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Re: Encrypted Communications Privacy Act of 1996 (fwd)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> S 1587 IS >> 104th CONGRESS >> 2d Session >> To affirm the rights of Americans to use and sell encryption >> products, to establish privacy standards for voluntary escrowed >> encryption systems, and for other purposes. >> IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES >> March 5, 1996 >> Mr. LEAHY (for himself, Mr. BURNS, Mr. DOLE, Mr. PRESSLER, and Mrs. MURRAY) ^^^^^^^^ Interesting that Bob Dole is supporting it! It's certainly not a perfect bill, and will presumably be less perfect by the time it's passed. But it's a nice alternative to Clinton, who was happy to buy in to the previous Administration's anti-crypto efforts. (I'll presumably be voting for Harry Browne or some other Libertarian, unless I get fed up and vote for Frank Zappa or Hugh Romney; the Democrats can look me up some year if they decide to run a genuine liberal :-) #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissable." - US government statement on China...

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Re: FCC & Internet phones
by Mutant Rob 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- t byfield wrote: [..] > doubt the situation for bureaucratic rule-mongering would be much > different. The WP article said that has ACTA has "asked the [FCC] to stop > this kind of communications and study how to regulate it," probably--and > not surprisingly --in that order. I noticed they complainted about IPhone "giving away our product for free" or something like that. Bad implications. Imagine MS going after the FreeDOS people, or Novel or AT&T or whoever owns Unix now going after Linux or the FSF/GNU... [..] > Q: Is it practically possible to find netphone traffic on a > generic network at any level above the source and target addresses? Good question. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMUI89CoZzwIn1bdtAQFXBAF/RSoygg/szTsrtI+Ds512YDV3KswRP43r 4HfgV+PHex3JqnhOWNbWuNga05EsFDJp =EcBe -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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re: FCC & Internet phones
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:12 PM 3/9/96 -0500, Padgett Peterson wrote: > >"Long-Distance Dueling. Free Dialing Via Internet Faces a Challenge From > >Small Phone Firms." > You seem to forget that the Internet is just about the *only* electronic > communications media not controlled/licensed by the FCC in the US. The > FCC also prohibits use of cryptography by those with amateur licenses. Oh, we remember it :-). But actually, large chunks of the Internet's facilities _are_ on controlled or semi-controlled media, such as frame relay (which the Feds just insisted had to be tariffed) or local private-line (which is often regulated by state PUCs.) But in those cases, the regulation is at the price/quantity/schedule layer, rather than the content layer. And according to someone I talked to recently, the Network Access Points, MAE-East/West, (though not CIX), are still NSF-funded, even though they're often built and run by folks like PacBell - I'd thought we'd gotten rid of those guys a couple of years ago except for the NIC and Internic. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissable." - US government statement on China...

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Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by Dan Weinstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 9 Mar 96 at 9:26, you wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > > At 12:19 PM 3/8/96 -0800, Dan Weinstein wrote: > > > >> Second, if what they're charging is the hindrance of an > >> felony investigation, it isn't clear to me why they would be > >> limiting the charging of that "crime" to only those actually who > >> have committed a felony. (logic isn't the normal mode of thought > >> for a government employee, you realize.) > > > >I agree with your concerns here, but I find it hard to believe that > > the courts would allow a broader interpretation. > > Unfortunately, what you find "hard to believe" I find easy to > believe. Remember, if this bill is passes, it doesn't merely affect > YOU, it affects ME. So I suggest the burden of proof is on YOU to > show that these provisions aren't going to be maliciously > interpreted by the courts. Burden of proof? Sorry, I do not have to justify my views to anyone. I am trying to have a reasonable discussion of this issue, thus, the "burden of proof" lies equal on each of us. > >> Third, all they have to do is to "suspect" the person of a > >> felony, and a > >> "felony investigation" starts. That would presumably make him > >> guilty of the Leahy bill's provision, regardless of whether he is > >> actually participating in the crime supposedly being > >> investigated. > > > >Here you are dead wrong, the bill specifically states: "in > >furtherance of a felony." Its like those laws that let them charge > >someone with murder in the first if someone dies while you are > >commiting another felony. They must prove the original felony > >before they can get you on the murder one. The real purpose of > >this provision, as I read it, is to give longer sentences to > >criminals that use crypto. > > I'm not a lawyer, but I assume