard, has no residential or telephone history. Unlike Premier's officers, Bayard's name does not appear in any other public records. Researchers Margot Williams and Julie Tate contributed to this report. Williams has since left The Washington Post. -- ----------------- 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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"State of Fear" by Michael Crichton
by Anonymous 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

Just finished reading it (It was a Christmas present). The story involves the heroes foiling a plot by eco-terrorists who attempt to create "natural" disasters in an effort to push their agenda regarding global warming. Along the way the Crichton presents a pretty convincing argument that scientists don't really have a good enough understanding of our climate to really estimate the impacts of mankind and that many of the events claimed to be evidence of global warming are statistically insignificant and contain a huge amounts of bias. In addition, he provides references to many examples where mankind has failed miserably at trying to "manage and preserve" the environment. He also makes a feast (literally, read the book :-) ) of Hollywood stars who push environmental causes and claim to pine for the more "simplistic and environmentally friendly" life of native islanders all the while living in their huge mansions, driving their SUV's and traveling around the world in private jets. The title "State of Fear" comes the concept well known to many on the list that best way to control society is via fear. In this case fear of global warming. There are a lot of footnotes and an extensive bibliography of the current research both supporting and debunking global warming. It will interesting to see if this book makes it into a movie (It almost seems like a rebuttal of the movie "The Day After Tomorrow"). Crichton's other books include, "The Andromeda Strain" (I'm sure most of us old-timers on the list will recognize that one), "Disclosure", "Airframe", and (the one most new subscribers will recognize), "Jurassic Park". I recommend taking a look.

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LAPD: We Know That Mug
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

<http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,66142,00.html> Wired News LAPD: We Know That Mug Associated Press Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,66142,00.html 08:33 AM Dec. 26, 2004 PT LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Police Department is experimenting with facial-recognition software it says will help identify suspects, but civil liberties advocates say the technology raises privacy concerns and may not identity people accurately. "It's like a mobile electronic mug book," said Capt. Charles Beck of the gang-heavy Rampart Division, which has been using the software. "It's not a silver bullet, but we wouldn't use it unless it helped us make arrests." But Ramona Ripston, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the technology was unproven and could encourage profiling on the basis of race or clothing. "This is creeping Big Brotherism," Ripston said. "There is a long history of government misusing information it gathers." The department is seeking about $500,000 from the federal government to expand the use of the technology, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday. Police have been testing it on Alvarado Street just west of downtown Los Angeles. In one recent incident, two officers suspected two men illegally riding double on a bicycle of being gang members. If they were, they may have been violating an injunction that barred those named in a court documents from gathering in public and other activities. As the officers questioned the men, Rampart Division Senior Lead Officer Mike Wang pointed a hand-held computer with an attached camera at one of the men. Facial-recognition software compared his image to those of recent fugitives, as well as to dozens of members of local gangs. Within seconds, the screen displayed nine faces that had contours similar to the man's. The computer said the image of one particular gang member subject to the injunction was 94 percent likely to be a match. That enough to trigger a search that yielded a small amount of methamphetamine. The man did turn out to be the gang member, and was arrested on suspicion of violating the injunction by possessing illegal drugs. The city attorney's office has not yet decided whether to charge the man. The LAPD has been using two computers donated by their developer, Santa Monica company Neven Vision, which wanted field-testing of its technology. The computers are still considered experimental. The Rampart Division has used the devices about 25 times in the two months officers have been testing them. The technology has resulted in 16 arrests for alleged criminal contempt of a permanent gang injunction, and three arrests on outstanding felony warrants. On one occasion, the computer was used to clear a man the officers suspected of being someone else, police said. So far, the city