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Man jailed for sending email threats
by R. A. Hettinga 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

<http://theage.com.au/cgi-bin/common/popupPrintArticle.pl?path=/articles/200…> Print this article | Close this window Man jailed for sending email threats Stuttgart, Germany September 9, 2004 - 10:10AM A German doctor's assistant has been jailed for 312 years for trying to extort money from banks, hotels and airports with email threats sent from internet cafes in Thailand. The court in this southern city ruled that the 44-year-old had sent dozens of emails threatening to kill people or blow up buildings if he was not paid because he needed money for a flight home from Asia. The man also said he was facing a heavy fine because he had overstayed his visa for Thailand after falling in love with a Thai woman, but that his girlfriend had left him when he ran out of money. Under the aliases Jonathan Drake and Vincent Baxter, he sent out 39 emails to German and Austrian institutions demanding between $5000 and $10,000 from the recipients and threatening to kill someone close to them if they failed to pay. He told airport authorities in the messages that he would detonate hidden bombs if he did not receive between $50,000 and $100,000. At Vienna's Schwechat airport, a security team was forced to hold a crisis meeting over the threats while security officials at Tegel airport in Berlin dispatched sniffer dogs to hunt for explosives. Most of the institutions targeted, however, ignored the threats on the advice of the police. Authorities were able to trace the emails back to Thailand and arrested the suspect when he flew back to Germany. The defendant, who had already run into trouble with the law in 1992 for threatening a German pop singer, told the court that he had found the email addresses for "the crazy idea of blackmail" on the internet. -- ----------------- 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: BrinCity 2.0: Mayor outlines elaborate camera network for city
by Tyler Durden 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

>cameras will be linked -- and authorities will be alerted to crimes and >terrorist acts. Whew. I feel better already. If only we had had cameras rolling on 9/11/2001, none of that would have ever happened. -TD _________________________________________________________________ FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar get it now! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/

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Re: Flying with Libertarian Hawks
by Major Variola (ret) 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

At 07:53 AM 9/10/04 -0400, R. A. Hettinga wrote: ><http://www.techcentralstation.com/090904A.html> > >Is it possible for one to be libertarian about policies at home and >neo-conservative about policies abroad? After all, isn't the principle of >non-coercion incompatible with the interventionist policies of the current >Administration? Simply put: is there such an animal as a libertarian hawk >and if he exists, why do we so seldom hear from him? On the contrary, the Ayn Rand institute has been taken over by vocal Zionists. They would never bomb Dimona but if a non-israeli semite even thinks about uranium, its missiles away. Or if the South Koreans do a bit of clandestine enrichment, no big deal, they're "our" *friends*. ----- "Stop shedding our blood to save your own and the solution to this simple but complex equation is in your hands. You know matters will escalate the more you delay and then do not blame us but blame yourselves. Rational people do not risk their security, money and sons to appease the White House liar." UBL The only language the American people understand is dead Americans. -EC

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Re: BrinCity 2.0: Mayor outlines elaborate camera network for city
by John Kelsey 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

>From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah(a)shipwright.com> >Sent: Sep 9, 2004 9:50 PM >To: cypherpunks(a)al-qaeda.net >Subject: BrinCity 2.0: Mayor outlines elaborate camera network for city ... > Some people are concerned about "Big Brother" invading their privacy but >Mayor Daley says the cameras will be located in public areas. Fortunately, all this is happening in a town noted for its trustworthy and honest government, and under a mayor with no tendency to use any excuse he can find to grab power, tear up airports he doesn't like in the middle of the night, etc. ... >R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> --John Kelsey

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Perplexing proof
by R. A. Hettinga 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

