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9/11 Legislation Launches Misguided Data-Mining and Domestic
by Gregory Hicks 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Surveillance Schemes Reply-To: Gregory Hicks <ghicks(a)cadence.com> From the EFFector 17.45 (21 Dec 04) 9/11 Legislation Launches Misguided Data-Mining and Domestic Surveillance Schemes On Friday, President Bush signed into law the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA), launching several flawed "security" schemes that EFF has long opposed. The media has focused on turf wars between the intelligence and defense communities, but the real story is how IRTPA trades basic rights for the illusion of security. For instance: ~ Section 1016 - a.k.a. "TIA II" ~ A clause authorizing the creation of a massive "Information Sharing Environment" (ISE) to link "all appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal entities, and the private sector." This vast network would link the information in public and private databases, posing the same kind of threat to our privacy and freedom that the notorious Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program did. Yet the IRTPA contains no meaningful safeguards against unchecked data mining other than directing the President to issue guidelines. It also includes a definition of "terrorist information" that is frighteningly broad. ~ Section 4012 and Sections 7201-7220 - a.k.a. "CAPPS III" ~ A number of provisions that provide the statutory basis for "Secure Flight," the government's third try at a controversial passenger-screening system that has consistently failed to pass muster for protecting passenger privacy. The basic concept: the government will force commercial air carriers to hand over your private travel information and compare it with a "consolidated and integrated terrorist watchlist." It will also establish a massive "counterterrorist travel intelligence" infrastructure that calls for travel data mining ("recognition of travel patterns, tactics, and behavior exhibited by terrorists"). It's not clear how the government would use the travel patterns of millions of Americans to catch the small number of individuals worldwide who are planning terrorist attacks. In fact, this approach has been thoroughly debunked by security experts. (See <http://www.schneier.com/essay-052.html>.) What is clear is that the system will create fertile ground for constitutional violations and the abuse of private information. The latest Privacy Act notice on Secure Flight shows that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) still doesn't have a plan for how long the government will keep your private information, nor has it mapped out adequate procedures for correcting your "file" if you are wrongly flagged as a terrorist. ~ Section 6001 - a.k.a. "PATRIOT III" ~ Straight from the infamous "PATRIOT II" draft legislation leaked to the public last year comes a provision that allows the government to use secret foreign intelligence warrants and wiretap orders against people unconnected to any international terrorist group or foreign nation. This represents yet another step in the ongoing destruction of even the most basic legal protections for those whom the government suspects are terrorists. ~ Sections 7208-7220 - a.k.a. "Papers, Please" ~ Just as EFF, the ACLU, and a number of other civil liberties groups feared, IRTPA creates the basis for a de facto national ID system using biometrics. Driven by misguided political consensus, the law calls for a "global standard of identification" and minimum national standards for birth certificates, driver's licenses and state ID cards, and Social Security cards and numbers. It also directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish new standards for ID for domestic air travelers. Identification is not security. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission report revealed that a critical stumbling block in identifying foreign terrorists is the inability to evaluate *foreign* information and records. Yet we are placing disproportionate emphasis on domestic surveillance, opening the door to a standardized "internal passport" - the hallmark of a totalitarian regime. For this piece online: <http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/002172.php> For the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 (IRTPA): <http://news.findlaw.com/usatoday/docs/terrorism/irtpa2004.pdf> If you care about preserving your privacy and basic constitutional freedoms, help us fight the good fight by joining EFF today: <https://secure.eff.org/> ------------------------------------- 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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[IP] 9/11 Legislation Launches Misguided Data-Mining and Domestic
by David Farber 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Surveillance Schemes X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.619) Reply-To: dave(a)farber.net Begin forwarded message:

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[Politech] Senate backs away from Real ID Act [priv]
by Declan McCullagh 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

So the U.S. Senate on Wednesday took a surprisingly anti-Real ID Act stand in a vote related to the immigration bill being debated this week. The proceduralia is a little complex: fans of Real ID tried to table (that is, kill) an anti-Real ID amendment sponsored by Baucus and Tester. That vote failed by 45 to 52. An article I wrote is here: http://news.com.com/2100-7348_3-6193735.html A list of the amendments with page numbers is here: http://politechbot.com/docs/senate.immigration.amendment.list.062707.txt You can see that the Baucus-Tester amendment starts on page 131, so go to that page in this PDF: http://politechbot.com/docs/senate.immigration.amendments.062707.pdf This is the underlying bill it's amending (search for Real ID, including in section 302): http://politechbot.com/docs/senate.immigration.bill.s1639.kennedy.specter.0… This is preliminary, true, but it's refreshing to see some skepticism about Real ID in what purports to be the world's greatest deliberative body. A press release follows. -Declan ---- June 27, 2007 BAUCUS, TESTER HALT IMMIGRATION DEBATE Senators' Measure To Get Rid Of REAL ID Stalls Sweeping Immigration Bill (WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester brought the debate over immigration reform to a grinding halt today on the Senate floor. After opponents of Baucus and Tester's amendment to strike REAL ID requirements failed to muster a majority of votes, debate on the controversial immigration bill came to a standstill. Baucus and Tester's provision strikes language from the immigration bill that requires employers to check the eligibility of their prospective employees only using identification documents that comply with REAL ID, a federal mandate the Montana senators say amounts to a national ID system. Opponents failed to kill the Baucus-Tester amendment today on a thin 45-52 vote. It wasn't immediately clear what effect the vote will have on the underlying bill, but opponents have called the provisions a "deal breaker" as it relates to the whole immigration bill. Baucus said he thinks the vote is a "death knell to a bad immigration bill." Senate business, which was early slated to extend into Wednesday evening, halted for the night after the controversial Baucus-Tester vote. "We scored a major victory today in our efforts to protect privacy and defeat a bad immigration bill at the same time," said Baucus, Montana's senior U.S. Senator. "If Jon and I just brought down the entire bill, that's good for Montana and the country." REAL ID requires states to standardize their driver's licenses and build costly new databases that the federal government can access, essentially creating a national ID system. Earlier this year, the Montana Legislature unanimously passed legislation refusing to implement the program because it invades privacy and can expose private information to identity thieves, and because of its enormous cost. Tester, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee and a staunch supporter of privacy rights, said REAL ID isn't needed to toughen national security. "If by fighting to keep government out of people's private lives, Max Baucus and I stopped the senate from passing this flawed immigration bill, then this was a real victory for Montana and the American people," Tester said. Baucus and Tester cited several other reasons for their amendment: * Employers don't need REAL ID to verify the eligibility of their employees. They currently check eligibility using existing documents, such as birth certificates, a drivers license, or a passport. * More and more states are rejecting the REAL ID Act. Fifteen other states in addition to Montana have enacted legislation opposing or refusing to implement the program. * The immigration bill only authorizes $1.5 billion for REAL ID, although estimates put the actual cost for states as high as $23 billion. -30- _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Death of antivirus software imminent