attorney has filed seven injunction cases in arrests that involved the technology. A judge dismissed a case after questioning the technology, but it has been refiled. Suspects in two cases pleaded guilty. Other experiments with facial-recognition software have had mixed results. Officials in Tampa, Fla., stopped using it last year because it didn't result in arrests. And a Boston's Logan International Airport in 2002, two systems failed 96 times to identify people who volunteered to help test it. The technology correctly identified 153 other volunteers. Luis Li, chief of the Los Angeles city attorney's criminal branch, said the technology should not present legal problems because it was used only as an initial means of identification. "If you are standing in the street, you have no expectation of privacy," he 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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[fc-announce] FC05 Preliminary Program Now Online
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

--- 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> Subject: [fc-announce] FC05 Preliminary Program Now Online Sender: fc-announce-admin(a)ifca.ai Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:37:27 -0500 The program and preliminary schedule can be found at: http://www.ifca.ai/fc05/program.html An official call for participation will be sent out as soon as registration is open. (We expect this to be early next week.) If you've yet to make travel arrangements, I would encourage you to stay in Dominica on Thursday night (3/3) or longer to avoid a rush to the airport after the morning program. In the past, attendees who have stayed after the conference have found that this is an excellent time to meet with others. Keynote Speakers ================ Lynne Coventry (NCR) Bezalel Gavish (Southern Methodist University) Panel Sessions ============== Financial Technology in the Developing World Allan Friedman (Harvard) - Organizer Alessandro Acquisti (CMU) H William Burdett, Jr. (Foley & Lardner, LLP) Jon Peha (CMU) Phishing Steve Myers (Indiana University) - Organizer Drew Dean (SRI) Stuart Stubblebine (Stubblebine Research Labs) Richard Clayton (Cambridge, UK) Markus Jakobsson (Indiana University CACR) Research Papers =============== Fraud within Asymmetric Multi-Hop Cellular Networks Gildas Avoine (EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland) Information-Theoretic Security Analysis of Physical Uncloneable Functions P. Tuyls B. Skoric S. Stallinga A.H. Akkermans W. Ophey (Philips Research Laboratories, The Netherlands) Views, Reactions and Impact of Digitally-Signed Mail in e-Commerce. Simson L. Garfinkel Jeffrey I. Schiller Erik Nordlander (MIT) David Margrave (Amazon.com) Robert C. Miller (MIT) Identity-based Partial Message Recovery Signatures (or How to Shorten ID-based Signatures) Fangguo Zhang (Sun Yat Sen University, P.R.China) Yi Mu Willy Susilo (University of Wollongong, Australia) How to Non-Interactively Update a Secret Eujin Goh (Stanford University) Philippe Golle (Palo Alto Research Center) Interactive Diffie-Hellman Assumptions with Applications to Password-Based Authentication Michel Abdalla David Pointcheval (Ecole Normale Superieure) Achieving Fairness in Private Contract Negotiation Keith Frikken Mikhail Atallah (Purdue University) Protecting Secret Data from Insider Attacks David Dagon Wenke Lee Richard Lipton (Georgia Tech) RFID Traceability A Multilayer Problem Gildas Avoine Philippe Oechslin (EPFL Lausanne Switzerland) A User-Friendly Approach to Human Authentication of Messages Jeff King Andre dos Santos (Georgia Tech) Countering Identity Theft through Digital Uniqueness, Location Cross-Checking, and Funneling P.C. van Oorschot (Carleton University) S. Stubblebine (Stubblebine Research Labs) Policy-Based Cryptography and Applications Walid Bagga Refik Molva (Eurecom) A Privacy Protecting Coupon System Liqun Chen (HP Laboratories) Matthias Enzmann (Fraunhofer SIT) Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi (University of Bochum) Markus Schneider (Fraunhofer SIT) Michael Steiner (IBM T.J. Watson) Analysis of a Multi-Party Fair Exchange Protocol and Formal Proof of Correctness in the Strand Space model Steve Kremer Aybek Mukhamedov Eike Ritter (University of Birmingham, UK) Secure Biometric Authentication for Weak Computational Devices Mikhail J. Atallah Keith B. Frikken (Purdue) Michael T. Goodrich (UC Irvine) Roberto Tamassia (Brown) Small Coalitions Cannot Manipulate Voting Edith Elkind (Princeton University) Helger Lipmaa (Helsinki University of Technology) Efficient Privacy-Preserving Protocols for Multi-Unit Auctions Felix Brandt (Stanford) Tuomas Sandholm (Carnegie Mellon University) Risk Assurance for Hedge Funds using Zero Knowledge Proofs Michael Szydlo (RSA Security/Independent) Testing Disjointness of Private Datasets Aggelos Kiayias (University of Connecticut) Antonina Mitrofanova (Rutgers University) Time Capsule Signature Yevgeniy Dodis (NYU) Dae Hyun Yum (POSTECH) Probabilistic Escrow of Financial Transactions with Cumulative Threshold Disclosure Stanislaw Jarecki (UC Irvine) Vitaly Shmatikov (UT Austin) Approximation in Message Authentication Giovanni Di Crescenzo Richard Graveman (Telcordia) Gonzalo Arce Renwei Ge (U Delaware) Systems & Applications Presentations ==================================== Securing Sensitive Data with the Ingrian DataSecure Platform Andrew Koyfman (Ingrian Networks) Ciphire Mail Email Encryption Lars Eilebrecht (Ciphire Labs) _______________________________________________ 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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Natural selection acts on the quantum world
