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Lazy bastard. http://cryptome.org/dirty-hope.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-feedback.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-author.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-safrica.htm

Lazy bastard. http://cryptome.org/dirty-hope.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-feedback.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-author.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-safrica.htm

Lazy bastard. http://cryptome.org/dirty-hope.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-feedback.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-author.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-safrica.htm

Lazy bastard. http://cryptome.org/dirty-hope.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-feedback.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-author.htm
http://cryptome.org/dirt-safrica.htm

Your Visa number probably isn't worth spending a $1B to crack, so you don't need to worry. Visa, on the other hand, has to worry about millions of credit card numbers getting stolen, though it's still much easier to crack into most of the machines on the web that absorb credit card numbers, and if there's one master key that lets you steal all of Visa (I doubt there is), it's probably easier to find the people who have parts of that key and bribe them (if you're the Mafia), or subpoena them, if you're the sleazy bunch of thugs at the DoJ who just filed a "Go Fish" subpoena on Visa and American Express.

But China is our good friend, just ask Bush! Thanks, in part, to his brother Jeb, the corrupt Florida Supreme Court, the corrupt U.S. Supreme Court, and all those old Jewish ladies voting for that neo-nazi guy, Bush is our "President."

And he is making this nation great once again. Wave your flag proudly as the CIA flexes its unrestrained muscles and once again is free to commit murder to protect American business interests abroad!

At least Linux won't likely be left out of the loop if it passes...

Why does this say that? I didn't see any thing defining "open source code", nor anything that stated any patents must be freely licensed, etc. There's a very simple way around that -- give away the source, but patent-encumber it so that nobody can use any implementation without paying large licensing fees. Now, you'll only be able to get your Linux distribution in a bloody box by buying it, not by leeching an ISO from a ftp site -- and Microsoft (with their patent on the DRM OS) collecting the ca$h.

Life sucks, don't it?

I did a quick search and didn't find this listed anywhere but hey I'll put it out there anyways Cryptome has what appears to be the text of the legislation that was submitted.

A higher quality copy of the bill is availible at Cryptome

a law that tried to force ISPs to keep every piece of data their customers sent and recieved for IIRC 7 years

You're referring to data retention laws. It's an EU-wide thing. NCIS (UK crime intel) stole a march on everyone. They want to retain records of communication not the communication itself. The supposed reasons are for establishing alibis(yeah right), etc., as this applies to GSM location data too.

After 911 there was a proposal levelled at the EU parliament, can't find the link.

I love cryptome, I read it every day. That said, the report John Young has put up is the unclassified version; although he's trolling for the classified version.

Hey Taco, any idea when the results of the John Young questions will be posted? It's been six months or so...

thad

The report can be found in its entirety at: http://cryptome.org/dod-npr.htm This site is a good resource for classified documents.

The notion that Echelon hasn't been proved to exist is both uninformed and naive.

Cryptome.org has a definitive collection of documents concerning Echelon in an archive. Those desiring to test directly for themselves the existence of Echelon might consider sending some email using phrases from the Echelon trigger words list. This list, by the way, was circulated last year on newspaper wire services and isn't exactly top secret.

i've found that cryptome is a great source of intelligence info

The Commission bases this tentative conclusion on the fact that providers of wireline broadband Internet access provide subscribers with the ability to run a variety of applications that fit under the characteristics stated in the ``information service'' definition in section 3 of the Act. The Commission seeks comment on these tentative conclusions and the supporting statutory analysis asks additional questions with regard to the proper classification of wireline broadband Internet access service, including asking parties to offer any factual evidence that would suggest a contrary application of the statute.

In other words, people have power we must seek to take it away.

Read all about it here.

