Re: Confiscation of Anti-War Video
At 10:08 AM 10/28/02 -0500, Tyler Durden wrote: In antoher context I've wondered about the possibility of wireless, near-real-time video upload. With 3G this will cetainly be easy, but I'm wondering if there are soft/hard gadgets that can auto-upload stuff. Plenty of webcams come with software to auto upload (e.g., ftp). They require a computer though. You mean an embedded device? A 2.5 G phone with a camera, and the 'feature' to autosend periodically, would be a fine vidbug. Reminds me of that LEO notice a while back that captors were leaving their cell phones, and leaving them on, in the copcars. ... BTW JY needs to learn the Tomlinson trick of switching his chips. A wee bit of slight of hand.
research homeland insecurity
(sent to AAAS members) Dear AAAS Member: As the anniversary of September 11th approaches, AAAS continues to be engaged in issues that relate to national security and the role of science and technology. One such issue is the safe and responsible conduct of research involving biological agents and toxins. AAAS was recently asked by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to assist in alerting our members to the federal mandate (Public Law 107-188) requiring all facilities and persons that possess, use, or transfer agents or toxins considered a threat to animals, plants, animal and plant products and/or public health (called select agents) to notify the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Approximately 200,000 facilities were sent a copy of the notification form by the CDC. The deadline for submitting a completed form to the CDC is September 10, 2002. All entities that receive a copy of the form must comply, even if they do not possess a select agent or toxin. If you are in possession of a select agent or toxin and did not receive a form, you should call CDC's toll-free number: 1-866-567-4232. Further information on the select agent list, procedures for notification, and exemptions can be found at the following websites: CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/lrsat.htm USDA: http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/ncie AAAS is initiating an effort to monitor the effects of new national security initiatives on the research community. In that regard, we'd be pleased to hear about your experience, whether positive or negative, in complying with this new federal mandate. You can forward such information to Dr. Mark Frankel, director of the AAAS Program on Scientific Freedom, Responsibility and Law at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sincerely, Alan I. Leshner Chief Executive Officer
police video surveillance of public schools; facerecog too
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fi-campus8sep08.story SANTEE, Calif. -- As Mike Brooder pulls into the student parking lot outside West Hills High School, wireless cameras record his face and license plate--doing the same to every car that follows. The cameras then track the 17-year-old senior as he walks up a concrete path, studies his schedule, scratches his chin, waves to friends and then wanders to class. Nearly every move Brooder makes--and every move of his 2,300 classmates--is captured and stored in the campus' database. Following last September's terrorist attacks and years of school shootings, West Hills High sits on the cutting edge of the emerging surveillance society. Each bathroom door is monitored. Sensors that detect the smoke of a single match send alerts to campus security. By Christmas, four more cameras will be installed, and hall monitors will carry wireless computers that can pull up a student's school picture, class schedule and attendance record. School officials are considering whether to expand the SkyWitness surveillance system by adding facial recognition software that will allow a computer to filter out who should--and who should not--be on campus. Technology, once viewed primarily as a learning tool, is building a wall of electronic security on campus. People are saying they expected this to happen after the shootings and the terrorists last year, said Brooder, an honor student who plays on the school baseball team. Still, it seems a little overwhelming and extreme. And perhaps likely to become far more common--not just in schools, but everywhere. Schools are among the first to embrace new technology, often because companies view campuses as perfect testing grounds before rolling products out to corporate America. For instance, one of the companies behind West Hills' system, PacketVideo Corp., predicts that demand for products like SkyWitness will grow, as people are tracked at factories, office parks, stadiums--even places such as the Third Street Promenade shopping district in Santa Monica. Companies like the fact that students enjoy fewer constitutional protections than adults and have lower expectations of privacy than their parents. For many students, such surveillance is standard, with cameras at every bank ATM and many fast-food drive-throughs. But the desire to protect has led to an erosion of individual privacy, civil liberties advocates argue. Once privacy is gone, you can't get it back, said Dale Kelly Bankhead, a spokeswoman for the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial counties. This is not just about schools, but about a broader social attitude. Relying on such high-tech systems is an unusual move for high schools, but is expected to become a more popular trend in the post-Sept, 11 world, said Kenneth S. Trump, president and chief executive of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm. At Tewksbury Memorial High School, about an hour outside Boston, the push for security has gone so far as to result in a video-surveillance system that lets both educators--and local police--watch the hallways. Cameras are everywhere someone wants to watch over, Trump said. The technology at West Hills relies on advanced hardware, but basic, off-the-shelf technology is already used by both parents and educators to watch kids. Software programs can take snapshots of every Web page they visit and every e-mail they send. Devices such as AutoWatch can be popped into an automobile and programmed to record a car's speed, as well as times, dates and the lengths of time it is driven. Cell-phone bills list the calls a student makes and receives. You might call it control, said Joe Schramm, head of security at West Hills. We call it keeping the kids safe. Tucked into the scrub-brush valley of Santee, West Hills High appears to be nothing but safe. The average SAT score is nearly 1100, and 70% of last year's seniors are attending either a community college or a four-year institution this fall. But West Hills High has not gone untouched by fear. Less than three miles away, Charles Andy Williams went on a shooting rampage last year, killing two students and wounding 13 others at Santana High School. The community was stunned when nearly two weeks later another student launched a shooting spree at a different school in the Grossmont Union High School District. Jason Hoffman, 18, wounded five people at Granite Hills High School in El Cajon. Hoffman committed suicide while awaiting trial. Last month Williams was sentenced to prison for 50 years to life. Despite the violence, the school district was forced to cut its budget across the board; the security group lost three of its 10 employees, including two of the staff members who helped patrol the 76-acre West Hills campus. Hoping to offset the pain of the staff cuts, the district started to look at technology it already had in place on its campuses and explore how the tools could
Re: seeking information for Tired News article
At 02:33 PM 9/7/02 -0500, J.A. Terranson wrote:
What kinds of people are involved?