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

<http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041220/pf/041220-12_pf.html> Close window?? Published online: 23 December 2004 Natural selection acts on the quantum world Philip Ball Objective reality may owe its existence to a 'darwinian' process that advertises certain quantum states. If observing the world tends to change it, how come we all see the same butterfly? A team of US physicists has proved a theorem that explains how our objective, common reality emerges from the subtle and sensitive quantum world. If, as quantum mechanics says, observing the world tends to change it, how is it that we can agree on anything at all? Why doesn't each person leave a slightly different version of the world for the next person to find? Because, say the researchers, certain special states of a system are promoted above others by a quantum form of natural selection, which they call quantum darwinism. Information about these states proliferates and gets imprinted on the environment. So observers coming along and looking at the environment in order to get a picture of the world tend to see the same 'preferred' states. If it wasn't for quantum darwinism, the researchers suggest in Physical Review Letters1, the world would be very unpredictable: different people might see very different versions of it. Life itself would then be hard to conduct, because we would not be able to obtain reliable information about our surroundings... it would typically conflict with what others were experiencing. Taking stock The difficulty arises because directly finding out something about a quantum system by making a measurement inevitably disturbs it. "After a measurement," say Wojciech Zurek and his colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, "the state will be what the observer finds out it is, but not, in general, what it was before." They survive monitoring by the environment to leave 'descendants' that inherit their properties. ? Wojciech Zure Physicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory in New MexicoBecause, as Zurek says, "the Universe is quantum to the core," this property seems to undermine the notion of an objective reality. In this type of situation, every tourist who gazed at Buckingham Palace would change the arrangement of the building's windows, say, merely by the act of looking, so that subsequent tourists would see something slightly different. Yet that clearly isn't what happens. This sensitivity to observation at the quantum level (which Albert Einstein famously compared to God constructing the quantum world by throwing dice to decide its state) seems to go away at the everyday, macroscopic level. "God plays dice on a quantum level quite willingly," says Zurek, "but, somehow, when the bets become macroscopic he is more reluctant to gamble." How does that happen? Quantum mush The Los Alamos team define a property of a system as 'objective', if that property is simultaneously evident to many observers who can find out about it without knowing exactly what they are looking for and without agreeing in advance how they'll look for it. Physicists agree that the macroscopic or classical world (which seems to have a single, 'objective' state) emerges from the quantum world of many possible states through a phenomenon called decoherence, according to which interactions between the quantum states of the system of interest and its environment serve to 'collapse' those states into a single outcome. But this process of decoherence still isn't fully understood. "Decoherence selects out of the quantum 'mush' states that are stable, that can withstand the scrutiny of the environment without getting perturbed," says Zurek. These special states are called 'pointer states', and although they are still quantum states, they turn out to look like classical ones. For example, objects in pointer states seem to occupy a well-defined position, rather than being smeared out in space. The traditional approach to decoherence, says Zurek, was based on the idea that the perturbation of a quantum system by the environment eliminates all but the stable pointer states, which an observer can then probe directly. But he and his colleagues point out that we typically find out about a system indirectly, that is, we look at the system's effect on some small part of its environment. For example, when we look at a tree, in effect we measure the effect of the leaves and branches on the visible sunlight that is bouncing