Slashdot Mirror
New Zealand Government To Snoop On E-mail
Hairy1 writes: "The New Zealand Government is planning to increase the powers of the police so they may intercept e-mail, according to the
The New Zealand Herald. Paul Swain wants to exempt police from laws against hacking so they may snoop into emails. Read the story." "Recent history suggests the usual glib official assurances that such organisations and people will not be snooped on by state security and intelligence services will be worthless," the story quotes the spokesman for a group called Gatt Watchdog as saying, but insert-your-cause-here. Hard to watch just a few people's e-mail.
Only criminals don't want the police to search their car/house/purse/pockets?
The check is in the mail.
Three lies.
In a free country to keep ones rights, you can't surrender them. For when you do, it ceases to become a free country.
Fight Spammers!
Now HERE is the funny thing, New Zealand has NO large (Or noticeable) religous right.
:-). I seriously doubt that this is something NZ wants. People, and the courts, don't tolerate the Government interfering with their lives when they don't want them too. Ie. Aziz finding the agents in the house. The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) have always flouted laws just a little (The shit I've heard... but can't possibly say because it would result in an international incident :-) ) but now that they could be reading MY email has me concerned. Perhaps they are worried because the drug dealing gangs in NZ (Who are a an okay bunch mostly) organise drug stuff over the internet. Big deal cops, you waste enough money as it is on choppers..
:-). There are no motorcades or anything like that. I'm free to walk around the parliament grounds and could quite easily pick off as many politicians as I want, email would have nothing to do it! To do somthing majorly criminal in NZ is a piss easy, look, the French blew up a Greenpeace ship in a very busy port and wouldn't have been caught if they had simply kept the yacht they had sailed in on.
That is: There are NO "brain-dead voters" as you say. I remember reading that, per head of population, NZ has the largest middle class in the world. By that note, we arn't really that conservative. There is NO large "Mums against porn" movement or "drugs kill children" movement or any sign of "The internet is BAD" movement.
New Zealanders (Like myself) are quite happy to let others do what they like as long as you don't tread on my toes.
Infact, we've got along with our government so well, we don't have a constitution in the traditional sense.
This is very weird for me, it flys in the face of everything we consider normal. We have good privacy laws, it's almost fun using them
What is also very weird is the police assoc. spokesperson referring to political assasination! I see the Prime Minister every now and again walking down the main street (I live in the capital) visibly unprotected. No one even gets out of her way
I doubt it will fly in NZ. It all makes me wonder if this email snooper system could be an addition to the ECHELON system (Which NZ is a member). People will care, and it won't get too far.
Oh, BTW - We have not picked up guns in a over century to fight for our freedom, we should never do it again.
The first arrivals in NZ were Maori, who arrived around 900AD. In spite of the efforts of some English, they did a lot better than most "natives". The English suffered quite a bit in battles against the Maori, in spite of their superior weapons. They also managed to sign a treaty with the Queen of England, called the Treaty of Waitangi (some tribed signed to get protection from other tribes with which they were at war).
On the negative side for the Maori, they commited genocide against a genetically similar sub-race, called Moriori, who were (unfortunately for them) pacifists.
You must have gone through NZ in a drug-induced haze after smoking some fine Gisborne weed!
NZ economy is one of the free-est in the world, and the government doesn't get much of a sanctioning voice in it. None (or very little) of that class crap either, whether breeding (UK) or money (US) .
As for resources, there are plenty of natural and people ones. The only problem is that the people type resources who are any good go overseas for more money.
Try working there, then in the EU or US and you'd understand that the average Kiwi is quite well skilled, and generally pretty competitive. Themain problems stem from small economy and distance to markets.
I'm pretty sure you can get a copy of your police record. Hell, even if you can't fill in a form to get it, it isn't that hard - witness recent events in the NZ parliament.....
In the UK, it was the Conservatives that were trying to get these powers in first, against the expressed policies of Labour.
Then Labour came into power, made a total about-face despite their pre-election statements, and brought in laws that are every bit as bad or worse than those which they had opposed.
Needless to say, the Conservatives are currently berating Labour for it, despite their previous stance. But when the Conservatives finally oust Labour again, they'll slam the iron fist down even harder --- guaranteed.