Doctors, Lawyers, Mathematecians, Felons, Druggies, Anti-druggies,
Anarchists, Libertarians, Right-Wing-Fanatics, Left-Wing-Fanatics,
Teachers, Housewives, Househusbands, students, cops, criminals...
We're all just voices in TM's head..
Who (socially, i mean, not names!) exactly are the members of the
group?
Agains, there IS NO GROUP. I'm not trying to be cute here - THERE IS
NO GROUP. The whole concept of group is flawed in this context.
Dogthinker seeks Alpha Cat.
WN has had a very familiar relationship with the cypherpunks - has it
been
viewed as a positive thing?
Which? WN is widely considered lame ('tired' to you) esp. since Declan
left.
On the other hand, publicity can attract contentful participants. Also
trolling feds and folks looking for help with homework.
With whom else are the cypherpunks allied?
[I actually had to take a moment to wipe the tears of laughter from
the question]
Nobody.
Well a few authors have gotten free plane trips bed board at the
Feds'
expense.. some even came back after it was over.
Any such alliance would require a Group Consensus -
something which is just patently impossible. If you ever find two
CP's who can agree on enough to come to a broad Consensus, you let me
know so I can mark it on my calendar.
True 'nuff. Now ask us about protocols which let you determine a
consensus...
well, that's tasty.
Thanks for your time. I am hoping to get the story done before the
end of
next week (i.e. before the actual party.) Of course, I would never
publish
the location of the party or any other information that you don't
feel
comfortable about.
And 'we' should 'trust' you *why* ?? (Ho-ho, list relevence!
Explain/define the
scare-quotes! For extra credit, explain how protocols might avoid
spoofing.)
opsec hint: don't give classified into to Moussaoui
US accidentally gave Moussaoui classified information on al-Qaeda: report September 07, 2002, 11:09 PM WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US government accidentally gave Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in connection with the September 11 attacks, classified information about al-Qaeda, ABC News reported. The documents and computer disks were mistakenly handed over to Moussaoui along with materials the government is required to furnish for his legal defense, several legal sources, including one at the Justice Department, told the network Friday. Moussaoui is serving as his own counsel. snip http://www.arabia.com/afp/news/int/article/english/0,10846,283377,00.html
Re: modified consoles as disposable nodes
At 12:19 PM 8/2/02 +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: While useful, they note that the other platforms lack at least one of the Dreamcast's virtues. It's innocuous. It looks like a toy, said Davis. If you bring it into a company, they're going to go, 'Wow, look at the toy!' Damn, first they came for my Furby. Then they came for my Dreamcast. Wait until the Dreamcasters get into stealth casemods..
warchalking on the Beeb
Well, its official. Warchalking (802.11x domain marking) appeared on the US edition of the BBC News. No hype re: anonymity t*rr*r*sm tigers bears; a mention though of service-contract violations, and the gift community concept. Thank you Mr. Beeb. (And all your privacy-invading TV IF locating white vans)
Re: Are the Feds Wimps or What?
At 11:15 AM 7/22/02 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: So far the massive crackdown by the Feds that has stripped me of my civil liberties hasn't managed to do much. They have to work a bit harder. I'm back to not showing ID to get into work just like before the war. Well, you showed it to them enough times, they believe you now :-)
Re: Are the Feds Wimps or What?
At 11:15 AM 7/22/02 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: So far the massive crackdown by the Feds that has stripped me of my civil liberties hasn't managed to do much. They have to work a bit harder. I'm back to not showing ID to get into work just like before the war. Well, you showed it to them enough times, they believe you now :-)
Re: Atmospheric noise fair coin flipping
At 05:45 AM 7/14/02 -0700, gfgs pedo wrote: it is said that atmospheric noise is random but how can we say for sure. Physics, chaos, the growth of initial uncertainty as systems evolve, energy/time required to make measurements to arbitrary precision. what if the parameters giverning atmospheric noise vary frm time 2 time. The rules of physics are those that don't change from time to time, or place to place. Certainly the e.g., wind speed does. so can we say atmospheric noise is random or a coin flipping is random-only because it passes die hard test or other randomness tests-which is an indicator of randomness with the current defenition of parameters in determing randomness? No, since 'anything through a whitener passes' these tests. The integers (0, 1, 2..) fed into DES will pass. (Equivalently) A low-entropy source fed into a hash will pass. [Historical note: this is why Intel should make its raw RNG data available in chips with whitened-output RNG functions] To have a true RNG, You *must* have a physical understanding of the source of entropy whence you distill the pure bits (whether or not you feed it into a whitener after distillation). Precisely because a 'black box' may be a deterministic (if you know the secret) PRNG. By 'distill' I mean reduce N bits to M, N M, in such a way as to increase the entropy of the resultant M bits. is there truly random or that we can say with certain degre of confidence that they are nearly random as all current evidence poits so. 'Random' should be taken to mean 'ignorant of'. It suffices that we (and our adversary) are ignorant of the detailed conditions inside a noise diode, unstable atomic nucleus, atmospheric (or FM radio) noise receiver, etc. Philosophical discussions about 'true randomness' (Is there a deeper/smaller level of description in which apparently-random events are based or emerge from?) are beyond the scope of this rant.
