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loozers are lucky
by R.W. (Bob) Erickson 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

What can society do about these people who think that they know something? Well, first we deny the possibility that they have anything novel to say, then we arrange to have them find fault with themselves for what they perceive as their own shortcomings. Then after they have injured themselves trying to correct this implied deficiency, we tell them that maybe their ideas had merit, but the only efficient way to assess any idea, is for the originator to take responsibility for making them happen. If they are unable to demonstrate the successful application of the idea, we take this as proof that the idea was no good to begin with. Such is the application of market theory to the systematic suppression of unsupported ideas. The attitudes of Winners and Losers alike, are taken to be the causative factor. We recognize the effect of the self fulfilling prophesy. In both cases what is going unmentioned is the structural context. Winners are those we give credit to, Losers face responsibility for not being creditable. Winners will credit their success to luck and hard work, but Losers are left to reach the conclusion that either it is all their personal fault, or they have been the victim of bad luck. What to do about the illusion of functional autonomy vs. the principle of independence? Self control: we must become sufficiently self aware to realize that this vital instrument of independence is exactly the force that imprisons so many of us within a personal hell. As a society we would be well advised to examine the structural realities that leave so many of us with broken dreams and a poverty of options. The merit principle is all very well, but isnt it is a clear sign of a sick society, when we conflate winning the lottery, with demonstrating competence? ---------------------------- Tim would bake them John word salads While Bobrah sells tickets to a geodesic fantasyland Detweiler mourns with Vulis, Choate and Sunder trade insults While Art and CJ make licences in an authoritarian nightmare me, I'm just a lawn mower

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Re: "Word" Of the Subgenius...
by Nomen Nescio 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

Steve Furlong: > Random racist ranting is also required. There are some racist > assholes currently posting on cpunks, but none have quite the May > flavor. LOL You can say that again. Here are a few examples of what this once renowned cypherpunk usually writes nowadays. First five quick quotes from Tim May, more further down. > No wonder the white person wants the brown person sent up the > chimneys, along with their Jew facillitators. > I'm chortling. The burn-off of one hundred million useless eaters > is going to be glorious. > Me, I spend my years devoloping tools to fight the Zionist Entity, > including the popular anonymous remailers and steganography to > allow freedom fighters to fight Amerika and ZOG without detection, > to send the last evil Jew to the ovens. > I cheered when this nigger was shot, in 1968, a very > good year. > We need to find ways to help Al Qaeda nuke Washington, D.C. Killing > a quarter of a million government employee leeches and three > quarters of a million negro welfare leeches sounds like a good > deal. Q: What do you call the death of a billion people from AIDS? A: A good start. Negroes in Africa believe that having sex with women and children expells the virus from their body. (No, I did not just make this up. Read the interviews with aid (no pun intended) workers.) Basically, between AIDS, cannibalism, butchering of other tribes, bad economic practices, corrupt liberal governments, the Dark Continent is burning off its negroes. The non-negro areas, in the extreme south and extreme north, are doing OK. In 30 years the negro regions will have been cleansed, naturally, and whites can colonize and make the entire continent prosperous. --Tim May Bush finally has admittted to "mistakes" in the planning of the war. And now the search is on for which Jewish spy for ZOG bore the most blame. It's been clear for more than 16 months that ZOG viewed the war with Iraq with delight, a chance to bloody one of their enemies without themselves having to go to war. Feeding the DOD false information was part of this disinformation campaign. And as the war with Iraq was seen to be winding down (though it has not, of course, as freedom fighters in Iraq continue to kill Americans working for the ZOG state), the Zionist Entity floated stories that _Syria_ was the _REAL_ enemy, or maybe _Iran_, as the Ultimate Enemy. We need to cut off funds to the ZOG state and let three million ZOGster figure out how to swim the Mediterranean, REAL FAST. The burn-off of 3 million ZOGsters would be glorious to behold. The implicated ZOG spies should be given fair trials, and, if found guilty, executed. None of the "kid glove treatment" that the ZOG spy Pollard has been receiving. Then we need to look very seriously at the Jews in our own midst. Many are not ZOGster, just Jews who fled oppressive regimes (which many of their fellow Jews helped create, by the way, as the history of Lenin and Marx and the early Jewish role in the formation of the Soviet shows). But the many ZOGsters now feeding information to the ZOG state need to be rounded up, given fair trials, and liquidated. Entire departments in the Pentagon will be decimated when this happens. Good riddance. As for the war in Iraq, we need to withdraw immediately, in 30 days. This was ZOG's war, not ours. Let Ari Fleischer and Dov Zackheim and Paul Wolfowith and Doug Feight become soldiers in the ZOG Army if they wish, and if they are not hung as spies, but get these united states out of the business of fighting ZOG's wars. --Tim May You'll get the Trifecta with John Kerry: a Communist, a Jew (recently acknowledged), and a Papist. Me, I'd rather we find the ZOG-employed traitors in the Pentagon, try them, hang them, and then pull out of all such "foreign adventures" or "entanglements," which our first and most honest President warned us about. Let the Shiites and Sunnis fight it out in Iraq, let three million ZOG invaders swim for their lives, and let the entire Dark Continent deal with its own savagery, AIDS, cannibalism, killings of Hutus, killings of Tutsis, HIV, malaria, child rape, and voodoo in its own way. In 30 years the Dark Continent should be ready for white people, the last Jew in the ZOG state will have been nailed to a cross, and the world can get on with things without U.S. Big Brother interference. --Tim May I "retired" more than 18 years ago, in 1986. Near the beach, too. However, I don't believe active minds actually "retire." Rather, they do