off them. But it was not obvious that this kind of indirect measurement would reveal the robust, decoherence-resistant pointer states. If it does not, the robustness of these states won't help you to construct an objective reality. Now, Zurek and colleagues have proved a mathematical theorem that shows the pointer states do actually coincide with the states probed by indirect measurements of a system's environment. "The environment is modified so that it contains an imprint of the pointer state," he says. All together now Yet this process alone, which the researchers call 'environment-induced superselection' or einselection2, isn't enough to guarantee an objective reality. It is not sufficient for a pointer state merely to make its imprint on the environment: there must be many such imprints, so that many different observers can see the same thing. Happily, this tends to happen automatically, because each individual's observation is based on only a tiny part of the environmental imprint. For example, we're never in danger of 'using up' all the photons bouncing off a tree, no matter how many people we assemble to look at it. This multiplicity of imprints of the pointer states happens precisely because those states are robust: making one imprint does not preclude making another. This is a Darwin-like selection process. "One might say that pointer states are most 'fit'," says Zurek. "They survive monitoring by the environment to leave 'descendants' that inherit their properties." "Our work shows that the environment is not just finding out the state of the system and keeping it to itself", he adds. "Rather, it is advertising it throughout the environment, so that many observers can find it out simultaneously and independently." -- ----------------- 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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Scientists close to network that defies hackers
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

<http://news.ft.com/cms/s/a0dcf3f0-5874-11d9-9940-00000e2511c8.html> The Financial Times Scientists close to network that defies hackers By Clive Cookson, Science Editor Published: December 28 2004 02:00 | Last updated: December 28 2004 02:00 Scientists have taken what they say is a big step towards an intrinsically secure computer network which banks and other institutions could use to transmit data without risk of hacking. Toshiba Research Europe is one of several laboratories around the world racing to commercialise quantum cryptography, a technology that uses quantum mechanics to generate unbreakable codes. The Cambridge-based company says it has produced the first system robust enough to run uninterruptedly for long periods without human intervention. The Toshiba researchers have tested the system with MCI, the international telecommunications company, and plan next year to carry out trials with financial institutions in London. Secure digital communication uses long prime numbers as keys to encode data at one end and decode at the other. Inquantum cryptography, individual photons - light particles - transmit the secret keys down optical fibres. Each photon carries a digital bit of information, depending on its polarisation. To outwit hackers, the keys are changed many times a second. The extreme delicacy of these quantum bits is both the strength and weakness of quantum cryptography. On the positive side, a hacker cannot eavesdrop on the data transmission without changing it and alerting sender and receiver to the breach of security. But the system is easily disturbed by tiny fluctuations such as temperature changes in the transmission apparatus or movements in the optical fibres. Previous quantum cryptography transmissions have lasted only for minutes and required continual adjustment by experts, says Andrew Shields, head of Toshiba's quantum information group. His laboratory managed to extend the running time to a week's "entirely automated and uninterrupted session". The Cambridge researchers stabilised the system and reduced the error rate by sending a bright "guardian pulse" of light down the fibres immediately after each information-carrying photon. Mr Shields said: "The technology is now sufficiently mature to be used in real-world situations and we are currently discussing applications with interested parties. In the first instance we expect quantum cryptography to be used in companies' private networks - for example, to provide secure traffic in a link between two sites within a metropolitan area." Besides Japanese-owned Toshiba, large electronics companies competing to commercialise quantum cryptography include NEC of Japan and Hewlett-Packard of the US. There are also two start-ups, Magiq Technologies of the US and ID Quantique of Switzerland, with first generation quantum cryptography products on the market, although sales have not been large. -- ----------------- 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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Make Your Computer Programs, Data Invisible to Everyone Except Yourself with MyInvisibleDisk - Infobahn Sdn. Bhd.