Re: Which universe are we in? (tossing tennis balls into spinning props)
At 03:21 PM 7/14/02 +0100, Ben Laurie wrote: Eric Cordian wrote: Still, Nature abhors overcomplexification, and plain old quantum mechanics works just fine for predicting the results of experiments. Oh yeah? So predict when this radioactive isotope will decay, if you please. You mean this particular *atom* will decay. And while QM can't help you with a particular atom, it also doesn't say that its impossible that knowledge of internal states of the atom wouldn't help you predict its fragmentation. Think about tossing tennis balls through spinning propellers. You might think you could only characterize the translucent prop-disk by a certain probability that the ball would get through vs. get shredded. (Propeller mechanics) But if you could see the phase of the prop as it spun, you could time your tosses and predict which would get shredded. But without that high-speed strobe, you just think there's a disk where there's really a spinning blade.
Re: Which universe are we in? (tossing tennis balls into spinning props)
At 03:21 PM 7/14/02 +0100, Ben Laurie wrote: Eric Cordian wrote: Still, Nature abhors overcomplexification, and plain old quantum mechanics works just fine for predicting the results of experiments. Oh yeah? So predict when this radioactive isotope will decay, if you please. You mean this particular *atom* will decay. And while QM can't help you with a particular atom, it also doesn't say that its impossible that knowledge of internal states of the atom wouldn't help you predict its fragmentation. Think about tossing tennis balls through spinning propellers. You might think you could only characterize the translucent prop-disk by a certain probability that the ball would get through vs. get shredded. (Propeller mechanics) But if you could see the phase of the prop as it spun, you could time your tosses and predict which would get shredded. But without that high-speed strobe, you just think there's a disk where there's really a spinning blade.
Re: TPM cost constraint [was: RE: Revenge of the WAVEoid]
At 07:05 PM 7/6/02 -0700, Lucky Green wrote:, Adding the cost of an EMBASSY or SEE environment to the,purchase of every new PC is more than the market for bare-bones or even,mid-range PC's will bear.,,--Lucky, Too bad PCMCIA cardreaders aren't widespread, then a bank could give away smartcards which would be arguably more secure than browserware.
biometric containment (privacy, fingerprints, dead utah blondes)
So the neighbors of that dead blonde Utah jailbait volunteered their fingerprints, presumably for discounting them, though possibly not. In any case: how could a neighbor-friendly cypherpunk give prints which were *not* entered into the Fed Oracle? Only way I can think of is to physically control your deadtree print sheet and require the Feebs to manually enter the dozen topo-feature-locations of your print from a memoryless measuring device, (eg, a glass lens and reticle) in front of you, then take the print sheet with you. How you verify that the imaging system is memoryless is up to you. Comments?
Justice is more powerful than therapy -ex Scientologist
Lawrence Wollersheim was awarded millions of dollars, but he plans to keep living as a nomad in a solar-powered RV, connected to the world by a cellular phone with a secret number. The ex-Scientologist came by his money in a unique fashion too: He won a grueling 22-year court battle against the Church of Scientology of California that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. Wollersheim said the church pushed him to the brink of suicide, brought on bipolar disorder and drove his business into bankruptcy. A Los Angeles jury agreed. On May 9, the church deposited $8.67 million with the Los Angeles Superior Court, marking the only time in two decades, church officials say, that Scientology has lost a lawsuit and been forced to pay a former member, or as church officials call him, an apostate. Now, Wollersheim said, he won't have to worry about having a job ever again. But the 53-year-old, who has spent his entire adult life in Scientology or fighting it, said he is not going to relax in his newfound security. He'd like nothing better, he said. It's just that his quest for justice may compel him to wage more battles and file more lawsuits. He is encouraging other ex-members to file their own suits and plans to stay involved in Factnet, the anti-Scientology, anti-cult Web site he co-founded. Justice is more powerful than therapy, Wollersheim said. If it takes another 22 years, I'll stay with it. I'm standing up straight and tall and looking them in the eye, and they're not pushing me anymore. snip http://www.latimes.com/editions/orange/la-35921may21.story?coll=la%2Deditions%2Dorange (access using joecypherpunk2/writecode if necessary)
Re: Got carried away...
At 09:02 AM 4/30/02 -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: Ken Brown wrote: ... An even if cars were like little tanks why not open them with ordinary physical keys, like real tanks? US tanks don't have built-in locks as in private autos. They have heavy wire loops or bars and are locked with ordinary (if rather heavy-duty) padlocks. Of course, no security is impenatrable, and a few years ago some (possibly unbalanced :-) yahoo stole a tank IIRC from a SoCal National Guard and demonstrated that the Jersey barriers on the 5 were not up to the task. Eventually a cop climbed it and shot the guy in the tank. Remember to lock that door. An inspiring bit of surrealtv, that was.
Re: Got carried away...
At 09:02 AM 4/30/02 -0400, Steve Furlong wrote: Ken Brown wrote: ... An even if cars were like little tanks why not open them with ordinary physical keys, like real tanks? US tanks don't have built-in locks as in private autos. They have heavy wire loops or bars and are locked with ordinary (if rather heavy-duty) padlocks. Of course, no security is impenatrable, and a few years ago some (possibly unbalanced :-) yahoo stole a tank IIRC from a SoCal National Guard and demonstrated that the Jersey barriers on the 5 were not up to the task. Eventually a cop climbed it and shot the guy in the tank. Remember to lock that door. An inspiring bit of surrealtv, that was.