The Witness list in no particular order includes:

Panel I
Mr. Michael D. Eisner, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company, 500 S. Buena Vista Street, Burbank, CA 91521
Mr. Peter Chernin, President and Chief Operating Officer, News Corporation, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036
Mr. Leslie L. Vadasz, Executive Vice President, Intel Corporation, 2200 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara, CA 95052

Panel II
Mr. Andreas Bechtolsheim, General Manager/Vice President of the Gigabit Systems Business Unit, Cisco Systems Inc., 250 West Tasman Drive, San Jose, CA 95134
Mr. James E. Meyer, Special Advisor to the Chairman and formerly Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Thomson Multimedia, 10330 North Meridian Street, Indianapolis, IN 46290
Mr. Robert Perry, Vice President, Marketing, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., 9351 Jeronimo Road, Irvine, CA 92618
Mr. Jack Valenti, President and CEO, The Motion Picture Association of America, 15503 Ventura Boulevard, Encino, CA 91436

Online petition against SSSCA
The Draft of the SSSCA

Check it out: Security Systems Standards and Certification Act

Other than section 1, it sounds like it would be nice. It has money for scholarships and such for computer security.

Just have to modify section one a bit. <nods>

Wasn't somebody doing something similar at the recent RSA conference...Blasting through multiple rounds of DES and factoring RSA keys on smart cards with some magic boxes?

I cannot understand how everyone can get so worked up over this. Mr. Valenti may have a lot of power over the motion picture industry, but in the realm of the Internet he is as powerless as any goatsex posting troll.

As I'm sure you remember, the MPAA lobbied and Senators Fritz Hollings (D.SC) and Ted Stevens (R.AK) to introduce the "Security Systems Standards and Certification Act"(24k). This bill was never even introduced to the US Senate because of opposition. Now, since that avenue failed, he wants to convince others of the dangers of having computers around that can participate in these, obviously, highly unlawful acts. Or, that's what he would hope to do.

This has no more substance than FUD from Microsoft. Relax. They're not going to take away your PC any time soon.

Remember Microsoft's Digital Rights Management (DRM) OS patent? If Congress were to enact legislation requiring this kind of copy protection at the OS level, then I imagine MS would be quite intent on making sure everyone pays them royalties, whether they're actually due or not. And that's assuming they'd place "nice" and even "allow" other OS's to contain copy protection. A few years ago, I would have thought the feds wouldn't let them get away without freely sharing a legislated key technology like this, but now I'm not so sure... . Not to sound too pessimist, but royalties like this could be a big pain in the arse for struggling Linux vendors.

Course, if it did happen, I could just start using a European-based Linux distribution, since they don't treat software patents the same. For now, anyway...

this has been another episode of pure speculation and meaningless FUD...

Take a gander at this one:

United States Patent 6,330,670 (December 11, 2001):
Digital rights management operating system .

Makes me want to puke.

That editorial written by Valenti was placed because Congress will be holding a hearing on content protection and broadband on Thursday morning. Even the Washington Post's editoral page can be hijacked by the MPAA's powerful lobbyists... The legislation to be considered will probably be Hollings' SSSCA.
SSSCA Working Draft. (via Cryptome)

"CNN and Network World detailed how the NSA openly strong arms companies, "leaning on software, switch and router vendors" to make them "add a government-approved back door into network gear." Companies working with the NSA, however unwillingly, include Netscape, Sun, and Microsoft. Chris Tolles of Sun says, "Everyone in Silicon Valley, including us, has to have specific staff -- highly paid experts -- to deal with them." If everyone's dealing with them, are any products secure?

Taher Elgamal, who wrote Netscape's so called "data-recovery plan" as demanded by the spooks, said they didn't have a choice. Exports are about half the income for these businesses. In practice companies need NSA's permission to export security products, except for "export grade" junk. NSA only gives permission if the security is crippled in some way.

Duncan Campbell reported in Interception Capabilities 2000 that NSA succeeded in compromising browsers from both Microsoft and Netscape, as well as Lotus Notes. The browsers' security was openly gutted by NSA's insistence on reducing key sizes to whatever the NSA can easily crack at the time. In the case of Lotus Notes the keys appeared to be longer, but just enough of each key was secretly given to the NSA.

According to Network World the NSA "forced MasterCard International, Inc. to dumb down the Secure Electronic Transaction (SET) credit-card encryption standard." NSA insisted that most of every transaction not be encrypted at all. When someone steals a lot of money using SET we'll know why.