Because you see, it has nothing to do with the nature of politicians' beliefs, and everything to do with the fact that the machine of government (which is much more than just politicians) demands absolute control if it can get away with it quietly.
Well, in this instance it can get away with it, because in our innocence we've created an easily interceptable transport and storage mechanism to underpin the Internet's mail service. No big deal: let's create another mechanism which isn't susceptible to interception.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Im planning to move to new zealand in a few years... which might not be to good for electronic mail... but if im running my own web server, with my own mail server,... it would be much harder... because it goes directly to my computer and not an ISP... maybe that could do it, but i have lots of friends in NZ... i guess im gettin my mail read now ain't i... and my girlfriend is from new zealand... maybe we can get this out of there before it becomes to large. it is kinda like that FBI thing, carnivore. -Moldy
True, but what I said is still applicable now. Until the authorities "get it" about encryption and/or encryption becomes popular for normal use, email isn't a viable option for secure communication under any circumstances in my mind.
--
It would seem that the most applicable method would be to bypass the ISPs outgoing mail transport. Can you run an SMTP thru a dial-up account ? I don't see why not.
That leaves the receiving end as an exposed tap point. Use IRC/DCC as some kind of funky SMTP tunnel ?
One of these days we need a public mail-transport system *and* appropriate legislation to protect the priacy of such. Why is it so easy for the law enforcement agencies to get such draconian legislation passed, and so difficult for the average citizen to oppose it ?
- just another costmic ray -
This msg is brought to you by the letter 'W'.. for Worthless Wuss
Conservatives tend to be for private companies and against governement power, socialists tend to be against private companies and for more governemental control. Moreover neither is interested in personal freedom.
I'll do it for cheesy poofs.
>Vote against all politicians who suggest, fund and advocate the usage of electronic surveilance of innocent civilians.
:-)
:-)
Unfortunately, that will make things worse here. The Government currently in power is pretty much a coalition of the parties least likely to endorse dubious police powers like this. The last government is (I think) still "on trial" for allegedly encouraging police abuse/over-reaction during the APEC summit here. Other notable features of that government included a huge campaign to get the public to anonymously report people who they suspected of recieving a social welfare benefit they were not entitled too. That one was right out of "Brazil" and had resident Jews who survived Nazi Germany writing of how fearfully reminiscient it was becoming. (Everybody yells "Nazi" against policy that they disagree with, but I sit up and pay attention when the people saying it are speaking from first-hand experience). Fortunately it was abandoned when something like over 80% of reports turned out be false alarms (read: made out of spite or ignorance)
The key, I think, is to bluff the Members of Parliment into thinking you would vote against them, and hope you never have to
Or even better would be the ability to mix'n'match the policies of the different parties, cause there ain't a single one whose policies don't have big problems. (read: things I disagree with
As for court orders.. can a court not subpoena snail mail as well? Can they not search/examine/sieze mail? If not.. why doesnt' everyone use the USPS to send their cocaine shipments around?
As for 'public', don't take the term as literally as that. For all intents and purposes, it *IS* public.
Yes, it's a bunch of private/semiprivate/public/whatever else depending on jurisdiction, networks all hooked together by zillions of different agreements in different jurisdictions. To me, and to any sane individual, this is what 'public' is. You are carrying all kinds of traffic that you didn't originate. Especially if you are a larger carrier.
This is why it is 'public'.
1) Add encryption into sendmail's transmission of mail.
The latest release of the free version of sendmail (8.11.0) includes some encryption features (specifically, STARTTLS. TLS is Transport Layer Security, and provides encrypted communications server-to-server). See sendmail.org for more info.
They are the countries member to Echelon.
This is obviously no coincidence. What we are seeing is the declassification of part of the Echelon system, without admitting its previous existence.
The fact that this is happening all at the same time in these very same countries is simply explained by the fact that we are witnessing a joint action, coordinated centrally, to officialize a system of spying on civil populations.
Why Echelon wants to make public part of what it already does beats me, frankly. Any ideas?
Are you adequate?
email should be fairly brief, and therefore it should not be to expensive to subscribe to a foreign ISP, and dial in for checking email.
For example, you could dial up a US ISP, and NZ will be unable to spy on you. Just the FBI. Oh.
Okay, so you dial up a British ISP, and neither the NZ authorities or the FBI will be able to spy on you. Just the British Government. Bugger.