what is important to them, whether or not K-Mart or Lockheed or Apple or Intel is employing them. Me, I spend my years devoloping tools to fight the Zionist Entity, including the popular anonymous remailers and steganography to allow freedom fighters to fight Amerika and ZOG without detection, to send the last evil Jew to the ovens. And category theory, topos theory, Haskell, functional programmng, and crypto, so long as no Zionist criminals need to be dealt with. --Tim May Martian Luther King needed killing because he was just from fucking Mars! (Had this Martian not called for redistributing income from niggers to white people, he might still be alive. As it was, "good riddance to nigger trash." I cheered when this nigger was shot, in 1968, a very good year.) --Tim May Of course not. In many cases the orders to evacuate are the orders for the niggers to move in and start looting. My sister was "ordered" to leave her home when Hurricane Hugo was approaching Charleston in '89. She ignored this unconstitional order. Her house was saved against the nigra looter who swarmed out of the ghettoes. Her neighbors who obeyed Big Brother got fucked royally, exactly as the nigger and his government allies wanted. Those who tell us to leave our homes have earned killing. You hear that, Jeb, you nigger-loving statist criminal? --Tim May None of my Macs were built by niggers. --Tim May It is time we recognize the nigger, the spic, the layabout, the addict, the skank, the gutter sweepings, for what he or she is: trash. The niggers and spics and garbage who demand that our Jew senators tax us to pay for their mistakes need killing. Our Jew politicians need more than killing: they need their Jew spawn killed before their eyes and then their Jew asses staked to the ground and left to slowly die. Niggers in American ought to catch the next boat back to Sudan and Zaire and Sierra Leone and Cannibaland, places where there whole nigger outlook is what they want, "respek, homes." Fuck the nigger and his Jew lackey dead. --Tim May As for you, you should be killed before the next new moon. Good riiddance to nigger rubbish. --Tim May What was almost completed in the 1940s before the Jew Roosevelt stopped it, must be completed in the coming decades. --Tim May We need to find ways to help Al Qaeda nuke Washington, D.C. Killing a quarter of a million government employee leeches and three quarters of a million negro welfare leeches sounds like a good deal. Fuck them dead. Allah Aqbar! --Tim May Anyone who thinks otherwise needs killing. Most Democrats and Republicans need killing. Fifty million niggers, Jews, Mexicans, and fellow travelers need killing. Allah, we beseech thee: Kill the Sinful tens of millions. --Tim May We're talking about America and the U.S. Constitution, not something called "The Geneva Convention" that Jews and niggers and commies in Europe got passed. --Tim May We are taxed twice, thrice, even four times, for these facilities. We are taxed at corporate rates, at individual rates, and then must pay double or triple the actual rate to further subsidize these hospitals. No wonder the white person wants the brown person sent up the chimneys, along with their Jew facillitators. --Tim May I'm chortling. The burn-off of one hundred million useless eaters is going to be glorious. --Tim May

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Re: Michael Riconosciuto, PROMIS
by privacy.at Anonymous Remailer 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

Steve Thompson: > If that's true, then the government couldn't have stolen it. > However, I suspect that mainfraim code of any sophistication is > rarely released into the public domain. I imagine the author would > be able to clear that up, assuming he has no financial reason to > falsify its history. The page clearly states that the enhanced version was not in the public domain or owned by the government, it was a completely new version and the development was not funded by the government. The old one was for 16 bit architecture whereas the new one was for 32 bit. > > http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw.html > Perhaps I am stupid. I don't know how one would go about modifying > application software to include a 'back door' that would presumably > enhance its suceptibility to TEMPEST attacks. Isn't tempest all > about EM spectrum signal detection and capture? ALL electronic devices emits signals that you can intercept and obtain information from. Whether or not you can extract much useful data or not depends, but generally you can always extract something. This is a vast field and it's hard to generalize. I have personally attended tests at a firm working for the military in a western European country and I've seen how extremely easy it is to do remote classic tempest-reading of the screen of a lap-top, to name only one example. The equipment easily fits in only a station wagon. Generally this is really hard to protect yourself from. Let's say you build yourself a bunker and put your computer inside it but you forget to run it on batteries, then you'll find out that signals will be carried out on the electric cord entering your bunker and they'll be readily readable outside anyway. You can't have any kind of opening in and out of that bunker, not even for ventilation, so you see this is hard to do. Maybe they built in other forms of remotely usable back-doors too, just in case there were able to make contact with the computer remotely over some network. This makes sense too, since one or two or those computers surely were less protected. Some people falsely believe that only CRT screens can be read remotely using TEMPEST techniques, this couldn't be more false, in fact one of the test managers I spoke to said he thought it was easier with TFT type monitors. Also remeber that we're not just talking about monitors, many other devices emits interesting and potential useful informaation: faxes, printers, networking hardware etc. Those PROMIS people built in hardware on the motherboards that emitted signals using a kind of jumping frequency technique. If you have the key giving you he answer to how the frequencies are changed you can easily intercept the data otherwise it becomes really hard to do and esp hard to find out that there's anything emitting in the first place - it looks like noise. The purpose of this was so that they could sell the whole package, the PC with the software pre-installed to customers and then they could sit in their wan down the street and record. It's no only happening in the movies you know :) BTW: I would also be interested in some more comments on Michael Riconosciuto as a person, doesn't anyone have an opinion or know of interesting info in this regard? Are there any books written by him or by people on "his side" of the story?