Sabotaging friends and foes isn't new for the NSA. It's life long behavior. In Crypto AG: The NSA's Trojan Whore you'll find the intriguing but very disturbing story of how 50 years ago NSA rigged the crypto systems sold by Crypto AG so that NSA could read the supposedly secret messages. Customers of Crypto AG include embassies, military, banks, and rogue nations such as the Vatican. "

I pasted that selection from this Cryptome article. Secure from who? It is probably hard to crack for private persons, but the NSA apparently can crack it since they force companies to install backdoors. If you search around Cryptome you will learn that the NSA forces companies to use crypto that is weaker than most companies want to use, so that it is easier for them to crack.

Learning to use the traditional remailer network takes some time and effort. And this time and effort pays off handsomely by providing the user with a highly secure method to communicate privately and anonymously. But many privacy-minded folks (and their ranks are increasing daily!) are looking for an easier and less time-intensive approach. Some are even willing to pay for it. To satisfy this niche there have arrived many new products and services that provide various combinations of anonymous email, newsgroup posting and Web-surfing with varying degrees of anonymity.

I have provided URLs for some of these services below. I have categorized them into two groups: free of charge and fee-based. Noteworthy amongst these is the fee-based Freedom Software by the Montreal-based Zero Knowledge Systems (ZKS). Launched in December 1999, Freedom is a 'privacy system' not unlike the traditional remailer network . It allows users to send email, post to newsgroups, chat and surf the Web in total privacy without having to trust third parties with their personal information. Freedom users create multiple digital identities - "nyms" - with which their online activities are associated. All data packets Freedom users send are encrypted and routed through a global privacy infrastructure called the Freedom Network, which is hosted by participating ISPs and other independent server operators. A 30-day free trial is available.

The package has been criticized <http://cryptome.org/zks-v-tcm.htm> for not being open-source. But that is changing. The source code of the kernel module of the Linux version of Freedom <http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com/> has been released; and the release of the Windows version source code is "coming soon."

Free of Charge
GILC Web-Based Remailer <http://www.gilc.org/speech/anonymous/remailer. html>
Hushmail <http://www.hushmail.com>
Safeweb <http://www.safeweb.com>
Zixmail <http://www.zixmail.com>
Anonymouse <http://anonymouse.is4u.de/>
COTSE <http://www.cotse.com/home.html>
Somebody.net <http://somebody.net/>
ANON.XG.NU's Web-Based Remailer <http://anon.xg.nu/remailer.html>
Chicago <http://xenophon.r0x.net/cgi-bin/mixnews-user.c gi>

Fee-Based
ZKS Freedom <http://www.freedom.net>
SkuzNET's The Internet Mail Network <http://www.theinternet.cc/ http://www.mailanon. com/>
IDcide <http://www.idcide.com>

The Court rejects Adobe's argument that the EULA gives to purchasers only a license to use the software. The Court finds that SoftMan has not assented to the EULA and therefore cannot be bound by its terms. Therefore, the Court finds that Adobe has not demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits of its copyright infringement claim.

The decision did acknowledge that the enforceability of a shrinkwrap license isn't as certain as Adobe or Microsoft would have us believe:

These courts have refused to recognize a bargain in shrinkwrap license that is not signed by the party against whom it is enforced. In Step-Saver, the Third Circuit found that the terms of a contract were formed when the parties shipped, received and paid for the product. Therefore, the software shrinkwrap agreement constituted additional terms to the contract, and under Uniform Commercial Code 2-207 (governing commercial counter-offers), these terms were invalid without express assent by the purchasex. In contrast, other courts have determined that the shrinkwrap license is valid and enforceable. ProCD, 86 F.3d at 1453; Harmony, 846 F. Supp. at 212.

For those who think this is no problem, since the copy "protection" is easy to circumvent:

Read this patent application by Microsoft.

Scary stuff, really.

Dmitry Sklyarov's "Motion to Dismiss Indictment for Violation of Due Process" filed Jan 28.

NTK summarised it and Cryptome had it here.

Ford failed to prove these things, thus the injunction was denied. It's a nice finding, but the outcome of the trial remains to be seen.

* * * *

While the case is far from over, it doesn't look good for Ford.

Yes, but its worse for Ford than you have suggested. In another ruling, issued the same day, the Court granted defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.