Re: Two ideas for random number generation
At 11:55 AM 4/24/02 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote: On Tue, 23 Apr 2002, Riad S. Wahby wrote: This may take more voltage than you want to use in your process, but you can engineer the base-emitter junction if you've got a friend in process engineering. You can also use common guard structures to isolate the HV part of the chip, without dicking with the Delicate Recipes (process) which you Don't Want To Do And Probably Wouldn't Be Allowed To Anyway. Also helps keep digital switching noise out of the source. Aren't there dedicated avalanche diodes available with low breakdown voltages, precisely for this reason? I think they're used in applications where zeners could be, except for higher breakdown current. One other potential problem is long-term reliability, but that's a subject for another email. Actually, we're interested... Shouldn't be a problem, if you limit the breakdown current. If you're after entropy, you'd likely want to use a constant current source anyway. And constant-current sources are *sooo* tough to make out of transistors :-) My small point is confirming that junction/avalanche RNG sources are very compatible with standard CMOS fabrication. (I've actually probed test structures on production wafers in a stuffy metal room examining this... man, you don't want to have had too much coffee trying to land the probes.. ..looking at analogue measurements with spectral analyzers and sampled data with statistical tools) The junction structures are louder than resistors --they produce more entropy per watt. Intel may have had other, valid reasons for using resistive sources in its real RNG.
RE: mil disinfo on cryptome (and sec clearance games)
At 09:22 PM 4/6/02 -0800, John Young wrote: Kahn's right, and admirably so, for once you get access to classified material you are doomed to be distrusted outside the secret world. Another reason: once you get a clearance, you can't speak freely. The latest _Tech Review_ interviews an MIT Prof Postol, who has been pointing out the lies behind Raytheon's Patriot missile and the anti-ballistic missile sham. Reportedly, some friendly DoD folks came to him and asked him to read a classified report that would put some of his technical worries at ease. Postol refused, knowing that this is a scheme used to silence folks --having been exposed to classified info, you have to watch what you say. If you figure it out from open data + general science, you can speak your mind. (BTW The basic deception is, if our gizmo can't discriminate this kind of decoy, well, don't use that kind of decoy in the tests..)
How many virgins for Mike Spann?
At 06:08 PM 4/6/02 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: What kind of payback does the USG pay to families of deceased soldiers? A flag, and occasionally a cemetary plot in Virginia if they want one, and a lot of hype about how they were a heroic martyr for their country, back when hype about being a heroic martyr was supposed to be positive. 1. Is it a Chinese-made flag? 2. How many virgins do they get? (Round to the nearest dozen) Do homosexual soldiers get to tell and get nubile young lads?
Re: Julia Child was a Spook
At 01:31 PM 4/7/02 +0800, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote: I'm sorry you've bought the terrorist line that it's all about US support for Israel. RTFM. Or the Al-Quaeda declarations, at least. I know better. So *you* claim. Chuckle. We could withdraw from the Middle East tomorrow, and all that would change would be the excuse. Why would Al Q. care about the US if the US were not in their backyard? Its not like they care about US colonialism in the Americas, or Europe. They learned (via CCCP, Lebanon, etc.) how to evict intruders from their homeland, and now they are implementing it. They're acting rationally, and as a wanna-be analyst you should be able to understand that. In dropping the Towers, they were trying to wake up US taxpayers to the actions of their 'leaders'. Unfortunate that Americans are so hard to wake up (vaporizing some jar-heads on the other side of the planet does not truly impress), even harder to get to think, but that's the situation.
How many virgins for Mike Spann?
At 06:08 PM 4/6/02 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: What kind of payback does the USG pay to families of deceased soldiers? A flag, and occasionally a cemetary plot in Virginia if they want one, and a lot of hype about how they were a heroic martyr for their country, back when hype about being a heroic martyr was supposed to be positive. 1. Is it a Chinese-made flag? 2. How many virgins do they get? (Round to the nearest dozen) Do homosexual soldiers get to tell and get nubile young lads?
Re: Small Arms Failure in Afghan (caliberpunks)
At 08:38 PM 4/5/02 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -- James A. Donald: Military weapons are generally not designed to kill quickly. A badly wounded man who takes a long time dying is a much bigger drain on your enemy's resources. Major Variola True for snipers, but if you're being shot at and have inadequate cover, A badly wounded man will instantly lose interest in his mission. A badly wounded *Christian* draftee/unemployable but not wannabe *Martyr* volunteer. Instant deterrence is in many ways better for military purposes than instant kill. Instant kill only matters in close quarters one on one combat. (And is much overrated even in that situation.) Indeed ---US domestic police shoot to kill, not 'wound', because they shoot when someone's life is in imminent danger. The only use for instant kill weapon in warfare would be for an officer to shoot mutineers. Or vice-versa.
RE: Small Arms Failure in Afghan (caliberpunks) (pharmpunks)
At 07:40 AM 4/6/02 +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: You don't even need to open a book on pharmacology to realize why this is a dumb idea. ... some people will get a lot more exposure than others due to statistical fluctuations...when you're approaching LD50 country, a mg/kg body weight dosage at which 50% of people die) is narrow. Taken together, this means that you're walking a *very* narrow line between no effect at all, and a lot of dead bodies littering the landscape. Both are probably not what you wanted. Yep. 1. Yes it has been researched; .ZA did some documented work on (supposedly) using psychotropics as riot-control agents. See also BZ, an atropine-like[1] deleriant investigated by the US. 2. Some psychotropics have very wide ED:LD50 ratios (e.g., lsd), several orders of magnitude larger than even the safer drugs (which might have an ED:LD of 100; cf Tylenol, a few times the ED will toast your liver). But they may not have the immediacy of effect you desire. The DMT-class drugs act faster, and ethyl- and longer substitutions last longer, but pain and vomiting drugs seem to be favored. Hallucinogens might only encourage the religious martyrs. 3. *Any* chemwar, e.g., CS and capsaicin, used by the US police on its citizens, can kill, e.g., the elderly, young, asthmatics, etc. Any drug will kill some fraction: vaccines kill a few people a year, but save zillions. [1] The British military, fighting the american revolutionary Jihad, inadvertently consumed a Datura species as they scrounged for food in the Virginia woods. Datura sp. contain atropine. They ended up howling naked at the moon. As they were near Jamestown, the species became known as Jimsonweed.
