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by kmself＠ix.netcom.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Subject: Off-topic cross-posting (was: Re: [free-sklyarov] Dual Moralism) has been stripped of all/certain attachments by DishnetDSL Mail server due to security reasons. DishnetDSL allows only the following attachments: 1. .doc 2. .txt 3. .xls 4. .ppt 5. .pdf 6. .zip Message contains attachments: ATT DishnetDSL

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RE: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban anon remaiers?
by Caspar Bowden 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

> [mailto:owner-politech@politechbot.com] On Behalf Of Declan McCullagh > Sent: 15 November 2001 05:38 .. > Subject: FC: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban > anon remaiers? .. > If I may, permit me to pose a question to the U.K. lawyers on > this list: > Does this give the Secretary of State the power to ban > anonymous remailers operating inside the U.K.? Not as such > (Or, more precisely, limit their utility by > requiring record-keeping, identity escrow.) Yes exactly (but not a lawyer BTW). It's in interaction of ATCS Bill Clause 102 and RIP Act 200 S.2.1 (full monty appended) It doesn't require identity escrow per se, but it can instruct all or particular ISPs to retain arbitrary "communications data", as defined by RIP S.21, which includes "traffic data" as a subcategory. The definitions can be argued until they make no sense at all (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--c.htm#21) so it would be interesting to try and think of a remailer than eluded the definition of "communications data". > I'm not saying, of course, that > the secretary would choose to exercise that authority Heaven forfend > -- at least not right > away. The question is whether that authority would exist. It would, and an option to renew every two years. > Seems to me that > "communications providers" may be defined broadly enough for > that to be the case. The really bad news is that it's not just ISPs - you don't have to be providing a "telecommunications service" to the public, you just have to be providing it at all to anyone - even in a private contract or informal arrangement. If you a peer in a peer-to-peer network you can be ordered to log. It's Fink-o-matic ! New this Xmas. -- Caspar Bowden www.fipr.org Director, Foundation for Information Policy Research Tel: +44(0)20 7354 2333 "105 Interpretation of Part 11 (1) In this Part "communications data" has the same meaning as in Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (c. 23); "communications provider" means a person who provides a postal service or a telecommunications service; "legal proceedings", "postal service" and "telecommunications service" each has the same meaning as in that Act..." And "102 Directions about retention of communications data (1) If, after reviewing the operation of any requirements contained in the code of practice and any agreements under section 101, it appears to the Secretary of State that it is necessary to do so, he may by order made by statutory instrument authorise the giving of directions under this section. (2) Where any order under this section is in force, the Secretary of State may give such directions as he considers appropriate about the retention of communications data (a) to communications providers generally; (b) to communications providers of a description specified in the direction; or (c) to any particular communications providers or provider. (3) An order under this section must specify the maximum period for which a communications provider may be required to retain communications data by any direction given under this section while the order is in force. (4) Before giving a direction under this section the Secretary of State shall consult (a) with the communications provider or providers to whom it will apply; or (b) except in the case of a direction confined to a particular provider, with the persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent the providers to whom it will apply. (5) A direction under this section must be given or published in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for bringing it to the attention of the communications providers or provider to whom it applies. (6) It shall be the duty of a communications provider to comply with any direction under this section that applies to him. (7) The duty imposed by subsection (6) shall be enforceable by civil proceedings by the Secretary of State for an injunction, or for specific performance of a statutory duty under section 45 of the Court of Session Act 1988 (c. 36), or for any other appropriate relief. (8) The Secretary of State shall not make an order under this section unless a draft of it has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House." And..(yawn) RIP Act 2000 S.2 http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--b.htm#2 "telecommunications service" means any service that consists in the provision of access to, and of facilities for making use of, any telecommunication system (whether or not one provided by the person providing the service); and "telecommunication system" means any system (including the apparatus comprised in it) which exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) for the purpose of facilitating the transmission of communications by any means involving the use of electrical or electro-magnetic energy. --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message -----

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EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 5.20, 24 October 2007
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 5.20, 24 October 2007 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. Sign up EDRi Statement on CoE Recommendation - Campaign update 2. New Italian draft law - to disguise state censorship 3. Online Police searches adopted also in Austria 4. Some Internet and media companies push for principles on user content 5. Website with P2P download links found legal by Spanish court 6. Electronic voting machines eliminated in the Netherlands 7. Fingerprints in passports: the German population in a risky experiment 8. Update on DNA and biometrics in French immigration law 9. "Oscars for Data Leeches" - German Big Brother Awards 2007 10. COMMUNIA: public domain and alternative licensing for knowledge-sharing 11. Social welfare leaks show flaws in Irish government databases 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. Sign up EDRi Statement on CoE Recommendation - Campaign update ============================================================ 31 international and national organisations from different countries have already signed EDRI statement on a new Recommendation from the Council of Europe (CoE) failing to uphold freedom of expression in the online environment. As other related instruments are currently in preparation by the CoE, EDRI calls for NGOs and groups from all over the world to sign up in support of EDRI statement and take further action to help avoid the risk of more damages to freedom of expression and information in the online world. Signatures should preferably be gathered before 28 October 2007, as the next meeting of the CoE expert group having prepared this Recommendation is scheduled on 29-30 October 2007 in Strasbourg and will be attended as an observer by EDRI representative. In this statement, EDRI expresses its serious concerns over this Recommendation that promotes opaque "self-regulation" and other soft law instruments driven by private interests and implemented through technical mechanisms. EDRI is deeply concerned that such instruments will be used to legitimize subtle means of censorship, through privatised censorship and measures to protect against so-called harmful content. As the OpenNet Initiative reports through its Internet filtering study, and as numerous filtering cases reported in EDRI newsletter have shown, technical mechanisms are used to remove local content or block access to it when hosted on foreign websites to censor political and social content found objectionable by some. Even when the content is allegedly illegal, filtering is seldom, if at all, operated following a legal order, leading to serious breaches of the rule of law. In addition to freedom of expression, privacy and access to information and knowledge are other fundamental rights at stake when technical filtering mechanisms are promoted and used. Given the lack of transparency of the filtering tools, no one knows what happens to the personal data of persons tentatively accessing blocked content. Finally, such filters are more and more used on content-sharing platforms, while they are still showing many design failures, including some leading to massive over-blocking of legal and legitimate content. EDRI considers thus this Recommendation to be damaging and a retrograde step for freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the online world, as well as for other fundamental rights and for the rule of law principle. First signatories, EDRI statement and background information in 7 languages http://www.edri.org/coerec200711-signatories OpenNet Initiative http://opennet.net/ Selection of filtering cases reports in EDRI-gram http://www.edri.org/issues/freedom/jurisprudence ============================================================ 2. New Italian draft law - to disguise state censorship ============================================================ As it already happened six years ago with the infamous law 62/2001, a new law draft on the "re-arrangement of publishing", prepared by the Italian government on 3 August 2007 and now entering parliament procedure, clearly intends to enforce bureaucratic and financial burdens, as well as sanctions, also on the free and private expression of thought by "normal citizens" using the internet. The text prepared by the government is deliberately confusing and ambiguous. If approved by parliament as it is, it would cause confusion and uncertainty on the possibility of free expression even for people who are not professional journalists or publishers of newspapers, magazines or broadcasting. There is no explanation of why the government intends to treat as "card-carrying journalists" also people who are not, and don't intend to be and why the proposed text omits any clear statement that the obligations to be instituted by this law (if it is approved) apply only to professionals and entrepreneurs in the content producing industry. If the concern is to sanction "defamation" the government's proposal is a non-solution: the appropriate laws already exist, and anyone publishing online can be easily identified. So this cannot be an excuse for liberticide legislation. The fact is that this legislator draft leads to the creation of one more "Damocles sword" to be used against whoever publishes "uncomfortable" opinions or information. Such a law, if approved, would not be obeyed by many people, for a variety of reasons. Because they are not aware of it, or they don't understand it. Because of deliberate and legitimate "civil disobedience". Because of its obscure meaning and difficult interpretation. Etc. The result would be the creation of an "artificial crime" to be persecuted according to circumstances and opportunities - or to the whims and biases of whoever will hold this power. This is damaging also for business enterprises using the net, as well as internet providers. This draft law inflicts a severe blow on hosting services, as well as those based on communities and the free providing of widely useful content. Therefore, in addition to contrasting the universal right for free speech, it also hampers a business model that has increasingly proven to be an extended social benefit. What we demand: it should be clearly stated that the obligations - if they are really necessary - apply only to publishers, press services and generally only to information entrepreneurs, that work for profit and obtain public subsidies, clearly excluding any publishing by private individuals and non-profit organisations that are not "selling" anything. --------------------------------------------------------- After this statement was issued by ALCEI on 19 October, and following widespread protest in Italy, the government has been making "reassuring noises" about amending the draft. Of course this does not mean that the problem is solved. It will be necessary to keep an eye on what happens to this law - if and when it goes through parliamentary process - as well as on any other government or legislative action that may have similar effects. ALCEI statement - Return of MinCulPop ? (19.10.2007) http://www.alcei.org/?p=31 Italian version http://www.alcei.it/index.php/archives/126 Law 62/2001 (only in Italian, 7.03.2001) http://www.interlex.it/testi/l01_62.htm Draft law on the "re-arrangement of publishing" (only in Italian, 3.08.2007) http://www.governo.it/Presidenza/DIE/doc/DDL_editoria_030807.pdf InterLex - N. 382 - special issue on the freedom of information (only in Italian, 23.10.2007) http://www.interlex.it/ (contribution by EDRI-member - ALCEI -Italy) ============================================================ 3 . Online Police searches adopted also in Austria ============================================================ Austrian authorities have announced that the police will start from 2008 to use online searches as an investigation tool in order to keep up with the use of new technologies for terrorist and serious crimes. Austria is joining