<http://www.vnunet.com/print/1157970> Perplexing proof E-commerce is only one mathematical breakthrough away from disaster Robert Valpuesta, IT Week 09 Sep 2004 The fact that even experts often do not fully understand how IT systems work was underlined by recent reports that the Riemann hypothesis, established in 1859, may finally have been proved. It seems the hypothesis would explain the apparently random pattern of prime numbers that form the basis for much internet cryptography, used for e-commerce and online banking to guard accounts and credit card details. Louis de Branges, a renowned mathematician at Purdue University in the US, has claimed he can prove the hypothesis. But the maths is so complicated that no one has yet been able to say whether his solution is right. "[The suggested proof] is rather incomprehensible," professor Marcus du Sautoy of Oxford University told The Guardian, adding that if correct it could lead to the creation of a "prime spectrometer" that would bring "the whole of e-commerce to its knees overnight". Unfortunately, most managers have no way of telling whether the proof is right or its implications are indeed as stated. This could be an embarrassment if they are asked to assess risks for corporate governance reports, since they clearly now have a duty to own up and admit that business could be threatened by a theoretical prime spectrometer. Alternatively they might accept that security is a matter of faith, declare that nothing can truly be "known", and add that the way of Zen shows that security is probably an illusion anyway. -- ----------------- 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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Flying with Libertarian Hawks
by R. A. Hettinga 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

<http://www.techcentralstation.com/090904A.html> Tech Central Station Flying with Libertarian Hawks By Max Borders Published 09/09/2004 And covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no strength to secure a man at all. -- Thomas Hobbes Is it possible for one to be libertarian about policies at home and neo-conservative about policies abroad? After all, isn't the principle of non-coercion incompatible with the interventionist policies of the current Administration? Simply put: is there such an animal as a libertarian hawk and if he exists, why do we so seldom hear from him? There is a reticence among many libertarians to speak out about their bellicosity. You might say they're doves at the dinner table, perhaps worried they'll be shunned by their peers. But I think it's time we give some substance to what, at the moment, may be little more than an intuition, and speak up about our support for foreign policies that require armed conflicts -- even preemptive ones. Most libertarians fall in line behind the superficial notion that domestic and foreign policies should be mirror images of each other, each reflecting classical liberal principles where self-defense is applied universally like some scriptural edict. Alas, were the threats of the twenty first century so simple to counter, the complexities of world so easily distilled. The libertarian hawk takes her cues from Hobbes, not Locke, as the spaces mostly untouched by globalization are, in her view, like a state-of-nature. She sees threats that organize themselves in the shadows beyond civilization; operating, no less, in an age of deadly weapons proliferation. She fears the world's great, but nimble powers coalescing into a slothful and ineffectual global body -- where the toughest decisions of life and limb must be made in committee. She understands that freedom does not drop like manna from heaven, but is earned drop-for-drop and coin-for-coin by the sacrifices of blood and treasure. And this is the crux of the libertarian hawk's position: "rights" as such, are not some Cartesian substance that animates the body in the manner of a soul. Rights are a human construct, just like money. The more we believe in them, the better they work. But there are situations in which the currency becomes, uh, devalued. Better said: there are limits to those on whom we can ascribe rights. We get rights by virtue of some sort of social contract, not from our Creator. In this way, social contract theory splits the difference in many respects between libertarianism and conservatism. The social contract is an idea that people would rationally choose certain constraints on their behavior, constraints which culminate in certain reciprocal rules under which to live. I won't harm you if you won't harm me. We benefit through cooperation. And so forth. Those who would choose the rules enjoy the full benefits they confer. Criteria of mutual benefit are embedded in the social contract condition -- which is devoid of: "natural rights" notions that have failed in the libertarian tradition on metaphysical grounds; the totalitarian-leaning "social" aspects which can creep into utilitarian theories (requiring individuals to be sacrificial lambs to the "many"); and of the stodgy moralizing that tends to weigh on domestic conservatism. The overall beauty of social contract theory is that it offers us a justification for political liberalism and pluralism that rests neither on the foundational axioms associated with traditional moral theories, nor on the nihilism and disorderly assertions of the so-called Postmoderns. In short, social contract theory is a constructivist enterprise. And if you stand outside the covenants of Man, you are presumed "enemy." In light of all this, I find it sad that so many otherwise bright libertarians seem so unreflective about war. Some of my favorite freedom-loving publications have steered their editorial styles into the hashish den of protest music and anti-Bush priggishness. Some of my favorite think tanks issue press releases almost daily, calling for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, calling for the US to extend Constitutional privileges to enemy combatants, and claiming that it will be impossible to bring democracy and the Rule of Law to the Middle East. Which brings me to what could be the best criticism against the current conflict in Iraq. Let's call it the Hayekian Argument. It can be summarized in the following way: a complex order, like a country, is very difficult to plan or impose upon a people. It emerges, pace Hayek, "spontaneously." Under certain institutional conditions backed by years of tradition and certain entrenched cultural mores, civil societies can form. But these conditions simply are not in place in Iraq, so we may have gotten ourselves into a (OK, here goes) a quagmire. Much of the Hayekian Argument depends on considerations in complexity theory. That is, preference for "networks" over "hierarchies," as the former tend to do a better job of sustaining complexity among agents in a society. But further investigation along these lines may reveal something like a "feed-forward network" that is formed when inputs of a certain type allow a system is changed, in a sense, by example. Of course, this is somewhat of a metaphor in the context of Iraq. And, of course, nation-building isn't an exact science. But I would have always preferred to hedge my bets that given enough of the appropriate initial conditions, Iraqis would find that -- in the absence of a dangerous dictator -- they would begin to form of the mutually beneficial relationships with one another that bring about prosperity and peace. I doubt they could've done this alone. I think the Coalition was right to help them towards a tipping point. And if we fail, the failure will have been a practical one, not a moral one. My guess is that there are others who would like to see less of this accretion of libertarians around the Dove. I am one of those who doesn't fancy the idea of staring down the point of a chemical warhead before I decide to act. (Even if such warheads turn out to be a chimera today, they won't likely be tomorrow.) In the nuclear age, when the degree of certainty that you will be attacked is at fifty percent, you are as good as done for in terms of your ability to protect yourself. Thus, preventive action in a world of uncertainty is, unfortunately, the only reasonable course. In the meantime, it behooves us to try to make our enemies more like us and then allow globalization to proceed apace. For the more like us they are, the more likely they are to enter into the tenuous human covenants that are our only means of having peace. The author is a TCS contributor. He is Program Director, Institute for Humane Studies. -- ----------------- 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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Intego ChatBarrier X3 10.3.2
by R. A. Hettinga 10 Sep '04