Right, from now on, all my correspondence will be sent from China. At least we know that they're going to be spying. And also I'm not likely to do anything to upset them.
If the people responsible for some of these "excesses" (or, to put it in plain English, these crimes) routinely spent time in prison (real don't-bend-over-for-the-soap prison, not Club Fed), this argument would carry some weight. As long as the the "public watchdogs" have no real teeth to sink into abusive LEOs, they provide a mere illusion of protection.
Its not really that big a change if the taps are held to pre-existing standards of survielance.
The problem is that the de facto "pre-existing standards" are far too loose -- even if somebody gets caught stepping over the wide-ranging line, it doesn't much matter.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Eugene,
We know what you have been posting and we
really can't have you speaking out anymore.
It just isn't polite to say these bad things.
Really, lets not fuss over this... your government
loves you and would not like to see your
messages get routed to say that girl you've
been talking to alot on chat. Really, what
would your girlfriend think? But we have been
having some problems with the old echelon box.
It is very tough to say what could happen.
*Evil Smiles*
--The Men Behind The Looking Glass
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Is there a reason you seem to be actively trying to avoid the point? The NZ/Brit/Carnivore/Echelon systems allow government access far beyond snail mail, period. Most people seem to get that.
:), before the 16oz. -> ID requirement made it fairly easy to trace mail and fairly dangerous to drop it off. And cocaine, btw, is highly detectable and very expensive, making it a very bad idea to ship it in the mail.
Or is that what you want?
While it may come as some surprise to you, US Mail cannot be searched/examined/siezed without due cause. And, yes, a lot of drugs did get shipped that way
Generally, "sane individuals" (as you put it) consider it an act of fascist/communist governments to go reading their mail, to find what they can find and create dossiers about people. Those good, sane people have been posting their concerns here a lot, probably because most SlashDoters come from the FREE WORLD (God bless it!).
But, unfortunately, there are dangers in the fact that the internet allows participation by all. Evidently you have lived under a fascist government, given your opinions. For instance, your definition of 'public' would apply to the world's phone system, as well. I'm not sure what highways would be. Evidently the U.S.'s would be private, but Europe's public. Typical RED propaganda here, denoucing the US for privatization, applauding socialist measures in Europe, and trying to place private resources like phone and internet communications in the so-called public's (read: you commie bastards) hands.
And who modded you up? Evidently there are a few more communists around here...
All bent on making the InterNet public property, no doubt, and then reading all our emails, and doing who-knows-what with our precious bodily fluids.
Well, we won't let you take over a good, private forum like SlashDot! VALinuxers, unite! Start IP filtering mods from current and former communist countries, NOW!, or all is lost!
Don't worry, I've come to expect these kind of things from your type.
(yes I'm kidding - I find my race as irrelevant and funny as most people. In fact, I love screaming at people "it's because i'm black, isn't it?" heh heh heh)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Oh, forgot to agree with you on Vietnam being a wash. So i'll do that, too.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
1) With court order, why should computer systems be treated any different than meatspace systems?
2) Why do you assume you have a 'right' to privacy when you send cleartext data on the public internet? (I know we feel we DO have a right to privacy, but if it is there in the clear, a court can take it).
3) USE ENCRYPTION.
But HERE (read: Denmark) It's IS the law. AS per ruling by supirior court several months ago. E-mail is NOT to be considered "private" (it does go through the ISP's networks), and as such the (Danish) privacy act is NOT in effect. This means that if YOU decide to run an ISP service, and buy the webhosting from another ISP, in essence competing with them, and they read You email from clients, then responds with THEIR offer on the services You thought You could make a living on, This is not illegal. Because if You did not want the offending ISP to read You mail, You'd not send it via them, right ?
A fairly pointless and in my eyes dumb argument. But it's the law.
Now, form there and to allow people OTHER than the ISP to read the mail, in my eyes it's a small step. And I for one will start not only to encrypt my emails, but also to avoid countries with RIF or Canivore (or whatever), because they are no longer talking about "just email". They're also talking secure Business-2-Business comunication over the internet. I do not know/understand why more businesses have not stood up and argues their loss of profit. Because that WILL be a consequence.