in this way Germany and Switzerland that are working in the same direction, despite serious privacy concerns. In an interview to the radio station V1, Austrian Minister of Internal Affairs, G|nther Platte, and the Minister of Justice, Maria Berger, announced this new measure that was proposed to be discussed in the Government meeting. The two politicians explained that the measure will be used only in connection with terrorist cases or other serious crimes, where a punishment of at least 10 years imprisonment is foreseen. The decision adopted by the Government meeting on 18 October 2007 still waits for legal and technical clarifications on how the decision will be applied and its implementation is not expected to start earlier than late 2008. The online searches will need a judge's warrant and will be overseen by the Ministry for Home Affairs' legal protection officer. Minister of Justice Maria Berger said that online searches will only be carried out under exceptional circumstances and that this measure was needed in order to keep up with the terrorist's use of the Internet resources and as a response to the growing number of electronic crimes worldwide. According with the new decision the Austrian police will be able to bug the hard disks of PCs by sending Trojan horses to them via the email, but also planting the Trojan horses into the PCs of targeted users after penetrating into their apartments. As reported by EDRI-gram, online searches of computers by the secret services have been a reality in Germany since 2005, following an order of Interior Minister Otto Schily. The German Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe ruled, on 5 February 2007, that, according to the German Code of Criminal Procedure, online police snooping was illegal. Since then the German authorities have shown a higher desire to push for a legal basis of the online searches of personal computers in Germany. Switzerland decided also in June 2007 to allow secret online searches from federal police authority. Coalition agrees on online searches (only in German, 17.10.2007) http://oe1.orf.at/inforadio/82299.html Austria plans to start conducting secret online searches in 2008 (18.10.2007) http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97595 Swiss government decides on secret online searches (only in German, 16.06.2007) http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/91247/ EDRI-gram: New calls for computer online searches by German authorities (9.05.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/computer-online-seaches-germany EDRI-gram: Online police searches found illegal in Germany (14.02.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.3/online-searches ============================================================ 4. Some Internet and media companies push for principles on user content ============================================================ A set of principles desired to create an online environment for the development of User Generated Content (UGC) services and the protection of copyright owner rights has recently been set out by several media and Internet companies such as CBS, Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, MySpace, NBC, Veoh Networks, Viacom, at the initiative of Walt Disney and Microsoft. Other major companies such as Google or other rights owner (Sony, TimeWarner, Paramount) did not sign the document. UGC Services refer to services such as MySpace, Soapbox on MSN Video, Dailymotion and Veoh.com, but exclude technologies such as browsers, email, or search services. The principles are a set of guidelines which has objectives such as the "elimination of infringing content on UGC Services, the encouragement of original and authorized user-generated audio and video content uploads, the protection of the user privacy and the encouragement of a fair use of the copyrighted content on UGC Services", but also seen by outsiders as an attempt to bring DRM into the online video-sharing space. Although the principles are meant to "foster innovation and encourage creativity" they have in view the use of a state of the art filtering and blocking technology that may eliminate infringing content from UGC services. The regular removal of the unblocked infringing content and the links to sites that are clearly or predominantly used for the dissemination of infringing content are targeted as well. The companies should also collaborate in creating procedures to deal with claims of blocking out of error. The principles mention "fair use" four times in the document, but do not refer to what the signatory organisations understand by this term. One of the obligations set out by the principles is that of preserving for a 60-day period the connection information related to an Internet user having posted infringing content online, information that the site is suppose to provide to the rights owner, at request. Another interesting commitment of all the members of the UGC agreement is that, while observing the rules, they should not attack each other in case some of the content is not properly filtered; this, in the context that two of the members, NBC Universal and Veoh, have applying complaints one against the other. Having signed the agreement might bring a leverage of the litigation. The big absent from the signatories of this agreement was Google, which, on 15 October, unveiled its filtering technology for YouTube video-sharing site that it owns now. Google representatives were part of the negations but have decided not to sign the agreement for the time being. YouTube Engineering Director Jeremy Doig stated: "(..) industry-wide technology mandates are generally a bad idea. This industry is still young and we believe that marketplace innovation can lead to creative solutions we can't even begin to imagine today." A reason for this reserve could be the law suit between Google and Viacom over copyrighted content on YouTube. One other reason may be the fact that Google's new filtering technology removes the infringing content immediately from the site while the guidelines suggest "blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public." Internet and Media Industry Leaders Unveil Principles to Foster Online Innovation While Protecting Copyrights - Press Release (18.10.2007) http://www.ugcprinciples.com/press_release.html Principles for User Generated Content Services http://www.ugcprinciples.com/ Disney, Microsoft Lead Copyright Pact (19.10.2007) http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119269788721663302.html Studios unveil their copyright protection guidelines (18.10.2007) http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9799778-7.html Sharing videos: towards the end of the process? (only in French, 19.10.2007) http://www.ecrans.fr/Partage-de-videos-vers-la-fin-des,2377.html Microsoft, Viacom Posture On Content Sharing (19.10.2007) http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/10/19/microsoft-viacom-postur… ============================================================ 5. Website with P2P download links found legal by Spanish court ============================================================ The case against Sharemula.com, a website publishing P2P download links through which users can acquire movies, music and software, has been recently dismissed by a Spanish magistrate. The case was opened in October 2006, when the Brigade of Technological Investigations retained 15 people responsible with Sharemula.com, asking the closing down of the site for alleged copyright infringement. At that time, the Spanish media made a big fuss of the case, the 15 retained people having been considered as belonging to a large international clandestine pirating network. The case was considered a big success by Federacisn Antipiraterma in Spain (Anti-pirating Federation). A year later, a Madrid court decided that the site and its administrators have not infringed any law as the links to P2P downloads have no commercial purposes. Furthermore, the site included no illegal content but only links to downloads. The defence of Sharemula was based on three previous similar rulings. The defence attorneys consider they have found a Judge that rigorously applied the law and dismissed the accusations that were based on sheer ignorance. They believe the prosecution, including SGAE (General Society of Authors and Editors), EGEDA (Audio-Visual Producers' Rights Management Association) and large companies such as Microsoft, The Walt Disney Company Iberia, Twentieth Century Fox Home etc. will appeal the decision but hope that the appelate Court will back up the present decision. Sharemula.com: the case against a linking web was decided dismissed (only in Spanish, 17.10.2007) http://www.derecho-internet.org/node/417 Spanish court decides linking to P2P downloads is legal (19.10.2007) http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11510.cfm A legal sentence casts doubts on the illegality of P2P downloads (only in Spanish, 18.10.2007) http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/sentencia/judicial/siembra/nuevas/d… ============================================================ 6. Electronic voting machines eliminated in the Netherlands ============================================================ All Nedap/Groenendaal voting machines were decertified on 1 October 2007 by District Court of Alkmaar in the Netherland, following the 'Voting with confidence' advice issued on 27 September by Korthals Altes Committee (created with the purpose to verify the validity of the systems), and the announcement of the Secretary for the Interior that the 'Regulations for approval of voting machines 1997' would be withdrawn. The action is the result of an administrative law procedure started by 'We do not trust voting computers' foundation in March 2007. The foundation had issued a report in October 2006 that had examined the Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B in operation in 8 out of the 9 poling stations in the Netherlands. The report was showing that the systems were highly insecure, leaving room for fraud at a large scale. The Korthals Altes Committee report came to confirm the results of the foundation. In their report, 'We do not trust voting computers' showed how the system worked, what software they had created for it and gave details on how one could get complete and undetected control of the election results if one had access to the devices before the elections, even for a brief period. The report also showed that radio emanations for the systems could be received at a several meter distance giving the possibility to find out how people voted. The next elections in the Netherlands will use paper ballots and red pencil, a method that provides transparency and that is now used in several countries of Europe and in the US where a paper copy of each vote is required. In Ireland, the use of the voting machines is stopped due to serious questions regarding their security and the UK election council intends stopping all electronic voting pilot projects that had been carried on during the last years. In Germany doubts have arisen regarding their use as well. In France, serious problems occurred during the pilot electronic voting in spring election, the system having been considered a disaster. A petition for the preservation of the paper voting was issued on that occasion. In the future, the next phase in The Netherlands after paper poling could be the use of 'vote printers' and separate counting machines. Dutch voting computers decertified http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English Study by "We do not trust voting computers" foundation (6.10.2006) http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf EDRI-gram: E-voting in France - After the First Round of Presidential Elections (25.04.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/e-voting-france EDRI-gram: European e-voting machines cracked by Dutch group (11.10.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.19/e-voting ============================================================ 7. Fingerprints in passports: the German population in a risky experiment ============================================================ On 1 November 2007, registration offices throughout Germany will begin collecting fingerprints from all citizens wishing to travel. Two years after the storage of a facial image on an RFID chip has been introduced, the project of full biometric registration of the whole population continues. Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC) points out once more that the ePassport has risks and side-effects, which particularly affect senior citizens. Many older people will have problems giving fingerprints. Experience as well as international and German studies show that considerably more than 10% of all senior citizens must expect to have no recordable fingerprints. This will inevitably expose them to discrimination through tightened inspections and longer delays. People working intensely with their hands will face the same disadvantages. The CCC advises that only a few days are left in which passports without fingerprint registration can be applied for in German registration offices. Even people whose passport is still valid can apply for a new passport, thus evading the German authorities' data collection mania until the Federal Constitutional Court rules on the compatibility of the new measures with the German constitution. Even according to the German government, there is no measurable gain in security through biometric passports. This is proved by the written answer to a parliamentary question. As CCC speaker Dirk Engling says, "the introduction of this risky technology seems to be motivated mainly by the commercial interests of a few current and former members of the government - this should really be a case for the Corruptions Perceptions Index of Transparency International". The extent of the threat posed by biometric data on RFID chips is illustrated by none other than Jvrg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Office. Despite all assurances by his "experts" that the biometric data is "safe", he wears his own biometric passport in a protective cover to shield it against radio waves. The Federal Foreign Office has also shown its distrust of the security promises of the Interior Ministry: German diplomats will receive passports without RFID chips due to the "higher threat levels" they face. Fingerprints in passports: the German population become guinea pigs in a risky experiment (only in German, 16.10.2007) http://www.ccc.de/updates/2007/risikoexperiment-reisepass?language=de German government confirms that biometric identification documents are pointless (only in German, 20.06.2007) http://www.ccc.de/updates/2007/biometrie-unsinn-deluxe?language=de (Contribution by EDRI-member Chaos Computer Club - Germany, translation by Sebastian Lisken, FoeBuD e.V.) ============================================================ 8. Update on DNA and biometrics in French immigration law ============================================================ With its final vote on 23 October 2007, the French Parliament confirmed the introduction of DNA testing in the new immigration law to prove family links for foreign candidates applying for a more than 3 months visa on family regrouping grounds. The only recourse could now be a decision from the French Constitutional Council to remove this provision from the law, since the Parliamentary opposition (Socialists, Communists and Greens), together with some centrist members of Parliament, announced that it would challenge the adopted law before the Constitutional judge. The final vote occurred after a Parliamentary Commission agreed on the harmonisation of the draft texts resulting from both the National Assembly and the Senate. With respect to DNA testing provision as initially adopted by the National Assembly, some modifications occurred in order to answer to some of the criticisms. Main changes are: the DNA tests will be paid by the French government and not anymore made at the expenses of the visa applicant; the biological family links would be checked against the mother's DNA to avoid unexpected, possibly dramatic revelations in the family; the need for the test should be authorised by a civil court; informed consent from concerned persons should be expressly collected; the whole provision is now declared as experimental, and will be revised after the end of year 2009. However, these changes have by no mean satisfied the numerous opponents of this provision, as their demand remains that DNA testing should not be used to check family links, since such links cannot be reduced to blood relation. More than 280 000 persons, including personalities from all political parties, signed a petition, and thousands of people participated in street demonstrations in many French cities on 20 October against this provision. Many observers commenting this provision, including in foreign countries, referred to practices from the Nazi occupation period. An editorial by the New-York Times even reminded that 'immigration issues bring out the worst instincts in politicians', while Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has recently introduced a similar bill in U.S. House, as press agencies have reported. French opinion seem however divided: according to a poll made on 18-19 October 2007, only 45% of the 1000 asked persons find the provision to be "against French society values", while 49% considers DNA testing "as a good measure since it allows to check if family visa applicants are indeed members of the same family". The French Constitutional Council will decide upon the challenged law within one month after the challenge is filed, which is expected to happen immediately after the vote of 23 October. In addition to DNA testing, the draft law introduced further use of biometrics against foreigners, without much debate. Article 62 of the adopted law requires that the beneficiaries of financial support (foreigners voluntarily returning home) have their photograph and digital fingerprints taken and stored in yet another database. This provision has been introduced with the claim that it would help fighting frauds in case these persons come back to stay again in France. In an analysis published on 24 October French EDRI member IRIS highlights how this provision, in the same way as the DNA testing and former biometric databases set-up, is part of the general strategy and managerial logic based on the rationalization of processes and procedures, leading to the fundamental transformation of a conception of society once based on mutual trust into a situation of generalized suspicion. EDRI-gram: DNA Tests Proposed In France For Family Visa Applicants (26.09.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.18/dna-test-france-visa Petition against DNA tests (only in French, launched on 03.10.2007) http://www.touchepasamonadn.com Thousands of people have demonstrated against the immigration project and DNA tests (only in French, 21.10.2007) http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-969450@51-959910,0.html The New-York Times: 'Pseudoscientific Bigotry in France' (21.10.2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21sun2.html AP: 'DNA Test of Immigrants Sought' (16.10.2007) http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMMIGRANTS_DNA 49% of the French for a DNA test for family regroupment (only in French, 23.10.2007) http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/reuters/reuters_france/286596.FR.php IRIS: 'Immigration: yet another biometric "detail"' (only in French, 24.10.2007) http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/fichiers/biometrie-retour1007.html (Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI member IRIS - France) ============================================================ 9. "Oscars for Data Leeches" - German Big Brother Awards 2007 ============================================================ The 2007 Ceremony for the German Big Brother Awards called "Oscars for Data Leeches" took place on 12 October in Bielefeld when the jury had the difficult task of choosing from more than 500 nominations. The negative Big Brother Awards Germany, which have started in 2000, are organised by EDRI-member, FoeBuD Association. For the category Workplace, the winner of this year award was Novartis Pharma GmbH company for having spied on its employees. Although the company has joined the "FairCompany Initiative", has committed itself to the "Voluntary Self-control For The Pharmaceutical Industry" code of conduct and boasts on its respect for fair work conditions and human rights, at the same time it sends detectives to follow its sales people to take notes on their visits to pharmacies and GPs. Following these "reports" the company sends appraisals to the employees through its HR department. Hamburg Municipal Education and Sports Authority won the award for the Regional Category for having introduced a Central Register of Pupils for all pupils and students, which is permanently compared with the Register of Residents in order to find children and parents without a residence permit. The Alien Registration Office has access to these files. Due to this register, parents are taking their children out of school because they risk to be found and therefore they may be deported. Thus, Hamburg acts against the right of access to education which applies to all children with or without a residence permit. For the Business category, Deutsche Bahn AG (the German Railways PLC) was declared winner. The company has introduced as many measures as possible to identify its travellers, from personalised online ticket selling, to the mandatory provision of photo and date of birth for discount passes, video surveillance and up to a RFID chip for the all-inclusive one-year ticket without its customers' knowledge and without any guarantees of personal data protection. The award for the Consumer Protection category went to Marriott, Hyatt and Intercontinental hotel chains in Germany for keeping personal information on their customers from their eating or drinking preferences, to their credit card data, address, telephone number, hobbies, and even medical type information. What is the most frightening thing is that the customers have no idea all their personal information is stored in the hotel computers and probably in the servers located in the US. The Technology category was won by PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG, for their individual rating system of car insurances that uses the "pay-as-you-drive" technology. A piece of equipment is used to record the driving routes and behaviours and then to send the information to the insurance company. The award for Politics category was received by the Federal Minister of Finance, for the introduction of a permanent Tax ID number for all taxable persons, something like a personal code number which is unconstitutional in Germany. The data is gathered by all the registration authorities in the country and sent to the Federal Central Tax Authority which assigns the unique Tax ID and sends the number back to the registration authorities. "It would be incompatible with the constitutional value of human dignity if the state were to assume the power of compulsive registration and cataloguing of the individual with their complete personality" is the decision given in 1969 by the Federal Constitutional Court, the highest court in Germany. The Federal Minister of Justice received the award in the Communication category for a bill that goes against the Federal Constitutional Court ruling of 1983 that states as constitutional the collection of non-anonymised data for undetermined or not-yet-determined purposes. The bill of the Ministry of Justice will introduce the retention of all telecommunications connection data in Germany, in agreement of the European directive 2006/24/EC according to which member states have to oblige providers and public communication network operators to retain traffic data. However this directive comes into conflict with the Federal Constitutional Court ruling. The Government and Administration category was won by Monika Harms, Germany's Federal Prosecutor, for the anti-terror measures against opponents of the G8 summit in May this year, for her decision to collect and preserve body scent samples from G8 opponents and especially for the postal surveillance in Hamburg in search of letters from militant G8 opponents which was a clear violation of the privacy of correspondence and of the professional confidentiality, as stipulated by the German Constitution. Besides the individual awards on categories, the Jury of the Big Brother Awards also established the most worrying trend at the moment in Germany which is that of the increase in registration of biometric data, by both public and private institutions. An audience award was attributed for the second time at the German Big Brother Awards and the winner designated by the audience was Monika Harms for the anti-terror measures against opponents of the G8 summit. German Big Brother Awards 2007 (12.10.2007) http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/2007 ============================================================ 10. COMMUNIA: public domain and alternative licensing for knowledge-sharing ============================================================ Today's digital networks offer extraordinary new opportunities for sharing and building upon our global, public pool of knowledge. Shedding light on the scientific, educational, economical, ethical and political importance of the digital public domain has, therefore, become crucial for the future of our knowledge-based societies. This is the rationale behind a freshly launched project: COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Public Domain in the Digital Age. Funded by the European Commission under the eContent+ programme and coordinated by the Politecnico di Torino's NEXA Research Center for Internet and Society, the three-year long project held its kick-off meeting in Turin, Italy, on 28 September 2007. The project has been proposed by a network of 36 members from 21 countries who are dedicated to developing theoretical analysis and strategic policy discussion of existing and emerging issues to the public domain in the digital environment, as well as related topics including, but not limited to, alternative forms of licensing for creative material (including the Creative Commons licenses), open access to scientific publications and research results, and management of works with unknown authors (i.e. orphan works). COMMUNIA is organizing a productive schedule of thematic workshops and conferences to be held in several European venues, with the goal of maintaining a strong link between participants. The network aims at producing both analytical and practical results, including the production of a book and an academic journal, a "best practices" guide for European research and reference centres and a final strategic report containing specific policy guidelines. The overall goal is to create an