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freedom and technology

archive : 2001-08

More on crypto export arrest
Excerpt: Politech has some more information on yesterday's arrest of two men for the attempted export of military encryption devices to China: ( see www.politechbot.com ) Included in the article...

fairfax: China deal raises question of rights
Excerpt: A leaked AOL memo includes a draft policy for handling government demands for names of dissident users as it begins services in China. The answer recommended in the memo was vague: "It...

wired: No Need to Alter DMCA -- Yet
Excerpt: The U.S. Copyright Office has released a report recommending minor changes to the DMCA. But the Copyright Office study said Congress should allow copy owners to make backup copies of...

reuters: U.S. Plans to Help Thwart China's Web Censors
Excerpt: Voice of America, a U.S. radio station, is negotiating with Safeweb to fund efforts to evade Chinese government censorship. "We are interested in Safeweb and similar technology for...

wired: Crypto Smuggle Scheme Busted
Excerpt: According to this AP article reprinted in Wired News, two men have been arrested by U.S. Customs agents for attempting to export military crypto hardware to China. "The technology...

cnet: Lawyer Lessig raps new copyright laws
Excerpt: Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School delivered a keynote address at LinuxWorld on patents, copyright and technology. Lessig accused programmers of two counterproductive attitudes...

washingtonpost: Russian Programmer Indicted
Excerpt: The Sklyarov DMCA case will go to trial, according to the Washington Post. "We were hopeful that the government would see the wisdom and justice in not pursuing a case against...

newsltd: Court ruling 'threatens free internet'
Excerpt: The Victorian Supreme Court has ruled that a Melbourne businessman can sue a U.S. company under Australian defamation laws, over an article published in a New Jersey journal. According to...

theregister: FBI let off cyber snooping hook
Excerpt: According to The Register, Judge Politan has ruled that the FBI will not have to reveal details of the keystroke logging device used in the Scarfo case. But the US government has...

nytimes: Forecasts of an E-Book Era Were, It Seems, Premature
Excerpt: The NY Times reports on miserable sales of "e-books" and reading devices. Even the most popular electronic titles, usually priced higher than paperback novels, have sold no more than a few...

reuters: Vietnam Keeps Lock on Net Access
Excerpt: Via Wired News, the Vietnam government has issued a decree banning the supply or resale of internet access without a license. Only state-owned companies will be allowed to provide internet...

wired: Cypherpunk Sentenced to 10 Years
Excerpt: Wired reports on Jim Bell's sentencing. Bell intends to appeal. Defense attorney Robert Leen spent nearly 30 minutes arguing for a reduced sentence of 18 months in prison for Bell,...

reuters: Taliban Leader Bans Use of Internet
Excerpt: Taliban ruler Mullah Mohammed Omar has officially banned internet use in Afghanistan. The ban extends to international and domestic aid organizations but apparently not to the senior...

newsfactor: Internet Balancing Act: Law Enforcement vs. Privacy
Excerpt: Newsfactor reports on the tradeoff between privacy and surveillance. As usual the privacy advocates expect someone else to do their encrypting for them. [IDC security group research...

zdnet: Carnivore to add wireless to its menu?
Excerpt: The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association has warned the FBI may start using its "Carnivore" surveillance system on wireless communications in October. In the Aug. 15...

Smart cards in business, credit
Excerpt: Reuters posted two articles on smart cards over the weekend: the first on poor reactions to the American Express "Blue" card, the second a PR piece from a smart card vendor on the benefits...

cnet: U.S. keeps PC surveillance under wraps
Excerpt: A third motion filed last week in the Scarfo case seeks to protect information about the FBI's keystroke logging technology under the Classified Information Procedures Act. The new...

cluebot: Jim Bell Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison
Excerpt: Jim Bell has been sentenced to 10 years prison on stalking charges. Internet essayist Jim Bell has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Jack...

thestandard: Canberra clamps down on online perverts
Excerpt: Pending legislation in the Australian Capital Territory seeks to jail anyone using "electronic means" to suggest "depraved" acts to a minor. According to the legislation, if a person...

australianit: Censor open to more fun and games
Excerpt: The OFLC has released a discussion paper detailing proposed changes to Australia's censorship classifications. The proposal is open to public comment until October 31. They would...

salon: Fingered by the movie cops
Excerpt: Salon has a brief story from a web developer who had her ISP access suspended after an unsubstantiated accusation of DMCA violation. My boyfriend called the number given in the letter....

wired: India Probes Muckraking Site
Excerpt: After an Indian website released footage of military officers demanding prostitutes as bribes, government ministers are demanding an investigation of the publishers for distributing...

zdnet: Pirated music battle spreads overseas
Excerpt: A ZDNet PR piece introduces the IFPI, RIAA's international counterpart in the copyright rental business. European courts have also gone further than U.S. jurists in blocking the...