neither are you. Please explain the > LEGAL DEFINTION of "in furtherance of a felony." If you can't, then > you simply don't know how far they will go. And you're depending on > the reasonableness of the government for the interpretion. True, I am not a lawyer. I would like to hear from one of the lawyers on the list for a more deffinitively. Since you also admit you are not a lawyer, I do not accept your opinion as superior to mine. I was pointing it out as something that I believed you had missed. I find it hard to believe that anyone can further a felony when their is no felony. In addition, this is VTW's interpretation based on the analysis that they have posted to their home page. I would presume that they were using lawyers to analyze the bill. > >> Fourth, I gave what I considered to be a clear example of the > >> hypothetical misuse of an encrypted remailer by the cops, one > >> that would arguably make the remailer operator guilty of some > >> "reasonable" anti-kiddie-porn statute. At that point, _he_is_ > >> the target of the investigation. Unless you can show that this > >> kind of action by the government is impossible, I consider it to > >> be not merely possible but almost certain to occur. > > > >Again, the problem I see with your scenario is that I don't believe > > that the courts will interpret it that way. > > What you think is irrelevant. Most people probably didn't realize > what the government did in the Amateur Action BBS case was "legal," > either. But they did it anyway. Yes, this case was certainly a travesty. The thing about it was that it violated the law. Their actions took place in California, but they were tried in Tennessee. This is a violation of U.S. law. Again, this is my non-professional opinion, but I have heard several professionals proclaim that the governments actions seriously violated its own laws. If your point is that the government does not obey its own laws, then all I can say is that if that is how you feel then why oppose the bill? Won't they end up doing what they want anyway? > > > My interpretation is that > >if they serve a warrent and I don't decrypt for them and they can > >prove a felony, then I will be subject to the listed punishment. > > Are you assuming that you have the key? Remember, if you run an > encrypted anonymous remailer, and assuming you do it honestly, you > won't be keeping records as to the source of the note. > > Thus, if they "serve a warrant" and you CAN'T decrypt the message > (or tell them where it came from) then why aren't you already > guilty? Remember, the wording of the proposed law doesn't require > that you have full knowledge of the crime involved, merely that you > act "in furtherance" of it... If you don't possess the key, but > you explicitly ran your remailer so that you never it, just so you > couldn't relinquish it, you have structured your operation too > thwart any investigations. You are ALREADY guilty. This may not > sound reasonable, but the government no longer (if it ever did) > considers "reasonableness" to be an impediment to their actions. > I don't but this. If I am a reporter if I receive an anonymous tip, a court could order me to tell who my source was, but I couldn't and they couldn't do anything about it unless they could prove that I knew who the source was. If I knowingly aranged for the source not to reveal himself to me, could I them be charged with obstruction of justice or contempt of court? Again it is my non-profesional opinion, but I really doubt this. Comment from a lawyer would be appreciated. > > >> Fifth, it isn't clear what amount of knowledge is necessary to > >> "trigger" this clause, especially in its current flawed state. > >> Since ISP's and encrypted remailers might know, in general, that > >> their systems can and probably are being used for SOME criminal > >> activity, even if they can't identify it or the user, or decrypt > >> it, etc, a broad interpretation of the resulting law could easily > >> de-facto prohibit any business practices (i.e., allowing users to > >> use encryption) that prevents full-scale monitoring and/or > >> tracing. > > > >I disagree, it states you must "willfully endeavor" to use the > >encryption as a means of obstructing the investigation. To me, > >this means that it is the motivation for using the encryption. > > Question: What, exactly, is the motivation of a person running an > anonymous remailer? His motivation is clear: To allow people to > send anonymously untraceable messages. Assuming he's of ordinary > levels of intelligence or beyond, he is aware that somebody may some > day use his system for illegal purposes. You're going to have to > explain why a court _CAN'T_ interpret this as being in violation of > the law. > If I rent cars, someone might one day use a car rented from me in a robbery. Does that make my an accessary? NO. > > > If I set > >up an encrypting remailer for the purpose of allowing free exchange > > of ideas, I don't believe I would be liable under this law. > > Your optimism is touching. It is also vastly misguided. If you think I am optimistic, you must think just about everyone is an easy dupe. If I do not quite reach your level of paranoia, I apologize; I will try to get to where I distrust everyone like you. Or are you just plotting to make me paranoid? > >The > >only way I could see a remailer