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Charles Platt on wiretaps, government abuse of power
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Charles is an author, a Wired contributor, and a friend. --Declan] ------ Date: Fri, 26 Sep 1997 23:28:25 -0400 (EDT) From: Charles Platt <cp(a)panix.com> On 26 Sep 1997, Nathaniel Daw wrote: > > Indeed, state and local law enforcement authorities account for > > 50% of all the electronic surveillance court orders in the United > > States. > > Does anyone else find this statistic profoundly shocking, and for > reasons opposite from Herr Freeh's intent? 50% of surveillance court > orders come from the Feds? When I visited EPIC in DC I was told (reliably, I think) that wiretaps are not in fact a widely used technique in federal law enforcement--at least, not wiretaps that are done via correct legal procedure, with a court order. Subsequently I spoke to a friend whose father is an officer in Indiana state police; and he was of the opinion that "unofficial" wiretaps at the local level are relatively common as a means of confirming police suspicions prior to a fullscale investigation to obtain evidence admissible in court. (Obviously an illegal wiretap is not admissible.) Of course this is anecdotal, but it looks to me as if the real use for wiretaps--in today's society, at least--is as an informal timesaver. Tap someone's phone for a few days, see if there's anything interesting, and if there is, THEN pursue a formal investigation. Of course, Freeh may have ambitions extending far beyond this relatively trivial, low-level stuff. Even if he didn't, though, you could see that law enforcement would feel pissed about being deprived (potentially) of a convenient labor-saving tool. Since it costs Freeh nothing to agitate in favor of Total Access, why not give it a try? Demand something unreasonable, then settle for whatever he can get. As for the Constitution ... this of course is merely an archaic concept to which officials pay occasional lip service, like lapsed Catholics who still take communion once in a while, just to keep up appearances. The one positive aspect of all this is that officials and appointees are exposing themselves--proudly, without apology--as the unprincipled, corrupt opportunists we always suspected they were. As the radical British Member of Parliament Ken Livingstone once remarked (in a public speech): "When you get into politics, you find that all your worst nightmares about it turn out to be true, and the people who are attracted to large concentrations of power are precisely the ones who should be kept as far away from it as possible." ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: Chutzpah! FBI Calls Privacy Extremists Elitist
by Fisher Mark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I believe the enlightened Legislator who attempted to legislate Pi was >none other than Jesse Helms (although this could be a legislative >myth!) and when Ol'Jesse proposed it (because he was "sick of all these >egg-heads with their big numbers") John Glenn said something on the >order of ' if your legislation passes Senator, I wouldn't want to >driver over any bridges in your state!' Alas (according to my failing memory) it was legislator from my home state of Indiana during the early part of this century, who had planned to make a killing in textbooks if Pi == 3.0 was accepted. Fortunately he was called on it when it went before the whole legislature. I just have to wonder, how much of what we hear from various LEAs is due to the political desires of the people doing the talking -- I'd suspect that a majority of line officers (or the majority of those who are informed on the topic) would have something quite different to say. "In a confusing situation, follow the money. If there isn't any money, follow the power." Domestic crypto controls just fall _way_ too easily into the trap of increased state power (vs. the actual percentages of crimes whose investigations are impeded by crypto) to make me think that this is anything other than just a blatant political move on the part of the LEA managers. ========================================================== Mark Leighton Fisher Thomson Consumer Electronics fisherm(a)indy.tce.com Indianapolis, IN "Their walls are built of cannon balls, their motto is 'Don't Tread on Me'"

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Re: The CipherSaber Manifesto
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 9/24/97 8:42 PM, Antonomasia (ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk) passed this wisdom: >reinhold(a)world.std.com (Arnold Reinhold) wrote: > >> CipherSaber-1 (CS1) uses Ron Rivest's RC4 algorithm as published in >> the second edition of Bruce Schneier's Applied Cryptography. .... > >> CipherSaber-1 is a symmetric-key file encryption system. Messaging >> takes place by attaching binary files to e-mail. Because CipherSaber >> uses a stream cipher, an initialization vector must be used to prevent >> the same cipher key from being used twice. In encrypted CipherSaber-1 >> files, a ten byte initialization vector precedes the coded data. For >> decryption, the initialization vector is read from the file and >> appended to the user key before the key setup step. ...... > >Why not _prepend_ the IV to the key ? As described here any >paranoics who use keys > 255 chars won't get the IV in place, and >will lose out. I think I'd also force 4 bytes of the IV to be the >current time, as a defence against the (P?)RNG getting me a repeated IV >eventually. ... same thing occurred to me though its easy enough to test the key length and the truncate it at 246 issuing a warning to the user ... Brian B. Riley --> http://www.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place. -- Douglas Adams, on Windows '95

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RE: Protocols for Insurance to Maintain Privacy
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 10/31/97 12:46 PM, Tim May (tcmay(a)got.net) passed this wisdom: >I had an engineer working for me who cheerfully used the company medical >plan for all it was worth. If his kid had a cold, off to the doctor. If his >wife felt feverish, off to the doctor. If he had an upset stomache after >lunch (understandable considering the state of company food and >burrito-vending machines in 1980), off to the doctor. He may have paid $5 >per visit. Of course, he took off a lot of time to make these various treks >to have his kids, himself, and his wife "treated" (given aspirin, told to >drink plenty of fluids, whatever). A nice racket for the hospitals. This is one (of many) things my ex-wife and I used to disagree on ... she would want to haul the kid or herself off to the Emergency room everytime anything happened ... the idea of sleeping on it and seeing how it seemed in the morning was foreign to her; I can see that broken limbs getting sharp raps in head etc ... but every little sniffle ... of course premiums are up. For us, it was zero co-pay since between my retired military status and back then Raytheon medical coverage I never had to lay out a penny, when its that free eats easy to over-indulge ... and during those times I spent in the ER waiting room I saw many other doing the same thing. Brian B. Riley --> http://www.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "Home is where your books are" -- Kitty O'Neal