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Olivia Dillan and Rajiv Dholakia Join PGP
by R.A. Hettinga 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

<http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_vi…> December 07, 2004 08:30 AM US Eastern Timezone PGP Corporation Expands Management Team with Group Vice President of Technology and Vice President of Strategy & Solutions; Olivia Dillan and Rajiv Dholakia Join PGP Corporation PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 7, 2004--PGP Corporation, a global leader in enterprise encryption solutions, today announced that Olivia Dillan has joined the company as Group Vice President of Technology and Rajiv Dholakia has joined the company as Vice President of Strategy & Solutions. As Group Vice President of Technology, Ms. Dillan is responsible for all aspects of PGP technology and services, including product development, customer and technical support, office of the CTO & CSO, and information systems and technology. As Vice President of Strategy & Solutions, Mr. Dholakia is responsible for driving strategic business initiatives to enhance core PGP technology and products. He also holds responsibility for the definition and creation of industry solutions with key PGP partners and customers. "We are fortunate to have Olivia and Rajiv join our management team," said Phillip Dunkelberger, president and CEO of PGP Corporation. "Olivia has more than 20 years of experience building innovative software solutions in both startups and multi-billion-dollar corporations, including her work with the original PGP Inc. Rajiv has more than 20 years of experience in high-growth companies, taking new ideas from concept to innovative products, including his experience at ValiCert. Both will enhance our ability to meet our customers' needs." Ms. Dillan is an expert in product development, operations and services. She has been responsible for many successful, award-winning products in the areas of security, electronic commerce, application servers, database management systems, application development tools, and new media tools and applications. Most recently, she was Vice President of Engineering at ServGate Technologies Inc., where she led the team responsible for ServGate's award-winning security products, receiving PC Magazine's Editor's Choice award, among others. Prior to ServGate, she held key senior executive positions, including Co-founder and COO at Model N, VP of Engineering at the NetDynamics Business Unit of Sun Microsystems, VP of the New Media Tools & Applications Division at Oracle, VP of Product Development at PGP Inc., and VP of Core Product Development at ASK/Ingres (now Computer Associates). Ms. Dillan graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in Computer Science from Hunter College in New York. Mr. Dholakia has expertise in the areas of operating systems, electronic commerce, AI and object-oriented development tools, security software for electronic transactions, rights management and application vulnerability detection. Most recently, as Vice President of Engineering at Cenzic, Mr. Dholakia led the development of tools for assessing, testing and remediating application security vulnerabilities. Prior to Cenzic, he was Vice President of Product Development and later CTO at ValiCert, a leading provider of secure authentication, messaging and collaboration software. While at ValiCert, Mr. Dholakia created, implemented and oversaw the products, secure data center and solutions that drove ValiCert's annual revenues from zero to $24 million. In addition, he has held executive positions at TestDrive, Taligent/IBM, Sun Microsystems and IntelliCorp. He has a B.E. in Chemical Engineering from M.S. University in Baroda, India, and did graduate work at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. About PGP Corporation Recognized worldwide as a leader in enterprise encryption technology, PGP Corporation develops, markets and supports products used by more than 30,000 enterprises, businesses and governments worldwide, including 90% of the Fortune 100 and 75% of the Forbes International 100. PGP products are also used by thousands of individuals and cryptography experts to secure proprietary and confidential information. During the past ten years, PGP(R) technology has earned a global reputation for standards-based, trusted security products. PGP Corporation is the only commercial security vendor to publish source code for peer review. The unique PGP encryption product suite includes PGP Universal -- an automatic, self-managing, network-based solution for enterprises -- as well as desktop, mobile and FTP/batch transfer solutions. Contact PGP Corporation at www.pgp.com or 650-319-9000. PGP is a registered trademark and the PGP logo is a trademark of PGP Corporation. Product and brand names used in the document may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. Any such trademarks or registered trademarks are the sole property of their respective owners. Contacts Jump Start Communications, LLC for PGP Corporation Lori Curtis, 970-887-0044 lori at jumpstartcom dot 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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RE: "Word" Of the Subgenius...