by R.A. Hettinga 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

<http://www.prleap.com/pr_3046.html> Home | About Us | Contact PR Leap | FAQ | RSS Feeds | Resources | Sign Up | Login / Submit Press Release Recent News | News Releases by Category See More Related Computers News News Released: December 27, 2004 Make Your Computer Programs, Data Invisible to Everyone Except Yourself with MyInvisibleDisk (PRLEAP.COM) MyInvisibleDisk uses an existing free space on your computer drives and create a vault-like container to store all your secret programs and data. It functions similarly to your C-drive on your computer. The real-time encryption technology used is based on the Advanced Encryption Standard with 256-bit keys, which was approved by the National Security Agency (U.S.A.) to protect U.S. government top-level secrets in June 2003. This is considerably stronger than the 112-bit Triple-Data Encryption Standard technology used by local banks and governmental agencies. One of MyInvisibleDisk's unique features is being immune against all hardware and software keystroke recorders which are the scourge of all password-based security systems. By adopting a keyboard-free approach, users can expect unrivaled security with a powerful, elegantly simple click-and-use interface. MyInvisibleDisk also uses proprietary techniques to remove, safely and silently, all possible traces of encryption usage on the user's computer including the computer's page-file without any changes to the computer registry. It also has the unique ability to morph into a harmless-looking application tool in the absence of a genuine key or faced with a tampered key. According to Bruce Schneier, a world-renown author, cryptography and computer security expert, "In the real world, key management is the hardest part of cryptography. Designing secure cryptographic algorithms and protocols isn't easy, but you can rely on a large body of academic research. Keeping the keys secret is much harder". MyInvisibleDisk is unique, being probably the only publicly available product to emphasize on its numerous key-management functionalities. MyInvisibleDisk is currently available in two versions, Professional and Enterprise for computers using Windows XP. The Professional version is suitable for single-computer users; the Enterprise version can protect up to a maximum of eight computers with a single USB device. Companies can purchase different combinations of these two products. MyInvisibleDisk prices starts at the special introductory offer of RM680 (US$179) per computer. Reseller and OEM enquiries are welcomed. About Infobahn Sdn. Bhd. We are an independent, specialty IT software developer with highly-experienced staff. Our key strengths are in designing customized systems involving cryptography and artificial intelligence for financial markets. Contact Information S. K. Wong Infobahn Sdn. Bhd. Email Infobahn Sdn. Bhd. 60 3 58824581 PR Leap disclaims any content found in news releases. Issuers of news releases are solely responsible for the accuracy of their content. ) 2003 Condesa, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Use of our service is governed by our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. -- ----------------- 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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In war on terrorism, U.S. drafts shops to be on guard
by Vinnie Moscaritolo 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

In war on terrorism, U.S. drafts shops to be on guard By Steve Johnson Knight Ridder Newspapers SAN JOSE, Calif. - It may surprise some people to learn that one of the linchpins in this nation's war on terrorism is the Bin & Barrel Mini Mart in Fremont, Calif. Manager Sonia Cheema certainly was when her dad bought the store in October. Under federal rules still being fine-tuned, she discovered, the Bin & Barrel - like thousands of other businesses - must have a written plan for foiling money-laundering terrorists. It also must have a "compliance officer" to ensure the plan is heeded, train its employees to spot shady transactions and regularly audit its own performance. That's not all. While not widely known, the Bin & Barrel and every other U.S. business must steer clear of people on the government's 192-page list of "specially designated nationals," which has more than 5,000 names and is updated frequently. Otherwise, business people could face huge fines and a long stay in prison. "Oh gosh! Imagine one person coming to cash a check and going through a list," said the 25-year-old Cheema, who has temporarily stopped cashing checks and processing money orders, at least until she understands the federal rules better. "It's going to be a lot of work. ... I don't think it's worth it." Previously, banks were pretty much the only businesses that had to worry about money launderers. But that changed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. On Sept. 24, 2001, President Bush signed an executive order barring business dealings with anyone on the specially designated list, which includes the names and aliases of suspected terrorists, drug kingpins and