open, wide, and active partnership aimed at improving knowledge access and to help all the stakeholders - public and private, from the local to the European level - tackling the issues that the existence of a digital public domain have raised and will undoubtedly continue to raise. For more information, please visit the project website; questions, comments, requests for information and/or clarification should be sent to the Coordinator of COMMUNIA, Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin <demartin at polito.it>, or to COMMUNIA project manager, Andrea Glorioso <andrea.glorioso at polito.it>. European Commission page on COMMUNIA http://www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/project… COMMUNIA project website http://communia-project.eu NEXA Research Center for Internet and Society http://nexa.polito.it/ (contribution by Bernardo Parrella, COMMUNIA dissemination manager) ============================================================ 11. Social welfare leaks show flaws in Irish government databases ============================================================ Two recent stories have confirmed that security measures in Irish government databases are inadequate. In the first case an official in the Department of Family and Social Affairs was found by police to have leaked personal and financial information to his brother, a serious criminal, which was then used to target victims for burglary and blackmail. The second case involved another official in the same department who examined files on Irish celebrities and systematically leaked that information to the media. Both cases appear to reveal a culture in that Department where it is "common practice" among department employees to be "checking people casually". They follow another recent scandal where officials in the same department were found to be selling information to the insurance industry. Civil servant mole leaked intelligence to criminal (16.10.2007) http://www.independent.ie/national-news/civil-servant-mole-leaked-intellige… Official gave private details to media in new leak shock (16.10.2007) http://www.independent.ie/national-news/official-gave-private-details-to-me… Welfare Records Leaked to Insurers (16.07.2007) http://www.digitalrights.ie/2007/07/16/welfare-records-leaked-to-insurers/ EDRI-gram: Irish insurance industry gets personal data from Police (18.07.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.14/irish-data-leaking (Contribution by TJ McIntyre, EDRI-member Digital Rights Ireland) ============================================================ 12. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Everyone's Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide The guide has been published by Citizen Lab, a project at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Citizen Lab director Ronald Deibert, who spoke about Internet censorship at IFEX's general meeting in Uruguay, is also a co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative. The guide, intended for non-technical users, provides tips and strategies on avoiding Internet content filters. It is published in English, but translations are planned. http://deibert.citizenlab.org/Circ_guide.pdf Privacy and Human Rights 2006 Report This annual report by EPIC and Privacy International provides an overview of key privacy topics and reviews the state of privacy in over 75 countries around the world. The report outlines legal protections, new challenges, and important issues and events relating to privacy. The Privacy and Human Rights 2006 report documents the continued expansion of government surveillance authority. Several countries have pursued new data retention schemes, expanded biometric identification requirements, and intensified international data transfers. http://www.epic.org/phr06 French report on e-voting The legal studies service of the French Senate published in September 2007 a report on e-voting. It is a study which concerns the following countries: Germany, England and Wales, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland. Abstract (only in French) http://www.senat.fr/lc/lc176/lc176_mono.html Report (only in French) http://www.senat.fr/lc/lc176/lc176.pdf ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 25 October 2007, Vienna, Austria quintessenz, VIBE!AT and LUGA organise the 8th Big Brother Awards. The gala will take place at the Rabenhof Theatre. http://www.bigbrotherawards.at 27-28 October 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria Openfest - 5th annual conference for FOSS and free knowledge share http://openfest.org/ 29-30 October 2007, Geneva, Switzerland WIPO - International Conference on IP and the Creative Industries http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2007/ip_ind_ge/program.html 6 November 2007, everywhere, Germany Protests against data retention legislation http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/151/1/lang,de/ 9 November 2007, St. Gallen, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://bigbrotherawards.ch/ 11 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil GigaNet'07 - Global Internet Governance Academic Network 2nd Annual Symposium http://www.igloo.org/giganet 12-15 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The Government of Brazil will host the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. http://www.intgovforum.org/ http://cgi.br/igf/ 16-18 November 2007, Munich, Germany 20 years of grassroot networks - 20 years /Cl-Network in Germany Congress on Networking of alternative media, privacy, environment, anti-nuclear, antifascism, peace and human rights http://www.cl-netz.de/cl-netz/20-jahre-datennetze-von-unten-20-jahre-cl-netz 4-5 December 2007, Rome, Italy First QualiPSo Conference - Fostering trust and quality of Open Source Software systems http://www.qualipso.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid… 5-7 December 2007, Pisa, Italy Second DELOS Conference on Digital Libraries http://www.delos.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=606&Itemid=… 17 January 2008, London, UK Nanotechnology for security and the crime prevention III http://www.nano.org.uk/events/ionevents.htm#security ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 28 members based or with offices in 17 different countries in Europe. 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/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - 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/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - 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 http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[liberationtech] WorkiLeaks: How to Be a Workplace Leaker Without Getting Caught
by David Johnson 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/workileaks/ WorkiLeaks: How to Be a Workplace Leaker Without Getting Caught - By Ryan Singel <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/author/ryan_singel/> - Email Author <ryan(a)ryansingel.net> - April 12, 2012 | - 8:06 pm | - Categories: privacy<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/category/privacy/> , Surveillance <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/category/surveillance/> - <http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/04/exit.jpg> *Photo: loop_oh<http://www.flickr.com/photos/loop_oh/3046332136/sizes/o/in/photostream/> * On Tuesday, Gawker announced gleefully that it had placed a mole inside Fox News Channel b an anonymous Fox employee who was feeding the news organizationbs inner secrets to the website viadispatches in a weekly new column <http://gawker.com/5900710>. The molebs bitterness toward his employer knew no bounds, as he dished the dirt on Foxbs toilets<http://gawker.com/5900848/the-thin-white-line-that-separates-fox-news-staff…> (a new kind of leak, for sure) and slipped Gawker never-before-seen inane video footage of Mitt Romney and Sean Hannity bantering about horse riding prior to the taping of an interview for the b Hannity Vegas Forumb in February. (What, you thought an inside mole at a news station would leak something actually newsworthy?) The molebs identity wasnbt hidden for long. A day later, Fox News told Mediaite that it had unmasked the leaker and was consulting with lawyers about legal options against the rogue employee. The same day, Fox outed and ousted the mole, who later identified himself in a Gawker post as Joe Muto<http://gawker.com/5901228/hi-roger-its-me-joe-the-fox-mole>, an associate producer for *The ObReilly Factor*. Like the Craigslist killer<http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/phlog/archive/2012/04/06/when-police-subpo…> before him, it was the digital trail that gave Joe away. b They knew that someone, using my computer login, had accessed the sources for two videos that ended up on Gawker over the past few weeks,b Muto writes after his unmasking. b They couldnbt prove it entirely, but I was pretty much the only suspect.b In the interest of protecting future moles and whistleblowers, webve assembled a list of Dos and Donbts for leaking safely: - Donbt use your work computer or work phone to communicate with the recipient of your leaks. - Give yourself a code name. It wonbt help protect you, but itbll make you feel cool. - Donbt e-mail documents you want to leak to your private account. Print them out or take a picture of the document displayed on your computer screen with your personal phone. - Donbt give away personal details that are identifying if you want to remain anonymous b like calling yourself the b only liberal working at Fox News.b - Be aware that the document you plan to leak could be seeded with information designed to catch a leaker. One parent company we know (which shall remain nameless) used to send slightly different versions of the same leakworthy document to different departments to hone in on the leaker once they were published. - Documents you find lying around at the printer or fax machine are far easier to leak anonymously than digital ones. - Donbt leak information from inside a media organization owned by Rupert Murdoch, or any other company that employs hackers. They have ways of hearing you talk. - Make sure the document you want to release has been shared widely enough so that the digital trail linking you to it wonbt incriminate you the way that accessing the video busted Gawkerbs leaker. - Handing over documents to a recipient in person is almost always better than e-mailing them. - Better yet, donbt give the recipient a document at all; read it over the phone. Itbs easier to be a source of *information*, rather than a leaker of documents. Computers leave trails b always. - If you must communicate with the recipient electronically, use a throwaway e-mail account, preferably on a computer you donbt own. Donbt use your real name and details to register the account, and use an open Wi-Fi connection at a cafe to send your communication. Realize that some employers are so notoriously anti-leak that they will fire you for not letting them examine your personal e-mail accounts or devices. - Donbt tell anyone b except your priest, rabbi or imam b that youbre the source. Especially donbt confide your crime to a hacker you met online. - Donbt read or talk about the leaked story at work b UNLESS someone sends it to you. - Donbt look paranoid or guilty. No one knows what you did. Or probably no one knows. - Only leak to respected news outlets like, say, Wired. Getting fired for leaking to Gawker? That way lies only ridicule and shame, and perhaps an unpaid internship under the slave control of Nick Denton. *Additional writing by Kim Zetter. Hat tip to Bill Wasik for the idea and @BostonReview for the WorkiLeaks title.* -- David V. Johnson Web Editor Boston Review Website: http://www.bostonreview.net Twitter: http://twitter.com/BostonReview Tumblr: http://bostonreview.tumblr.com Mailing Address: San Francisco Writers' Grotto 490 2nd Street, 2nd Fl. San Francisco, CA 94107 Cell: (917)903-3706 _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. You may ask for a reminder here: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- 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: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban anon remaiers?
by Alan Docherty 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Declan, The Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Bill was introduced to Parliament on Monday and the legislation will go before the House of Commons next week for its second reading and committee stages. The Bill is expected to become law before Christmas. Alan Docherty Editor Internet Freedom News http://www.netfreedom.org ---

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FC: U.K. proposal would let government ban anonymous remailers
by Declan McCullagh 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Previous message: "U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban anon remaiers?" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02798.html ---

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None
by kmself＠ix.netcom.com 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

Subject: Off-topic cross-posting (was: Re: [free-sklyarov] Dual Moralism) has been stripped of all/certain attachments by DishnetDSL Mail server due to security reasons. DishnetDSL allows only the following attachments: 1. .doc 2. .txt 3. .xls 4. .ppt 5. .pdf 6. .zip Message contains attachments: ATT DishnetDSL

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RE: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban anon remaiers?
