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Bomb information ban
by SINCLAIR DOUGLAS N 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Caught from the radio this morning: Toronto (Canada) city council is debating a by-law to ban information on bomb construction. This after one of the council members was mailed a faulty (or fake) pipe-bomb. Rough quote: ~This is different than the gun control issue because there is no valid use for bombs.~ I wonder how much of the libraries' engineering books section they'll have to burn because of this.

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Re: Judge Rejects Delay on FBI Wiretap Data
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Subject: Judge Rejects Delay on FBI Wiretap Data >Date: 3 Oct 1994 16:49:03 GMT >============================================================= >PRESS RELEASE >For immediate release >October 3, 1994 >Contact: > Marc Rotenberg, EPIC Director > David Sobel, EPIC Legal Counsel > 202 544 9240 (tel) > JUDGE REJECTS DELAY ON FBI WIRETAP DATA; > "STUNNED" BY BUREAU'S REQUEST >WASHINGTON, D.C.- A federal judge today denied the FBI's request >for a five-year delay in processing documents concerning wiretap >legislation now pending in Congress. > Saying he was "stunned" by the Bureau's attempt to postpone >court proceedings for five years, U.S. District Judge Charles R. >Richey ordered the FBI to release the material or to explain its >reasons for withholding it by November 4. > The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a public >interest research group based in Washington, DC, filed the Freedom >of Information Act lawsuit on August 9, the day legislation was >introduced in Congress to authorize the expenditure of $500 >million to make the nation's communications systems easier to >wiretap. The group is seeking the public release of two surveys >cited by FBI Director Louis Freeh in support of the pending >legislation. > The FBI had moved to stay proceedings in the case until June >1999, more than five years after the filing of the initial >request. The Bureau asserted it was confronted with "a backlog of >pending FOIA requests awaiting processing." The FBI revealed that >there are "an estimated 20 pages to be reviewed" but said that the >materials would not be reviewed until "sometime in March 1999." > Judge Richey rejected the FBI's claims in sharp language from >the bench. He told the government's attorney to "call Director >Freeh and tell him I said this matter can be taken care of in an >hour and a half." > In court papers filed late last week, EPIC charged that >the requested materials are far too important to be kept secret. >"The requested surveys were part of the FBI's long-standing >campaign to gain passage of unprecedented legislation requiring >the nation's telecommunications carriers to redesign their >telephone networks to more easily facilitate court-ordered >wiretapping," said the EPIC brief. > Earlier documents obtained through the FOIA in similar >litigation with the FBI revealed no technical obstacles to the >exercise of court-authorized wire surveillance. > The FBI is pushing for quick enactment of the wiretap >legislation in the closing days of the 103rd Congress. A >grassroots campaign to oppose the measure is being coordinated by >EPIC and Voters Telecomm Watch. > The Electronic Privacy Information Center is a project of >Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, a membership >organization based in Palo Alto, California, and the Fund for >Constitutional Government, a Washington-based foundation dedicated >to the protection of Constitutional freedoms. 202 544 9240 (tel), >202 547 5482 (fax), info(a)epic.org (e-mail). >============================================================= - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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Re: Bomb information ban
by merriman＠metronet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Caught from the radio this morning: > > Toronto (Canada) city council is debating a by-law to ban information >on bomb construction. This after one of the council members was mailed >a faulty (or fake) pipe-bomb. Rough quote: ~This is different than the >gun control issue because there is no valid use for bombs.~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bull. They're great for blowing something up..... > >I wonder how much of the libraries' engineering books section they'll >have to burn because of this. > > All. What part of Engineering doesn't have some impact or use in bombmaking/usage? Dave Merriman - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to *love* Big Brother.