by Anne & Lynn Wheeler 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Bill Frantz wrote: > My favorite virtual machine use is for the virus to install itself > as a virtual machine, and run the OS in the virtual machine. This > technique should be really good for hiding from virus scanners. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#2 Death of antivirus software imminent http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#4 Death of antivirus software imminent i commented on that in reference posts mentioning that there have been uses of virtual machines to study virus/trojans ... but that some of the new generation virus/trojans are now looking to see if they are running in virtual machine (studied?). some of the current trade-off is whether that virtual machine technology can be used to partition off basically insecure operations (which are widely recognized as being easy to compromise) and then completely discard the environment and rebuild from scratch after every session (sort of the automated equivalent of having to manually wipe an infected machine and re-install from scratch). the counter argument is that crooks can possibly also use similar technology to hide ... once they have infected the machine. the current issue is that a lot of the antivirus/scanning techniques are becoming obsolete w/o the attackers even leveraging virtual machine technology. The attackers can leverage the technology in an otherwise poorly defended machine. Some years ago there was a product claiming that it could operate even at a public access machine because of their completeness of their antivirus countermeasures ... even on an infected machine. I raised the issue that it would be trivial to defeat all such countermeasures using virtual machine technology. Somewhat of a skirmish resulted since they had never considered (or heard of) virtual machine technology ... for all i know there is still ongoing head-in-the-sand situation. for little topic drift ... this blog entry: https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000991.html and http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#3 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#5 there is some assertion that the crooks overwhelming the defenders countermeasures because they are operating significantly faster and more efficiently. however, another interpretation is that the defenders have chosen extremely poor position to defend ... and are therefor at enormous disadvantage. it may be necessary to change the paradigm (and/or find the high ground) in order to successfully defend. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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the physics arXiv blog
by the physics arXiv blog 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

[1]the physics arXiv blog [2]Anonymizing data without damaging it Posted: 05 Nov 2008 11:39 PM CST [3]graph.jpg If scientists are to study massive datasets such as mobile phone records, search queries and movie ratings, the owners of these datasets need to find a way to anonymize the data before releasing it. The high profile cracking of data sets such as the [4]Netflix prize dataset and the AOL search query data set means that people would be wise not to trust these kinds of releases until the anonymization problem has been solved. The general approach to anonymization is to change the data in some significant but subtle way to ensure that no individual is identifiable as a result. One way of doing this is to ensure that every record in the set is identical to at least one other record. That's sensible but not always easy, point out Rajeev Motwani and Shubha Nabar at Stanford University in Palo Alto. For example, a set of search queries can be huge, covering the search habits of millions of people over many months. The variety of searches people make over such a period make it hard to imagine that two entries would be identical. And analyzing and changing such a huge dataset in a reasonable period of time is tricky too. Motwani and Nabar make a number of suggestions. Why not break the data set into smaller, more manageable clusters, they say. And why not widen the criteria for what it means to be identical to allow similar searches to be replaced with identical terms. For example, replacing a search for "organic milk" with a search for "dairy product". These ideas seem eminently sensible. The problem becomes even more difficult when the data is in graph form, as it might be for mobile phone records or web chat statistics. So Nabar suggest a similar anonymizing technique: ensure that every node on the graph should share some number of its neighbors with a certain number of other nodes. The trouble is that the anonymization technique can destroy the very patterns that you are looking for in the data, for example in the [5]way mobile phones are used. And at present, there's no way of knowing what has been lost. So what these guys need to do next is find some kind of measure of data loss that their proposed changes cause, to give us a sense of how much damage is being done to the dataset during anonymization. In the meantime, dataset owners should show some caution over how, why and to whom they release their data. Ref: [6]arxiv.org/abs/0810.5582: Anonymizing Unstructured Data [7]arxiv.org/abs/0810.5578: Anonymizing Graphs [8][arXivblog?i=hpfrHu] [9][arXivblog?i=RCzNN] [10][arXivblog?i=QPK0N] [11][arXivblog?i=sa0en] [12][arXivblog?i=J17iN] [13][arXivblog?i=6potn] [14][arXivblog?i=uqYGN] [15][arXivblog?i=vse8n] [16][arXivblog?i=V3xyN] You are subscribed to email updates from [17]the physics arXiv blog To stop receiving these emails, you may [18]unsubscribe now. Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner Inbox too full? [19](feed) [20]Subscribe to the feed version of the physics arXiv blog in a feed reader. If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: the physics arXiv blog, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 References 1. http://arxivblog.com/ 2. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/arXivblog/~3/444018253/ 3. http://arxivblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/graph.jpg 4. http://arxivblog.com/?p=142 5. http://arxivblog.com/?p=88 6. http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5582 7. http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5578 8. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/arXivblog?a=hpfrHu 9. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=RCzNN 10. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=QPK0N 11. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=sa0en 12. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=J17iN 13. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=6potn 14. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=uqYGN 15. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=vse8n 16. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=V3xyN 17. http://arxivblog.com/ 18. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailunsub?id=8632699&key=kesJ612ZsV 19. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog 20. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: [p2p-hackers] darknet ~= (blacknet, f2f net)
by Ian Clarke 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