by Caspar Bowden 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

> [mailto:owner-politech@politechbot.com] On Behalf Of Declan McCullagh > Sent: 15 November 2001 05:38 .. > Subject: FC: U.K. may order firms to record Net-traffic, ban > anon remaiers? .. > If I may, permit me to pose a question to the U.K. lawyers on > this list: > Does this give the Secretary of State the power to ban > anonymous remailers operating inside the U.K.? Not as such > (Or, more precisely, limit their utility by > requiring record-keeping, identity escrow.) Yes exactly (but not a lawyer BTW). It's in interaction of ATCS Bill Clause 102 and RIP Act 200 S.2.1 (full monty appended) It doesn't require identity escrow per se, but it can instruct all or particular ISPs to retain arbitrary "communications data", as defined by RIP S.21, which includes "traffic data" as a subcategory. The definitions can be argued until they make no sense at all (http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--c.htm#21) so it would be interesting to try and think of a remailer than eluded the definition of "communications data". > I'm not saying, of course, that > the secretary would choose to exercise that authority Heaven forfend > -- at least not right > away. The question is whether that authority would exist. It would, and an option to renew every two years. > Seems to me that > "communications providers" may be defined broadly enough for > that to be the case. The really bad news is that it's not just ISPs - you don't have to be providing a "telecommunications service" to the public, you just have to be providing it at all to anyone - even in a private contract or informal arrangement. If you a peer in a peer-to-peer network you can be ordered to log. It's Fink-o-matic ! New this Xmas. -- Caspar Bowden www.fipr.org Director, Foundation for Information Policy Research Tel: +44(0)20 7354 2333 "105 Interpretation of Part 11 (1) In this Part "communications data" has the same meaning as in Chapter 2 of Part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (c. 23); "communications provider" means a person who provides a postal service or a telecommunications service; "legal proceedings", "postal service" and "telecommunications service" each has the same meaning as in that Act..." And "102 Directions about retention of communications data (1) If, after reviewing the operation of any requirements contained in the code of practice and any agreements under section 101, it appears to the Secretary of State that it is necessary to do so, he may by order made by statutory instrument authorise the giving of directions under this section. (2) Where any order under this section is in force, the Secretary of State may give such directions as he considers appropriate about the retention of communications data (a) to communications providers generally; (b) to communications providers of a description specified in the direction; or (c) to any particular communications providers or provider. (3) An order under this section must specify the maximum period for which a communications provider may be required to retain communications data by any direction given under this section while the order is in force. (4) Before giving a direction under this section the Secretary of State shall consult (a) with the communications provider or providers to whom it will apply; or (b) except in the case of a direction confined to a particular provider, with the persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent the providers to whom it will apply. (5) A direction under this section must be given or published in such manner as the Secretary of State considers appropriate for bringing it to the attention of the communications providers or provider to whom it applies. (6) It shall be the duty of a communications provider to comply with any direction under this section that applies to him. (7) The duty imposed by subsection (6) shall be enforceable by civil proceedings by the Secretary of State for an injunction, or for specific performance of a statutory duty under section 45 of the Court of Session Act 1988 (c. 36), or for any other appropriate relief. (8) The Secretary of State shall not make an order under this section unless a draft of it has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House." And..(yawn) RIP Act 2000 S.2 http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--b.htm#2 "telecommunications service" means any service that consists in the provision of access to, and of facilities for making use of, any telecommunication system (whether or not one provided by the person providing the service); and "telecommunication system" means any system (including the apparatus comprised in it) which exists (whether wholly or partly in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) for the purpose of facilitating the transmission of communications by any means involving the use of electrical or electro-magnetic energy. --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message -----

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EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 5.20, 24 October 2007
by EDRI-gram newsletter 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

============================================================ EDRI-gram biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 5.20, 24 October 2007 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ 1. Sign up EDRi Statement on CoE Recommendation - Campaign update 2. New Italian draft law - to disguise state censorship 3. Online Police searches adopted also in Austria 4. Some Internet and media companies push for principles on user content 5. Website with P2P download links found legal by Spanish court 6. Electronic voting machines eliminated in the Netherlands 7. Fingerprints in passports: the German population in a risky experiment 8. Update on DNA and biometrics in French immigration law 9. "Oscars for Data Leeches" - German Big Brother Awards 2007 10. COMMUNIA: public domain and alternative licensing for knowledge-sharing 11. Social welfare leaks show flaws in Irish government databases 12. Recommended Reading 13. Agenda 14. About ============================================================ 1. Sign up EDRi Statement on CoE Recommendation - Campaign update ============================================================ 31 international and national organisations from different countries have already signed EDRI statement on a new Recommendation from the Council of Europe (CoE) failing to uphold freedom of expression in the online environment. As other related instruments are currently in preparation by the CoE, EDRI calls for NGOs and groups from all over the world to sign up in support of EDRI statement and take further action to help avoid the risk of more damages to freedom of expression and information in the online world. Signatures should preferably be gathered before 28 October 2007, as the next meeting of the CoE expert group having prepared this Recommendation is scheduled on 29-30 October 2007 in Strasbourg and will be attended as an observer by EDRI representative. In this statement, EDRI expresses its serious concerns over this Recommendation that promotes opaque "self-regulation" and other soft law instruments driven by private interests and implemented through technical mechanisms. EDRI is deeply concerned that such instruments will be used to legitimize subtle means of censorship, through privatised censorship and measures to protect against so-called harmful content. As the OpenNet Initiative reports through its Internet filtering study, and as numerous filtering cases reported in EDRI newsletter have shown, technical mechanisms are used to remove local content or block access to it when hosted on foreign websites to censor political and social content found objectionable by some. Even when the content is allegedly illegal, filtering is seldom, if at all, operated following a legal order, leading to serious breaches of the rule of law. In addition to freedom of expression, privacy and access to information and knowledge are other fundamental rights at stake when technical filtering mechanisms are promoted and used. Given the lack of transparency of the filtering tools, no one knows what happens to the personal data of persons tentatively accessing blocked content. Finally, such filters are more and more used on content-sharing platforms, while they are still showing many design failures, including some leading to massive over-blocking of legal and legitimate content. EDRI considers thus this Recommendation to be damaging and a retrograde step for freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the online world, as well as for other fundamental rights and for the rule of law principle. First signatories, EDRI statement and background information in 7 languages http://www.edri.org/coerec200711-signatories OpenNet Initiative http://opennet.net/ Selection of filtering cases reports in EDRI-gram http://www.edri.org/issues/freedom/jurisprudence ============================================================ 2. New Italian draft law - to disguise state censorship ============================================================ As it already happened six years ago with the infamous law 62/2001, a new law draft on the "re-arrangement of publishing", prepared by the Italian government on 3 August 2007 and now entering parliament procedure, clearly intends to enforce bureaucratic and financial burdens, as well as sanctions, also on the free and private expression of thought by "normal citizens" using the internet. The text prepared by the government is deliberately confusing and ambiguous. If approved by parliament as it is, it would cause confusion and uncertainty on the possibility of free expression even for people who are not professional journalists or publishers of newspapers, magazines or broadcasting. There is no explanation of why the government intends to treat as "card-carrying journalists" also people who are not, and don't intend to be and why the proposed text omits any clear statement that the obligations to be instituted by this law (if it is approved) apply only to professionals and entrepreneurs in the content producing industry. If the concern is to sanction "defamation" the government's proposal is a non-solution: the appropriate laws already exist, and anyone publishing online can be easily identified. So this cannot be an excuse for liberticide legislation. The fact is that this legislator draft leads to the creation of one more "Damocles sword" to be used against whoever publishes "uncomfortable" opinions or information. Such a law, if approved, would not be obeyed by many people, for a variety of reasons. Because they are not aware of it, or they don't understand it. Because of deliberate and legitimate "civil disobedience". Because of its obscure meaning and difficult interpretation. Etc. The result would be the creation of an "artificial crime" to be persecuted according to circumstances and opportunities - or to the whims and biases of whoever will hold this power. This is damaging also for business enterprises using the net, as well as internet providers. This draft law inflicts a severe blow on hosting services, as well as those based on communities and the free providing of widely useful content. Therefore, in addition to contrasting the universal right for free speech, it also hampers a business model that has increasingly proven to be an extended social benefit. What we demand: it should be clearly stated that the obligations - if they are really necessary - apply only to publishers, press services and generally only to information entrepreneurs, that work for profit and obtain public subsidies, clearly excluding any publishing by private individuals and non-profit organisations that are not "selling" anything. --------------------------------------------------------- After this statement was issued by ALCEI on 19 October, and following widespread protest in Italy, the government has been making "reassuring noises" about amending the draft. Of course this does not mean that the problem is solved. It will be necessary to keep an eye on what happens to this law - if and when it goes through parliamentary process - as well as on any other government or legislative action that may have similar effects. ALCEI statement - Return of MinCulPop ? (19.10.2007) http://www.alcei.org/?p=31 Italian version http://www.alcei.it/index.php/archives/126 Law 62/2001 (only in Italian, 7.03.2001) http://www.interlex.it/testi/l01_62.htm Draft law on the "re-arrangement of publishing" (only in Italian, 3.08.2007) http://www.governo.it/Presidenza/DIE/doc/DDL_editoria_030807.pdf InterLex - N. 382 - special issue on the freedom of information (only in Italian, 23.10.2007) http://www.interlex.it/ (contribution by EDRI-member - ALCEI -Italy) ============================================================ 3 . Online Police searches adopted also in Austria ============================================================ Austrian authorities have announced that the police will start from 2008 to use online searches as an investigation tool in order to keep up with the use of new technologies for terrorist and serious crimes. Austria is joining in this way Germany and Switzerland that are working in the same direction, despite serious privacy concerns. In an interview to the radio station V1, Austrian Minister of Internal