charged under this is if he had > >solid evidence that a specific user was violating the law, and took > >no action. > > Gee, I wish you were right, but my experience with government thugs > says that they will do anything they think they can get away with. > Their is certainly A LOT of that with in our government, but to claim everyone in the government is a jack-booted thug is just too far over the top for me. (Yes, yes I realize you think this is niave.) > > >> This is only the beginning of the problems with this section. If > >> you can explain why nothing I've described could possibly occur, > >> I welcome a contrary explanation. > > > >I see some real problems too, but I do not see the problems with > >this provision to be enough to condemn the entire bill. > > I don't "condemn the entire bill." I would, however, reject the > entire bill if that provision remains. And morever, if we make a > serious attempt to have it removed, the more they resist removing it > the more we should insist it go. I don't want it removed, I think it is an important bone to through to those in the middle. I would like the phrasing tightened up so that it could only be used against those that deserve it. > >I would like to > >see this portion of the bill ammended to make it clear that only > >those actually involved in commiting the felony would be held > >responsible. > > There would still be a problem. What's the definition of "actually > involved in committing the felony"? Are you aware, for example, > that manufacturers of small plastic screw-top vials have been > prosecuted and convicted simply because their vials could be used to > hold small quantities of drugs such as cocaine and crack? This was > a case from a few years back, BTW. I wish I could remember the > cite. I was not proposing that exact language, I am not a lawyer and don't imagine I could come up with the bullet-proof wording that is required. > If you're not aware of these things, WAKE UP! Your optimism > disgusts me, because it is entirely unrealistic and based on a > rose-colored-glasses view of the government. I am not aware of the vial case; I certainly would find such a thing interesting to read. If this was what happened, and laws exist that allow this, then we ought to repeal those laws, but I don't see the baring that has on this case; I have already said that they should narrow the language so that it will not be used to the ridiculous extream. > >> But I would also ask this: Why, exactly, do we need this > >> section? We've already been told that the opponents of this bill > >> will fight it tooth-and-nail under its current wording; if that's > >> the case then the presence of this section is inadequate to > >> appease their unhappiness. Therefore, we shouldn't include it in > >> the bill at all; it does no good. > >> > >> Any explanations, Dan? > > > >You are talking about the fringe, this, I think, was added as an > >attempt to bring in those that are in the middle. > > Why would "those that are in the middle" object to a bill which is > little more than a re-statement of rights we already believe we > have?!? I am not talking about reality; I am talking about what they can tell the voters if they are beat up over passing such a bill. You seem to over rate the average voters grasp of the issues. It doesn't matter that the bill really creates or diminishes crime, it is how the voters can be made to perceive it. > > That is, Those > >that see the need to prevent the use of encryption as a means of > >obstructing justice, but feel that we should also have a right to > >privacy. > > There is no viable middle ground here. Any tool can be abused. > If that is true, than you are left with those that are the oppressed and the jack-booted thugs. I do not believe that the only motivation of those that are opposed to strong encryption is to oppress me. Many are trying to do what they think is right, this provision is their to give those that are tetering between the two options an easy way to move to our side. > > > To say that there is no delema here is ridiculous, crime is > >a serious problem that we are already having a terrible time > >dealing with. > > On the contrary, my opinion is "The _government_ is a serious > problem that we are already having a terrible time dealing with." > Fortunately, I've found a solution, and the government is trying as > hard as it can to prevent it (and "crypto-anarchy" in general) from > taking root. > Good premise, now if you could sell that premise to everyone in Congress than your right this provision is useless. Unfortunately, I don't think you will have much luck with this. > > > I think Leahy realizes that this provision will be about as > >useful as the "use a gun, go to jail" laws, but wants to give those > > in the middle to say that they bill will help prevent crime. > > Ha ha! That's rich! There is no reason that a "pro-encryption" > bill has to contain any general "anti-crime" clauses. The average > person is afraid of burglars, muggers, murderers, rapists, car > thieves. When is the last time the average person was the victim of > a crime whose investigation could be "thwarted" by the use of > encryption? If you can't think of an example, you've just proved my > point: This provision is entirely irrelevant to the average citizen > (at least in a "positive" way) and can't be considered a "win" for > him. You talk about my being naive, this takes the cake. Do you really believe that any pro-crypto bill could make it through Congress with out some sort of anti-crime clause? > >> Jim Bell > >> jimbell(a)pacifier.com > >> Dan Weinstein djw(a)vplus.com http://www.vplus.com/~djw PGP public key is available from my Home Page. All opinions expressed above are mine. "I understand by 'freedom of Spirit' something quite definite - the unconditional will to say No, where it is dangerous to say No. Friedrich Nietzsche