This meant that the Defense was able to prove that, even assuming that every allegation present in the complaint was absolutely true, that the facts nevertheless failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the law -- that is, Ford doesn't have a case.

There was a *** Second Ruling ***, however, in the 2600 case, bearing the same date, which John Young now has up on the Cryptome Website.

Bottom line is that 2600 has REALLY WON BIG!!!! Judge threw out the whole lawsuit.

Eric C. Grimm
CyberBrief, PLC
320 South Main Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7341
734.332.4900
fax 734.332.4901

More Info on the subject from Cryptome.

More Info on the subject from Cryptome.

I once asked a guy from Iraq about this. His country is facing massive starvation, medical problems, and decaying infrasturcture due to the U.N. Sanctions. Sanctions which aren't weakening Saddam any. (see here or here[msword warning])

He personally had no need for a server farm. But he did need a news source. People support the sanctions he feels because the don't know how bad they really are. , but a news source, some way of getting the word out to the public, an Indymedia or a Cryptome. Something to inform the world of what is happening. That alone can make all the difference by motivating others to make changes or even volunteer their time.

I'd suggest looking at one of those sites or starting another if you prefer.
If you'd rather have a job the WHO is advertising for Professional staff (including IT).

Umm... what makes you think they don't already have it, with Microsoft's cooperation, of course.

http://www.cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-cad.htm

Mirrored at EFF:

http://www.eff.org/Cases/MPAA_DVD_cases/20011128_n y_appeal_decision.html

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

http://www.cryptome.org/mpaa-v-2600-cad.htm

Mirrored at EFF:

http://www.eff.org/Cases/MPAA_DVD_cases/20011128_n y_appeal_decision.html

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Actually, it's Echelon, not Eschalon. If you were trying to be funny, i guess I missed it.

Do we believe we can defeat any audio protection scheme? Certainly, the technical details of any scheme will become known publicly through reverse engineering. Using the techniques we have presented here, we believe no public watermark-based scheme intended to thwart copying will succeed. Other techniques may or may not be strong against attacks. For example, the encryption used to protect consumer DVDs was easily defeated. Ultimately, if it is possible for a consumer to hear or see protected content, then it will be technically possible for the consumer to copy that content.

If the goal is freedom and control, there is not any room for proprietary software; the temptation to exploit users through their codebase is too great.

On the other hand, if proprietary licenses allowed for fair use(provided the source) and encouraged fixing bugs, adding features and allowed distribution of alterations(patches) to existing programs, I'd be open to other things besided the gpl; but until that day comes.. death to proprietary skunkware!

--sharpen your sword, and stick it to them good

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

Political News from Wired News - Cybercrime Treaty Finally Ready. After four years of haggling over the language, several countries including the United States will sign a cybercrime treaty.

WildernessCoast.org - Cybercrime Treaty Bibliography -- By Date. A wide collection of links that talk about the Cybercrime Treaty Same info sorted by title.

Council of Europe - Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention on Cybercrime has been adopted by the Committee of Ministers during its 109th Session, on 8 November 2001 and will be opened for signature, in Budapest, on 23 November 2001.

The Convention will be the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks, dealing particularly with infringements of copyright, computer-related fraud, child pornography and violations of network security. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of computer networks and interception.

Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cybercrime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international co-operation.

The Convention is the product of four years of work by Council of Europe experts, but also by the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries which are not members of the organisation.

It will be supplemented by an additional protocol making any publication of racist and xenophobic propaganda via computer networks a criminal offence.

[ ... ]

But Fred Eisner, a consultant for the Dutch government and private companies, said the draft made unfair demands on Internet service providers by asking them to track Web users' online movements.

"This draft convention lacks balance," Eisner told the assembly. "The convention explicitly gives much more power to law enforcement agencies and it has no system of checks and balances."

Bruce McConnell, president of McConnell International, a Washington-based consulting firm, said the treaty should be more forceful in protecting the privacy of Web users who are already worried about being spied on.

"There is concern that the powers of surveillance ... are not balanced by comparable protections for individuals' privacy," he said.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that-although officially democratic now-don't have a strong traditions of checks and balances on police power.