On 02/12/05, zooko(a)zooko.com <zooko(a)zooko.com> wrote: > Let 1 be the set of networks which are used for illegal transmission of > information, I do wish you would refer to these networks as those which allow the covert transmission of information, rather than those which are used for the illegal transmission of information - since I am not aware of any networks that are specifically designed for the illegal transmission of information. I think this would help alleviate the political problem you raise later in your email. > and 2 be the set of networks which are built on f2f connections, > and 1^2 be the intersection -- the set of networks which are used for illegal > transmission of information and which are built on f2f connections. If you broaden your definition of set 1 to be networks which are used for the covert transmission of information (I think this is a more useful definition for the set as not all covert activity is illegal), then I am not sure, in practice, how many networks will fall into set 2 that aren't also members of set 1, in fact, I can't think of any non-contrived situations where one would create a f2f network motivated by something other than a desire to be covert in some way. > [bepw2002] introduces "darknet" to mean concept 1. I'm not going to spend time dissecting their paper to determine exactly what BEPW's intention was for the term "darknet", certainly they could have been much more explicit about this if they wanted to, and they use the term in contradictory ways throughout their paper. For example, they refer to "the darknet" as if there is only one, but subsequenly refer to "darknets". Given this vagueness, I can't imagine that is was their goal to provide an authorative definition for the term. While we can debate what BEPW intended the term to mean when they used it in their paper, this is ultimately irrelevant. Software engineers often seem to forget that English isn't like a programming language where a designer specifies an unambigous definition at the outset (Richard Stallman is particularly guilty of this). The meaning of words in English is a consensus that is arrived at over time, and eventually finds its way into a dictionary (long) after that consensus is stable. The BEPW paper is one early voice in that consensus-forming process. Mine is another, yours is another still. > By the way, I should point out that I have a personal interest in this history > because between 2001 and 2003 I tried to promulgate concept 2, using Lucas > Gonze's coinage: "friendnet" [zooko2001, zooko2002, zooko2003, gonze2002]. > I would like to know for my own satisfaction if my ideas were a direct > inspiration for some of this modern stuff, such as the Freenet v0.7 design. I am not sure that they were a direct inspiration. We (Freenet) have been concerned about the fact that Freenet was harvestable for several years now. Around spring this year I made the observation that if human relationships form a small world network, it should be possible to assign locations to people such that we form a Kleinberg-style small world network, and thus we could make the network routable. Oskar Sandberg then suggested a way to do this, and we set about validating the concept using simulations. > Now the problem is that in the current parlance of the media, the word > "darknet" is used to mean vaguely 1 or 2 or 1^2. The reason that this is a > problem isn't that it breaks with some etymological tradition, but that it is > ambiguous and that it deprives us of useful words to refer to 1 or 2 > specifically. The ambiguity has nasty political consequences -- see for > example these f2f network operators struggling to persuade newspaper readers > that they are not primarily for illegal purposes: [globe]. I think a much better way to avoid this nasty political consequence is to stop describing set 1 in terms of illegal activity, but rather describe such networks as being "covert", or "anonymity preserving" - neither of which implies illegal activity (it is perfectly legal to be anonymous in most countries whose legal systems I am familiar with). > > defining the term "darknet" as a f2f network that is designed > > to conceal the activities of its participants (this being, so far as I > > have seen, one of the main motivations for building an f2f network), > > So you think of "darknet" as meaning 1^2. Or just 2, since I think the sets 1^2 and 2 are, in practical terms, virtually identical. > That's an interesting remark -- that you regard concealment as one of the main > motivations. I personally regard concealment as one of the lesser motivations > -- I'm more interested in attack resistance (resisting attacks such as > subversion or denial-of-service, rather than attacks such as surveillance), > scalability, and other properties. Although I'm interested in the concealment > properties as well. That is surprising. Are you aware of any current or proposed f2f networks for which concealment of user activity is not a goal? Ian. _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers(a)zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 4.10, 24 May 2006
by EDRI-gram newsletter 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 4.10, 24 May 2006 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. Draft Audiovisual Media Services Directive under criticism 2. Data Retention faces growing opposition in Germany 3. Set up of the Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group 4. French draft copyright law continues to be criticised 5. German Constitutional Court has outlawed preventive data screening 6. UK Government asks for the encryption keys 7. Big Brother Awards Italy 2006 8. Application of the FOI law in Macedonia 9. PM supports rejected UK ID Cards Act 10. Recommended reading 11. Agenda 12. About ============================================================ 1. Draft Audiovisual Media Services Directive under criticism ============================================================ The European Commission proposal to regulate commercial audio and video broadcasts over the Internet and mobile phones, continues to be strongly opposed by the supporters of free speech, but also tranditional and new media providers. At the meeting of Education, Youth and Culture Council in Brussels (18-19 May 2006) the proposal for a directive amending the Directive on the pursuit of television broadcasting activities was discussed . The debate covered, in particular, the following issues in relation with the proposed directive: the appropriateness and the sustainability of the distinction between linear and non-linear services; the common rules applying to both categories of services; the extent of the modernization and simplification of the television advertising and teleshopping rules. The draft Audiovisual Media Services Directive - a revision of the 1989 Television without Frontiers Directive - introduces the notion of audiovisual media services and distinguishes between "linear" services (e.g. scheduled broadcasting via traditional TV, the internet or mobile phones, which "push" content to viewers) and "non-linear" services (such as video-on-demand, which the viewer "pulls" from a network). Only a basic tier of rules would apply to non-linear services. This draft has already met oppositions and criticism at the beginning of this year being considered as unacceptable. Traditional media as well as new media and technology providers opposed the directive considering, among other things, that it would shortly be obsolete due to the fast development of technology, that it discourages innovation and that it creates a distinction between linear and non-linear broadcasting when in reality this distinction is more and more blurred by the technological development. At the press conference on 18 May, Viviane Reding, EU commissioner for Information Society and Media, had to answer accusations of censorship related to the Directive. The Commissioner stated that the directive had "nothing to do with free speech" and aimed at protecting children and that the new rules were meant to protect "basic societal values". Mrs. Reding considers the rules are only intended to apply to commercial content and that the application of Audiovisual Media Services Directive has as purpose to prevent certain programmes from being shown to children. The idea would be to harmonise rules across the whole European Union so that programme makers don't face bureaucracy every time they try and sell their products to another member country. EU regulation attacked as censorship (19.05.2006) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/19/eu_censorship/ EU Internet proposals to protect society (18.05.2006) http://go.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=internetNews&storyID=12258324 2729th Education, Youth and Culture Council meeting - Brussels, 18-19 May 2006 (provisional version) (18.05.2006) http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_applications/Applications/newsRoom/Load… cument.asp?directory=en/educ/&filename=89661.pdf The Television without Frontiers Directive: another "directive too far"? (5.05.2006) http://www.it-analysis.com/business/content.php?cid=8476 Legislative Proposal for an Audiovisual Media Services Directive (13.12.2005) http://ec.europa.eu/comm/avpolicy/docs/reg/modernisation/proposal_2005/com2… 5-646-final-en.pdf Debates on draft directive on Television without Frontiers Directive (2.02.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.2/twfdirective ============================================================ 2. Data Retention faces growing opposition in Germany ============================================================ The EU directive on mandatory retention of communications traffic data went into force as an EU law on 3 May 2006, but its transposition into national laws seems more uncertain than before. 