Regardless, IF any laws are passed, I will (as I am now) avoid ANY and ALL comminucation with nodes that are "affected". In essence the discussion held on "cutting the US out of the internet". I for one MIGHT not have anything to hide, but that doesn't give ANYONE the right to look thourhg my communication which is DEEPLY personal (not that I'm buying sextoys or hookers on the internet, but I MIGHT), and the privacy should be respected. It would trouble me deeply to know that I could not send my mom an email without someone else (even if it's just a computer looking for "flagged words") reading it.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
Firstly, some email addresses for those concerned by these events:
The Hon. Paul Swain: pswain@ministers.govt.nz
(Minister of Information Technology, Associate Minister of Justice, and proponent of the increased powers in the NZ herald story)
The Hon. Phil Goff: pgoff@ministers.govt.nz
(Minster of Justice)
Both can be snail-mailed at:
Name
Parliament Buildings,
Wellington
New Zealand (if you're overseas)
Now, does anyone know of any petitions or anything being organised that I can contribute too?
Whenever something unpleasant happens in the US, smug Europeans tend to have a good laugh, and vice versa.
:) NZ is NOT in Europe *grins*
haha
Yes.
This is, of course, why people should be worried about what happens in other countries. Whenever something unpleasant happens in the US, smug Europeans tend to have a good laugh, and vice versa.
This is a perfect example of why such smugness is so dumb. Attempts to grant police more draconian powers in .nz are being justified with the UK RIP bill; no doubt people in the US will be unpleasantly surprised when the FBI justify Carnivore (and more) on the same grounds.
Once it is considered acceptable for one country to behave abhorrently, other governments will do the same. How often have you heard proponents of strong government point to Asian dictatorships like Singapore as evidence of what could be achieved by strong government unquestioned (and unquestionable) by the people?
Its all falling into place. Muwahaha
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Until your IP address, get's stuck on one of antispamming lists; like MAPS RBL, DUL or ORBS.
My 24x7 IP address, got reassigned to one of those list blocked IP ranges. Note: My email server does NOT have an open relay. ISP checks every couple of months. I discovered the ORBS listing, after an email bounced back from "Lucent", "the technology people", NOT!!!!.
I tried to get ORBS to remove/modify the IP range list without success. I.E I explained the due diligence by the ISP, open relay tests, etc. It didn't matter to them. Funny thing, guess where the ORBS representative was located??
Yup, New Zeland, How Ironic.
>In New Zealand, unlike the UK and the US, you cant get a copy of your police record.
Are you sure about that? Recent legislation means you can now see what the SIS is holding on you ('bout bloody time), and things like the Privacy Act require that any database holding personal information be acessable and correctable by the people covered. Might it be the case that the police, as an arm of the government are exempt from civial requirements until some compliance date? (eg I know that the govt is exempt from it's Human Rights Act, and has postponed compliance with the Act, might this be something similar?)
Good for them! Email needs to be read by someone, why not the government?
But seriously, this is a bad thing. It's a bad thing in the US, a bad thing in NZ, and a bad thing wherever else this type of thing happens. As superfluous laws crated solely to appease brain-dead voters (such as anti-porn/anti-prostitution, and especially in the US anti-drug laws). The Modern big governments seek to make anything that might be considered 'immoral' by anyone illegal, and make criminals out of all of us. And criminals need to be watched of course. Grab your guns people, our freedoms are being taken away every day.
The real Eric S Gaymond is #216600. Everyone Else is a liar.
Doesn't hacking sometimes result in peripheral damage? For example, doesn't an overflow bug kill the service that had the bug. If this is important for the ISP (For example a web server) then does that mean that the police would be immune from prosecution even if even if they find no evidence in a search?
The history of the New Zealand Police when it come to technology is not great. They have engaged in a few misdirected efforts to police the net in the past with little success. While I support the idea that police should be able to obtain warrants for e-mail the same as they do with phones, this article concerns me a little as it seems the same protections won't be applied to this.
My Greek friends were bitching to me about this treaty a few years ago. Seems they used to have the mountains along the Albanian border mined, and never had any problems. Then the mines came out, and they started having problems with packs of armed bandits crossing the border at night, pillaging isolated houses, and slipping back before dawn.
I don't know how popular or unpopular the treaty was with most Greeks. But I do suspect mines, like most things, aren't such a black-and-white issue.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Do we have an alternative?
Hacking is BAD too if you happen to see it from the government's point of view.