Do you want investigators rummaging around your clients' computer systems on warrants issued by former Soviet bloc nations?

That's the prospect that has pushed AT&T Corporation and other high-technology companies into feverishly trying to stop or at least soften the treaty. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Information Technology Association of America also oppose it.

Stewart Baker is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street cred on these issues in corporate America.

What worries Baker and his colleagues? Consider the following hypothetical: A Los Angeles screenwriter corresponds by e-mail with a neo-Nazi in Germany while researching a script. Shortly after, he finds federal agents examining the files on his home computer. The agents also visit America Online Inc. to retrieve records of the screenwriter's AOL usage.

The agents are fulfilling a warrant issued by German authorities allowing them to search for Nazi propaganda. Such material is unlawful in Germany but not in the U.S. They framed their warrant in terms of "suspected terrorist activity."

LAW.com (requires cookies) - International Treaty on Cybercrime Poses Burden on High-Tech Companies.

Maybe you're a civil libertarian, and maybe you're not. Maybe you worry about how the United States exercises its vast investigative and prosecutorial powers, and maybe you don't.

But if you counsel U.S. corporations on computer-related issues, you should be concerned about a new proposed treaty known as the "Convention on Cybercrime." The Council of Europe, a 43-nation public body created to promote democracy and the rule of law, is nominally drafting the treaty. Curiously, however, the primary architect is the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation are using a foreign forum to create an international law-enforcement regime that favors the interests of the feds over those of ordinary citizens and businesses. Their goal is to make it easier to get evidence from abroad and to extradite and prosecute foreign nationals for certain kinds of crimes.

Maybe you trust the law-enforcement chiefs in D.C. to do the right thing. But here's the catch. The same new powers given to the United States will also be handed over to Bulgaria, Romania, Azerbaijan, and other Council of Europe nations that -- although officially democratic now -- don't have a strong tradition of checks and balances on police power.

[ ... ]

Stewart Baker, a partner at Washington, D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson, is one of the chief lobbyists for the treaty's opponents. As a former general counsel of the National Security Agency and recipient of the U.S. Department of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service, he's got street credentials on these issues in corporate America.

Slashdot | Implications Of The International Cybercrime Treaty.

SiliconValley.com part of San Jose Mercury News - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules.

MS-NBC - Pioneer cybercrime pact tightens privacy rules. PARIS, May 25 -- Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed Friday.

[ ... ]

Against EU objections, it also limits the right of a country to reject a request from abroad to store and hand over data in potential crime cases if the requesting country thinks it could be misused.

The text says states should make sure that systems operators or other people who know how to use a certain system can be ordered to cooperate in any such a cyberprobe.

PARIS (Reuters) - Stiff criticism from the EU and pressure groups has prompted drafters of the world's first treaty against cybercrime to tighten provisions protecting privacy online, the final text showed on Friday.

The Council of Europe, a 43-state human rights watchdog, has amended the text to ensure police respect privacy rights when they follow digital trails to fight online crimes such as hacking, spreading viruses, using stolen credit card numbers or defrauding banks.

''The guarantees in the treaty have been reinforced,'' Peter Csonka, deputy head of the economic crime division at the Council's headquarters in Strasbourg, told Reuters after the Council posted the final text -- version 27 -- on its Web site.

But the treaty, which has aroused heated debate in cyberspace since its draft text became public last year, ignored calls by Internet service providers (ISPs) for fewer costly requirements on preserving data that could be linked to a crime.

It still accorded police wide powers to chase suspected cybercriminals -- powers some critics say go beyond what is legal in some Council member states or in observer countries like the United States, Canada and Japan due to sign the treaty.

ZDNet - Internet founder worried over EU cybercrime plans.

BRUSSELS --Vint Cerf, a founding father of today's Internet, said on Thursday that European Union plans for new rules to fight crime on the Web risked clashing with existing EU privacy regulations.

Cerf, who helped develop the Internet in the early 70s shortly after graduating from Stanford University and now works for WorldCom, said more secure network systems were an immediate priority for the successful development of the ubiquitous Web.

