bbc cell phone tracking story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_874000/874419.stm Video postcards can be sent with 3rd-Generation phones By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward The next generation of mobile phones will make it much easier for the police to carry out covert surveillance of citizens, say civil liberty campaigners. They warn that the combination of location revealing technology built into the phones and rights given to the police under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act mean the owners of such phones can be watched. They are advising people that using one of the new phones might make it hard for them to maintain their privacy. In recognition of the implications, phone companies are planning to let people conceal where they are at the touch of a button. Phone metre Although existing GSM handsets can be used as location devices, they typically only give a fix to within a couple of hundred meters. Future phones will direct you to the nearest Indian take away While this is good enough to tell drivers about traffic problems on the roads ahead, mobile phone companies are not using the technology for much more than this. Accuracy can be improved if handsets are fitted with special software and the mobile phone operators adopt complementary software for their networks. Using this technology, handsets can be pinpointed to within 50 metres of their actual position. Newer mobile phone technologies such as the General Packet Radio Services and Universal Mobile Telecommunications Services have more accurate locating systems built in. GPRS services are due to become widely available later this year and UMTS telephone networks are due to be switched on in 2002. Timing triangle Both GPRS and UMTS can locate a handset to within 15 metres by timing how long it takes packets of data to travel from different base stations to the handset. The handset then uses this to calculate where the phone is in the area covered by the base stations. "Service providers are going to do that calculation routinely so they can sell the data to companies that want to send you mail and messages," said Caspar Bowden, director of the Foundation for Information Policy Research. Often people will be happy to reveal their location and who they are, particularly if they are looking for a cash point or a good restaurant in a town they are visiting. Many companies are keen to use this location data so they can send special offers, such as cut-price cinema tickets, to anyone walking past their doors. Others are planning to combine location data and personal information to target people with adverts customised to match their preferences. Privacy protection But, said Mr Bowden, the newly passed Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act could allow for the data to be used for a more sinister purpose. He said the RIP Act regards the information used to locate phones as "communications data" and says police do not need a warrant to obtain it. As a result, he said, the police could use this information to conduct covert surveillance of anyone using such a phone. Phone companies are planning to let people opt in and out of the location-based services to ensure privacy is not compromised and people are not bombarded with messages they do not want to read. "It has always been our aim to enable the customer to decide whether or not to have his or her location sent to the network," said a spokesman for mobile service provider Orange. But all this means is that the information is not being passed on to advertisers, said Mr Bowden. "Whether or not you want to receive ads, the location data will be collected," he said.
Mail-order cat piss (was Re: Trolls)
At 07:03 PM 8/14/00 -0400, Steven Furlong wrote: I could probably come up with uses for cat pee if I set my mind to it. I'm having considerable difficulty with the idea of commercially- available cat pee. Is it sanitized? Are Dept of Health certificates needed? How on earth can you make a profit selling cat pee by mail? Who _thought_ of selling cat pee, let alone by mail? The mind wobbles. You can buy scents to attract and repel animals, e.g. for hunting or gardening, respectively. Since they are not for internal (or topical, AFAIK) use, they are not regulated. I don't imagine the market for say estrous deer butt-glands is huge, but if you need that stuff, it'll cost ya.
Re: The Sound Of Security?
At 04:25 AM 8/15/00 -0400, A. Melon wrote: New credit-card technology uses sound waves to enforce security So now in addition to shoulder-surfing we worry about ultrasonic tape recorders...
Mail-order cat piss (was Re: Trolls)
At 09:36 PM 8/14/00 -0400, Eric Murray wrote: Horses are much more visual than anything else In that case the polihooligans should dress up in strange costumes. Only the horses that have worked the SF parades (or certain parts of Hollywood) would be able to deal with the sights...