Re: Julia Child was a Spook
At 02:59 PM 4/6/02 +0800, F. Marc de Piolenc wrote: Nonsense. If you can't see any difference between terrorists and risistants you are either wilfully ignorant or confused. Terrorist is what the bigger side of an asymmetrical conflict call the smaller side. Also crazy, and other intended-derogatory labels. When the American Revolutionary Jihad did not line up, or wear uniforms, like proper British soldiers, but sniped from camoflaged concealed positions, they were regarded as terrorists by the colonialists. The more things change.. If you were on the weaker side, you wouldn't play fair, ie, according to the rules written by those who gain from the rules. Or you would be a dead fool, and your survivors would be slaves.
CNET article on dream email client includes PGP
5. Integrated PGP encryption We can't stress e-mail security enough, and we think your e-mail client should stress it more. Many apps make weak attempts at encryption, but we demand integrated PGP, the encryption gold standard, in every e-mailer. Users could create a decryption key the first time they use the app, then choose whether to autoencrypt every message or just click a button to encrypt single pieces of outgoing mail. A similar preference or button would autodecrypt on command. http://home.cnet.com/software/0--8-9161160-1.html
Where are my turnips? Hidden in your kid's closet
At 01:37 AM 3/23/02 -0500, dmolnar wrote: (See, the information-only goods don't count. they're not REAL ENOUGH. What we need is FedEx crossed with _Bladerunner_ or _The Postman_ somehow interstitial to the meatspace mafia (govt). The difficulties with the meat:info interface has been well discussed here. Recently we saw this question echoed by Morlock Elloi -- are there compelling reasons to ask for privacy and anonymity, besides the fact that a bunch of (unemployed) cypherpunks are True Believers? High schoolers who get busted for private sites might be teaching, by example, their peers about the value of anonymity. hell, is the temporary autonomous zone still what cypherpunks is about? Even if restricted only to Brittney/Stealth plans, its a *part* of it. But lets remember the *triumphs* of the last decade, which were not brought up last time this was discussed: * I use VPN to connect to work, daily * Every book I've bought for the last several years, and a good deal of ammo, has been via SSL * Regular use of PGP, between radically different platforms, with more paranoid colleages * Stego -but if I told you, I'd have to kill you * I've not gone into a physical bank in years, but my ATM uses crypto With the possible exception of PGP, you don't have to understand these to use them. * Every middle-rate university now has crypto courses and there are crypto libraries for every language/platform out there Things look real good for the *next generation*, folks -the ones who think the (100) million bytes/MIPS/pixels machine belongs in the Smithsonian, along with its phone modem... call 'em generation Napster or the generation Broadband, whatever... kids have many more secrets than adults, since kids have parents and police Panopticonning them...
Psychological analysis of anonymous benefactors
At 03:08 PM 3/23/02 -0800, Tim May wrote: There are other examples of one man projects with limited expectations of financial gain, whether anonymity was an issue or not. Stallman comes to mind. What Tim writes is correct, but he ignores personal motivational psychology. Stallman felt burnt when his community of friends could no longer share code because they got real jobs. He continues to work out his anger. Ditto for a lot of the early Unix tools, even entire languages. These folks were largely building reps in their litle communities. Much like open source teenagers. Many people are motivated by ideology more than a desire for (often meager) financial benefits. Sure, most people want some recognition, or some compensation. But they often do things even when there's no prospect at all for recognition. Anonymous benefactors, for example. Benefactors feel empathy with the community they help. Individual altruists (e.g., anon remailer developers and maintainers) are doing same, and working out hostility to censors, fascists, etc. There is hope, so long as there are folks who still have a bit of fire inside, and can channel it.