16 of the 25 member states of the EU have declared that they will delay the retention of Internet traffic data for an additional period of 18 months. The recent NSA scandal in the United States also clarified the dangers of access to the data by intelligence agencies and led a number of civil liberties groups, among which EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien, to protest against data retention in Europe. A draft data retention law has already been withdrawn in the House of Representatives in Washington. In the German Parliament, the Greens have drafted a resolution that would ask the Government to challenge the legality of the EU directive before the European Court of Justice and postpone its implementation on the national level until the court has made a decision. According to the not yet published text, of which EDRi was able to obtain a copy, the data retention decision should have been made in the "Third Pillar" of the European Union structure, as the sole purpose of retaining the data is the law enforcement. Therefore, the proper legislative procedure should have been a framework directive, which gives more power to national Parliaments and requires an unanimous vote on the EU Council of Ministers. The motion is so far being supported by 118 parliamentarians from all parties; the vote is scheduled for 2 June. The period for challenging the directive on these grounds ('230 of the Treaty on the European Community) will end on 10 July 2006. Even if the directive is transposed into the German law, several groups and individuals - among which the former German federal minister of the interior, Gerhart Baum - have announced that they will challenge it before the Constitutional Court. After several recent decisions by the courts against overly intrusive surveillance, retention, and data-screening practices, there is a growing indication that the court will declare the directive illegal under the human rights provisions of the German Constitution. German Parliament: Draft Resolution, "Richtlinie zur Vorratsdatenspeicherung vom EuGH pr|fen lassen" (Reviewing the Directive on Data Retention by the European Court of Justice) (in German only, 18.05 2006) http://www.edri.org/docs/German-Parliament_Draft-DR-Resolution_18-5-2006.pdf Press release by EDRi-Member Netzwerk Neue Medien together with AK Vorratsdatenspeicherung and Stop1984.de: American snooping scandal shows the need for revision of opinion in Europe (in German only, 15.05.2006) http://www.nnm-ev.de/show/135496.html ISP snooping plans take backseat (18.05.2006) http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6074070.html Directive 2006/24/EC on the retention of data, Official Journal of the EU, (including declarations by EU member state governments postponing internet data retention) (13.04.2006) http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:105:0054:00… :EN:PDF EDRi Data Retention overview page http://www.edri.org/issues/privacy/dataretention EDRi Data Retention Wiki http://wiki.dataretentionisnosolution.com (Contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien - Germany) ============================================================ 3. Set up of the Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group ============================================================ The Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group (IGF AG) to the UN Secretary-General, selected by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 17 May, meets in Geneva on 22-23 May to discuss the agenda and the programme of the Athens Meeting (31 October - 3 November 2006). Members of the group and observers had a two-day meeting meeting under the leadership of Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer. In an open and transparent discussion, the draft of the program included main topics for each day of the coming IGF meeting in Athens. These are : - Access ( Internet connectivity, policies and costs with following workshops on: open standards, investment incentives, etc.) - Security ( building trust online, protecting users from spam, phishing, viruses, maintain security while protecting privacy and workshops with people from technologies, ISP, CERT, law enforcement and human rights, workshops by ITU (cybersecurity) and OECD (spam toolkit) ) - Diversity ( Promoting multilinguism through IDN, and local content and Respecting geographical diversity) - Openness ( Free flow of information, ideas and access to knowledge) The IGF AG consists of 46 people from different countries and cultures and is a good example of the way the UN opened up during the WSIS process. This includes 20 representatives from the governmental sector, 10 from the business sector, 7 representing civil society and 9 from the ICANN system. All stakeholders are well represented - governments, civil society, business, and the relevant international organizations, e.g. ITU, ICANN, ISOC, IETF, International Chamber of Commerce, UNESCO, Internet registries and registrars, and others. People involved in the proceedings say that the IGF will be launched this year in Athens, but will continue in 2007 in Brazil, and in 2008. IGF website - includes webcast and transcripts of the session http://www.intgovforum.org/index.htm EDRI-gram : Consultations on Internet Governance Forum (1.03.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.4/igf (Contribution by Veni Markovski - EDRi-Member ISOC Bulgaria) ============================================================ 4. French draft copyright law continues to be criticised ============================================================ As a continuation of the "saga" of the French draft law on copyright and related rights of the information society (DASDVSI), the French Senate voted this month the law which continues to be severely criticised by the consumer associations as well as software companies. The Senators have adopted the law with 164 votes for and 128 against. The "for" votes came from UMP (Union pour un Mouvement Populaire) and from the radical part of RDSE (Rassemblement Democratique et Social Europeen). The socialist group of Verts (Greens) and the PCF (French Communist Party) voted against it. The law supported by the Senate has also changed the article 7, that was adopted by the Deputies and required the DRM vendors and commercial platforms to open their technology to competitors in order to make it interoperable. This brought forth the reaction of companies such as Apple or Microsoft and of the American Minister of Commerce. The senators, guided by the rapporteur Michel Thiollihre and by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Minister of Culture, adopted a totally different system based on the creation of an independent administrative authority. The current text no longer guaranties the right to the private copy, which is considered as a serious blow to the consumers. The CLCV (Association Consommation, logement et cadre de vie) states a "conditioned private copy" takes away from the consumer the right to privately use a work that was acquired legally. The association considers the consumer should no longer pay for the possibility to copy, which is actually refused. Another measure considered as unrealistic is the one that holds software companies liable when their software is used for piracy. This measure also affects companies relying on open- source software. "It is the nature of open source that there is nothing we can do about a program once it is distributed," said Gilles Gravier, chief technology strategist for security at Sun Microsystems. "Also the open-source licenses are issued on a global basis. Finally, this law draft has succeeded in raising more criticism after having been voted by the Senate than after it was passed by the National Assembly in March 2006. The DADVSI law will be debated further on in a Mixed Joint Commission including seven deputies and seven senators, which has the task to reconcile the disagreements between the texts adopted by the two Assemblies. According to certain sources, this Commission would be gathered on 30 May. French iPod bill moves forward (11.05.2006) http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/05/11/business/apple.php The draft law on copyright raises vivid critics (only in French, 12.05.2006) http://www.01net.com/editorial/315533/legislation/le-projet-de-loi-sur-le-d… it-d-auteur-suscite-de-vives-critiques/ The Senate cancels the forced interoperability (only in French, 10.05.2006) http://www.ratiatum.com/news3108_Le_Senat_supprime_l_interoperabilite_forcee. html EDRI-gram : Update on French EUCD Transposition (29.03.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.6/frencheucd What's so special about French EUCD transposition? (15.03.