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Referrences to SKE and GAK
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) >Date: Sun, 2 Oct 1994 20:31:13 -0700 (PDT) >And I think we have indeed seen things coming before a lot of others >did. The latest such alert, by Carl Ellison, myself, and others, is >about "software key escrow," or what Carl dubs "GAK" (government >access to keys). I think SKE is the wave of future repression, worth >starting to fight now. The popular media is largely oblivious to it, >as usual. (John Markoff, of the NY Times, is on top of it, more so >than most of us, and is waiting for the right time to do something on >this.) As someone at TIS actively involved in looking at SKE and related technology, I find it bothersome that Tim keeps mixing the terms SKE and GAK. I'm not a fan of giving government access to civilian keys, no matter what form it takes. However, my mother was an English major and she taught me to be protective of the language. escrow - n - a deed, a bond, money or a piece of property held in trust by a third party to be turned over to the grantee only upon the fulfillment of a condition >From inside this morass, there are so many options with so many gradations that it's important to keep terms well defined and separate. Try this: KE: key escrow, implementation and grantee unspecified HKE: key escrow, in hardware, grantee unspecified SKE: key escrow, in software, grantee unspecified KEG: key escrow, implementation unspecified, government grantee GAK: government access to keys, method unspecified GAK is clearly more general than KE and even more general than SKE. There is a real danger that (KE/HKE/SKE) could be subverted by the government but there are some real uses (as have been pointed out here) for what Steve Walker (the TIS president) calls a "spare key in the wallet". [I'm hoping to get his paper on the subject on our FTP or Web server -- will tell people when it's there.] A spare key version of SKE would have the key's owner as grantee -- leaving the gov't out of the loop *except through normal subpoena and search warrant access*. My predictions: 1. access by subpoena is still too objectionable for many people and isn't likely to fly; 2. surveillance agencies are not served by these mechanisms so they are not likely to welcome such systems. Meanwhile, NSA access isn't covered by any of these terms, except perhaps GAK. This is relevant since at the last KEA meeting (NIST's "Key Escrow Approaches"), TIS SKE was demonstrated and people from industry were asked if they wanted to participate in an experiment -- put it in some product, let some gov't agency be the guinea pig user community and see if the FBI was happy with the result (this would be SKEG -- SKE with gov't as grantee) -- and the response was that there was *no* interest unless this provided a way to get software exported. Mike Nelson of the White House (their point man on Clipper, etc.) and Clint Brooks of NSA replied with a resounding "we'll have to think about that". [There has been no result of such thinking yet.] The sequence of events is: 1. industry wants to export 2. NSA controls export 3. industry appears ready to do all sorts of things (like provide GAK) in order to get export permission 4. the NSA doesn't get its needs met by SKEG (because the SKEG mechanisms can be circumvented, leaving normal S/W without GAK) 5. the current situation is an impasse 6. the forces of the dark side are so desperate to get GAK that they'll look at anything which might get them there ------- So, there's a real reason to watch SKEG developments. There's also a real reason to get a new Cantwell bill passed. At the same time, although the term KE is tainted by NIST/NSA/FBI misuse, there do exist positive uses for KE (especially SKE) *without* the gov't as grantee. I encourage individuals to give this a little thought. The example Steve Walker keeps using in public is "the second time I locked myself out of my car, I decided to carry a spare key in my wallet". [...] >Dorothy Denning is deeply involved with SKE, Dorothy has seen the TIS SKE demo. Involvement other than that is none, at least on TIS's side, except that she provided one suggestion to the three TIS developers (Dave Balenson, Steve Lipner and Steve Walker) during the design stage (in early May I believe). BTW, my name appears on the TIS SKE paper because I added a variant -- the escrow-less option. That is, instead of having a private key in escrow for the FBI to get and use forever, have the sender split his session key into KS1 and KS2 (KS = XOR(KS1,KS2)) and encrypt each half for a different escrow agent. [That term is already a misnomer in this case, since these "escrow agents" have no databases of keys and therefore escrow nothing. I tell you, this morass has done major damage to the English language, all because the gov't perpetrators are afraid to say what they really mean, in plain English!] LE would then have to send a piece to each escrow agent for each message -- letting the agents do traffic analysis on FBI efforts and also giving out no key lasting beyond a wiretap court order. As with anything else, when faced with a technical problem, if I see solutions I offer them. [PRZ tells a story of an engineer being led to a gallows which has been malfunctioning, letting people go free (through a presumed act of God) -- looking at it and saying "Oh, I see the problem". (sorry if I ruined the joke with abbreviation)] ob.polit.: I don't mind GAK if it is applied only to the military and various executive agencies, as Clipper/Capstone now appears to be. Those people have already given up rights to private communications. However, for military uses of Capstone, it bothers me as a citizen to see the keys kept by Treasury and NIST. I'd rather see them kept by NSA and Fort Knox (and I've said so, to Mike Nelson among others). For private citizens, I intend to fight to my last breath any attempt to declare a government right to our keys. I also intend to fight attempts to declare that the public is volunteering to go along with GAK. I don't buy that and I'm in a position to see if it were true. > working with Miles Schmid >of the NSA Miles is with NIST (or was this a snide comment on NIST? :-). > and the folks from Trusted Information Systems (according >to Whit Diffie, who saw a joint presentation by the bunch of them in >Karlsruhe, and their glee that the Micali escrow patent will likely be >overturned due to prior art in Europe). The TIS SKE stuff was presented at several places, most recently the CSS&PAB. The new thrust by Steve Walker is that the public has no reason to buy KEG products. They add no value to the consumer. However, the public *has* a reason to buy spare-key-in-the-wallet systems. Given the existence of a redundant place to find a message key (or to get it decrypted), law enforcement could mine that database, using existing legal mechanisms (subpoena and search warrant). [This access does not meet the desires of covert surveillance, however, so it's likely to be rejected.] - Carl