Obviously they know its no use searching for a term like "Let's Hack" through the email messages.
Its the same case as The Police has rights to search every house they suspect and have a warrant to search for. But here we are giving The Police an unlimited license to search for everything in emails. That's BAD too.
Why can't we come up with an alternative if we have to criticise the only solution in front of the government? Is there any other fool-proof (this isn't even) method to prevent "BAD" hacking?
The only country in the world that has kangaroos is Australia, moron.
Couple o' minor points.
a) I believe that there are actually subtle means of opening a non-sealed (as in ink/sticker, not as in glue) envelope. Even seals can be forged. So don't consider paper correspondence immune...
b) Not all terrorists are swift, shall we say. I'm reminded of the WTC bomber who went to demand a refund on the rented Ryder truck he used. Oops.
c) E-mail is a bit easier since there are usually archival backups and such. It can be difficult for, say, the White Hou^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrandom people to be sure they've completely eradicated all traces of communications, such as tape backups and not-yet-erased files at intermediate sites and so forth.
Plus, networks go down, servers get confused... there's no real-time guarantee of fast service (I've personally had mail delayed for days, and very strange weirdness involving third parties.), so the occasional mail could even be intercepted, delayed, investigated, and THEN forwarded without necessarily arousing that much suspicion.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Like most things, it would generally be illegal for a citizen to open somebody else's mail (and in some countries, it might be illegal for a citizen to open his own mail, depending on the contents -- "Why would they have sent you this subversive literature if you are not a subversive?"), but I would bet that in 99.9% (Sealand might be an exception) of countries it is legal for the government to do so, provided that they give themselves permission first (I can't help thinking that judges aren't exactly in the private sector)
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Well, actually (1) does work, because the new version of sendmail that I mentioned above includes SMTP authorization - which allows full encryption of all communications between client and server. Just set up your Linux box to send mail directly rather than through the ISP, and you're fine (although, as you mention, this won't protect against snooping on the receiver's ISP... but that's a job for GPG.)
Your point is excellent and well put.
We need to educate everyone in the use of encryption, starting with the same "not-so-savvy friends and business associates"...
Knowledge, to use an old saying, is power, so let's empower 'the masses' !
And fight these government policies at all levels!
Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net
It also uses XForms, which makes it effectively useless for anything but European languages (although I see they're porting it to GTK).
In order to make laws like in the UK that require giving up keys meaningless, I think we should also start keeping random data on our hard drives (e.g., filling the empty blocks with random data) and adding random bits to our communications (for images and speech, the low order bits are usually already random enough). That's good security anyway. Here is a start--or is it a secret message... ?
QUDIHKOO DPKAPOAM REFPQTII ITOXOBWF WANELCSO RCOHRPUJ TZYKTHTB AHYOJUUF UHKFKCUC FIJXXEGR EFBXMUYM CXBMSVSN DCTNFNPK VZHSDOKH TLEFGDRJ ATVSONFR QYEVLUGG TNZXCJFV VJBBNSKN MGFAUKRK JVGUQMBJ AAHCKMXG WYIJRTWD ZCETMVEV
http://bear-software.freeservers.com/
-----
"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
-Me
I think the landmine thing is mostly cos after the US left they left the landmines behind, and have made pretty much no effort to clear up the mess, meaning that in some places farming is like russian roulette.
Also IIRC they have refused to give information on how to safely defuse the landmines to these monsterous International Organisations who are actually doing something about them as it threatened US security.
So they just have to go out poking around with long sticks.
Interesting term 'Rogue nation', what is the definition?
~ppppppppö
(I live in NZ) Who cares really if the Police will be able to read email, considering that 75% of NZ's international traffic is brought in over satellite (in some cases using Cisco's weak export grade encryption) does it really matter when the Echelon station in Waiopai has been reading our email since before there was email?
Not only that, but our Government doesnt even have access to this data - they let the US and Australia snoop our private communications and cant even check to see that it's not being abused!
Much more frightening that someone reading my personal mail (usually innane messages to my friends anyway) is the thought of other countries using this information to make sure that the next international contract my company is tendering for goes to someone else!
That will be all.
Your point about citizens pushing for consititutional protection is a good one, except that NZ DOESNT have a consititution. It is currently an underground debate that no politicion will address as it means every law has no legal right to exist (and no politicion thereof has any right to suck money off a taxpayer and for that matter taxes are illegal too). Scary stuff
Genuine NZ Kiwi - Eats roots and leaves.