He told Reuters in an interview that Internet traffic should be retained only for billing purposes and was too cumbersome to be stored for police investigations.

Changes to a controversial treaty on cybercrime have done nothing to improve it, say civil liberty campaigners.

Next week, the Council of Europe will vote on the treaty, which has been redrafted 26 times before reaching its final version late in May.

The most recent changes were made to take into account the fears of civil liberty and privacy campaigners. But cyber-rights groups say the latest changes are purely cosmetic and have not diluted what they describe as its most pernicious sections.

The groups say that, if adopted in its current form, the treaty could lead to changes in legislation that would stifle rights to privacy and do little to curb the activities of law enforcement agencies.

[ ... ]

In December 2000, 23 organisations, banding together under the banner of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (GILC), signed a letter condemning the 25th draft of the treaty as "appalling", and warned that it handed law enforcement agencies sweeping powers to snoop and could seriously erode online privacy.

Now, three civil liberty groups, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Privacy International, have sent another letter to the Council of Europe outlining their "continuing concerns" over the wording of the treaty and saying that their fears have not been laid to rest.

The letter chastises the Council of Europe for refusing to open up the redrafting debates to non-governmental organisations and for, it says, ignoring the human rights and privacy concerns of organisations such as the GILC.

It goes on to say that the original criticisms still stand, and that the treaty does not pay enough attention to existing laws which safeguard human rights. It says the treaty's recommendations on protecting privacy are vague and do not go far enough.

IT industry gurus have branded the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime 'foolish, unworkable and a legal con trick'.

The controversial treaty provides a blanket legislation to deal with all forms of internet crime from hacking to online pornography.

Caspar Bowden, director of internet think-tank FIPR, said: "The Convention is essentially a legal con trick, drafted in secret by a handful of nameless bureaucrats. It equates the internet - a network of private networks - with 'cyberspace', a metaphor from science fiction.

"By this sleight of hand, the internet is defined as a public space over which law enforcement should be granted unfettered powers of surveillance and extradition," he added.

International policy-makers this week ended a round of talks aimed at setting common rules affecting online trade and commerce, but they made little progress in bridging divisions that threaten to delay the pact.

In the works for nearly a decade, the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments is still almost unknown outside international policy circles. Nevertheless, it could have broad implications for consumers and businesses by setting new rules for online copyrights, free speech and e-commerce--if it is approved.

Opposition to the treaty heated up Wednesday, when a two-week drafting session wrapped up with few concessions to critics, primarily from the United States, who say the pact threatens free speech and could force Internet service providers to become global content police.

"In a nutshell, it will strangle the Internet with a suffocating blanket of overlapping jurisdictional claims, expose every Web page publisher to liabilities for libel, defamation and other speech offenses from virtually any country, (and) effectively strip Internet service providers of protections from litigation over the content they carry," Jamie Love, director of Ralph Nader's Consumer Project on Technology (CPT), wrote in a report after the meeting.

The treaty is one of several efforts by the global community to grapple with a complicated legal issues on a borderless Web.

Four years ago, nations including the United States signed onto a World Intellectual Property Organization pact to protect copyright in the digital age. And several countries, including the United States, are hammering out the world's first cybercrime treaty, which would provide a standard for fighting online crime.

The Hague treaty differs from those efforts because it would not outline specific laws participants must follow. It's much broader, requiring participants to agree to enforce each others' laws on a variety of topics. As it stands, the treaty would require courts to enforce the commercial laws of the convention's 52 member nations, even if they prohibit actions that are legal under local laws.

BRUSSELS - The blueprint for a global code on Cyber-crime was agreed on in Strasbourg, France, Friday, paving the way for international rules governing online copyright infringement, online fraud, child pornography and hacking.

The 41 members of the Council of Europe (CoE), plus the U.S., Canada and Japan, signed on to a draft convention on cybercrime that is set to be rubber-stamped at ministerial level in September.

"Once adopted, the Convention will be the first international treaty on criminal offenses committed through the use of Internet and other computer networks," the Council of Europe said in a statement.

In September, the Council of Europe approved the Convention on cybercrime, a historic treatise that lays the foundation for legislation allowing for a greater sharing of information between countries to combat the rise of cybercrime.