their associates. Those failing to comply can be fined $10 million and jailed up to 10 years. That was followed a month later by enactment of the USA Patriot Act, which forces "financial institutions"- broadly defined to include everything from liquor stores to pawn shops - to have detailed programs for combating money launderers. Under its enforcement provisions, business operators face potential $500,000 fines and 10-year prison terms. The Patriot Act already is in effect for casinos, mutual funds, credit-card firms, banks and "money service businesses" like the Bin & Barrel, which offer such things as check cashing and money transfers. Still others - jewelers, vehicle dealers, travel agents, loan companies, investment firms and people involved in real estate closings - are waiting for the government to issue their regulations under the act. As word about the law spreads, many business people don't like what they are hearing. "A lot of our members are just starting to wake up to all of the things they are required to do," said Karen Penafiel, assistant vice president for advocacy for the Building Owners & Managers Association International. When the group's executive committee held a briefing on the act in November, she said, "there was a sense that, 'you've got to be kidding."' Expecting businesses - especially tiny ones - to keep track of terrorists strikes some people as silly. "It's just lame," said Pat Kennedy, who owns Alpine Recreation, a Morgan Hill, Calif., RV dealership. "I'm trying to imagine any local terrorist picking up his motor home and doing a little camping." Palo Alto, Calif., attorney Jonathan Axelrad has similar concerns about the law's potential application to venture capital funds. Forcing the funds' managers to monitor money laundering "would simply be an expensive, unnecessary burden," he said, because the risks and withdrawal limits of such investments would likely be unattractive to terrorists. But terrorists are capable of using a wide range of businesses and purchases - including recreational vehicles - to hide their assets, according to federal officials, who insist the new rules already are paying off. They note that from Feb. 18, 2003, through Nov. 9, 2004, they received tips from various financial institutions about suspicious activity in 129 terrorism-related cases. That resulted in 648 grand jury subpoenas, nine arrests and two indictments. Even so, compliance with the act has been spotty so far. William Fox, director of the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, told Congress in September that only 21,058 of the estimated 200,000 money service businesses nationwide had registered with his agency, as required under the Patriot Act. Although firms that handle small transactions are exempt under the law, he testified, "we believe there are a significant number of money services business required to register that have failed to do so." The reason for that isn't clear. But even among companies that have heard of the law, many remain perplexed about its provisions. "There is mass confusion out in the business world on this," said Christopher Myers, an attorney who recently did an analysis of the laws' implications for real-estate companies. Some critics blame the law's vague wording. Consider its decree that anyone involved in real estate closings have procedures for deterring money laundering. In addition to buyers and sellers, industry experts say, that wording could apply to mortgage lenders, appraisers, surveyors, title insurers, escrow agents, environmental consultants and city building inspectors. Similar uncertainty surrounds Bush's order forbidding all 5.6 million of the nation's businesses from having dealings with anyone on the specially designated nationals list, which can be viewed at www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Because the list of 5,000-plus names is regularly updated, many companies are using sophisticated software to check it against their customers' names. But the cost of software can range from $1,000 to well over $100,000. And it's not foolproof. "Inevitably, there will be many 'false positives' with the use of this software," according to a notice published by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the list. So to clarify if a customer is really on the list, the notice advises, business operators may have to go to the additional trouble of contacting their software supplier or the Treasury Department. In addition, depending on the type and size of the transactions involved, many businesses must fill out detailed "suspicious activity reports" and file them with the federal government within 30 days of discovering a customer is on the list. The Office of Foreign Assets Control has made public the names of some large businesses that have gotten fines or other penalties for failing to ensure their customers weren't on the list. But Molly Millerwise refused to disclose the names of any small businesses punished for such violations. "That's not available," she told the Mercury News. "It's nothing we have made public." Nonetheless, she said, small-business owners could wind up in big trouble if they assume they won't be prosecuted, adding that, "everyone is responsible for compliance." --- 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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In war on terrorism, U.S. drafts shops to be on guard