Now we can keep up to speed on the revolt by the people of New Zealand against their sheep masters. Seriously though, how exactly are they going to put this into affect. We should remeber the last time the police got into large scale computer tools, IBM pulled out of New Zealand because it couldn't handle all the changes the goverment made to the contract. This is of course ignoring all together how rather unstable the internet services in Kiwi land seem to be, and how even the Kiwi population scoffs at all the press releases about how well the computer industry in New Zealand is keeping up with times.
Code softly but carry a big magnet.
Both. New Zealand cabinet ministers are typically involved in several roles, usually with one primary area of responsibility and a number of assistant roles.
The main potential problem we have inNew Zealand is that the New Zealand Labour party is cursed with a desire to emulate Tony Blair's Labour Party, right down to having a little proto-facist in cabinet (Phil Goff, the .nz Minister of Police, should be called mini-Straw).
The Libertarianz are very much on the fringe of New Zealand politics; we're futher to the left here, and, historically, the left have been guardians of civil liberties in most areas. Sadly, as I mentioned earlier, their desire to emulate .uk's New Labour extends to a mindless "get tough on law and order issues" posture.
There's probably a certain truth to that. Nothing so desperate as government functionaries staring at disestablishment.
You should be able to hack on mailman or majordomo to have it run pgp/gpg over mail. You should also have a look at using MTAs that support TLS extensions (SMTP with SSL). Exim, qmail, sendmail, postfix, zmailer all have or are currently adding these.
New Zealand is becomming a very sick and demented country. The very soul has been sold from under our feet by the lying bastards who try and represent us. There are polititions who run us whom no citizen of this country ever voted for, and we are all owned by the IMF and worldbank. Our systems are becomming more and more like those in Germany and any other country that has ever borrowed money frm the IMF. The government is nothing more then puppets having their strings pulled at the right times by those who tell them what to do. For instance the student load scheme which is projected to be about 4billion in 2001 is deemed an "asset" of the country. Anyone got a spare bit of cash to but a few thousand students lives? And as for echalon... well... nuf said i reckon! So now are leading the world once more with our spy tactics. Already we are fast becoming the first cashless country in the world... all the banking records, phone records, tax records and anything else in a databse form are linked together... not that the police here are particulary brilliant... arresting students for "thinking" they might be free thinkers. (no kidding!) least now we have the peace of mind that someone is checking our emails to make sure there aren't words like.... Bomb, assination, Child Porn, LSD, freedom, I like Peanuts, and others in our emails. Thanks guys!
As the police (theoretically) do not go into people's homes without warrants, the government should only spy on a person's internet connection (e-mail's, homepages, media storage places as xoom's media sharehouse, etc) with a warrant and with the persons knowledge (like in the "real world"). In my opinion, sniffing one's e-mails randomly and without his/her knowledge of it is just like opening every letter you receive: a federal violation in 99% of the countries on Earth.
/* c. hs laviola
claviola@rj.sol.com.br, uin# 55799523 */
Only if you don't have a personal email account, fair enough if they want to read email to your business account, and knowing about that you can remember not to use it for anything you don't want them to read, e.g. job applications, messages to your doctor. The problem is that when goverment gets involved they have access to everything, the potential is that you have NO privacy whatsoever communicating via email, or even surfing the web, EVERYTHING you do can be watched and logged. There is a pretty big difference, and while it probably isn't very important at the moment if you are just a reasonably avarage citizen, well think of the worst government you can imagine (well ok it doesn't have to be _that_ bad [you are one sick puppy btw]), and what they could do with tools like this. You don't know who is going to be governing next decade, next century... but it will be way easier for them to prevent any dissent if they already have all the regulations, hardware, software, and historical logs/archives at their fingertips. Also the gradual erosion of privacy is quite likely to lead to that sort of government.
~ppppppppö
Sounds almost like the sort of Big Brother style government old Adolf was keen on. Mr Hitler would probaly be quite suprised to see a people he described as "ignorant savages, walking on all fours and living in trees" to take a step towards totalarianism.
Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
100!
I'm a big flaming gay nigger
In reality it is already being done but not only by the government. It being done by script kiddies and crackers. Your government is already looking at your e-mail they just want permission to do it now.