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PGP hook for Eudora?
by dmandl＠bear.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Jonathan Rochkind wrote: > > > Because premail makes it incredibly easy to use PGP on a unix box. And, for > > that matter, the Eudora/PGP applescritps make it incredibly easy to use PGP > > on a mac. And there are some people working on an applescript that will I keep hearing about PGP hooks for (Mac) Eudora, but a casual search of at least five advertised ftp sites has turned up nothing. Can someone post an address where this stuff can definitely be found? Thanks. --Dave.

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Bank on the Net
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Who says there aren't any banks on the net. Check out Busey Bank's (Illinois) homepage: http://www.prairienet.org/business/busey/homepage.htm

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TEMPORARILY OUT OF TOUCH
by ss 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Until I get an account problem worked out with CRL (a day or two?), I won't be getting any e-mail through that service. If you need to send me private messages, you may use either of the following addresses to contact me: ssandfort(a)attmail.com 74172.314(a)compuserve.com Later, S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare?
by Kelly.Goen＠Eng.Sun.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Interesting Post David, some rather disjoint comments follow: > > From: merriman(a)metronet.com (David K. Merriman) > Subject: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare? > > What with the governments of several nations around the world starting to > get a bit heavy-handed with their populaces, I was wondering how a > modern-day revolution could take place in a crypto-repressive society, and > how the citizenry could sufficiently rattle/displace such a government so as > to regain control over their destinies. > > For the purpose of discussion, I'd like to propose the following > "environmental variables": > > majority of the population unable/unwilling to do more than complain. > > minority of the population not sure of how to fight the process, but > willing to support those that do know. > > some number (small) of those capable of crypto or other electronic mayhem > depart the country in a short period bridging the implementation of > repressive government controls and laws. > > There are varying permutations of the crypto/electronic-capable, and the > force-capable (ie, hackers-only to bomb-makers-only, and anything in between). > > said government uses all means at it's disposal to try and apprehend those > attempting to resist, as well as intercept communications, prevent damage to > it's infrastructure and physical entities. I would suggest initially that one examine the e-book "Terminal Compromise" by Winn Schwartau and also Information Warfare by the same author. In addition one also may want to obtain a project planner package and actually plan every scenario out along with costs and estimated effects. This would increase the accuracy of your gaming study. One may also wish to include items such as Blacknet in their gaming study as well as a complete and functional blackmarket. Tim's FAQ gives a good review of the tech in crypto and remailers available. Note also for purposes of short term games, knowing ones opponent(i.s. dossiers built up using information brokers and pressure on weak points) tends to be vastly more effective then official routes of change. After all its the oppositions preferred technique. Keep in mind that various hackers have tried this in a haphazard way and gotten caught at it... > > at the start of government "hostilities", all intra-national anon > remailers are seized or shut down, and access to international ones is > *heavily* monitored or blocked (yeah, I know, but we're gaming here!). > > national identity medium (card, wristband, etc) in place and mandatory. > > travel, currency, and information transfer restrictions (ie, no more "How > to build a Backpack Nuke" or "How to hack the Tax Gestapo central computers" > books :-) I