by Nomen Nescio 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

Peter Trei: > > Where is Tim May when when you need him? :-) > > > Try scruz.general. or misc.survivalism

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Word
by R.W. (Bob) Erickson 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

word You want me to say what I mean. You expect me to not waste your time, but you dont know why I am here yet. So I tell you that I am here to show you something interesting in words. You can be sure that I'm only talking about words and not about things that matter. You know the difference, between words and things that matter, just like I do. Sometimes when people get to using fancy words, they forget the difference. Between you and me - we'll speak plainly - the country needs more clarity, 'cause we cant afford to forget what matters. We may not agree on much, but I'm certain that you really do see how there's stuff that matters. I respect you for this. No doubt we can agree that it's frustrating at times, to talk with smart asses who lack this common sense. Maybe you haven't felt like knocking some sense into this sort of fool, but I bet you know what I mean. Like the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him talk plain. So I've been thinking that maybe I can take a crack at translating their alien thinking, some of their "expert" science and philosophy mumbo jumbo to real talk. The Lord knows, we cant hope to make sense of all the babble. If you can give me a bit more of your time, I do believe that I can hook you up with a practical explanation for why those brainy idiots keep going on and on. They get themselves all worked up to a dizzy, trying to talk sense. Maybe we can do better. Wish me luck! --bob

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Retinal Scans, DNA Samples to Return to Fallujah
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

<http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/12/05/returning_fallujans_wi…> The Boston Globe US Marines rode in a convoy through Fallujah on Friday. The US military is continuing missions to secure the city. (AFP Photo / Mehdi Fedouach) Returning Fallujans will face clampdown By Anne Barnard, Globe Staff | December 5, 2004 FALLUJAH, Iraq -- The US military is drawing up plans to keep insurgents from regaining control of this battle-scarred city, but returning residents may find that the measures make Fallujah look more like a police state than the democracy they have been promised. Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned. Marine commanders working in unheated, war-damaged downtown buildings are hammering out the details of their paradoxical task: Bring back the 300,000 residents in time for January elections without letting in insurgents, even though many Fallujans were among the fighters who ruled the city until the US assault drove them out in November, and many others cooperated with fighters out of conviction or fear. One idea that has stirred debate among Marine officers would require all men to work, for pay, in military-style battalions. Depending on their skills, they would be assigned jobs in construction, waterworks, or rubble-clearing platoons. "You have to say, 'Here are the rules,' and you are firm and fair. That radiates stability," said Lieutenant Colonel Dave Bellon, intelligence officer for the First Regimental Combat Team, the Marine regiment that took the western half of Fallujah during the US assault and expects to be based downtown for some time. Bellon asserted that previous attempts to win trust from Iraqis suspicious of US intentions had telegraphed weakness by asking, " 'What are your needs? What are your emotional needs?' All this Oprah [stuff]," he said. "They want to figure out who the dominant tribe is and say, 'I'm with you.' We need to be the benevolent, dominant tribe. "They're never going to like us," he added, echoing other Marine commanders who cautioned against raising hopes that Fallujans would warmly welcome troops when they return to ruined houses and rubble-strewn streets. The goal, Bellon said, is "mutual respect." Most Fallujans have not heard about the US plans. But for some people in a city that has long opposed the occupation, any presence of the Americans, and the restrictions they bring, feels threatening. "When the insurgents were here, we felt safe," said Ammar Ahmed, 19, a biology student at Anbar University. "At least I could move freely in the city; now I cannot." A model cityUS commanders and Iraqi leaders have declared their intention to make Fallujah a "model city," where they can maintain the security that has eluded them elsewhere. They also want to avoid a repeat -- on a smaller scale -- of what happened after the invasion of Iraq, when a quick US victory gave way to a disorganized reconstruction program thwarted by insurgent violence and intimidation. To accomplish those goals, they think they will have to use coercive measures allowed under martial law imposed last month by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. "It's the Iraqi interim government that's coming up with all these ideas," Major General Richard Natonski, who commanded the Fallujah assault and oversees its reconstruction, said of the plans for identity badges and work brigades. But US officers in Fallujah say that the Iraqi government's involvement has been less than hoped for, and that determining how to bring the city safely back to life falls largely on their shoulders. "I think our expectations have been too high for a nascent government to be perfectly organized" and ready for such a complex task, Colonel Mike Shupp, the regimental commander, said at his headquarters in downtown Fallujah. While one senior Marine said he fantasized last month that Allawi would ride a bulldozer into Fallujah, the prime minister has come no closer than the US military base outside the city. The Iraqi Interior Ministry has not delivered the 1,200 police officers it had promised, although the Defense Ministry has provided troops on schedule, US officials said. Iraqi ministry officials have visited the city, but delegations have often failed to show up. US officials say that is partly out of fear of ongoing fighting that sends tank and machine-gun fire echoing through the streets. Meanwhile, the large-scale return of residents to a city where only Humvees and dogs travel freely will make military operations as well as reconstruction a lot harder. The military must start letting people in, one neighborhood at a time, within weeks if Fallujans