Get used to your e-mails being insecure. I know people are going to say "encryption", but think about this:
Before Quantum Cryptography becomes available, Quantum Computing will have arrived (many suggest within a few years) and it will render insecure most or all encryption methods using conventional computers. It has been proven that a quantum computer will be able to factor large primes (see reference in RSA's overview which, interestingly, predicts that quantum cryptography will be realised before quantum cryptoanalysis -- but they would say that, I guess ...).
(Find more about Quantum Cryptoanalysis on AltaVista.)
Sorry guys, but encryption will soon be a thing of the past (before it rises again in a different form on a different infrastructure). Bye, bye privacy, bye e-commerce, bye.
Learn to live with it.
(For the record: there is a different issue in some of the comments: should the Govt snoop your e-mails as a matter of routine? I don't think they should, any more than I think they should read all the postcards that are sent through the mail.)
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
Since when has this been about terrorism, or catching criminals? Its about Power. Its about Control. For decades we have been slaves, our only information fed to us by newspapers and T.V by the puppetmasters. The Internet threatens the very foundation principles of modern Government. How long will it take for people to realise that TRUE democracy - that is direct participation in decision making by all - is actually possible. This is a great threat, as the puppetmasters behind the politicians will then have no power, no control. The puppetmasters are trying to foil free expression ASAP. Or i'm paranoid... take your pick.
"If enough people would do this sort of thing, it would be impractical for the government to do this sort of thing, and hopefully it will just go away."
Exactly. Why isn't encryption more accessible to the ordinary user - PGP, etc.? Because Microsoft doesn't bundle it along with BSODs and GPFs? The lack of _publicly visible_ and _easily available_ such tools is a major failing of the 3L337 hax0r mindset of [academic=Unix-centric] young mavens. Put it where one can easily find and - much more importantly - easily use it, and ordinary users will adopt encryption technology in everyday use. Frustrating government control-freaks, spammers, websurf tracking voyeurs, etc. is a Good Thing, and people who know how to do this have really imperative obligations to make it widely known. I mean, where can I find PGP for Windows98, OS/2, and - oh-by-the-way Linux - (that's not on my box, just yet).
Just my 2 cents...
I should have added that steganography will probably still work. However, that is not what most people are using or seem to be talking about when they say "encryption". Shame, really.
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
NZ is modeled after Britain (the "mother country" much as they may protest that they're different).
Britain is still run on a class-privilege model (loosely translated - we're privileged and you've got nothing to say about it) - institutionalized into their security and internal policing systems. Not a place I'd choose to live, given any choice. By extension, NZ is also a tight little (pair of) island(s) - the "authorities" are too oppressive.
I spent half a year in NZ one month, early 1998. Many prostitutes advertising openly, not much of anything that was not government-sanctioned going on the economy (and I'd bet most of those many NZ prostitutes paid their taxes). Deadbeat backwater economy, eh? However, they are careful to inquire whether one is Canadian or American - Canadians somehow resent taking them for Americans - but this does not diminish the facts that NZ is stagnant and does not have resources (natural or skills) to compete well. It's a suboptimally competitive nation (comprising lots of nice people), that won't be a leading factor into this next century because its ruling elite (some of whom I've met) doesn't anticipate the need to open the society and enable kids to learn technology, young folks to start companies, entrepreneurs to forge links with the rest of the world - any of these things.
Nice people there - too bad NZ government stinks.
Recent, similar sentiments on the part of the government are being bandied about in France, England and the good ol' home of the free, United States.
In all cases, these politians make generalizations that claim that criminals are making use of the Internet (please, no more "cyberspace" or "the Web") as a means of communication.
Don't buy this bill of goods without proof. Demand proof that established criminals and terrorists are using the Internet as an intergral part of their planning and execution of their crimes.
Otherwise, this is only another means for scared, outdated governments to try and tap into our privacy.
Vote against all politicians who suggest, fund and advocate the usage of electronic surveilance of innocent civilians. Put your money where your vote is.