10 Sep '04

<http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/23714> VersionTracker Intego ChatBarrier X3 encryption for iChat instant messaging E-mail a Friend about Intego ChatBarrier X3 Download Now ( File Size: 5.0M ) All Time: Overall Rating:? (2.2) This Version: Overall Rating: Not rated (0.0) Ease of Use: Not rated (0.0) Support: Not rated (0.0) Features: Not rated (0.0) Quality / Stability: Not rated (0.0) Price: Not rated (0.0) Company: Intego Developer Page: Product Info Current Version: 10.3.2 Release Date: 2004-09-09 License: Update Downloads (this version) 85 Downloads (all versions) 671 Price: $39.95 View Screenshots Select Intego ChatBarrier X3 Version: What's this Product Description: Intego ChatBarrier works in conjunction with Apple's iChat instant messaging software to provide two-way, real-time encryption of text chats. Intego ChatBarrier is easy to use, transparent, and inviolable, using military-grade 512-bit encryption that no one can break. When Intego ChatBarrier is installed, a simple click of a button turns on its functions, and any text you send during a chat using iChat is encrypted. Only a user who also has Intego ChatBarrier installed, and to whom you send a message, will be able to decrypt it. Neither the sender nor the receiver has to do anything other than activate Intego ChatBarrier for encryption and decryption to occur. What's new in this version: Bug fixes. Product Requirements: Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later Screen Shots: See More: View Slideshow (new window) Download Links: Download Intego ChatBarrier X3 Now (File Size: 5.0M) Latest Feedback:View All (8) | Finally tombovo ?? Version: 10.3.1, 7/11/2004 06:18PM PST This is a long needed product. Installation was easy, and using it seems a little too easy. I would like to see more information on the encryption type and how it works, its priced a little high for a one-trick-pony, and its pretty simplistic in how you use this, so i have to reduce its rating one star. I do like its integration with NetUpdate so i can update NetBarrier along with this product. More Info Post a comment | alert admin | Vendor without a clue LEoOfBORG ?? Version: 1.0, 7/6/2004 06:18PM PST I installed this, and while I didn't have anyone to try this out with, here are some observations. 1 Why does this hack need -2- Preference Panes? Prefpane #1 (The on-off switch) is simply that. This should not be in PrefPanes, but in iChat itself. 2 The 'Net Update' Pref Pane does more of a service for Intego than the user. There are -2- checkboxes for 'Opt-in Spam' from Intego. And -why- do they need an email address -and- password for the updater? All in all, this comes across as some marketing flunkys idea of what's good for Windows is good for MacOSX. It's obvious that Intego doesn't know how to integrate with MacOSX. So, to recap; 1/ Put Settings and functionality for the app you are enhancing IN THE APP ITSELF -- NOT IN THE OS. If you need a primer on how to do this, look at the FREE sofware PithHelmet with its Safari integration. 2/ If you expect to receive $40 for your hack, don't add insult to injury by bloating our systems with extra flotsam like 'Opt-in Spam' in the Net Update. That is just plain insulting. Shareware authors have version checking down to one menu item. Why do you need such a convoluted updater, Intego? To top off what others have been saying about how Apple may just have this functionality in the next version of iChat anyway (it's SSL, and Windows folks already have it), Bitwise and Fire have encryption capabilities for FREE. Also, if you really NEED crypto, PGP also has an Encryption service built into the service menu. You can encrypt text to your chat partner's public key and -know- that its meant only for them (and is not just some SSL stream). Concieveable you could mix 'chatty' cleartext with PGP's 2048-bit encryption, which blows Intego's away. In short, if you're willing to do some homework, there are alternatives out there that smoke this hack. Don't fall for this Windows vendor's price taking, learn about Crypto. At the very least, pick up PGP Freeware. Or personal desktop, which costs the same, is applicable to a number of applications, and DOES NOT EXPIRE after one year (I read Intego's license). That being said, at least it comes with a de-installer. More Info Comments: 2 | alert admin | 2 of 3 users found this helpful ChatBarrier V3 Helpinghand ?? Version: 1.0, 6/27/2004 06:01PM PST I have used it and it works as they say as far as I can tell. Price could be better but over all its not a bad product, I also use their netbarrier and it works great. Its a nice product for saying things you don't want carnivor to see but its not a must for everyone. More Info Post a comment | alert admin | View All(8) | -- ----------------- 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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The Garwin Archive
by Major Variola (ret) 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