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No Subject
by Ghost＠workline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

F <Ghost(a)workline.com> R <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> (remote destination) R <jlhoffm(a)ibm.net> (remote destination) R <fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu> (remote destination) X - Start Received: by soi.hyperchat.com id 00e700 at Mon, 03 Nov 1997 17:58:33 -700 (Mountain Standard Time) Message-ID: <345E731B.12(a)workline.com> Date: Mon, 03 Nov 1997 19:58:03 -0500 From: Abstruse <abstruse(a)technologist.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com CC: Jodi Hoffman <jlhoffm(a)ibm.net>, fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: Why porn must be stopped at all costs, by Jodi Hoffman References: <199711032057.MAA08856(a)k2.brigadoon.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Someone on this list, I forget who, has made numerous attempts at > convincing us that pornography 'does no harm' to children. It is > exactly at this point that I must draw a line. Studies have shown that > an event which lasts even so much as three-tenths of a second, within > five to ten minutes has produced a structural change in the brain. > Exposure to porn causes actual brain damage, especially in a child. let me guess . . . scientology? it sounds to me as if you just despise porn so much that you're seeing red, and hence . . . not seeing the facts straight (or believing whatever you [want to] hear).

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Re: Jim Bell sentencing delayed
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg Broiles wrote: >perhaps I'm just low on conspiracy juice this week, but I think that Kent's >suggestion that he's in the hospital is probably the best - his recent >letters/calls to Blanc mentioned a persistent staph infection. Ach! Greg, that was supposed to be a "secret", since Jim said he didn't want publicity over his case and I cheated by letting John post it on his web site. Although, it's not like most everyone suspected, hmh. But anyway, what do you mean by saying that John's books were returned to him? I sent a letter to Jim in the mail this past Saturday, encouraging him to call me again and update me on his situation and on the sentencing date. So I'll be waiting and will pass the info on to John. .. Blanc

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Re: Remailer hating Nazis (was Re: The BIG Lie (Jesus Confesses))
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous <anon(a)anon.efga.org> wrote: >> > If so, then burn in hell, Nazi scum-sucking weasel! >> > >> Ditto for Paul Pomes and Gary Burnore. > >I'm familiar with the role of Gary Burnore <gburnore(a)netcom.com> and that >of his DataBasix associates Belinda Bryan <eridani(a)ix.netcom.com> and Billy >McClatchie (aka "Wotan") <wmcclatc(a)primenet.com> in getting the Mailmasher >and Huge Cajones remailers shut down. Jeff Burchell posted a public >expose' of their harassment to Usenet back in June, apparently catching the >DataBasix folks off-guard. But what's the story with Paul Pomes? What has >he done? Paul Pomes was complaining about Jeff Burchell's huge cajones remailer to Jeff Burchell's upstream and employers about the same time the rest of the Databasix gang was doing it. Paul Pomes appears to be a part of the Databasix gang. >Perhaps the best thing that can be done with people like Burnore is to put >together an FAQ about their tactics, similar to what his "fans" have done >for the "Rev." Steve Winter. Then when Burnore tries to stir up trouble by >first fabricating anonymous "abuse" and then demanding that it either be >stopped and the culprit(s) identified (knowing in advance that's >impossible), or else that the remailer be shut down, someone can forward >that FAQ to the remailer's upstream provider, or whoever is being pressured >to pull the plug. And if Paul Pomes engages in the same dishonest tactics, >that needs to be done with him as well. Gary Burnore had a mongo page at http://www.netscum.net/burnorg0.html. So did Paul Pomes, Belinda Bryan, and the rest of the Databasix gang. Too bad it's down for now, but it'll be back.

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To TruthMonger
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > snow wrote: > > You must live in such a nice world, where the sky is always blue, > > the grass always green, and the police eager and willing to serve a happy > > populace. > > Can I come live in your world? > snow > take two of the green ones, three of the yellow ones, and four of the > red ones But But But all I have are little pale blue ones, and big honkin white ones.

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Re:
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>On Sat, 1 Nov 1997, Anonymous wrote: >> If I were someone who wanted to make the internet look like a place >> that needed STRONG governmental controls I would put the words >> terrorists,criminals,pornographers,drug dealers/addicts, > >Fnord. > I have been wondering about all the media attention on "aids assasins" recently. "With a national list of people infected with the HIV virus, people could be more informed about the people they choose to have sex with" I'm sure that this national list will never be used by corporations when hiring people. It will also never be used to discredit people either, who would say "why are you listening to him, he is a faggot" or "he hangs out with fags, you know how all fags are."

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Senate Commerce cmte approves tax freedom bill 14-5
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Right now I'm over at the Digital/Altavista summit to discuss rating systems in search engines so I missed the vote. (Barry Steinhardt from the ACLU just finished speaking. Sen. Judd Gregg, a CDA fan, spoke this morning.) This bill limits local and state governments' ability to tax the Net. --Declan] ---- (forwarded to me by a House staffer) >The full Senate Commerce Committee voted today 14-5 to approve an amended >version of the Internet Tax Freedom Act. Here's how members voted: > >14 Yes: McCain, Stevens, Burns, Snowe, Ashcroft, Frist, Abraham, Brownback, >Hollings, Inouye, Rockefeller, Kerry, Breaux, Wyden >5 No: Gorton, Hutchinson, Ford, Bryan, Dorgan >1 Did not vote: Lott

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