Re: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 (fwd)
At 04:53 PM 7/13/95 -0400, Ray Arachelian wrote:
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I rise this evening to introduce the Anti-electronic Racketeering Act of 1995. This bill makes important changes to RICO and criminalizes deliberately using computer technology to engage in criminal activity. I believe this bill is a reasonable, measured and strong response to a growing problem. According to the computer emergency and response team at Carnegie-Mellon University, during 1994, about 40,000 computer users were attacked. Virus hacker, the FBI's national computer crime squad has investigated over 200 cases since 1991. So, computer crime is clearly on the rise.
Eh, what do "virus hackers" have to do with encryption, why is it these morons justify the destruction of encryption by mentioning hackers and viruses?
You're parsing the title wrong. It's an act to support racketeering through opposition to electronic communications. What viruses have to do with encryption is that encryption makes it easier to prevent viruses, and Senator Grassley wants to stop that. And the term "strong" was used in its correct engineering meaning, as in "It's a vessel of fertilizer which is very strong and promotes growth".
Mr. President, I suppose that some of this is just natural. Whenever man develops a new technology, that technology will be abused by some. And that is why I have introduced this bill.
Yup. Quite so.
Computer fraud accounts for the loss of millions of dollars per year. And often times, there is little that can be done about this because the computer used to commit the crimes is located overseas. So, under my bill, overseas computer users who employ their computers to commit fraud in the United States would be fully subject to the Federal criminal laws.
Hey, Julf, we've got your number! And we're making sure nobody's got any encryption to prevent fraud with.
Mr. President, this brave new world of electronic communications and global computer networks holds much promise. But like almost anything, there is the potential for abuse and harm. That is why I urge my colleagues to support this bill and that is why I urge industry to support this bill.
As above. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts@ix.netcom.com
On Thu, 13 Jul 1995, Bill Stewart wrote:
Eh, what do "virus hackers" have to do with encryption, why is it these morons justify the destruction of encryption by mentioning hackers and viruses?
You're parsing the title wrong. It's an act to support racketeering through opposition to electronic communications. What viruses have to do with encryption is that encryption makes it easier to prevent viruses, and Senator Grassley wants to stop that. And the term "strong" was used in its correct engineering meaning, as in "It's a vessel of fertilizer which is very strong and promotes growth".
Erm, not quite. Stealth viruses supposedly use "encryption" to hide themselves, but then, I shouldn't mention this, might give El Federale a bit more fuel to burn us with. (But even these beasts can be caught easily if you know how... i.e. create a large executable that does nothing but quit to the operating system. Run it every day and compare it every day. The day it changes is the day a virus infected it.) Still, you could write beneficial viruses, or virus like programs that are beneficial in nature in some way. KOH for instance? However, none of the above has any iota of anything to do with linking the four horsemen of LEA's to crypto in any real-life-already-proven situation in any significant numbers. Banning crypto for EVERYONE in order to catch maybe, what, two zit-bearing kids hoarding beaver shots downloaded from alt.bin.erotica.pix a year is a tremendous loss of everyone's privacy.
Hey, Julf, we've got your number! And we're making sure nobody's got any encryption to prevent fraud with.
Hell, at this point, my guess is that the mafia(s) doesn't use crypto, or that if it does, it can be caught via other means. A strong, well developed crypto system in use by the mafia would more than likely never happen... not until mobsters get into computers. Ditto for terrorists. If they did use crypto, I suspect they wouldn't get caught. (For the paranoid, assuming they used crypto, and they didn't get caught, then the FBI or other TLA is doing the same as the gov't in Farenheight 451... pick someone else, and jail them. Otherwise, how do you explain all the jailbird mobsters?) To LEA's out there: Get a life, get off the net and go bust some murderers. Stop attacking easy targets. Do your jobs. Confront the real criminals. What's the matter? Is it easier to go after crypto geeks than it is to arrest drug dealers who shoot back? =================================================================93======= + ^ + | Ray Arachelian | Amerika: The land of the Freeh. | \-_ _-/ | \|/ |sunder@escape.com| Where day by day, yet another | \ -- / | <--+-->| | Constitutional right vanishes. |6 _\- -/_ 6| /|\ | Just Say | |----\ /---- | + v + | "No" to the NSA!| Jail the censor, not the author!| \/ | =======/---------------------------------------------------------VI------/ / I watched and weeped as the Exon bill passed, knowing that yet / / another freedom vanished before my eyes. How soon before we see/ /a full scale dictatorship in the name of decency? While the rest / /of_the_world_fights_FOR_freedom,_our_gov'ment_fights_our_freedom_/
participants (2)
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Ray Arachelian -
stewarts＠ix.netcom.com