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Re: Vexatious Litigants (was: SurfWatch)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: IN%"janzen(a)idacom.hp.com" "Martin Janzen" 9-MAR-1996 09:48:42.59 >>ObCrypto, sort of: What if the page were retrieved through an HTTP >>proxy which, unbeknownst to the author (and the filtering service/SW), >>deliberately removes or alters the PICS-Label or other rating >>information? Sure, you could probably write http://www.g-rated.com/. At least with movie ratings, the MPAA has trademarked the G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17 ratings so that producers can't self-rate their own movies (though they can self-rate them as X.) But you could delete the ratings. Presumably, almost nobody in Europe is going to add these silly Yankee rating labels to their web pages, except a few commercial content providers who want to sell advertising or services into markets that block un-rated web pages. So schoolkids behind rating-mandatory sites will have to ask their teachers why the "World-Wide-Web" is just American --- "It's got All 50 States, Johnny!" <Exonive deleted>! >> Must Web authors now add a digital signature to each page (including its rating >> info), to prevent tampering? Tamper-proofing is a far more general issue than just ratings. Most of the tampering today is either political protest (the see-your- favorite-web-pages-after-censorship site), quasi-silliness (the Great Web Canadianizer, eh?), or advertising addition from commercial sites or deletion from de-commercialization software. Imagine if your movie rating web page gets linked up by some studio-owned web site (www.disney.not/reviews/siskel+ebert/Rocky23 says "Two Thumbs Up!" "Rave!") Or your stock picking service gets arbitraged a bit on fast.make.money.com. Or the ExonOnLine webserver starts deleting all links to unrated pages from pages it serves. If you don't need it now, you'll need it soon enough. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissable." - US government statement on China...

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Re: Paint Your Own Scarlet Letter (Was: Edited Edupage, 29 Feb 1996)
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: lmccarth(a)cs.umass.edu >I couldn't resist the temptation. I rushed out and rated my home page >as evil incarnate, at least according to the SafeSurf rating system. No >innocent rugrats are gonna be learning anything about my work in crypto and >symbolic computation on the web ! I have noticed that they ask for one's URL on the page in question. This information gathering brings to mind the question of if they plan on also keeping some sort of database. While private rating efforst are not directly wrongful, given the circumstances involved they may be attempting to mandate some such (either directly or through lawsuits) via governmental pathways. >It's, uh, interesting to note that "homosexual themes" gets a whole >separate category from "heterosexual themes". :[ Quite. (Incidentally, that the CyberAngels are associated with SafeSurf, which has this distinction in their material also, gives the lie to many of the CyberAngels' claims). I am currently in the process of writing a response to this proposal, and will post the initial version to cypherpunks. >Here's the reply I received after filling out the SafeSurf web form. It looks >as though anyone can use the code below by sticking it in their HTML as >directed: They supposedly have the code in question copyrighted. I suspect that such an attempt will not be valid without changes to copyright laws, but I am not a lawyer. (It does not appear to me, at least, to have any degree of true and original creativity involved). -Allen

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Re: FCC and Internet telephones
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:16 PM 3/6/96 -0800, you wrote: > >Dost my ears deceive me? Is this true? >-------- INCLUDED MESSAGE > FCC Asked to Stop Net Phones True that some organization is asking the _government_ to stop their competition? I'm shocked! Why, next thing you know people will be asking the government to restrict imports of small cars, restrict who can run radio stations, ban the hemp industry, tax imported sugar, or limit campaign contributions to non-incumbents. ("Not possible", you say - "that would be Un-American!") Of course it's true. Will the FCC do what they want? Who knows; it's stupid enough that they just might, but it may end up like the Craig Shergold O'Hair Memorial Modem Tax with people writing them crank letters for years after they've decided not to. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 #

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Re: Petty Civil Disobedience