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.5/franceeucd ============================================================ 5. German Constitutional Court has outlawed preventive data screening ============================================================ On 22 May the German Constitutional Court has declared illegal under the German Constitution the practice of screening data across several private and public databases in order to find potential terrorists ("sleepers"). Several federal states will now have to change their police laws. The decision does not make data screening ("Rasterfahndung", literally: "grid investigation", usual transliterations: "dragnet investigation" or "data trawl") completely illegal, but binds it to very narrow conditions. The measure is still legal for investigations in specific criminal cases, as it was used against the left-wing guerrilla RAF in the 1970s, when the "Rasterfahndung" was invented. But for crime prevention purposes, it can only be done in the presence a concrete danger for the lives or liberties of persons or for the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany or a federal state (Land). This requires factual indicators for an imminent attack. A general threat condition or foreign tensions like after 9/11 2001 are not sufficient. The Federal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt) had coordinated such screenings, in cooperation with the state-level police authorities after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Universities, private companies, private security firms, public transport institutions, facility providers, municipal authorities, and the Federal Register of Foreign Residents were required to submit comprehensive information they had on anybody matching a set of criteria (male, aged between 18 and 40, student or former student, country of origin mainly Muslim) to the state police agencies. The latter did a screening run for matches across the different submitted databases that combined included more than 8 million people. The 31 988 hits were stored in a central file called "sleepers" and again screened by the Federal Police Agency against a database that included up to 300 000 persons who held a pilot license, were supposed to be dangerous, or matched some other criteria. The remaining several thousand persons (matches) was manually reviewed by the state police agencies. The whole exercise did not lead to a single terrorist suspect or prosecution. The plaintiff, a Morrocan citizen who studied in Germany in 2001, argued that his right for informational self-determination was breached, that the screening was an especially severe breach of fundamental rights because it took place unbeknownst to the people affected, that it was not proportionate because of the lack of factual indicators for an imminent terrorist attack in Germany, and that the criteria were discriminating him and fellow Muslims on the basis of religion. The lower courts had overturned his arguments. The official data protection commissioners, the opposition parties Greens, Liberals and Socialists, and civil liberties groups applauded the court decision and demanded an immediate stop of plans for similar measures like communications traffic data retention, license-plate screening, or the creation of new investigative powers for the Federal Police Agency for the prevention of crimes. A spokesperson of the federal Ministry of the Interior said that in international terrorism, there was only a thin line between a general and a concrete threat condition, making it difficult to apply the decision. The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, G|nther Beckstein, called the decision "a black day for the effective fight against terrorism in Germany." The association of student representatives, which had supported the plaintiff, demanded a "personal apology" from the responsible authorities for the illegal and unconstitutional discrimination of foreign and Muslim students in Germany. Up to eleven federal states will now have to change their police laws and criminal procedures acts. The decision will also have an impact on the discussion about the legality of mandatory communications data retention in Germany. The Constitutional Court explicitly re-emphasised in the reasons given for the judgement the "strict prohibition, beyond statistical purposes, of the storage of personally identifiable data on stock." ("auf Vorrat"). "Vorratsdatenspeicherung" - literally: "data storage on stock" - is the German term for data retention. Decision of the German Constitutional Court, 1 BvR 518/02 (in German only, 22.05.2006) http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/entscheidungen/rs20060404_1bvr051802… tml Press Release of the German Constitutional Court (in German only, 23.05.2006) http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg06-040.html Overview of reactions to the decision (in German only) http://www.netzpolitik.org/2006/reaktionen-auf-das-urteil-zur-rasterfahndun… Berlin Data Protection and Freedom of Information Commissioner: Special Report on the Execution of Data Screening in Berlin (in German only, 1.12.2002) http://www.datenschutz-berlin.de/infomat/sonderbericht/rasterfahndung.pdf (Contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien - Germany) ============================================================ 6. UK Government asks for the encryption keys ============================================================ The UK Home Office is planning to implement Part 3 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). That would allow the police forces to ask for the disclosure of encryption keys, or force suspects to decrypt encrypted data. RIPA was promoted in 2000, but until now the officials have not implement Part 3. There were still voices that considered that parts I and III of the Act should be reviewed to consider whether the Act was effective in meeting its aims. However, until now, the Act has remained in its initial form . Recently, the Home Office started a consultation considering that the provisions in Part 3 would be needed to fight against an increased use of encryption by criminals, paedophiles, and terrorists. The officials are also expecting proposals for amendments to RIPA. The Home Office minister of state, Liam Byrne, told Parliament last week that "Encryption products are more widely available and are integrated as security features in standard operating systems, so the Government has concluded that it is now right to implement the provisions of Part 3 of RIPA... which is not presently in force." This decision has triggered a lot of comments and criticism from experts in the industry, considering that anyone who refuses to hand over a key to the police would face up to two years imprisonment. Experts are worried about the effects of the Act, that might push some businesses outside UK, but also about the practical solutions related to financial institutions that use such security devices. Readers and experts cited by Zdnet UK point out that the law might be impossible to enforce. The encryption expert Peter Fairbrother underlined: "It is, as ever, almost impossible to prove 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that some random-looking data is in fact ciphertext, and then prove that the accused actually has the key for it, and that he has refused a proper order to divulge it". UK Government to force handover of encryption keys (18.05.2006) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39269746,00.htm Anger over encryption key seizure threat (19.05.2006) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39270276,00.htm ============================================================ 7. Big Brother Awards Italy 2006 ============================================================ >From 19 May to 20 May Florence has hosted the E-Privacy 2006 conference, organized as usual - by the Winston Smith Project with the help of several volunteers. This edition saw a much larger participation than 2005: the participants could hardly fit the hall of Palazzo Vecchio, and several people had to stand for the whole duration of the event. The number of presentations (19) and participating organizations (14) saw a marked and unexpected growth. As usual, the Italian Big Brother Awards were given during the conference. Although none of the awards' recipients were present, a mock Darth Vader - prompting hilarity from the public - took the prizes in custody. The positive prize "Winston Smith - Privacy Hero", which was assigned in 2005 to Stefano Rodot` (former president of the Italian Privacy Authority) was won by the No1984.org group, for its relentless information work against Trusted Computing. Trusted Computing was indeed one of the central players of the whole event, as it also won the prize for "Most Invasive Technology", while the prize for "Worst Private