are to register for national elections before the end of January. The government insists the elections will proceed as scheduled despite widespread violence. The Marines say several hundred civilians are hunkered down in houses or at a few mosques being used as humanitarian centers. In the western half of the city, civilians have not been allowed to move about unescorted. In the eastern half, controlled by another regiment, they were allowed out a few hours a day until men waving a white flag shot and killed two Marines. "The clock is ticking. Civilians are coming soon," Lieutenant Colonel Leonard DiFrancisci told his men one recent evening as they warmed themselves by a kerosene heater in the ramshackle building they commandeered as a headquarters. "It's going to get a lot more difficult. We've had a little honeymoon period." A tall order If DiFrancisci's experience dealing with a small delegation of Iraqi aid workers is any indication, sorting out civilians from insurgents in large numbers will be overwhelming. One afternoon last week, DiFrancisci, a reservist from Melbourne, Fla., and a mechanical engineer, was ordered to escort workers from the Iraqi Red Crescent Society out of the city on their way back to Baghdad. The Red Crescent, an equivalent to the Red Cross, had been butting heads for days with Marines who initially denied the aid organization entry to the city, insisting the military was taking care of civilians' needs. The society finally won a Marine escort in and refused to leave, setting up in an abandoned house. Dr. Said Hakki, the group's president, met DiFrancisci and Lieutenant Colonel Gary Montgomery at a mosque, eager to mend fences. "We want to play by your rules," Hakki said. Montgomery agreed that Marines would ferry a group of aid workers to Baghdad, along with several women and children who had been rescued from houses. But when the Humvees pulled up to the Red Crescent house, scores of young men who had taken refuge there were milling around the streets. There was no way to tell whether they were fighters. "All these military-age males are out during curfew," Montgomery told Hakki. "If you all don't follow the rules, you're going to get people killed." Tensions rose when about a dozen women and children started climbing into ambulances for the ride to Baghdad. One man tried to get in, gave the Marines who challenged him several versions of his age, then decided not to go rather than discuss it further. Suhad Molah, a young woman in a veil that showed only her eyes, was indignant that a translator said she might be Syrian because of her accent, implying she was the wife of a foreign fighter. "I am Iraqi," she said, adding that she and her children had been trapped in their house for weeks. The Marines were also suspicious when more than a dozen men, not the handful they expected, said they were Red Crescent staff members headed back to Baghdad. Some had no identification, and there was no way to verify whether they were the same men who had come out from Baghdad. "This is not a 'muj' rescue service," DiFrancisci said, using slang for mujahideen, or holy warriors. Montgomery remarked, "The real negotiations start after you've agreed on something." The Marines let the men go after Hakki vouched for them, but not before the Iraqis grew angry that their motives had been questioned. The convoy headed onto the highway, but only after a dozen Marines had spent two hours organizing and searching the vehicles. Back at their headquarters, the team debated the procedure for allowing civilians to return. Major Wade Weems warned that there should be a set number per day so that a backlog would not form behind the retina-scanning machine, fueling resentment. When they heard of the proposal to require men to work, some Marines were skeptical that an angry public would work effectively if coerced. Others said the plan was based on US tactics that worked in postwar Germany. DiFrancisci said he would wait for more details. "There's something to be said for a firm hand," 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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Need a job? Get a card - arresting ID pitch to business
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/03/business_immigrant_checks/print.html> The Register Biting the hand that feeds IT The Register ; Internet and Law ; Digital Rights/Digital Wrongs ; Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/03/business_immigrant_checks/ Need a job? Get a card - arresting ID pitch to business By John Lettice (john.lettice at theregister.co.uk) Published Friday 3rd December 2004 16:11 GMT Analysis It might not be your Big Brother's Database, but the UK ID scheme has certainly mastered doublespeak. Take, for example, the way it will force businesses to joyfully embrace ID card checks - or else. The Bill's Regulatory Impact Statement tells us that the bill has no provisions "which allow the Government to require business, charities or voluntary bodies to make identity checks using the identity cards scheme." And indeed it doesn't. But David Blunkett gave us a taste of what this really means in his speech to the IPPR last month. Referring to the provisions of the 1996 Asylum and Immigration Act which require employers to check that potential employees are eligible for employment (i.e. not illegal immigrants), he noted that "clause 8 has been very difficult to implement because employers quite rightly say that they are not an immigration service and they can't easily ascertain whether someone is legally in the country without great difficulty."