zdnet: Australian broadband raid violating privacy?
Excerpt: Australian Excite@Home customers are upset after hearing that their online activities are being monitored for signs of copyrighted material. As usual, there is no mention of encryption or...

bbc: Warning over wiretaps
Excerpt: More noise from UK privacy advocates over RIP wiretaps as the government promises not to use its new surveillance powers. Communications service providers are required to provide...

cnet: Malaysia to pursue illegal CD makers
Excerpt: The Malaysian ministor for trade and consumer affairs plans to crack down on illegal video CDs by targetting "unlicensed" copying machines. But pornography and copyright infringement could...

siliconvalley: Songwriters claim MP3 set the stage for widespread piracy
Excerpt: A lawsuit filed by songwriters and publishers against mp3.com seeks damages for pirate music distributed by other services such as Napster. "If a song has been downloaded hundreds of...

australianit: Patent risks increase
Excerpt: A patent lawyer tries to drum up some business by suggesting that Australian businesses operating online could be violating patents in other countries. "With the nebulous nature of...

eweek: Anything you code can and will be used against you
Excerpt: An opinion piece from eWEEK discusses the ways recent legislation requires tech workers to police themselves and others. But a closer look suggests that turning IT types into digital...

abc: Knowledge Indignation: Road Rage on the Information Superhighway
Excerpt: Via PrivacyDigest, Australia's Radio National broadcast a briefing on copyright and publishing. The piece concentrates on issues in e-books and scientific publishing, and touches on...

linuxfreak: Cyber Citizen lands Felony Charges?
Excerpt: According to Linuxfreak, a tech support worker faces wire fraud charges after warning the operators of a news website that anyone could edit their pages using Microsoft's FrontPage...

ip: Censorship in action: why I don't publish my HDCP results by Niels Ferguson
Excerpt: Niels Ferguson, who last week announced he had discovered a flaw in Intel's HDCP copy protection system (vigilant.tv, politech: Dutch crypto whiz broke dig-vid scheme -- but won't...

reuters: Chinese Internet Publisher Put on Trial - Group
Excerpt: The "Committee to Protect Journalists" says a Chinese web publisher is to be sentenced in a closed court for subversion. Huang published the Web site, www.6-4tianwang.com, which...

wired: Pentagon Hides Behind Onion Wraps
Excerpt: A U.S. Naval research lab has been awarded a patent for Onion Routing. That announcement prompted an angry reaction from Usenix attendees, many of whom are programmers, security...

wired: License PC Users? It's a Thought
Excerpt: Wired reports on an unbelievably misguided push to license PC users as a way of preventing viruses. The reasoning seems based entirely on overextended metaphor: computers as "traffic" or...

sciam: Surveillance by Design
Excerpt: A Scientific American article discusses the effect of global cybercrime efforts on anonymity. In real-world terms, the equivalent of the treaty would be requiring valid return...

zdnet: Privacy experts slam snooping code of practice
Excerpt: The UK Home Office has released a draft Code of Practice governing wiretap access under the RIP act. Privacy "experts" are concerned at the subjective standards and lack of accountability....

sethf: BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)
Excerpt: Seth Finkelstein has published a report on a special category in the BESS censorware application used specifically for blocking access to information about privacy, anonymity, and even...

zdnet: Prof to expose anti-copying flaws
Excerpt: Princeton Professor Edward Felten will finally make his presentation on breaking SDMI copy protection at USENIX. The RIAA's change of heart is most likely due to SDMI being unlikely to...

politech: Dutch crypto whiz broke dig-vid scheme -- but won't publish?
Excerpt: Politechbot has a piece on a Dutch cryptographer who claims to have broken Intel's HDCP copy protection system. Niels Ferguson announced last weekend that he has successfully defeated...

theregister: Old code defeats new CD anti-ripping technologies
Excerpt: The Register suggests recent CD copy protection methods can be defeated using software which has been available for 2 years. I wonder what Macrovision shareholders will make of this?...

politech: South Africa moves to increase Net-surveillance, limit encryption
Excerpt: Politechbot has a summary of the forthcoming South African internet wiretap law, which was rushed through the Cabinet with little time for public submissions. Amongst other issues, ISPs...

eetimes: Encryption cores ramp for pervasive security
Excerpt: EE Times reports on forthcoming hardware implentations of AES from Intel, Amphion, Helion and others. As expected, export laws and delays from standards bodies look set to slow its uptake....

newsltd: Privacy worries for travel card
Excerpt: The NSW Government has announced plans for a Smart Card ticketing system for public transport, which would eventually include other purchasing applications. The NSW Department of...