Group" was assigned to the Trusted Computing Group, the business association that is developing the technical specs of the Trusted Computing technology. One can only deduce that the most dangerous enemy for net-privacy in the coming future has been clearly identified by netizens. Other BBA winners include Enzo Mazza, president of FIMI (Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana - Italian Music Industry Federation) for its organization's lobbying on ISP's responsibilities in copyright violation, the Italian Privacy Authority for its power (pursuant to art. 158, Legislative Decree 196/03) to enter private premises even without a judicial mandate, and Mauro Masi of the Office of the President of the Council, for blocking the ongoing reform work on Italian copyright law - which, among other things, would have moved copyright violation from the criminal to the civil sphere. E-Privacy 2006 Conference http://e-privacy.firenze.linux.it/index-e.html Big Brother Awards Italy 2006 https://bba.winstonsmith.info/ Winston Smith Project http://www.winstonsmith.info/ (Contribution by Andrea Glorioso, consultant on digital policies, and Marco Calamari, founder of the Winston Smith Project) ============================================================ 8. Application of the FOI law in Macedonia ============================================================ The Parliament of Macedonia adopted the Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character in February 2006. NGO activists made some effort to make some quality changes to the proposed law and as a result some essential recommendations were accepted and implemented in the law. Although three months have past since the adoption of the law, the Commission for protection of the right for free access to information was established only last week. According to the law, the Commission should have been appointed by the Parliament of Macedonia a month after the law was passed. According to government officials, the Commission will become operational from September this year, when the implementation of the law itself must start. It means that citizens can refer to the Commission if they think that their right to have access to information of public character is violated. On 11 May 2006 the Commission had a constitutive session and presented its tasks. In this respect, a lot of activities for raising awareness must be conducted in cooperation with NGOs in order to promote the new institution and support the successful implementation of the law. The most important task of the Commission is to provide guidance and procedures for a proper implementation of the law. Moreover, the Commission must publish a list of institutions that represent information holders. After that, the holders of public information must appoint an official FOI person in charge of dealing with FOI requests. Several NGOs are working on the monitoring of the implementation of the FOI law and conduct raising awareness activities. So far, NGOs articulated and sustained activities have had results. Hopefully, their efforts will also speed-up the process of creating an proper environment for an efficient FOI implementation in Macedonia. EDRi-gram : Freedom of Information Act in Macedonia (18.01.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/macedoniafoia (Contribution by Bardhyl Jashari, EDRI-member Foundation Metamorphosis - Macedonia) ============================================================ 9. PM supports rejected UK ID Cards Act ============================================================ Tony Blair stated a strong support for the ID card Act that was rejected by the House of Lords in January this year. The Government had considered the card as essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration, and identity theft. However, the House of Lords required from the Government to give further clarifications related to detailed costs for such a system, a higher security in recording and storing personal data and asked for a change in one of the purposes of the system from 'securing efficient and effective provision of public services' to preventing 'illegal and fraudulent access to public services'. The 'Identity Project' report of the London School of Economics had also stated that the government proposal lacked defined goals without clearly showing the impact upon terrorism or identity theft and also considered the project as underestimated from the point of view of the costs. In endorsing the project, the Prime Minister went as far as stating "we need identity cards both for foreign nationals and for British nationals. If we want to track people coming in and out of our country and to know the identity of people who are here, then that is what we have to do." Foreign nationals are not presently included in the Act. As a response to the claims that the ID scheme is a tracking mean, Blair used 'log' or 'identify' as synonyms for 'track', considered as not a very fortunate choice of words. The Register's columnist John Lettice considers that the so called "ring of steel" promoted by Tony Blair has several failing issues. The e-Borders which is supposed to help the Government know who is coming into the country, and who is going out, even if implemented at all border entry points shows a lot of vulnerabilities. EU citizens will be able to come in and work if they like, and travellers from numerous countries don't require visas. The identity of these travellers is not certain as false documents can be obtained in these countries. Blair's plans to solve the immigration question through the application of IT will meet difficulties on several levels. Fortress Blair - PM bets on biometric ring of steel to 'fix' immigration (22.05.2006) http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/22/blair_biometric_migration_fix/ EDRI-gram: UK ID card scheme - defeated in the House of Lords (18.01.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/ukidcard London School of Economics 'Identity Project' http://is.lse.ac.uk/idcard/ ============================================================ 10. Recommending Reading ============================================================ >From 15 to 17 May the University of Illinois Chicago (USA) hosted the conference "FM10 Openness: Code, Science and Content". The occasion was the tenth anniversary of "First Monday", the first peer-reviewer journal born on the Internet. The final day of the conference gathered a group that brainstormed over the first draft of the "Chicago Manifesto". Chicago Manifesto on Openness (17.05.2006) http://blogger.uic.edu:16080/weblog/nrj/FM10/?permalink=ChicagoManifesto.ht… &page=trackback Website of the conference (with abstracts and papers) http://numenor.lib.uic.edu/fmconference/ First Monday http://www.firstmonday.org/ ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 14-18 June, Rathen, Germany ICA-IAMCR Symposium on Internet Governance http://www.ntu.edu.sg/sci/sirc/icapreconf.html 19-20 June 2006, Paris, France New relations between creative individuals and communities, consumers and citizens. Hosted by the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) http://www.tacd.org/docs/?id=296 19-23 June, Singapore Euro-Southeast Asia ICT Forum (EUSEA2006) (with the EU Commission as co-host) http://www.eusea2006.org 21 June 2006, Luxembourg Safer Internet Forum 2006 Focus on two topics: "Children's use of new media" and "Blocking access to illegal content: child sexual abuse images" http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/sip/si_forum/forum... 26-27 June 2006, Berlin, Germany The Rising Power of Search-Engines on the Internet: Impacts on Users, Media Policy, and Media Business http://www.uni-leipzig.de/journalistik/suma/home_e.html 3-5 July, Cambridge, UK Privacy Laws & Business, 19th Annual International Conference "Privacy Crisis Ahead? Investing enough in data protection to strengthen and defend your reputation" http://www.privacylaws.com/conferences.annual.html 16 - 28 July 2006, Oxford, UK Annenberg/Oxford Summer Institute: Global Media Policy: Technology and New Themes in Media Regulation http://www.pgcs.asc.upenn.edu/events/ox06/index.php 2-4 August 2006, Bregenz, Austria 2nd International Workshop on Electronic Voting 2006 Students may apply for funds to attend the workshop until 30 June 2006. http://www.e-voting.cc/stories/1246056/ 14-16 September 2006, Berlin, Germany Wizards of OS 4 Information Freedom Rules http://wizards-of-os.org/ =========================================================== 12. About =========================================================== EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 21 members from 14 European countries and 5 observers from 5 more countries (Italy, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia). European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the EDRI website. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: edri-news-request(a)edri.org Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Macedonian EDRI-gram is also available partly in Macedonian, with delay. Translations are provided by Metamorphosis http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6… &Itemid=4&lang=mk - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/edrigram - Help Please ask <edrigram(a)edri.org> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]