The treatise isn't binding, but instead would have to be adopted into law by its 43 European member states and five outside countries including the United States, Canada and Japan.

The treaty is broad, covering crimes committed on the Internet such as fraud, child pornography and violations of computer network security. It also sets up global policing procedures for conducting computer searches, interception of e-mails, and extradition of criminal suspects.

More details on the CyberCrime Treaty can be found in the Privacy Digest archives dated September 26,2000, September 27,2000, October 09,2000, October 16,2000, October 18,2000, October 19,2000, October 25,2000, November 14,2000, November 20,2000, November 22,2000 and March 24,2001. This is not all the information at Privacy Digest and other sites so if you want to know more try a search

The feds already used a third-party keylogger that could be delivered via email. It is called DIRT.

I suspect the feature that makes this new keylogger more useful is that it is incorporated in their "DragonWare" suite of software, just like carnivore's lesser known post-processing programs Packeteer and CoolMiner.

Here's a more detailed analysis of the CIA/Safeweb bedding:

http://cryptome.org/riaa-anongo.htm

1. Smallpox is only contagious when the victim shows syptoms. False. Read the New Yorker article or this post above.
   
2. Vaccine works quickly. True, but we don't have nearly enough of it, and what we have is thirty years old and of questionable potency.
   
3. Terrorists could infect themselves. Also true. I just hope they care...
   

http://cryptome.org/bioweap.htm

The New Yorker's The Demon in the Freezer is mirrored at Cryptome, and is an excellent online read about smallpox; it takes about half an hour. And it is truly disturbing.

If you only read a few parts, read two things:
- the part where Russian scientists warn western observers that "your vaccines won't protect you" against the Soviet's new breed of smallpox.
- the part about insect poxviruses, which turn caterpillars into pure crytstallized virus.

Blech. I hope we have the courage as a nation to go ahead and make the vaccine, in mass quantities, the same way it used to be made. The main objection raised in the article is that "by today's standards" cow puss is an unacceptable vaccine. Hopefully "today's standards" are that life without a vaccine is unacceptable. But that's just my opinion.

CDC

Home

S,mallpox

Picture

Modeling Attacks

Public Health Links:
The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance

by Laurie Garrett

Covers emerging and re-emerging diseases such as HIV, Ebola, Tuberculosis, Smallpox.

Betrayal of Trust : The Collapse of Global Public Health

by Laurie Garrett, Steven M. Wolinsky

How the public health system, in USA and abroad, was allowed to disintegrate.

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic

by Randy Shilts

A chronicle of the first 5 years of the aids epidemic.

Richard Preston (Hot Zone author) on smallpox

Given the new attempts to hardwire copyright enforcement system in the SSSCA, the cynical attempts of the copyright cops to link piracy to September 11th and the continuing jihad against file-sharing systems, it is clear that unless serious political opposition is mounted the infotainment cartel will continue to press their advantage.

Some recent events give reason for optimism.

Firstly the 11th circuit result in the Wind Done Gone case put the use of copyright as a means of censorship right back into the jurisprudence. The opinion is worth reading.

We are still waiting for the result of Universal v Reimerdes (Eric Corley/2600/deCSS)on appeal, given that two of the three arguments made in May were essentially first amendment claims, the 11th circuit decision comes at just the right time.

The Sklyarov case shows just how dangerous this can all be. Traditionally, the threat of an injunction might have been a force to chill some speech, but criminal liability under the DMCA will silence a helluva lot more.

This conference will be an opportunity for those of us at the wrong end of 'campaign finance' to get a strategy together. Rather than bleating on about the industry, it's about positive arguments in support of the public domain and for the commons (and exploring the difference between the two - think GPL). That means expressive freedom, autonomy and open systems.

Time for some intellectual self-defense training my friends.

Benkler's paper is great.

Here's a fine example of the power of Google's cache.

Censored Canadian documents, originally in PDF format, retrieved as text files from Google's cache and returned to the public domain.

see it here:
Censored Canadian Nuclear Safety Documents at Cryptome
http://cryptome.org/cnsc-docs.htm