A nuke physicist talks about taking out a US city, nonlethal weapons, and more http://www.fas.org/rlg/index.html http://www.fas.org/rlg/040000-nonlethal.pdf http://www.fas.org/rlg/040309-drell.htm

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[ISN] Mitnick movie comes to the US
by InfoSec News 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/09/mitnick_movie_us/ [ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002L57YQ/c4iorg - WK] By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 9th September 2004 Nearly six years after it was filmed, Hollywood's trouble-plagued movie version of the hunt for hacker Kevin Mitnick is headed for video stores in the US Originally titled Takedown, then Cybertraque, the film is set for a September 28th U.S. release on DVD with the new title, Track Down. The movie is from Miramax's horror and sci-fi label Dimension Films, and is based on the book Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw - By The Man Who Did It, authored by computer scientist Tsutomu Shimomura and New York Times reporter John Markoff. Shimomura electronically tracked Mitnick to his Raleigh, North Carolina hideout in February, 1995, and sold the book and movie rights for an undisclosed sum amidst the storm of publicity following the fugitive hacker's arrest. Early versions of the screenplay for the movie adaptation of Takedown cast Mitnick - played by Scream star Skeet Ulrich - as violent and potentially homicidal. In July, 1998, supporters of the then-imprisoned cyberpunk rallied against the film outside Miramax's New York City offices. Writers later revised the script, and shooting wrapped on the project in December, 1998. The film then languished without a US release date amid rumors of poor test screenings and a re-shot ending. Perhaps hoping to recoup some of their losses, Miramax finally released the movie to French theatres in March, 2000, as Cybertraque. It was generally panned by critics: a reviewer for the newspaper Le Monde noted the film's problems in translating a virtual manhunt to the action-adventure genre. "Can the repeated image of faces sweating over keyboards renew the principles of the Hollywood thriller?," the paper asked. "It's easy to say that the filmmaker hardly reaches that point, regardless of his saturation of the soundtrack with rock music to defeat the boredom of the viewer." Cybertraque was later released in Europe on DVD with French subtitles, and enjoyed some underground circulation on peer-to-peer networks, often misidentified as the sequel to the 1995 film Hackers. The real-life Mitnick cracked computers at cellphone companies, universities and ISPs. He pleaded guilty in March, 1999, to seven felonies, and was released from prison on 21 January, 2000, after nearly five years in custody. Now a security consultant and author, the ex-hacker says he's not happy to see the movie come to America. "I didn't expect the film would ever be released to the US, so this is kind of shock to me," he says. "I'm kind of disappointed because the film depicts me doing things that are not real." The fictionalized plot of Track Down centers around Shimomura's efforts to capture Mitnick before the hacker can access a terrifying computer program capable of causing blackouts, disabling hospital equipment and scrambling air traffic control systems. Hollywood's Mitnick character is portrayed somewhat sympathetically, but is prone to random outbursts of rage, and suffers a creepy penchant for electronic eavesdropping and a lurking hatred of women. "You wouldn't believe the amount of emails I get from all around the world saying, 'I saw this movie about you, it's great, you're my hero, it was a fantastic movie,'" says Mitnick. "I'm thinking, these guys are a little bit off... It's not an interesting film. I think it was done pretty poorly." _________________________________________ Donate online for the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes - http://www.c4i.org/ethan.html --- 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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[ISN] Mitnick movie comes to the US
by InfoSec News 09 Sep '04