newscientist: Your phone is you
Excerpt: According to New Scientist, the Finnish government is considering using cellphone SIM cards as national ID cards. Thankfully Microsoft has come to the rescue, suggesting a centralized...

theregister: FBI chief Mueller lied to Senate about key-logging
Excerpt: The Register suggests the FBI's new director Robert Mueller has misled the U.S. Senate over his knowledge of keystroke logging technology. We were hoping that he was just exhibiting...

politech: More on Danish cops and "Safeguard" -- police found passwords
Excerpt: Via politechbot, a post to the Cryptography list sheds more light on the Danish police "cracking" of Safeguard Easy (vigilant.tv, cryptography: Utimacos Safeguard Easy broken by danish...

wired: Moscow Cracks Down on Pirate CDs
Excerpt: According to Wired, Russian police are arresting CD pirates on the pretense of copyright violation in order to stop the distribution of legally distributable government databases....

politech: California appeals court rules against DeCSS defendant
Excerpt: Michael Pavlovich, founder of the LiViD Linux DVD player project, has lost his appeal to have a trade secret suit dropped. Nonetheless, Pavlovich never sought or obtained a license to...

cryptography: Utimacos Safeguard Easy broken by danish police in tax evation case
Excerpt: An unconfirmed report suggests Danish police have "broken" a PC desktop encryption package in a tax evasion case. All 16 computers were protected with Safeguard Easy from the german...

cbs: U.K. libel suit hits U.S. Web site
Excerpt: A Canadian mining company has successfully used U.K. libel law to force a takedown and apology from a U.S.-based journalist. At issue was a piece written by American Greg Palast, a...

njnews: Officials say online critics have gone too far
Excerpt: The publisher of a local news website has been sued over posts made by anonymous users to a web board. But it was also a forum that allowed anonymous critics to post messages about...

at&t: Risks of the Passport Single Signon Protocol
Excerpt: An analysis by David Kormann and Aviel Rubin has uncovered some security flaws in Microsoft's Passport protocol. While some are repairable, the report concludes that others are fundamental...

zdnet: Life after Napster: Act II for digital music
Excerpt: This opinion piece from ZDNet suggests the forthcoming music subscription services from the major record labels won't be successful due to copy protection schemes. Even then,...

cnet: Start-up bets against P2P distribution
Excerpt: CNET posts a PR piece on Radiance, a new company which hopes to make money delivering content and collecting fees for publishers. As with all the Rights Management announcements, the...

reuters: Website Says Virus Leaked Ukrainian Secret Documents
Excerpt: A Ukranian web site claims it has received "secret" government documents delivered by the SirCam email virus. "The Sircam virus, having infected the computers in the presidential...

wired: Senator Targets School Hackers
Excerpt: A U.S. Senator has proposed a new law which is intended to protect school networks from "hackers", but would criminalize any transmission which "affects" a computer without authorization....

infoweek: Visa Unveils Smart Card
Excerpt: Visa has announced a new "smart" credit card. Fraud protection for consumers - at the expense of the merchant - appears to be a key feature. Note that the article is innaccurate in...

infoweek: CSC Team Wins $2 Billion NSA Contract
Excerpt: The NSA is outsourcing "non-mission" IT, network, security and telecommunications work to a team of commercial service providers. Under the terms of the contract, General Dynamics will...

zdnet: FCC still wants wireless 911
Excerpt: Despite the U.S. Federal Communications Commission pressing for compliance, it appears no carriers will have emergency cellphone tracking capabilities by the October deadline. The FCC...

reuters: EU OKs Global Network for Secure Web Transactions
Excerpt: The EU Commission has approved "Identrus" ID card technology for business transactions over the internet. Good thing they did this before anyone started using those unapproved services....

reuters: Court Case Opens New Chapter in E-Book Rights
Excerpt: Reuters reports on copyright bickering between two publishers, after Rosetta Books published a number of older titles as electronic books with permission from the authors but not their...

washingtonpost: Test of Strength
Excerpt: The Washington Post is running a PR piece on the NSA's heroic struggles against terrorism and budget cuts. There are a few cute figures but no substantiation; the NSA's FAQ makes for more...

wired: New Laws: Thou Shalt Patch
Excerpt: The FTC has proposed additions to privacy laws which would require financial organisations to install security patches. This has some interesting implications: software vendors could use...

cesg: A new approach to Public Key Cryptography
Excerpt: The UK's Communications-Electronics Security Group has announced a new PKC technique, where public keys are derived from identifiers. Subsequent discussion on the Cryptography list ( see...

reuters: Offshore Internet Sports Gambling Conviction Upheld
Excerpt: Anecdotal evidence from New York that if you're running an offshore operation, you'd better stay offshore. A Manhattan federal jury found Cohen guilty of operating a sports betting...

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