? Under the Act it is a criminal offence for an employer to fail to make an adequate check, but this particular provision is a difficult one to bring in and to enforce, because employers and their organisations could reasonably protest about cost and about not being an immigration service, and because if the Home Office did prosecute then they'd most likely fail to get a conviction because the employer could claim to have seen a document that looked genuine, and how the blazes were they to know? Well, hello employers, now you are an immigration service. Blunkett continued: "The verification process under ID cards would remove that excuse completely and people would know who was entitled to be here and open to pay taxes and NI." So once the scheme exists there's no reason for the Home Office not to enforce clause 8, and employers are going to find using the ID scheme pretty compelling - or else. The Impact Statement suggests the card will be beneficial to employers because it will reduce the cost of compliance with the 1996 Act, and therefore it can be expected that employers will want to use the scheme "even in advance of any explicit requirement to use the scheme." Which does rather sound like 'we're not making you use it in the Act, but just not yet.' Note that the extra costs (large) that employers will be saving by using the ID scheme are costs that have been imposed by the Government in turning them into an immigration service under the 1996 Act. As an aside you should also note that recent regulation of employment agencies has imposed a broader requirement for them to check the identities of job applicants - so they're a census bureau as well as an immigration service. Employers don't have to check via the ID scheme, and under the Act it will actually be illegal to insist on such a check prior to cards becoming compulsory, but the scheme would "help to enforce the law against unscrupulous employers who would no longer have a defence in claiming they examined an unfamiliar document which appeared genuine to them. And: "...the Government expects that legitimate employers would want to encourage their employees to provide verifiable proof of identity when taking up a job... The scheme allows for records of on-line verification checks to be held, so establishing whether an employer has complied with the law will be more straightforward." Now, that one's very cute indeed. The Home Office is determined that the ID scheme operates via checks to the National Identity Register, rather than simply as a photo ID upgrade that can be checked locally, the main reason for this being that widespread online checking will generate a nationwide network of ID checks that track back to the Home Office. Here it is pointing out that using an online check will protect the employer because the NIR will have an audit trail proving that the check was made, whereas if the employer just looked at the card, we'd only have their word for that, wouldn't we? So we'll just rub it in: " Only an on-line check would give an employer the assurance that a record of the check would be held on the National Identity Register and would therefore provide a defence against prosecution." Clearly it's going to be a lot safer to embrace the ID scheme sooner rather than later, but there's one snag here. It will, as the Act specifies, be illegal for an employer to insist on an ID card as proof of identity, so if the applicant insists on using something else then the employer would have to accept it, right? But as not using the ID card would be more expensive and riskier for the employer, one would expect employers to be less likely to give the applicant a job. Particularly if they had a funny foreign-sounding name. And as anybody checking ID will rightly be wary of asking "only certain groups for proof of identity for fear of being accused of discrimination", from the employer's point of view the sooner they can get all applicants to submit an ID card for checking, the better. The Government hasn't yet decided on whether or not to charge employers for employee checks against the register. It observes that charging individual citizens for compulsory notifications such as address changes "might be counter-productive" (indeed - but what do they mean "might"?), and one could speculate that charging employers might be similarly so. Once however it's widely used by employers in order to avoid prosecution, then they can be argued to be saving the costs they'd otherwise incur for checking ID (via the 1996 Act requirement), and as they'll be using the ID scheme quite a lot already, they'll also then be able to save money by using it more generally, "simplifying the recording of employee data". They can therefore give the money they've thus 'saved' to the Government when the fees are introduced. Most employers may wonder why they're being put through these hoops, and forced to spend all this money, and then save a bit of it, on voluntarily supporting the ID card scheme. With justification. The Impact Statement identifies the problem of illegal working as occurring "in sectors where principally casual, low-skilled jobs prevail e.g. construction, textiles/clothing, hotel & catering, household services/cleaning, agriculture and the sex industry." These industries aren't major concentrations of Register readership (we don't think so, anyway), and they're not likely to be busting guts to institute ID checks and start paying national insurance contributions either. Not voluntarily, so this is how it works. At the moment people operating in these areas are subject to sporadic raids by the Immigration and Nationalities Directorate, which unlike the police already has powers to check ID. These raids frequently net illegal immigrants, overstayers etc, but because of the current difficulties with the 1996 Act it's difficult to prosecute the employers. But an employer caught repeatedly when there is "no excuse" will surely have to start checking, meaning that the Government feels it will be able to make a major impact on casual labour and illegal immigrants in these industries (at the expense of all the other industries). Other sectors are likely to face similarly persuasive efforts to get them to 'volunteer' themselves into the scheme. Much of the public sector will have little choice but to volunteer, and although the banks and credit card companies are unlikely to want to supplant their own security with the ID card (aside from using it to fulfill current legal identity requirements for, say, opening a bank account), it's probably only a matter of time before more sticks arrive. The Home Office says it's investigating incorporation of ID card readers in next generation credit card verification machines, and if it gets these there are a couple of regulatory routes it could take. It could for example insist on ID checks for card transactions over a certain value (as is the law in Spain), and it could make loud outraged noises about false credit card applications and require proof of ID when opening an account. The credit card companies will embrace neither of these voluntarily (it discourages customers), but if the card slots were there and everybody was ordered to do it, well, maybe that'd be different. And then the supermarket checkout could be an immigration service too. -- ----------------- 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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Certicom Extends Security Platform, Enabling Developers to Address Government Market