Affairs, G|nther Platte, and the Minister of Justice, Maria Berger, announced this new measure that was proposed to be discussed in the Government meeting. The two politicians explained that the measure will be used only in connection with terrorist cases or other serious crimes, where a punishment of at least 10 years imprisonment is foreseen. The decision adopted by the Government meeting on 18 October 2007 still waits for legal and technical clarifications on how the decision will be applied and its implementation is not expected to start earlier than late 2008. The online searches will need a judge's warrant and will be overseen by the Ministry for Home Affairs' legal protection officer. Minister of Justice Maria Berger said that online searches will only be carried out under exceptional circumstances and that this measure was needed in order to keep up with the terrorist's use of the Internet resources and as a response to the growing number of electronic crimes worldwide. According with the new decision the Austrian police will be able to bug the hard disks of PCs by sending Trojan horses to them via the email, but also planting the Trojan horses into the PCs of targeted users after penetrating into their apartments. As reported by EDRI-gram, online searches of computers by the secret services have been a reality in Germany since 2005, following an order of Interior Minister Otto Schily. The German Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe ruled, on 5 February 2007, that, according to the German Code of Criminal Procedure, online police snooping was illegal. Since then the German authorities have shown a higher desire to push for a legal basis of the online searches of personal computers in Germany. Switzerland decided also in June 2007 to allow secret online searches from federal police authority. Coalition agrees on online searches (only in German, 17.10.2007) http://oe1.orf.at/inforadio/82299.html Austria plans to start conducting secret online searches in 2008 (18.10.2007) http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/97595 Swiss government decides on secret online searches (only in German, 16.06.2007) http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/91247/ EDRI-gram: New calls for computer online searches by German authorities (9.05.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/computer-online-seaches-germany EDRI-gram: Online police searches found illegal in Germany (14.02.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.3/online-searches ============================================================ 4. Some Internet and media companies push for principles on user content ============================================================ A set of principles desired to create an online environment for the development of User Generated Content (UGC) services and the protection of copyright owner rights has recently been set out by several media and Internet companies such as CBS, Dailymotion, Fox Entertainment Group, MySpace, NBC, Veoh Networks, Viacom, at the initiative of Walt Disney and Microsoft. Other major companies such as Google or other rights owner (Sony, TimeWarner, Paramount) did not sign the document. UGC Services refer to services such as MySpace, Soapbox on MSN Video, Dailymotion and Veoh.com, but exclude technologies such as browsers, email, or search services. The principles are a set of guidelines which has objectives such as the "elimination of infringing content on UGC Services, the encouragement of original and authorized user-generated audio and video content uploads, the protection of the user privacy and the encouragement of a fair use of the copyrighted content on UGC Services", but also seen by outsiders as an attempt to bring DRM into the online video-sharing space. Although the principles are meant to "foster innovation and encourage creativity" they have in view the use of a state of the art filtering and blocking technology that may eliminate infringing content from UGC services. The regular removal of the unblocked infringing content and the links to sites that are clearly or predominantly used for the dissemination of infringing content are targeted as well. The companies should also collaborate in creating procedures to deal with claims of blocking out of error. The principles mention "fair use" four times in the document, but do not refer to what the signatory organisations understand by this term. One of the obligations set out by the principles is that of preserving for a 60-day period the connection information related to an Internet user having posted infringing content online, information that the site is suppose to provide to the rights owner, at request. Another interesting commitment of all the members of the UGC agreement is that, while observing the rules, they should not attack each other in case some of the content is not properly filtered; this, in the context that two of the members, NBC Universal and Veoh, have applying complaints one against the other. Having signed the agreement might bring a leverage of the litigation. The big absent from the signatories of this agreement was Google, which, on 15 October, unveiled its filtering technology for YouTube video-sharing site that it owns now. Google representatives were part of the negations but have decided not to sign the agreement for the time being. YouTube Engineering Director Jeremy Doig stated: "(..) industry-wide technology mandates are generally a bad idea. This industry is still young and we believe that marketplace innovation can lead to creative solutions we can't even begin to imagine today." A reason for this reserve could be the law suit between Google and Viacom over copyrighted content on YouTube. One other reason may be the fact that Google's new filtering technology removes the infringing content immediately from the site while the guidelines suggest "blocking infringing uploads before they are made available to the public." Internet and Media Industry Leaders Unveil Principles to Foster Online Innovation While Protecting Copyrights - Press Release (18.10.2007) http://www.ugcprinciples.com/press_release.html Principles for User Generated Content Services http://www.ugcprinciples.com/ Disney, Microsoft Lead Copyright Pact (19.10.2007) http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119269788721663302.html Studios unveil their copyright protection guidelines (18.10.2007) http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9799778-7.html Sharing videos: towards the end of the process? (only in French, 19.10.2007) http://www.ecrans.fr/Partage-de-videos-vers-la-fin-des,2377.html Microsoft, Viacom Posture On Content Sharing (19.10.2007) http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/2007/10/19/microsoft-viacom-postur… ============================================================ 5. Website with P2P download links found legal by Spanish court ============================================================ The case against Sharemula.com, a website publishing P2P download links through which users can acquire movies, music and software, has been recently dismissed by a Spanish magistrate. The case was opened in October 2006, when the Brigade of Technological Investigations retained 15 people responsible with Sharemula.com, asking the closing down of the site for alleged copyright infringement. At that time, the Spanish media made a big fuss of the case, the 15 retained people having been considered as belonging to a large international clandestine pirating network. The case was considered a big success by Federacisn Antipiraterma in Spain (Anti-pirating Federation). A year later, a Madrid court decided that the site and its administrators have not infringed any law as the links to P2P downloads have no commercial purposes. Furthermore, the site included no illegal content but only links to downloads. The defence of Sharemula was based on three previous similar rulings. The defence attorneys consider they have found a Judge that rigorously applied the law and dismissed the accusations that were based on sheer ignorance. They believe the prosecution, including SGAE (General Society of Authors and Editors), EGEDA (Audio-Visual Producers' Rights Management Association) and large companies such as Microsoft, The Walt Disney Company Iberia, Twentieth Century Fox Home etc. will appeal the decision but hope that the appelate Court will back up the present decision. Sharemula.com: the case against a linking web was decided dismissed (only in Spanish, 17.10.2007) http://www.derecho-internet.org/node/417 Spanish court decides linking to P2P downloads is legal (19.10.2007) http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11510.cfm A legal sentence casts doubts on the illegality of P2P downloads (only in Spanish, 18.10.2007) http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internet/sentencia/judicial/siembra/nuevas/d… ============================================================ 6. Electronic voting machines eliminated in the Netherlands ============================================================ All Nedap/Groenendaal voting machines were decertified on 1 October 2007 by District Court of Alkmaar in the Netherland, following the 'Voting with confidence' advice issued on 27 September by Korthals Altes Committee (created with the purpose to verify the validity of the systems), and the announcement of the Secretary for the Interior that the 'Regulations for approval of voting machines 1997' would be withdrawn. The action is the result of an administrative law procedure started by 'We do not trust voting computers' foundation in March 2007. The foundation had issued a report in October 2006 that had examined the Nedap/Groenendaal ES3B in operation in 8 out of the 9 poling stations in the Netherlands. The report was showing that the systems were highly insecure, leaving room for fraud at a large scale. The Korthals Altes Committee report came to confirm the results of the foundation. In their report, 'We do not trust voting computers' showed how the system worked, what software they had created for it and gave details on how one could get complete and undetected control of the election results if one had access to the devices before the elections, even for a brief period. The report also showed that radio emanations for the systems could be received at a several meter distance giving the possibility to find out how people voted. The next elections in the Netherlands will use paper ballots and red pencil, a method that provides transparency and that is now used in several countries of Europe and in the US where a paper copy of each vote is required. In Ireland, the use of the voting machines is stopped due to serious questions regarding their security and the UK election council intends stopping all electronic voting pilot projects that had been carried on during the last years. In Germany doubts have arisen regarding their use as well. In France, serious problems occurred during the pilot electronic voting in spring election, the system having been considered a disaster. A petition for the preservation of the paper voting was issued on that occasion. In the future, the next phase in The Netherlands after paper poling could be the use of 'vote printers' and separate counting machines. Dutch voting computers decertified http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/English Study by "We do not trust voting computers" foundation (6.10.2006) http://www.wijvertrouwenstemcomputersniet.nl/images/9/91/Es3b-en.pdf EDRI-gram: E-voting in France - After the First Round of Presidential Elections (25.04.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/e-voting-france EDRI-gram: European e-voting machines cracked by Dutch group (11.10.2006) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.19/e-voting ============================================================ 7. Fingerprints in passports: the German population in a risky experiment ============================================================ On 1 November 2007, registration offices throughout Germany will begin collecting fingerprints from all citizens wishing to travel. Two years after the storage of a facial image on an RFID chip has been introduced, the project of full biometric registration of the whole population continues. Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC) points out once more that the ePassport has risks and side-effects, which particularly affect senior citizens. Many older people will have problems giving fingerprints. Experience as well as international and German studies show that considerably more than 10% of all senior citizens must expect to have no recordable fingerprints. This will inevitably expose them to discrimination through tightened inspections and longer delays. People working intensely with their hands will face the same disadvantages. The CCC advises that only a few days are left in which passports without fingerprint registration can be applied for in German registration offices. Even people whose passport is still valid can apply for a new passport, thus evading the German authorities' data collection mania until the Federal Constitutional Court rules on the compatibility of the new measures with the German constitution. Even according to the German government, there is no measurable gain in security through biometric passports. This is proved by the written answer to a parliamentary question. As CCC speaker Dirk Engling says, "the introduction of this risky technology seems to be motivated mainly by the commercial interests of a few current and former members of the government - this should really be a case for the Corruptions Perceptions Index of Transparency International". The extent of the threat posed by biometric data on RFID chips is illustrated by none other than Jvrg Ziercke, president of the Federal Criminal Office. Despite all assurances by his "experts" that the biometric data is "safe", he wears his own biometric passport in a protective cover to shield it against radio waves. The Federal Foreign Office has also shown its distrust of the security promises of the Interior Ministry: German diplomats will receive passports without RFID chips due to the "higher threat levels" they face. Fingerprints in passports: the German population become guinea pigs in a risky experiment (only in German, 16.10.2007) http://www.ccc.de/updates/2007/risikoexperiment-reisepass?language=de German government confirms that biometric identification documents are pointless (only in German, 20.06.2007) http://www.ccc.de/updates/2007/biometrie-unsinn-deluxe?language=de (Contribution by EDRI-member Chaos Computer Club - Germany, translation by Sebastian Lisken, FoeBuD e.V.) ============================================================ 8. Update on DNA and biometrics in French immigration law ============================================================ With its final vote on 23 October 2007, the French Parliament confirmed the introduction of DNA testing in the new immigration law to prove family links for foreign candidates applying for a more than 3 months visa on family regrouping grounds. The only recourse could now be a decision from the French Constitutional Council to remove this provision from the law, since the Parliamentary opposition (Socialists, Communists and Greens), together with some centrist members of Parliament, announced that it would challenge the adopted law before the Constitutional judge. The final vote occurred after a Parliamentary Commission agreed on the harmonisation of the draft texts resulting from both the National Assembly and the Senate. With respect to DNA testing provision as initially adopted by the National Assembly, some modifications occurred in order to answer to some of the criticisms. Main changes are: the DNA tests will be paid by the French government and not anymore made at the expenses of the visa applicant; the biological family links would be checked against the mother's DNA to avoid unexpected, possibly dramatic revelations in the family; the need for the test should be authorised by a civil court; informed consent from concerned persons should be expressly collected; the whole provision is now declared as experimental, and will be revised after the end of year 2009. However, these changes have by no mean satisfied the numerous opponents of this provision, as their demand remains that DNA testing should not be used to check family links, since such links cannot be reduced to blood relation. More than 280 000 persons, including personalities from all political parties, signed a petition, and thousands of people participated in street demonstrations in many French cities on 20 October against this provision. Many observers commenting this provision, including in foreign countries, referred to practices from the Nazi occupation period. An editorial by the New-York Times even reminded that 'immigration issues bring out the worst instincts in politicians', while Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo has recently introduced a similar bill in U.S. House, as press agencies have reported. French opinion seem however divided: according to a poll made on 18-19 October 2007, only 45% of the 1000 asked persons find the provision to be "against French society values", while 49% considers DNA testing "as a good measure since it allows to check if family visa applicants are indeed members of the same family". The French Constitutional Council will decide upon the challenged law within one month after the challenge is filed, which is expected to happen immediately after the vote of 23 October. In addition to DNA testing, the draft law introduced further use of biometrics against foreigners, without much debate. Article 62 of the adopted law requires that the beneficiaries of financial support (foreigners voluntarily returning home) have their photograph and digital fingerprints taken and stored in yet another database. This provision has been introduced with the claim that it would help fighting frauds in case these persons come back to stay again in France. In an analysis published on 24 October French EDRI member IRIS highlights how this provision, in the same way as the DNA testing and former biometric databases set-up, is part of the general strategy and managerial logic based on the rationalization of processes and procedures, leading to the fundamental transformation of a conception of society once based on mutual trust into a situation of generalized suspicion. EDRI-gram: DNA Tests Proposed In France For Family Visa Applicants (26.09.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.18/dna-test-france-visa Petition against DNA tests (only in French, launched on 03.10.2007) http://www.touchepasamonadn.com Thousands of people have demonstrated against the immigration project and DNA tests (only in French, 21.10.2007) http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3224,36-969450@51-959910,0.html The New-York Times: 'Pseudoscientific Bigotry in France' (21.10.2007) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/opinion/21sun2.html AP: 'DNA Test of Immigrants Sought' (16.10.2007) http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMMIGRANTS_DNA 49% of the French for a DNA test for family regroupment (only in French, 23.10.2007) http://www.liberation.fr/actualite/reuters/reuters_france/286596.FR.php IRIS: 'Immigration: yet another biometric "detail"' (only in French, 24.10.2007) http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/fichiers/biometrie-retour1007.html (Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, EDRI member IRIS - France) ============================================================ 9. "Oscars for Data Leeches" - German Big Brother Awards 2007 ============================================================ The 2007 Ceremony for the German Big Brother Awards called "Oscars for Data Leeches" took place on 12 October in Bielefeld when the jury had the difficult task of choosing from more than 500 nominations. The negative Big Brother Awards Germany, which have started in 2000, are organised by EDRI-member, FoeBuD Association. For the category Workplace, the winner of this year award was Novartis Pharma GmbH company for having spied on its employees. Although the company has joined the "FairCompany Initiative", has committed itself to the "Voluntary Self-control For The Pharmaceutical Industry" code of conduct and boasts on its respect for fair work conditions and human rights, at the same time it sends detectives to follow its sales people to take notes on their visits to pharmacies and GPs. Following these "reports" the company sends appraisals to the employees through its HR department. Hamburg Municipal Education and Sports Authority won the award for the Regional Category for having introduced a Central Register of Pupils for all pupils and students, which is permanently compared with the Register of Residents in order to find children and parents without a residence permit. The Alien Registration Office has access to these files. Due to this register, parents are taking their children out of school because they risk to be found and therefore they may be deported. Thus, Hamburg acts against the right of access to education which applies to all children with or without a residence permit. For the Business category, Deutsche Bahn AG (the German Railways PLC) was declared winner. The company has introduced as many measures as possible to identify its travellers, from personalised online ticket selling, to the mandatory provision of photo and date of birth for discount passes, video surveillance and up to a RFID chip for the all-inclusive one-year ticket without its customers' knowledge and without any guarantees of personal data protection. The award for the Consumer Protection category went to Marriott, Hyatt and Intercontinental hotel chains in Germany for keeping personal information on their customers from their eating or drinking preferences, to their credit card data, address, telephone number, hobbies, and even medical type information. What is the most frightening thing is that the customers have no idea all their personal information is stored in the hotel computers and probably in the servers located in the US. The Technology category was won by PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG, for their individual rating system of car insurances that uses the "pay-as-you-drive" technology. A piece of equipment is used to record the driving routes and behaviours and then to send the information to the insurance company. The award for Politics category was received by the Federal Minister of Finance, for the introduction of a permanent Tax ID number for all taxable persons, something like a personal code number which is unconstitutional in Germany. The data is gathered by all the registration authorities in the country and sent to the Federal Central Tax Authority which assigns the unique Tax ID and sends the number back to the registration authorities. "It would be incompatible with the constitutional value of human dignity if the state were to assume the power of compulsive registration and cataloguing of the individual with their complete personality" is the decision given in 1969 by the Federal Constitutional Court, the highest court in Germany. The Federal Minister of Justice received the award in the Communication category for a bill that goes against the Federal Constitutional Court ruling of 1983 that states as constitutional the collection of non-anonymised data for undetermined or not-yet-determined purposes. The bill of the Ministry of Justice will introduce the retention of all telecommunications connection data in Germany, in agreement of the European directive 2006/24/EC according to which member states have to oblige providers and public communication network operators to retain traffic data. However this directive comes into conflict with the Federal Constitutional Court ruling. The Government and Administration category was won by Monika Harms, Germany's Federal Prosecutor, for the anti-terror measures against opponents of the G8 summit in May this year, for her decision to collect and preserve body scent samples from G8 opponents and especially for the postal surveillance in Hamburg in search of letters from militant G8 opponents which was a clear violation of the privacy of correspondence and of the professional confidentiality, as stipulated by the German Constitution. Besides the individual awards on categories, the Jury of the Big Brother Awards also established the most worrying trend at the moment in Germany which is that of the increase in registration of biometric data, by both public and private institutions. An audience award was attributed for the second time at the German Big Brother Awards and the winner designated by the audience was Monika Harms for the anti-terror measures against opponents of the G8 summit. German Big Brother Awards 2007 (12.10.2007) http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/2007 ============================================================ 10. COMMUNIA: public domain and alternative licensing for knowledge-sharing ============================================================ Today's digital networks offer extraordinary new opportunities for sharing and building upon our global, public pool of knowledge. Shedding light on the scientific, educational, economical, ethical and political importance of the digital public domain has, therefore, become crucial for the future of our knowledge-based societies. This is the rationale behind a freshly launched project: COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Public Domain in the Digital Age. Funded by the European Commission under the eContent+ programme and coordinated by the Politecnico di Torino's NEXA Research Center for Internet and Society, the three-year long project held its kick-off meeting in Turin, Italy, on 28 September 2007. The project has been proposed by a network of 36 members from 21 countries who are dedicated to developing theoretical analysis and strategic policy discussion of existing and emerging issues to the public domain in the digital environment, as well as related topics including, but not limited to, alternative forms of licensing for creative material (including the Creative Commons licenses), open access to scientific publications and research results, and management of works with unknown authors (i.e. orphan works). COMMUNIA is organizing a productive schedule of thematic workshops and conferences to be held in several European venues, with the goal of maintaining a strong link between participants. The network aims at producing both analytical and practical results, including the production of a book and an academic journal, a "best practices" guide for European research and reference centres and a final strategic report containing specific policy guidelines. The overall goal is to create an open, wide, and active partnership aimed at improving knowledge access and to help all the stakeholders - public and private, from the local to the European level - tackling the issues that the existence of a digital public domain have raised and will undoubtedly continue to raise. For more information, please visit the project website; questions, comments, requests for information and/or clarification should be sent to the Coordinator of COMMUNIA, Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin <demartin at polito.it>, or to COMMUNIA project manager, Andrea Glorioso <andrea.glorioso at polito.it>. European Commission page on COMMUNIA http://www.ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/econtentplus/project… COMMUNIA project website http://communia-project.eu NEXA Research Center for Internet and Society http://nexa.polito.it/ (contribution by Bernardo Parrella, COMMUNIA dissemination manager) ============================================================ 11. Social welfare leaks show flaws in Irish government databases ============================================================ Two recent stories have confirmed that security measures in Irish government databases are inadequate. In the first case an official in the Department of Family and Social Affairs was found by police to have leaked personal and financial information to his brother, a serious criminal, which was then used to target victims for burglary and blackmail. The second case involved another official in the same department who examined files on Irish celebrities and systematically leaked that information to the media. Both cases appear to reveal a culture in that Department where it is "common practice" among department employees to be "checking people casually". They follow another recent scandal where officials in the same department were found to be selling information to the insurance industry. Civil servant mole leaked intelligence to criminal (16.10.2007) http://www.independent.ie/national-news/civil-servant-mole-leaked-intellige… Official gave private details to media in new leak shock (16.10.2007) http://www.independent.ie/national-news/official-gave-private-details-to-me… Welfare Records Leaked to Insurers (16.07.2007) http://www.digitalrights.ie/2007/07/16/welfare-records-leaked-to-insurers/ EDRI-gram: Irish insurance industry gets personal data from Police (18.07.2007) http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.14/irish-data-leaking (Contribution by TJ McIntyre, EDRI-member Digital Rights Ireland) ============================================================ 12. Recommended Reading ============================================================ Everyone's Guide to By-Passing Internet Censorship for Citizens Worldwide The guide has been published by Citizen Lab, a project at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Citizen Lab director Ronald Deibert, who spoke about Internet censorship at IFEX's general meeting in Uruguay, is also a co-founder of the OpenNet Initiative. The guide, intended for non-technical users, provides tips and strategies on avoiding Internet content filters. It is published in English, but translations are planned. http://deibert.citizenlab.org/Circ_guide.pdf Privacy and Human Rights 2006 Report This annual report by EPIC and Privacy International provides an overview of key privacy topics and reviews the state of privacy in over 75 countries around the world. The report outlines legal protections, new challenges, and important issues and events relating to privacy. The Privacy and Human Rights 2006 report documents the continued expansion of government surveillance authority. Several countries have pursued new data retention schemes, expanded biometric identification requirements, and intensified international data transfers. http://www.epic.org/phr06 French report on e-voting The legal studies service of the French Senate published in September 2007 a report on e-voting. It is a study which concerns the following countries: Germany, England and Wales, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland. Abstract (only in French) http://www.senat.fr/lc/lc176/lc176_mono.html Report (only in French) http://www.senat.fr/lc/lc176/lc176.pdf ============================================================ 13. Agenda ============================================================ 25 October 2007, Vienna, Austria quintessenz, VIBE!AT and LUGA organise the 8th Big Brother Awards. The gala will take place at the Rabenhof Theatre. http://www.bigbrotherawards.at 27-28 October 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria Openfest - 5th annual conference for FOSS and free knowledge share http://openfest.org/ 29-30 October 2007, Geneva, Switzerland WIPO - International Conference on IP and the Creative Industries http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/2007/ip_ind_ge/program.html 6 November 2007, everywhere, Germany Protests against data retention legislation http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/151/1/lang,de/ 9 November 2007, St. Gallen, Switzerland Big Brother Awards Switzerland http://bigbrotherawards.ch/ 11 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil GigaNet'07 - Global Internet Governance Academic Network 2nd Annual Symposium http://www.igloo.org/giganet 12-15 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil The Government of Brazil will host the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. http://www.intgovforum.org/ http://cgi.br/igf/ 16-18 November 2007, Munich, Germany 20 years of grassroot networks - 20 years /Cl-Network in Germany Congress on Networking of alternative media, privacy, environment, anti-nuclear, antifascism, peace and human rights http://www.cl-netz.de/cl-netz/20-jahre-datennetze-von-unten-20-jahre-cl-netz 4-5 December 2007, Rome, Italy First QualiPSo Conference - Fostering trust and quality of Open Source Software systems http://www.qualipso.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid… 5-7 December 2007, Pisa, Italy Second DELOS Conference on Digital Libraries http://www.delos.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=606&Itemid=… 17 January 2008, London, UK Nanotechnology for security and the crime prevention III http://www.nano.org.uk/events/ionevents.htm#security ============================================================ 14. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 28 members based or with offices in 17 different countries in Europe. 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/ European Digital Rights needs your help in upholding digital rights in the EU. If you wish to help us promote digital rights, please consider making a private donation. http://www.edri.org/about/sponsoring - 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/edrigram-mk.php - EDRI-gram in German EDRI-gram is also available in German, with delay. Translations are provided Andreas Krisch from the EDRI-member VIBE!AT - Austrian Association for Internet Users http://www.unwatched.org/ - 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 http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

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[liberationtech] WorkiLeaks: How to Be a Workplace Leaker Without Getting Caught
by David Johnson 06 Jul '18

06 Jul '18

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/04/workileaks/ WorkiLeaks: How to Be a Workplace Leaker Without Getting Caught - By Ryan Singel <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/author/ryan_singel/> - Email Author <ryan(a)ryansingel.net> - April 12, 2012 | - 8:06 pm | - Categories: privacy<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/category/privacy/> , Surveillance <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/category/surveillance/> - <http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/04/exit.jpg> *Photo: loop_oh<http://www.flickr.com/photos/loop_oh/3046332136/sizes/o/in/photostream/> * On Tuesday, Gawker announced gleefully that it had placed a mole inside Fox News Channel b an anonymous Fox employee who was feeding the news organizationbs inner secrets to the website viadispatches in a weekly new column <http://gawker.com/5900710>. The molebs bitterness toward his employer knew no bounds, as he dished the dirt on Foxbs toilets<http://gawker.com/5900848/the-thin-white-line-that-separates-fox-news-staff…> (a new kind of leak, for sure) and slipped Gawker never-before-seen inane video footage of Mitt Romney and Sean Hannity bantering about horse riding prior to the taping of an interview for the b Hannity Vegas Forumb in February. (What, you thought an inside mole at a news station would leak something actually newsworthy?) The molebs identity wasnbt hidden for long. A day later, Fox News told Mediaite that it had unmasked the leaker and was consulting with lawyers about legal options against the rogue employee. The same day, Fox outed and ousted the mole, who later identified himself in a Gawker post as Joe Muto<http://gawker.com/5901228/hi-roger-its-me-joe-the-fox-mole>, an associate producer for *The ObReilly Factor*. Like the Craigslist killer<http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/phlog/archive/2012/04/06/when-police-subpo…> before him, it was the digital trail that gave Joe away. b They knew that someone, using my computer login, had accessed the sources for two videos that ended up on Gawker over the past few weeks,b Muto writes after his unmasking. b They couldnbt prove it entirely, but I was pretty much the only suspect.b In the interest of protecting future moles and whistleblowers, webve assembled a list of Dos and Donbts for leaking safely: - Donbt use your work computer or work phone to communicate with the recipient of your leaks. - Give yourself a code name. It wonbt help protect you, but itbll make you feel cool. - Donbt e-mail documents you want to leak to your private account. Print them out or take a picture of the document displayed on your computer screen with your personal phone. - Donbt give away personal details that are identifying if you want to remain anonymous b like calling yourself the b only liberal working at Fox News.b - Be aware that the document you plan to leak could be seeded with information designed to catch a leaker. One parent company we know (which shall remain nameless) used to send slightly different versions of the same leakworthy document to different departments to hone in on the leaker once they were published. - Documents you find lying around at the printer or fax machine are far easier to leak anonymously than digital ones. - Donbt leak information from inside a media organization owned by Rupert Murdoch, or any other company that employs hackers. They have ways of hearing you talk. - Make sure the document you want to release has been shared widely enough so that the digital trail linking you to it wonbt incriminate you the way that accessing the video busted Gawkerbs leaker. - Handing over documents to a recipient in person is almost always better than e-mailing them. - Better yet, donbt give the recipient a document at all; read it over the phone. Itbs easier to be a source of *information*, rather than a leaker of documents. Computers leave trails b always. - If you must communicate with the recipient electronically, use a throwaway e-mail account, preferably on a computer you donbt own. Donbt use your real name and details to register the account, and use an open Wi-Fi connection at a cafe to send your communication. Realize that some employers are so notoriously anti-leak that they will fire you for not letting them examine your personal e-mail accounts or devices. - Donbt tell anyone b except your priest, rabbi or imam b that youbre the source. Especially donbt confide your crime to a hacker you met online. - Donbt read or talk about the leaked story at work b UNLESS someone sends it to you. - Donbt look paranoid or guilty. No one knows what you did. Or probably no one knows. - Only leak to respected news outlets like, say, Wired. Getting fired for leaking to Gawker? That way lies only ridicule and shame, and perhaps an unpaid internship under the slave control of Nick Denton. *Additional writing by Kim Zetter. Hat tip to Bill Wasik for the idea and @BostonReview for the WorkiLeaks title.* -- David V. Johnson Web Editor Boston Review Website: http://www.bostonreview.net Twitter: http://twitter.com/BostonReview Tumblr: http://bostonreview.tumblr.com Mailing Address: San Francisco Writers' Grotto 490 2nd Street, 2nd Fl. San Francisco, CA 94107 Cell: (917)903-3706 _______________________________________________ liberationtech mailing list liberationtech(a)lists.stanford.edu Should you need to change your subscription options, please go to: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech If you would like to receive a daily digest, click "yes" (once you click above) next to "would you like to receive list mail batched in a daily digest?" You will need the user name and password you receive from the list moderator in monthly reminders. You may ask for a reminder here: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech Should you need immediate assistance, please contact the list moderator. Please don't forget to follow us on http://twitter.com/#!/Liberationtech ----- 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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