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[Politech] Paul Levy: Politicians, infomercial kings try to stifle anonymous Internet speech [fs]
by Declan McCullagh 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Like Paul, I'm having a hard time figuring out which is more loathsome: a censorial politician or a a censorial informercial king. I think it's the politician, who's named Judy Gatelli, but it is a tough choice between two exceptionally well-qualified candidates. Ms. Gatelli's email address is jgatelli(a)scrantonpa.gov. -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: New attacks on the right to speak anonymously on the Internet Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:21:26 -0400 From: Paul Levy <plevy(a)citizen.org> To: <declan(a)well.com> I am writing to call your attention to two new Internet anonymity cases we have taken on. I am having trouble figuring out which plaintiff's claims I find more offensive. In one case, the President of the Scranton City Council has filed suit against about ninety of her constituents for defamation and "infliction of emotional distress" for calling her names on a local Internet message board (for example, they call her a Nazi for allegedly mistreating citizen speakers during publicly televised council meetings, or they say "she is not for the people, she is for herself.") We have filed in opposition to her motion to compel disclosure of the critics' names. In the other case, the "Video Professor," a TV infomercial king who sells lessons on computer use, is suing a hundred former students for anonymously dissing his product on web sites called "infomercialratings.com" and "infomercialscams.com," claiming libel and product disparagement under state law and the Lanham Act. We have interposed an objection to a subpoena, sent to the web sites' operator, asking for the names of EVERYBODY who has said anything about the Professor's products on the web sites. What makes the Video Professor's demand especially hypocritical is that, in his posture as a "consumer advocate," his own web site urges consumers to check out companies before they buy, by searching for consumer reviews on the Internet. http://www.videoprofessor.com/resourcelibrary/internet/dodgingdangersinetsh… But on his company, it seems, he only wants positive reviews to be available online. In both cases, we take to new forums our argument that courts ought to require a would-be plaintiff to make a showing that it has enough evidence of legal actionable conduct that its interest in going forward with a lawsuit outweighs the First Amendment right to speak anonymously. In each case, it remains to be seen whether the plaintiff can make a sufficient showing with respect to at least some of the postings at issue. But we want to be sure that all the potential defendants get good notice and an opportunity to defend their anonymity. Somewhat longer descriptions of each case, including links to the relevant filings, follow. PUBIC CITIZEN PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release: Contact: Amanda Long (202) 588-7703 Sept. 21, 2007 Rachel Pleatman (202) 588-7742 'Video Professor' Has No Legal Basis for Unmasking Identities of Anonymous Web Critics Apparently Upset at Criticisms of His Company, Infomercial Guru Sues Customers WASHINGTON, D.C. - The "Video Professor," a ubiquitous purveyor of computer-training lessons via infomercials, has no legal basis for discovering the identities of his disgruntled customers, Public Citizen said today. In a letter sent today to the Video Professor's attorney, Greg Smith of Denver, Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy outlined the many reasons why the Professor's subpoena against John Does 1 through 100 is invalid. In mid-August, in federal court in Denver, the Video Professor, a self-proclaimed consumer advocate, sued his own customers for posting comments on two consumer comment Web sites. The sites, infomercialratings.com and infomercialscams.com, are run by a Nevada company, Leonard Fitness, Inc. The Professor alleged that his detractors had violated federal trademark laws by saying negative things about the name of his product, as well as committing defamation and several violations of state law. Recently, subpoenas were delivered to Leonard Fitness' agent. "It's outrageous that the Professor is suing his own customers," Levy said. "He has shown no legal basis on which to do so. He's very good at promoting himself and wants to suppress criticism." The Video Professor, John Scherer, is not really a professor - he just plays one on TV. He founded his company to offer CDs and online lessons on a wide range of computer programs and skills. His efforts share the airwaves with abdominal rollers, juicers, magic steamers and assorted as-seen-on-TV wares. Scherer claims that more than 8 million people have purchased his products since he started selling instructional videos 20 years ago. "The Professor's own Web site warns consumers to check out companies they don't know by using Internet search engines to find customer reviews," Levy said. "But if the cost of complaining online is having to face a federal lawsuit, a company can unfairly ensure that only compliments will be posted." Not only have state and federal courts throughout the country recognized the right to speak anonymously on the Internet, but the Professor has not met the legal requirements necessary to justify the unmasking of the critics' identities, Levy said. The Professor would have to show a likelihood of success on the merits of the case, which he hasn't done, Levy said. In addition, the Professor's subpoena fails to identify which of the many posts he finds defamatory. There are hundreds of comments about the courses, many of which are complimentary, on the two sites. The subpoena incorrectly burdens the Web site host to identify which critics upset the Professor. Specifics are needed for the anonymous posters to decide whether and how to protect their anonymity, Levy said. A copy of Levy's letter is available at http://www.citizen.org/documents/videoprofletter.pdf. For Immediate Release: Contact: Amanda Long (202) 588-7703 Sept. 21, 2007 Angela Bradbery (202) 588-7741 Critics of Scranton Council President Have Right to Anonymity, Public Citizen Tells Court Petition to Reveal Identity of Message Board Posters Is Unconstitutional WASHINGTON, D.C. - A Scranton, Pa., City Council member cannot compel disclosure of the identity of the almost 100 constituents who anonymously posted messages on a Web site critical of her leadership, Public Citizen said in a motion filed today in the Court of Common Pleas in Lackawanna County. The plaintiff, Scranton City Council President Judy Gatelli, sought a court order requiring the message board's hosts to reveal the identity of posters whom she accuses of defamation, civil conspiracy and "engaging in a campaign of intentional emotional distress." Earlier this year, Gatelli canceled a Council meeting after citing concerns about "threats" against her on www.dohertydeceit.com. The host of that site, Joseph Pilchesky, sued Gatelli for defamation, and Gatelli filed a countersuit against him for the same. She also filed a complaint against Pilchesky's wife and approximately 90 defendants, identified by the pseudonyms used on Scranton "Political" Times Message Board, a site that links to DohertyDeceit and also is operated by Pilchesky. Although Gatelli cites 130 different messages, she doesn't say which posting was made by which defendant. As an elected official, Gatelli's conduct is fair subject for comment, Public Citizen argued. Furthermore, courts have ruled that subpoenas to reveal the names of anonymous speakers can chill free speech, and those courts have upheld the right to communicate anonymously over the Internet. "While some posts are scathing, they are scathing opinions, which are protected speech," said Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen attorney representing seven defendants. "This is especially true for elected public officials. Harry Truman said it best: 'If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.' " The name-calling and rhetorical insults Gatelli cites in her complaint are