Mail-order cat piss (was Re: Trolls)
At 12:56 AM 8/15/00 -0400, Reese wrote: Horse manure accomplishes the same thing, if used instead of cattle manure as a fertilizer. Well just as the hoohah got started, someone from PETA dropped a ton of horse manure on the hotel steps. Didn't keep the pigs or horses away. (The activist was dressed in a pig costume, which made for a nice photo of his arrest. http://www.latimes.com/news/state/2813/t75982.html)
Re: AOL and hate speech
X-Loop: openpgp.net From: "petro" [EMAIL PROTECTED] In any case, I never suggested that MenWithGuns should force AOL to modify its hate speech policy. It could have been easily interpreted as such (and it has been). Anyone who has been reading Mr. May's missives for any length of time would not interpret it so. Well, they wouldn't interpret it as MenWithGovermentGuns anyway. It's funny, I would have said the same if I *wouldn't have* read The Moron's "missives" for some length. However, once I saw "the government should go in and kidnap Elian, and kill his US relatives while they're at it", I think that "The Moron is a libertarian" has somehow lost any chance of being true, at least for me. Mark
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Re: Quantum Cryptography and resistance
At 01:37 PM 8/15/00 -0400, Timothy Brown wrote: Hey, folks - Can anyone provide pointers for the layman to documents describing theoretical cryptosystems resistant to quantum cryptanalysis? The assumption is made that those systems would be implemented on quantum computing devices. Essentially what i'm asking is: How would cryptography evolve once a quantum computer is available? Simple. Use bigger keys. Bigger by the work-factor that quantum computation gives you (see Grover's algorithm). E.g., a 512-bit symmetric block cipher should be good for a few more years, quantum computers or not. 3-AES anyone?
Re: Quantum Cryptography and resistance
On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, David Honig wrote: [original poster asks :] Essentially what i'm asking is: How would cryptography evolve once a quantum computer is available? Simple. Use bigger keys. Bigger by the work-factor that quantum computation gives you (see Grover's algorithm). E.g., a 512-bit symmetric block cipher should be good for a few more years, quantum computers or not. 3-AES anyone? yup. but don't forget public key crypto... what happens if quantum computers become practical : symmetric crypto : barring specialised attacks for a cipher, brute force search goes from 2^n to 2^(n/2) steps. So 128 bit keys take 2^64 steps or so to break, 256 bit keys take 2^128, 512 bit keys take 2^256 steps. So at 256 bits or higher, you should be fine. public-key crypto : factoring and discrete log become "easy." Thus RSA and Diffie-Hellman and all their cousins become broken. Search begins in earnest for alternative one-way functions and public-key cryptosystems. As far as I know, NTRU doesn't have a quantum algorithm for breaking it; there may be others. Actually, this brings up a point - what weird public-key cryptosystems not based on factoring or discrete log are there? I can think of Arithmetica's system and NTRU off the top of my head, but not much more. Thanks, -David
Re: user name and password?
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://cryptome.org/ I tried to access the archives and got the attached jpg. I wonder if fumble, bumble and inept is involved with this? Use http://216.167.120.50/ instead. There were "problems" a few weeks back, caused by asshole, jerkoff, and dickhead. -- Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere Have GNU, will travel 518-374-4720 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mail-order cat piss (was Re: Trolls)
This is legitimate, the urine of foxes and bobcats is regularly used to keep pests out of gardens such as squirrels, moles, voles, and other such critters. I understand that Skunks can be kept away with such products too. rdc Harmon Seaver wrote: Heck, you can get some pretty nice scents from ads in the back of Fur-Fish-Game, the trapper's magazine. Also any place that sells trapping supplies (I know there are some web sites for trap supplies now, but don't have an URL) would carry scents. Cat, fox, coyote urine and gland scents, skunk, you betcha! And it's amazingly strong. And long lasting.
Mail-order cat piss (was Re: Trolls)
At 09:48 AM 15/08/00 -0400, David Honig wrote: At 12:56 AM 8/15/00 -0400, Reese wrote: Horse manure accomplishes the same thing, if used instead of cattle manure as a fertilizer. Well just as the hoohah got started, someone from PETA dropped a ton of horse manure on the hotel steps. Didn't keep the pigs or horses away. The original poster suggested cat piss to keep the deer away, horse manure does the same trick - with regard to deer. Reese