expect E-publishing and Data havens for such documents will appear almost immediately after such laws. Backpack nukes unless they are for EMP arent too interesting but EMP/HERF generators are in terms of the attack potential against an information infrastructure. "Information Warfare" looks at this and other issues. Is it happening already??? "I can neither confirm nor deny this rumour". Does our government look at these issues... I point the interested user to a90-217 SBIR, an early I-Warfare project " Electronic Countermeasure: Computer Virus" a project to create military viruses and research into vectoring via RF/induced signal. > > What problems would those willing to fight such government oppression be > likely to face? How to deal with those problems? How to organize and > exchange personnel/information? How to not get caught? How to avoid > detection? What means/methods of, um, dissonance against such a government > would be more/less effective? Under what various permutations of > electronic/physical bushwhacking would the process be successful or not? > Duration? Other than the obvious crypto/cyber/military disciplines, what > other professions or specialized knowledge would be useful under what > conditions? What blatantly obvious thing(s) have I left out? Check out loompanics press... they have many such titles useful to your research... also checkout Paladin Press and Loompanics press. look at spy-cell organizations with crypto/remailer substituted for the comm links and dead drops, information brokers help detect infiltration. Laptop mobile IP with encrypted links and on-line info-brokers allow one to continuously evaluate current local conditions. The one thing always lacking for me in many of these Crypt-anarchy posts "Overthrow the government". is a lack of attention the least principles of logistics, economics and proper planning. You can be sure the opposition is paying attention to such details and has a huge advantage because of this. > > Dave Merriman > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > Finger merriman(a)metronet.com for PGP/RIPEM public keys and fingerprints. > Unencrypted Email may be ignored without notice to sender. PGP preferred. > Remember: It is not enough to _obey_ Big Brother; you must also learn to > *love* Big Brother. > cheers Kelly

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Re: Electronic Revolution and Guerilla Warfare?
by System Operator 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kelly.Goen(a)Eng.Sun.COM (Kelly Goen [CONTRACTOR]) writes: > I would suggest initially that one examine the > e-book "Terminal Compromise" by Winn Schwartau and also > Information Warfare by the same author. In addition one also may want [...] > Check out loompanics press... they have many such titles useful to your > research... also checkout Paladin Press and Loompanics press. I second the motion for Loompanics and Paladin Press. Two books that might be directly related, both from Paladin Press and both by Lawrence W. Myers are "SPYCOMM: Covert Communication Techniques of the Underground" and "Improvised Radio Jamming Techniques: Electronic Guerrilla Warfare." Both are full of practical, "nuts and bolts" discussions of the issues you're pursuing. Dan -- system(a)decode.com (System Operator) Cryptography, Security, Privacy BBS +1 410 730 6734 Data/FAX

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Re: your mail
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)access.digex.net> Market forces are lathargic, sometimes they need a boost. I propose this boost be accomplished with motivators like tax breaks, market assisters and privatization. . . . . Anyone who thinks the Federal Government is the driving force behind the majority of technological advancement (aside the space program and military hardware) needs to take a good look. .............................................................. Market forces being lethargic, sometimes they need a little boot, a little tax break, a little assistance. Anyone who doesn't think so needs to examine their current Federal allowance. Blanc

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