prime examples of what courts have found to be protected speech in the context of public debate. For example, Gatelli accuses one defendant of making the following post: "Your arrogance blows me away * You didn't just screw the adults of this town, you screwed the children of Scranton." The complaint includes a posting that refers to Gatelli as a fat Nazi. Courts have consistently held that calling someone a Nazi is figurative speech not actionable as libel. Gatelli has failed to introduce any admissible evidence to establish that the facts posted were false or caused any economic damage or harm, Levy said. "The Internet is a democratic institution in its fullest sense." Levy said. "To deny citizens access to it because an elected official says her feelings are hurt would go a long way toward eroding the First Amendment." George Barron, an attorney in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., is local counsel for the Doe defendants in opposing discovery. To reach Barron, visit www.attorneybarron.com. For background on the case, including the brief:, visit http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=427 Public Citizen has a record of defending the First Amendment rights of Internet users. To learn more, visit http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/IntFreeSpch/. ### Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please see http://www.citizen.org. Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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Re: Death of antivirus software imminent
by Anne & Lynn Wheeler 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

Bill Frantz wrote: > My favorite virtual machine use is for the virus to install itself > as a virtual machine, and run the OS in the virtual machine. This > technique should be really good for hiding from virus scanners. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#2 Death of antivirus software imminent http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#4 Death of antivirus software imminent i commented on that in reference posts mentioning that there have been uses of virtual machines to study virus/trojans ... but that some of the new generation virus/trojans are now looking to see if they are running in virtual machine (studied?). some of the current trade-off is whether that virtual machine technology can be used to partition off basically insecure operations (which are widely recognized as being easy to compromise) and then completely discard the environment and rebuild from scratch after every session (sort of the automated equivalent of having to manually wipe an infected machine and re-install from scratch). the counter argument is that crooks can possibly also use similar technology to hide ... once they have infected the machine. the current issue is that a lot of the antivirus/scanning techniques are becoming obsolete w/o the attackers even leveraging virtual machine technology. The attackers can leverage the technology in an otherwise poorly defended machine. Some years ago there was a product claiming that it could operate even at a public access machine because of their completeness of their antivirus countermeasures ... even on an infected machine. I raised the issue that it would be trivial to defeat all such countermeasures using virtual machine technology. Somewhat of a skirmish resulted since they had never considered (or heard of) virtual machine technology ... for all i know there is still ongoing head-in-the-sand situation. for little topic drift ... this blog entry: https://financialcryptography.com/mt/archives/000991.html and http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#3 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm28.htm#5 there is some assertion that the crooks overwhelming the defenders countermeasures because they are operating significantly faster and more efficiently. however, another interpretation is that the defenders have chosen extremely poor position to defend ... and are therefor at enormous disadvantage. it may be necessary to change the paradigm (and/or find the high ground) in order to successfully defend. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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the physics arXiv blog
by the physics arXiv blog 05 Jul '18

05 Jul '18

[1]the physics arXiv blog [2]Anonymizing data without damaging it Posted: 05 Nov 2008 11:39 PM CST [3]graph.jpg If scientists are to study massive datasets such as mobile phone records, search queries and movie ratings, the owners of these datasets need to find a way to anonymize the data before releasing it. The high profile cracking of data sets such as the [4]Netflix prize dataset and the AOL search query data set means that people would be wise not to trust these kinds of releases until the anonymization problem has been solved. The general approach to anonymization is to change the data in some significant but subtle way to ensure that no individual is identifiable as a result. One way of doing this is to ensure that every record in the set is identical to at least one other record. That's sensible but not always easy, point out Rajeev Motwani and Shubha Nabar at Stanford University in Palo Alto. For example, a set of search queries can be huge, covering the search habits of millions of people over many months. The variety of searches people make over such a period make it hard to imagine that two entries would be identical. And analyzing and changing such a huge dataset in a reasonable period of time is tricky too. Motwani and Nabar make a number of suggestions. Why not break the data set into smaller, more manageable clusters, they say. And why not widen the criteria for what it means to be identical to allow similar searches to be replaced with identical terms. For example, replacing a search for "organic milk" with a search for "dairy product". These ideas seem eminently sensible. The problem becomes even more difficult when the data is in graph form, as it might be for mobile phone records or web chat statistics. So Nabar suggest a similar anonymizing technique: ensure that every node on the graph should share some number of its neighbors with a certain number of other nodes. The trouble is that the anonymization technique can destroy the very patterns that you are looking for in the data, for example in the [5]way mobile phones are used. And at present, there's no way of knowing what has been lost. So what these guys need to do next is find some kind of measure of data loss that their proposed changes cause, to give us a sense of how much damage is being done to the dataset during anonymization. In the meantime, dataset owners should show some caution over how, why and to whom they release their data. Ref: [6]arxiv.org/abs/0810.5582: Anonymizing Unstructured Data [7]arxiv.org/abs/0810.5578: Anonymizing Graphs [8][arXivblog?i=hpfrHu] [9][arXivblog?i=RCzNN] [10][arXivblog?i=QPK0N] [11][arXivblog?i=sa0en] [12][arXivblog?i=J17iN] [13][arXivblog?i=6potn] [14][arXivblog?i=uqYGN] [15][arXivblog?i=vse8n] [16][arXivblog?i=V3xyN] You are subscribed to email updates from [17]the physics arXiv blog To stop receiving these emails, you may [18]unsubscribe now. Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner Inbox too full? [19](feed) [20]Subscribe to the feed version of the physics arXiv blog in a feed reader. If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: the physics arXiv blog, c/o FeedBurner, 20 W Kinzie, 9th Floor, Chicago IL USA 60610 References 1. http://arxivblog.com/ 2. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/arXivblog/~3/444018253/ 3. http://arxivblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/graph.jpg 4. http://arxivblog.com/?p=142 5. http://arxivblog.com/?p=88 6. http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5582 7. http://arxiv.org/abs/0810.5578 8. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/arXivblog?a=hpfrHu 9. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=RCzNN 10. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=QPK0N 11. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=sa0en 12. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=J17iN 13. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=6potn 14. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=uqYGN 15. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=vse8n 16. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/arXivblog?a=V3xyN 17. http://arxivblog.com/ 18. http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailunsub?id=8632699&key=kesJ612ZsV 19. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog 20. http://feeds.feedburner.com/arXivblog ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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