Israeli spy ring in US, and ongoing coverup
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2002/576/in00.htm Israeli spy-ring uncovered in US Revelations of a secret US government report lead investigators to question whether Israeli intelligence had prior knowledge of the 11 September events. Iason Athanasiadis reports The US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) announced on Tuesday 5 March that it has yet to level charges against any of the Israeli suspects it has detained in what is being described as the greatest revelation of an Israeli spying operation since the 1986 John Pollard case. Le Monde and Intelligence Online, a French online magazine, claim they have obtained a draft version of a secret US government report issued by the Justice Department which proves that an active Israeli intelligence network has been detected within America. It adds that there is proof that members of the network may have trailed suspected Al-Qa'eda operatives in the United States without informing federal authorities, leading to speculation over whether the Israeli government might have had prior knowledge of the events of 11 September. Intelligence Online was first to report that the investigation, which has been ongoing since April 2001, has led to 120 Israelis being detained or deported on immigration charges. According to the report it has obtained, which is dated June 2001, the ring was active in the states of Arkansas, California, Florida and Texas, and consisted of around 20 cells of between four and eight members, aged between 22 and 30 who had recently completed Israeli military service in an army intelligence division. According to the Justice Department report, the students represented themselves as art students and made efforts to gain access to sensitive federal office buildings and the homes of government employees, U.S. officials said. A draft report from the Drug Enforcement Administration q which first characterized the activities as suspicious q said the youths' actions may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity. Immigration officials deported them for visa violations; no criminal espionage charges were filed. The arrests, made in an unspecified number of major US cities from California to Florida, came amid public warnings from US intelligence agencies about suspicious behavior by people posing as Israeli art students and attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings. In Washington, however, U.S. law enforcement officials discounted the report, with one calling the assertion of a spy ring a bogus story. In Washington on Tuesday, U.S. Justice Department spokeswoman Susan Dryden said of the Le Monde report, At this time, we have no information to support this. US officials said that some Israeli students had been sent out of the country for immigration violations, not for spying. In Israel, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said it was nonsense that the students were spying on the United States. Another Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Irit Stopper, confirmed that a few Israelis posing as art students were expelled from the United States for working without permits. However they were not accused of espionage, she said. She did not say how many Israelis were expelled and did not give any additional details. According to the editor of Intelligence Online, Guillaume Dasquieh, the US government report issued by the Justice Department on March last year, reveals that the investigation has been ongoing since April 2001 and that the ring was active in the states of Arkansas, California, Florida and Texas, and consisted of around 20 cells of between four and eight members who were aged between 22 and 30 and had recently completed Israeli military service in an army intelligence division. Le Monde said more than one third of the suspected Israeli spies had lived in Florida, from January up until June last year, when the report was published, where at least 10 of the 19 Arabs involved in the September 11 airplane attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon were also based. The newspaper also said that it had learned that six suspected spies had used portable telephones bought by a former Israeli vice consul in the United States. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) report said a majority of the young people questioned by US investigators acknowledged having served in military intelligence, electronic signals interception or explosive ordnance units in the Israeli military. The DEA said one person questioned was the son of a two-star Israeli general, one had served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli Army and another served in a Patriot missile unit. At least five of the Israelis had resided in Hollywood, Florida, the same town in which alleged hijacker
P2P Psyops DOS
Steve Griffin StreamCast/Morpheus CEO Continued http://wwwmusiccitycom/ It appears that the attacks included an encrypted message being repeatedly sent directly to your computers that changed registry settings in your computer Later, it appears our ad servers were attacked resulting in messages being sent to other sites without our knowledge, which threatened our most basic revenue model We believe some of these attacks continue as Morpheus users attempt to connect to the old Morpheus User Network This was why it is important to quickly deploy our new software product This unprovoked attack is being carefully investigated, as it appears that federal laws may have been violated We are still attempting to discover who would want to eliminate the community of millions of consumers who are using the Morpheus software product to connect with other users around the world These attacks have forced us to more quickly deploy our new software product in order to allow you to bring the largest p2p community back together Since it appears that the attack on your computers came from the closed proprietary FastTrack-Kazaa software, we have opted not to continue with this p2p kernel We believe it to have the ability to access your computer at will and change registry settings In addition, we remain committed to NOT bundling any spy ware with our product We are pleased to migrate to an open Protocol product with the release of Morpheus Preview Edition, which is based on the very large network of Gnutella users The new software will provide you with the ability for faster searches, the display of more search results, and many more new and exciting features KEEP IN MIND that this is only our preview edition Any time change occurs, many object and think the old version was better Our objective is to create a new and exciting software product Since our company and your p2p network are being attacked, we would appreciate your constructive comments for improvement, not simply criticisms With you help and input, we will continue to provide the pre-eminent p2p software product in the world Lastly, we want to address some of the misinformation we've seen recently There have been many comments that we caused these problems intentionally Let me assure you that we would NEVER treat the Morpheus users in this fashion Others have said we would re-launch with a paid subscription model, again, not true Our commitment is to always provide you a free version of the Morpheus software product Thanks again for making Morpheus the most widely downloaded p2p product in the world We are hard at work to provide you with the products you have come to expect from our company From our perspective p2p means people to people Our goal is to create the software that lets you create the network Thanks again for your support
P2P gnutella sees hyperexponential growth as Morpheus users switch
http://wwwlimewirecom/indexjsp/size look at the bottom graph
Don't panic the New Yorker sheeple, glowing soon