09 Sep '04

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/09/mitnick_movie_us/ [ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0002L57YQ/c4iorg - WK] By Kevin Poulsen, SecurityFocus 9th September 2004 Nearly six years after it was filmed, Hollywood's trouble-plagued movie version of the hunt for hacker Kevin Mitnick is headed for video stores in the US Originally titled Takedown, then Cybertraque, the film is set for a September 28th U.S. release on DVD with the new title, Track Down. The movie is from Miramax's horror and sci-fi label Dimension Films, and is based on the book Takedown: The Pursuit and Capture of America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw - By The Man Who Did It, authored by computer scientist Tsutomu Shimomura and New York Times reporter John Markoff. Shimomura electronically tracked Mitnick to his Raleigh, North Carolina hideout in February, 1995, and sold the book and movie rights for an undisclosed sum amidst the storm of publicity following the fugitive hacker's arrest. Early versions of the screenplay for the movie adaptation of Takedown cast Mitnick - played by Scream star Skeet Ulrich - as violent and potentially homicidal. In July, 1998, supporters of the then-imprisoned cyberpunk rallied against the film outside Miramax's New York City offices. Writers later revised the script, and shooting wrapped on the project in December, 1998. The film then languished without a US release date amid rumors of poor test screenings and a re-shot ending. Perhaps hoping to recoup some of their losses, Miramax finally released the movie to French theatres in March, 2000, as Cybertraque. It was generally panned by critics: a reviewer for the newspaper Le Monde noted the film's problems in translating a virtual manhunt to the action-adventure genre. "Can the repeated image of faces sweating over keyboards renew the principles of the Hollywood thriller?," the paper asked. "It's easy to say that the filmmaker hardly reaches that point, regardless of his saturation of the soundtrack with rock music to defeat the boredom of the viewer." Cybertraque was later released in Europe on DVD with French subtitles, and enjoyed some underground circulation on peer-to-peer networks, often misidentified as the sequel to the 1995 film Hackers. The real-life Mitnick cracked computers at cellphone companies, universities and ISPs. He pleaded guilty in March, 1999, to seven felonies, and was released from prison on 21 January, 2000, after nearly five years in custody. Now a security consultant and author, the ex-hacker says he's not happy to see the movie come to America. "I didn't expect the film would ever be released to the US, so this is kind of shock to me," he says. "I'm kind of disappointed because the film depicts me doing things that are not real." The fictionalized plot of Track Down centers around Shimomura's efforts to capture Mitnick before the hacker can access a terrifying computer program capable of causing blackouts, disabling hospital equipment and scrambling air traffic control systems. Hollywood's Mitnick character is portrayed somewhat sympathetically, but is prone to random outbursts of rage, and suffers a creepy penchant for electronic eavesdropping and a lurking hatred of women. "You wouldn't believe the amount of emails I get from all around the world saying, 'I saw this movie about you, it's great, you're my hero, it was a fantastic movie,'" says Mitnick. "I'm thinking, these guys are a little bit off... It's not an interesting film. I think it was done pretty poorly." _________________________________________ Donate online for the Ron Santo Walk to Cure Diabetes - http://www.c4i.org/ethan.html --- 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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