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/12-0…> Certicom Extends Security Platform, Enabling Developers to Address Government Market Certicom Security Architecture for Government provides integrated suite of security toolkits that ensure critical FIPS 140-2 and ECC compliance MISSISSAUGA, ON, Dec. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Certicom Corp. (TSX: CIC), the authority for strong, efficient cryptography, has extended its Certicom Security Architecture(TM), enabling developers to embed a FIPS 140-2-validated cryptographic module into their products and be eligible for sale into the federal government market. The Certicom Security Architecture also provides developers with an efficient way to enhance new and existing applications with elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) and meet the field-of-use guidelines set out by the National Security Agency (NSA) to protect mission-critical national security information. The adoption of ECC within the U.S. federal government is proceeding rapidly, and Certicom is taking a leadership role in enabling agencies and government contractors to integrate the strongest security technology into their products. The comprehensive Certicom Security Architecture provides a bridge between legacy crypto systems and ECC, and gives developers the flexibility to standardize code among different security environments and platforms - maximizing code re-use and portability. This flexibility also means developers will not need to redesign their solutions to meet future government crypto requirements. "Hardware and software developers are increasingly realizing that compliance with regulatory requirements for security is a pressing concern," said Dr. Jerry Krasner, vice president and chief analyst at Embedded Market Forecasters (http://www.embeddedforecast.com ), the premier market intelligence and advisory firm in the embedded technology industry. "A cost-effective approach is to use a tool that ensures compliance with FIPS 140-2 requirements and eliminates the potentially costly step of third-party FIPS validation of a device or application." Strong security is a key requirement across all networked applications and devices. The Certicom Security Architecture allows developers who may have little security expertise to add FIPS 140-2 validated security to their solutions while avoiding the time and expense of the FIPS 140-2 validation process. A common application programming interface (API) unifies Certicom's proven developer toolkits to create a plug-and-play security architecture that includes higher level protocol functionality that can operate in FIPS mode, such as SSL and PKI. "Certicom Security Architecture for Government makes it easy for OEMs, ISVs and integrators to sell products into the government sector that meet strict government security requirements, including FIPS 140-2 and ECC," said Roy Pereira, vice-president, marketing and product management at Certicom. "The National Security Agency is committed to making elliptic curve cryptography the most widely used public-key cryptosystem for securing U.S. government information. Certicom is committed to providing the technology and tools to make that possible." The Security Builder developer toolkits integrated into the Certicom Security Architecture for Government include: - Security Builder(R) GSE(TM), a FIPS 140-2-validated cryptographic toolkit; - Security Builder(R) NSE(TM), a cryptographic toolkit for national security information; - Security Builder(R) Crypto(TM), a cross-platform cryptographic toolkit; - Security Builder(R) PKI(TM), a digital certificate management toolkit; - Security Builder(R) SSL(TM), a complete Secure Sockets Layer toolkit; and - Security Builder(R) IPSec(TM), a client-side virtual private network toolkit. Certicom Security Architecture for Government is available immediately, except for Security Builder NSE which is available in Q1 2005. For more information, visit http://www.certicom.com/gov . About Certicom Certicom Corp. (TSX:CIC) is the authority for strong, efficient cryptography required by software vendors and device manufacturers to embed security into their products. Adopted by the U.S. government's National Security Agency (NSA), Certicom technologies for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) provide the most security per bit of any known public-key scheme, making it ideal for resource-constrained environments. Certicom products and services are currently licensed to more than 300 customers including Motorola, Oracle, Research In Motion, Terayon, Texas Instruments and Unisys. Founded in 1985, Certicom is headquartered in Mississauga, ON, Canada, with offices in Ottawa, ON; Reston, VA; San Mateo, CA; and London, England. Visit http://www.certicom.com . Certicom, Certicom Security Architecture, Certicom CodeSign, Security Builder, Security Builder Middleware, Security Builder API, Security Builder Crypto, Security Builder SSL, Security Builder PKI, and Security Builder GSE are trademarks or registered trademarks of Certicom Corp. Intel is registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Factors that might cause a difference include, but are not limited to, those relating to the acceptance of mobile and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce, the increase of the demand for mutual authentication in m-commerce transactions, the acceptance of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology as an industry standard, the market acceptance of our principal products and sales of our customer's products, the impact of competitive products and technologies, the possibility of our products infringing patents and other intellectual property of fourth parties, and costs of product development. Certicom will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect Certicom's financial results is included in the documents Certicom files from time to time with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. SOURCE Certicom Corp. -- ----------------- 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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Groups Probe FBI Spying in 'War on Terror'
by R.A. Hettinga 06 Dec '04

06 Dec '04