UPI: Report: Al Qaida has 'dirty bomb' Drudge (TIME): NYC nukes kept secret from proles AP: yet another cross-border smuggling tunnel, 1000 ft long, with rails and power You do the math. Oh, and don't forget the Columbian submarines.. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=03032002-122721-3640r http://www.drudgereport.com/flash.htm http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/ap/20020228/ap_on_re_us/drug_tunnel_1 X DRUDGE REPORT X SUN MARCH 03, 2002 09:22:37 ET X OCTOBER BULLETIN SAID TERRORISTS THOUGHT TO HAVE 10 KILOTON NUCLEAR WEAPON TO BE SMUGGLED INTO NEW YORK CITY Sun Mar 03 2002 10:40:24 ET New York -- In October, an intelligence alert went out to a small number of government agencies, including the Energy Department's top-secret Nuclear Emergency Search Team, based in Nevada. The report said that terrorists were thought to have obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon from the Russian arsenal, and planned to smuggle it into New York City, a special TIME magazine investigation reveals. The source: a mercurial agent code-named DRAGONFIRE, who intelligence officials believed was of undetermined reliability, TIME reports. But DRAGONFIRE'S claim tracked with a report from a Russian general who believed his forces were missing a 10-kiloton device. That made the DRAGONFIRE report alarming. So did this: detonated in lower Manhattan, a 10-kiloton bomb would kill some 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more, flattening everything in a half-mile diameter. Counterterrorist investigators went on their highest state of alert, TIME reports. It was brutal, a U.S. official told TIME. It was also highly classified and closely guarded. Under the aegis of the White Houses Counterterrorism Security Group, part of the National Security Council, the suspected nuke was kept secret so as not to panic the people of New York. Senior FBI officials were not in the loop. Former mayor Rudolph Giuliani says he was never told about the threat. In the end, the investigators found nothing, and concluded that DRAGONFIRE'S information was false. But few of them slept better. Report: Al Qaida has 'dirty bomb' Published 3/3/2002 1:51 AM WASHINGTON, March 3 (UPI) -- The consensus view within the U.S. government is that the al Qaida terrorist group has acquired lower-level radioactive substances that ordinary explosives could spread as contaminants, The Washington Post reported Sunday. Although such a so-called dirty bomb could cause a more modest number of deaths than an actual nuclear weapon, it could have a considerable impact as a weapon of psychological terror, an unidentified senior government specialist told the newspaper. President Bush, after a briefing by the CIA, ordered his national security team to give nuclear terrorism priority over every other threat to the United States, the newspaper reported. As a consequence, the report said, the Bush administration has installed hundreds of sophisticated radioactivity detectors at U.S. border inspection points and around the nation's capital. National laboratories have been ordered to develop even more sensitive detectors, according to the report. The elite commando unit, the Delta Force, has been placed on standby alert to seize any nuclear materials that are detected, the Post said. The heightened fears of the use of nuclear materials along with reported threats of a terrorist attack bigger than Sept. 11 explain the decision to maintain a cadre of senior federal managers on standby outside of Washington, the Post said of its initial disclosure of the precautions on Friday. The CIA told Bush at one point of not only the published arrests by Pakistan of two former nuclear scientists who visited reputed terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, but of a third Pakistani scientist who, the newspaper said, tried to sell a nuclear bomb to Libya. The likeliest source for terrorists of nuclear materials, the paper said, was the crumbling nuclear industry infrastructure in the former Soviet Union, despite the insistence of Russian officials that all such materials are accounted for. Theft of nuclear byproducts have been reported frequently, the Post said, noting that in 1995 Chechen rebels placed a functional dirty bomb in a Moscow park but did not detonate it. Al Qaida has its own contacts with Chechen rebels, the paper said. Now we have to wear lead underwear *and* tinfoil hats? At least the galvanic reaction makes us feel all tingly...
Re: P2P Psyops DOS
At 10:34 AM 3/3/02 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: In a related issue, slashdot reports that MusicCity is apparently violating their licence from gnucleus by not releasing the source for their client. Seems to me that releasing this would be a good idea anyway, as it would go a long way toward assuring users that the client is ok. George There was a source code download on musiccity.com this AM, though I haven't read it. More interesting than that will be how the protocol scales, and how the *AA scum react. Cheers
DoD on Disinfo, Cretinism, Liars, Godel
At 08:08 AM 2/24/02 -0600, Agent Farr wrote: Do you suppose the Pentagon foresaw the inevitable backlash? 24 Feb (Routers News) The Department of Defense announced today that, in the words of General Godel, All Cretins are Liars and that furthermore, We have reason to believe that we are Cretins. This statement was later formally retracted, with White House spokesman Airie Fluscher instead offering the summary, This statement is false. Homeland Insecurity czar Tom Thumb was unavailable for comment, mumbling only that in his heightened state of awareness he couldn't speak coherently.
Re: 911 attackers awarded a 10 for effectiveness
At 11:15 PM 2/19/02 -0800, Tim May wrote: 911 attackers awarded a 10 for effectiveness But if the Quebecois terrorists complain about unfairness, do we have to give them a 10 too? -- Never underestimate the stupidity of some of the people we have to deal with, William A. Reinsch, Under Secretary of Commerce for the Bureau of Export Administration, said while being grilled about whether terrorists and criminals would be naove enough to use the technology being pushed by the Administration.
Whether Cops Can Monitor E-Mail Without Warrant
[An interesting line ---Any reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet ... would be aware that messages are received in a recorded format, by their very nature, and can be downloaded or printed, said the court, --- might be read by (completely different) courts thinking about copyright digital rights technologies.] Court to Decide Whether Cops Can Monitor E-Mail Without Warrant By Michael RubinkamAssociated Press Writer Published: Feb 20, 2002 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether police may look at a suspect's e-mail and instant messages without first obtaining a court order. The case involves a former Lehigh County police officer, Robert Proetto, who used the Internet to solicit sex from a 15-year-old girl. Proetto is appealing his conviction. It's the first time any state supreme court has agreed to review government access to private Internet communications, said Proetto's attorney, Tommaso Lonardo. It's a relatively novel question, said David Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. After meeting the girl in an Internet chat room, Proetto e-mailed her a nude photograph of himself. He also asked for a nude videotape of the girl, according to court documents. Proetto and the girl chatted often for about a week and Proetto repeatedly ask her to have sex, documents say. The girl reported Proetto to the Bristol Borough Police Department in Bucks County. Proetto was arrested when he made sexually explicit online comments to a detective posing as another 15-year-old girl. Proetto was convicted of criminal solicitation and related offenses and served six months of house arrest. His probation ends this month. At issue is whether Proetto's e-mail and instant messages to the girl should have been suppressed at trial. Proetto claims police violated the state's wiretapping law by looking at the messages without first obtaining a warrant. Proetto also claims his Fourth Amendment privacy rights were violated. Though federal law only requires the consent of one person before a telephone call or Internet communication can be recorded, Pennsylvania and 11 other states require the consent of all parties. I think most people would feel more comfortable knowing the other participant in a communication does not have the unilateral ability to bring the government into that conversation without court approval, Sobel said. Pennsylvania's Superior Court took a different view, ruling that Proetto had consented to the recording by the very act of sending e-mail and instant messages. Any reasonably intelligent person, savvy enough to be using the Internet ... would be aware that messages are received in a recorded format, by their very nature, and can be downloaded or printed, said the court, likening an e-mail message to a message left on a telephone answering machine. The court also said the wiretapping law did not apply because police did not intercept Proetto's messages as he was sending them, but after the fact. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which announced last month it would consider the case, will decide whether the evidence should have been excluded. At the time of his conviction, Proetto, who is in his early 30s, was working as a police officer for the Colonial Regional Police Department in Lehigh County. He was fired and now sells appliances, Lonardo said. Mike Godwin, a policy fellow at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said Proetto's case illustrates the difficulty of applying old laws to a relatively new technology. States have the freedom to raise the floor of protection for intercepted communications, he said. It becomes a question of whether Internet messages count. http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGACY31BXXC.html
WHY DO YOU NEED 20 TEDDY BEARS?