by Vinnie Moscaritolo 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

In war on terrorism, U.S. drafts shops to be on guard By Steve Johnson Knight Ridder Newspapers SAN JOSE, Calif. - It may surprise some people to learn that one of the linchpins in this nation's war on terrorism is the Bin & Barrel Mini Mart in Fremont, Calif. Manager Sonia Cheema certainly was when her dad bought the store in October. Under federal rules still being fine-tuned, she discovered, the Bin & Barrel - like thousands of other businesses - must have a written plan for foiling money-laundering terrorists. It also must have a "compliance officer" to ensure the plan is heeded, train its employees to spot shady transactions and regularly audit its own performance. That's not all. While not widely known, the Bin & Barrel and every other U.S. business must steer clear of people on the government's 192-page list of "specially designated nationals," which has more than 5,000 names and is updated frequently. Otherwise, business people could face huge fines and a long stay in prison. "Oh gosh! Imagine one person coming to cash a check and going through a list," said the 25-year-old Cheema, who has temporarily stopped cashing checks and processing money orders, at least until she understands the federal rules better. "It's going to be a lot of work. ... I don't think it's worth it." Previously, banks were pretty much the only businesses that had to worry about money launderers. But that changed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. On Sept. 24, 2001, President Bush signed an executive order barring business dealings with anyone on the specially designated list, which includes the names and aliases of suspected terrorists, drug kingpins and their associates. Those failing to comply can be fined $10 million and jailed up to 10 years. That was followed a month later by enactment of the USA Patriot Act, which forces "financial institutions"- broadly defined to include everything from liquor stores to pawn shops - to have detailed programs for combating money launderers. Under its enforcement provisions, business operators face potential $500,000 fines and 10-year prison terms. The Patriot Act already is in effect for casinos, mutual funds, credit-card firms, banks and "money service businesses" like the Bin & Barrel, which offer such things as check cashing and money transfers. Still others - jewelers, vehicle dealers, travel agents, loan companies, investment firms and people involved in real estate closings - are waiting for the government to issue their regulations under the act. As word about the law spreads, many business people don't like what they are hearing. "A lot of our members are just starting to wake up to all of the things they are required to do," said Karen Penafiel, assistant vice president for advocacy for the Building Owners & Managers Association International. When the group's executive committee held a briefing on the act in November, she said, "there was a sense that, 'you've got to be kidding."' Expecting businesses - especially tiny ones - to keep track of terrorists strikes some people as silly. "It's just lame," said Pat Kennedy, who owns Alpine Recreation, a Morgan Hill, Calif., RV dealership. "I'm trying to imagine any local terrorist picking up his motor home and doing a little camping." Palo Alto, Calif., attorney Jonathan Axelrad has similar concerns about the law's potential application to venture capital funds. Forcing the funds' managers to monitor money laundering "would simply be an expensive, unnecessary burden," he said, because the risks and withdrawal limits of such investments would likely be unattractive to terrorists. But terrorists are capable of using a wide range of businesses and purchases - including recreational vehicles - to hide their assets, according to federal officials, who insist the new rules already are paying off. They note that from Feb. 18, 2003, through Nov. 9, 2004, they received tips from various financial institutions about suspicious activity in 129 terrorism-related cases. That resulted in 648 grand jury subpoenas, nine arrests and two indictments. Even so, compliance with the act has been spotty so far. William Fox, director of the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, told Congress in September that only 21,058 of the estimated 200,000 money service businesses nationwide had registered with his agency, as required under the Patriot Act. Although firms that handle small transactions are exempt under the law, he testified, "we believe there are a significant number of money services business required to register that have failed to do so." The reason for that isn't clear. But even among companies that have heard of the law, many remain perplexed about its provisions. "There is mass confusion out in the business world on this," said Christopher Myers, an