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 10 Mar 1996 jamesd(a)echeque.com wrote: > > I have added a pornographic image to my web site as an act of > > real civil disobedience. I urge others to do the same. > > > > In the course of doing this, I discovered that on windows, Netscape > > makes jpegs of naked pretty girls look like crap. At 11:40 AM 3/10/96 +0000, Ed Carp wrote: > Check your screen resolution, and make sure it is displaying 256 colors It is not my screen, nor the image, but rather a very common defect in the way they have implemented Floyd Steinberg dithering. They dither to the color cube, as does the Central Point Software file viewer, whose dithering program I wrote, but the Central point software file viewer does a vastly better job. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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re: Bootable disks
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>In Mar. 5 (?) Edupage, there's a blurb about a floppy drive that is >compat with 1.44M disks but can also handle special 80M disks, allegedly >available in April. Several years ago Insite had a "floptical" drive that could handle both regular 3 1/2" and special 20Mb flopical drives. Iomega followed suit and there was an industry spec. Compression would yeid 40 Mb capacity to a marketeer. (Can tell a floptical disk easily - the write protect slide is on the other side). Was a great idea then that was marred by U$500 for the drive and U$20 for the cartriges. Never flew. Three years development would give 80 Mb easily (100 Mb Iomega "ZIP" disks could have been put in a normal 3 1/2 case - is a lot of waste space on either side. Think it was kind of dumb that they didn't but suppose there is a marketing reason - probably the same marketeers that insisted that each new Bernoulli be incompatable with earlier ones.) Major difference is that the floptical could be made bootable but then it had a special SCSI card, did not plug into the normal floppy controller & have to tell the BIOS that drive B was not there. The card then added a BIOS extension similar to what I mentioned in an earlier post to access the disk. For that matter, any drive that has a controller on the bus *could* be made bootable with a PROM. It is only those that plug into the parallel port - all of which require special drivers - that would need "help". Warmly, Padgett

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Re: Faking hostnames and inconvenient anon IP
by otchayanie 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Quoth Arsen Ray Arachelian <raachel(a)prism.poly.edu>: > >In that case one of us (who owns a machine directly plugged into the net) >should set up an anon server that doesn't check for user/host names, or >better yet, provide a bouncing off point for anonymous telnet... Say >something like you telnet to port 666 on toad.com, and then you're given >an anonymous temporary id. At that point, you are prompted with a menu for >what to do... telnet to another site, ftp into another side, call >an IRC server from somewhere, etc. All the anon server would have to do >is bounce packets... I think this idea came up before... an anon packet >forwarding service of sorts... > >If a user goes through several of these, s/he is granted pretty decent >anonimity... Perhaps another play on this would work with encrypted >packets? Where each user who dials into one of these packet bouncers >talks to it via a PGP like RSA and key-exchange system. > >All the IRC server will see is that someone named anon7 logged in from >eminar.toad.com... > in actuality, the code for this exists, has existed for some time, and has even seen some use. it is a simple telnet reflector that functions more or less in the manner you are envisioning; the irc user simply directs the client to the address and port of the 'anon server,' which grants the user its own hostname and an incremented username starting with 'an001;' these and subsequent packets are forwarded to an actual server nearby. the code was written by all-time incorrigible irc hooligan Hendrix, who also brought us the annoybots, tsunami floodbots, and countless other innovations without which irc just wouldn't be the same. the anonirc.c code is available via anon ftp at ftp.rahul.net /pub/jimi, which also houses countless other quasi-legitimate utilities and patches. the project of anonimity on irc seems to be a valuable one, notwithstanding the legion of users whose baser traits are augmented by the prospect of utter irresponsibility. the crytographic frontier on the irc is, for me at least, perhaps much more desirable territory; and of course the two used in sensible conjunction would be ideal. while there is a rudimentary form of encryption built into the unix irc client software, i confess i have only seen it used thoughtfully on one occasion, and sadly, it was to conceal the intentions of parties involved in an 'op war.' on the lighter side, i have recently seen a number of users invoking weak (or perhaps mock) encryption of the form 'CLIPPER:<apparently random digits>:<garbled message>.' so perhaps the interest is fomenting, parody can often turn trash into gold, when well executed. ---------- monad(a)tigger.jvnc.net apologia pro mea vita "The infant's first step is its first step towards death." Kozma Prutkov

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