<http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=26542> Inter Press Service News Agency POLITICS-U.S.: Groups Probe FBI Spying in 'War on Terror' William Fisher* U.S. civil rights groups have filed multiple freedom of information requests around the country to uncover evidence that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local police are spying on political, environmental and faith-based groups in the name of fighting terrorism. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests were filed in 10 states and the District of Columbia (DC) seeking details on the FBI's use of Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) and local police to engage in political surveillance. JTTFs are legal partnerships between the FBI and local police, in which police officers are "deputised" as federal agents and work with the agency to identify and monitor individuals and groups. Filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), the FOIAs seek FBI files of groups and individuals targeted for speaking out or practising their faith, as well as information on how the practices and funding structure of the JTTFs are encouraging rampant and unwarranted spying. "Our goal in this is to learn to the greatest extent possible how much the FBI is using JTTFs and their guidelines to infiltrate these groups," ACLU attorney Ben Wizner told IPS. One of the FOIA requests names organisations such as anti-war group United for Peace and Justice, Greenpeace, Code Pink, a women-initiated peace and justice group, and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which might have been monitored by the task forces. According to Wizner, after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 sparked the Bush administration's "war on terrorism," Attorney General John Ashcroft scrapped an FBI guideline -- enacted after the agency infiltrated numerous groups during the 1960s and 1970s civil rights movement -- that blocked its agents from spying on groups and individuals unless they were investigating a crime. By scrapping that policy Ashcroft was, "essentially encouraging FBI agents to do fishing expeditions to spy in mosques, in anti-war meetings ... without any reasonable suspicion that a crime was being committed," added Wizner. ADC President Mary Rose Oakar said her group "supports all efforts to keep our country safe and we want law enforcement to protect us from real terrorists and criminals. However, targeting Arabs and Muslims on the basis of national origin and religion, sending undercover agents to anti-war meetings, and infiltrating student groups is not making us any safer." "The FBI should not be wasting its time and our tax dollars spying on groups that are critical of certain government actions," added the leader of the Washington, DC-based non-profit group, in a statement. Earlier this year reports emerged that JTTFs had visited activists around the country to ask about their plans for August's meeting of the Republican National Committee (RNC) in New York. The committee officially nominated President George W Bush to run in the Nov. 2 election. ''We hadn't even been following (news of the RNC); I didn't even know when it was going to happen," activist Sarah Bardwell told IPS after being visited by four FBI agents and two police officers at her Denver home. "I think (the FBI is) basically just justifying violating people's first amendment rights (of freedom of religion, speech and assembly),'' she added. In a statement in August, FBI Assistant Director Cassandra M Chandler responded that the agency ''is not monitoring groups or interviewing individuals unless we receive intelligence that such individuals or groups may be planning violent and disruptive criminal activity or have knowledge of such activity.'' ''The F.B.I. conducted interviews, within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution, in order to determine the validity of the threat information,'' she added. Since the 9/11 attacks, the FBI -- part of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) -- has vastly stepped up its monitoring and surveillance of individuals and groups it considers suspicious. It and other law enforcement agencies have also been given greatly increased authority under the USA Patriot Act, which was hurriedly enacted and signed into law soon after the attacks. The law permits agencies to conduct "sneak and peak" wiretaps and other forms of surveillance without immediate notification to the target. The JTTFs, however, existed prior to 9/11. Groups representing Arab and Muslim-Americans are confused by what appear to be conflicting signals from the Bush administration. The government claims to be making serious efforts to "build bridges" to the constituencies, but simultaneously continues to practise discrimination and harassment. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, a bi-partisan government agency, recently reported widespread evidence of racial profiling against Arab and Muslim-Americans by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other law enforcement agencies. These bodies respond that they are not conducting round-ups in any community (and are) "not profiling based on race or religious affiliation (or) instituting a blanket detention policy." But since 9/11, some 5,000 members of the groups have been arrested and detained -- some for long periods without legal counsel -- but none have been convicted for terror-related crimes. The ADC and 15 other human and civil rights groups have filed suits against the DOJ demanding release of information about people arrested and detained since Sep. 11, 2001. Thursday's ACLU/ADC requests "point to many documented examples of JTTF involvement in the investigation of environmental activists, anti-war protesters and others who are clearly neither terrorists nor involved in terrorist activities." Their actions include: "aggressively questioning Muslims and Arabs on the basis of religion or national origin rather than suspicion of wrongdoing; tracking down parents of student peace activists; downloading anti-war action alerts from Catholic Peace Ministries; infiltrating student groups, and sending undercover agents to National Lawyers Guild meetings," the documents allege. Requests were also filed on behalf of numerous individuals, including an organiser for the Service Employees International Union, a former Catholic priest and student activists. "They will say that a group whose means may include engaging in a sit-in to block traffic or who in the past might have had a member who threw a brick through a window is legitimately investigated by a joint terrorism task force," said Wizner. "The question is: do we want that kind of civil disobedience labelled and investigated as terrorism?" -- ----------------- 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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