attorney who recently did an analysis of the laws' implications for real-estate companies. Some critics blame the law's vague wording. Consider its decree that anyone involved in real estate closings have procedures for deterring money laundering. In addition to buyers and sellers, industry experts say, that wording could apply to mortgage lenders, appraisers, surveyors, title insurers, escrow agents, environmental consultants and city building inspectors. Similar uncertainty surrounds Bush's order forbidding all 5.6 million of the nation's businesses from having dealings with anyone on the specially designated nationals list, which can be viewed at www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/. Because the list of 5,000-plus names is regularly updated, many companies are using sophisticated software to check it against their customers' names. But the cost of software can range from $1,000 to well over $100,000. And it's not foolproof. "Inevitably, there will be many 'false positives' with the use of this software," according to a notice published by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the list. So to clarify if a customer is really on the list, the notice advises, business operators may have to go to the additional trouble of contacting their software supplier or the Treasury Department. In addition, depending on the type and size of the transactions involved, many businesses must fill out detailed "suspicious activity reports" and file them with the federal government within 30 days of discovering a customer is on the list. The Office of Foreign Assets Control has made public the names of some large businesses that have gotten fines or other penalties for failing to ensure their customers weren't on the list. But Molly Millerwise refused to disclose the names of any small businesses punished for such violations. "That's not available," she told the Mercury News. "It's nothing we have made public." Nonetheless, she said, small-business owners could wind up in big trouble if they assume they won't be prosecuted, adding that, "everyone is responsible for compliance." --- 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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Cell phones for eavesdropping - finally some public "chatter"
by Gadi Evron 27 Dec '04

27 Dec '04

/Pun intended on the subject line!/ Okay, so, we have all known cell phones are "dangerous". Stepping out of the cellular protocols security and vendor-side systems, and forgetting for a second about interception of transmissions through the air, Trojan horses/worms that may install themselves on the cell phone and even bluetooth risks, there is the long talked of risk of "operating" a regular un-tampered cell phone from a far and the risk of modified devices. Sorry for stating the obvious, but cell phones are transmitters. For years now paranoid people and organizations claim that eavesdropping through a cell phone is a very valid risk. Much like somebody pressing "send" by mistake during a sensitive meeting is a very valid yet different risk. Some of the stricter organizations ask you to do anything from (top to bottom) storing the cell phone in a safe, through shutting it off or removing the battery, and all the way to *only* "don't have that around here while we are in a meeting". Then again.. *most* haven't even heard of this risk. Forgetting even this risk, many of us even ignore the obvious. I usually ask people who talk to me while I'm on the phone "even if the NSA (for example) is not interested in what I have to say or not capable of intercepting it and even that I don't care if they heard my conversations... Should the person I talk to hear our conversation?" Lately there seems to be some more awareness about the "dangers" of cell phones. Knowing which risk is more of a threat than the other is another issue. It seems to me that other than in the protocols, where there has been a serious learning curve (and GPRS seems very promising), cellular companies keep doing the same mistakes, and we can see the security problems of the PC world reappearing in cell phones, much like those of the main frames re-appeared in PC's (to a level). History repeated. Heck, I can't even disable Java or the web browser in most cellular computers (we really should refer to them as computers now). Here are some URL's on the subject: Here is one about modified cell phones, which also mentions the risk of eavesdropping through a cell phone as mentioned above: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200206/msg0003 1.html Here is a product for sale, a cellular phone BUILT for eavesdropping: http://wirelessimports.com/ProductDetail.asp?ProductID=347 Also, check out the IEEE Pervasive article that mentions this problem area, although discusses more the issue of malware: http://csdl.computer.org/comp/mags/pc/2004/04/b4011abs.htm Or Google for "symbian +virus", for example. Thanks go to David Dagon for the links. ------ End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as eugen(a)leitl.org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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