Upload will become more and more expensive and in some juristictions subject to licensing (WHY DO YOU NEED 20 TEDDY BEARS?) Because I like to keep one next to every firearm :-)
proxies and supernodes
At 02:37 PM 2/18/02 +0200, Sampo Syreeni wrote: On Mon, 18 Feb 2002, Adam Back wrote: and when someone wants to connect to it and can't they connect to the super-node and the super-node tells the unreachable node over the already open connection to connect back to the connecting machine. Thanks for the explanation Adam. Of course, that approach could be extended do the point where there is no essential difference between a proxy (here, the supernode) and a usual client. SS: every Morpheus app is both client, server, and supernode, by default. The latter two can be turned off, and the upload bandwidth can be limited as well. Amazingly good download engine.
EZ-Jackster, Assasination Politics, Michael Eisner, Disney: propoganda for impressionable minds
Just caught the very tail of the Disney (TM) cartoon wherein a prepubescent nigga loses a prepubescent negress's sugah because he uses EZ Jackster, an obvious Napster metaphor. This was, we think, once mentioned herein. However this is our personal first exposure. Our reaction follows. We propose that the next generation of invisible, deniable, distributed P2P apps be named Jackster, or Eisner, and they they include a Bid-on-Michael-Eisner's-Death-TimeMethod feature. Or members of his family. This feature should be named APDisney. Be seeing you - Propoganda outlets are military targets ---NATO - For research use only. Not for use in humans.
physics of spy satellites
At 07:51 AM 2/11/02 -0600, XXX wrote: If the governing requirements are to provide longer dwell and=20 synoptic imagery for battlefield use, then physics allows two=20 possible solutions: multiply the number of satellites in low orbit or maintain a constellation of a few vehicles but raise their orbits=20 significantly. Just an addendum: The problem with fewer-birds-higher-up is that the optics need to be bigger. Optics are limited by what you can loft in your launch vehicles. E.g., The hubble telescope (which faces away from earth :-) mirror was limited by the space shuttles' cargo bay. Perhaps there are clever (unfolding?) designs which would increase resolution by using mirror segments separated by long struts, but light-gathering ability depends on mirror area. Maybe that's not important for terrestrial targets. Folding designs might require active stabilization of the mirror-segments. That is not impossible.
more walmart domestic surveillance
http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/02/13/inv.teddy.bear.terrorist/index.html Alert issued for potential teddy bear bombs LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The FBI has issued an alert to 350 law enforcement agencies in the southwest and Salt Lake City for potential Valentine teddy bear bombs after a suspicious transaction at a Wal-Mart last month. Law enforcement sources said authorities also were on the alert at airports in case the suspected bear-bombs might be carried onto airplanes on Valentine's Day. The FBI said a clean-shaven male, possibly of Middle Eastern descent, purchased nine Valentine teddy bears, 20 inches tall, and 14 canisters of propane, 9 inches tall, small enough to fit inside the teddy bears. The man also bought 12 packets of BBs -- small, round projectiles usually fired from air guns. He paid in cash on January 15 at the Wal-Mart in Stevenson Ranch, California, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles. He left in a white GMC or Chevrolet delivery truck. After September 11, that purchase warrants that we take a closer look, FBI spokesman Matthew McLaughlin said. Authorities were notified February 4, McLaughlin said. Authorities emphasized that the man has committed no crime, but the purchase has raised suspicions and authorities want to question him about it. At the same time, authorities want Americans to be on the lookout for suspicious packages on Valentine's Day due to the level of concern over the purchase. The man was captured on surveillance tape and his picture was included in the alert to law enforcement agencies. [Propane, and propane accessories?]
stalking requires intent to create fear
[re Kirkland, Jim Bell, etc.] http://latimes.com/news/local/la-11272feb13.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dcalifornia Stalking Law Called Too Narrow for Meg Ryan Fan Crime: Officials must prove he meant to cause fear when he broke into a Malibu home he thought was actress'. By ANNA GORMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER John Michael Hughes gave a simple, if incredible, explanation to sheriff's deputies for why he broke into a Malibu house last month. His fiancee forgot to leave a key under the mat, so he had to smash the bedroom window to climb inside. The woman Hughes calls his fiancee is actress Meg Ryan, who says she has never met the 30-year-old former real estate agent from Florida. Hughes, who was also convicted last year of attempting to enter President Bush's Texas ranch with firearms, reacted with disbelief when a detective told him he was not engaged to Ryan. Hughes said that no matter where in the world Ryan was, he would find her. Though Hughes might seem like an ideal candidate for charges under California's anti-stalking law, prosecutors say he doesn't fit the narrow legal definition of a stalker because they cannot prove that he intended to cause fear in the actress--no matter how fearful she now is. Although the state has made great strides in the last decade in cracking down on stalkers, prosecutors say, the Hughes case highlights weaknesses that remain. snip