Paul Swain is minister of Everything Electronic (poor bastard) and for his sins is: Minister for IT Minister of Communications Minister of Commerce (although the deputy PM has basically subsumed this role... Swain still gets the tricky e-commerce stuff) Minister of Statistics Minister for Land Information (!) as well as associate Minister for Justice (e-crimes stuff) AND associate Minister of State (e-govt stuff - this one might not be confirmed yet)... for more on NZ government check out: http://www.govt.nz
I am a leaf on the wind
Things have changed between 1998 and now. (one significant change is that they now have a Breakfast show instead of BBC World in the morning, and the first show is not "Maggie's Garden Show".)
:P
There seems to be a trend of Christchurch becoming a new center of technology in the Austrialiasia sector, some companies have been bought by international outsiders and then left alone to continue their efficient development models. Lots of large companies (Compaq, Trimble Navigation, Pulse-Data, The Holliday Group, etc) have their heavy-duty development houses here.
Because of the scale of the country, many new technologies are trialed here first, and then implimented otherwhere once proven successful. The government is being put under enough pressure to change immigration procedures for information technology people.
Don't count New Zealand out just yet.
No, you're writing a screenplay - you fucking dumbass.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
hehehe :) Amusing and funny. One down side to the 2025 Police files, spelling goes way out the window. ;)
Any tips on who wins the next few superbowls while you're visiting us? ;)
Maybe we should just all CC copies of our emails to them, could be a useful form of protest - imagine what _that_ would do to their mailers.
In New Zealand we have a little piece of paper known as the Privacy Act. This little bill makes it illegal for anyone to obtain, use, distribute or whatever, anything about me unless they have MY direct permission to do so. In all the discussion I have read on Slashdot, no one seems to have taken this into consideration.
Effectively what this means is that the police cannot read my emails unless I give them permission to do so, or they obtain them from the intended recipient with their permission. It is just the same as the police being unable to give out my name, address, phone number and criminal record details unless they have a court order or my permission.
So how does this play into effect as far as I'm concerned?
Simple. Primarily, for the government and the police to pull this off, they'd have to amend the already existing and established Privacy Act before they could even pass this new bill before the house. Secondly, we live in a democratic country. If we can get enough people to back it and sign a petition, a referendum can be forced which would request that all those eligable to vote do so on this particular topic. The downside is that this requires that there be those willing to stand up, make a stand and prepare a petition. There also needs to be awareness of this petition for people to sign it.
The first thing us NZ'ers need to do is write to our local MP (Member of Parliament) and express our concern and state exactly what our views on this issue are. Tell them exactly why we think this is a bad idea and why we consider it a breach of our privacy. In New Zealand, if you contact any MP or Minister, they are legally required to reply in some form or another.
As a service to all out there, here is the website to go to to find the email address of not only the Prime Minister herself, but also of the MPs and Ministers.
http://www.parliament.govt.nz/mp s-and-ministers.htmlSo what about this argument of using encryption? I don't encrypt mail when I send it snail mail. I don't encrypt my cheques when I pay bills. I don't encrypt my postcards home when I'm overseas. I don't have to decrypt my newspaper when I read it in the morning. Would someone tell me why I should have to encrypt email? It is my right to send email in the manner I so choose. I know there are elements on the internet that are "shady", but I calculate that risk into the content of the email every time I press the send button. I don't see why a government should force me to use encryption simply because a few bad eggs on the net have gotten smart enough to use a computer instead of the phone.
The most amusing part to all this is that the last time there was any terrorist activity in New Zealand was when a few Frenchmen bombed the Greenpeace boat "Rainbow Warrior" in Auckland harbour. (What is it about the French and blowing things up? Rainbow Warrior, Muaroa Atol and the nuclear testing, and more recently a Concorde full of Germans.) With the lack of terrorist activity in NZ, and crimes being mostly theft and road issues, why does the police even need to snoop emails? Bank robbers in NZ just go into a bank with a gun and a stocking and demand money over the counter.
If anyone in NZ wants to get a petition going (I've already started one in my area of Auckland) look at my user info page, remove the "nospam" from my email address and get in touch with me.
-Dead Lesbian Witches! Think about it!
In the last century, the democracies of the world fought innumerable wars, with tens of millions of casualties, to prevent the loss of our freedoms at the hands of fascism and communism. No one suggested that we surrender our freedoms to Hitler or Stalin in order to avoid battlefield casualties. But today, the governments of the English-speaking countries and more than a few of our European allies are suggesting that we surrender our freedoms to avoid a few dozen deaths a year from terrorism. What a crock!
Freedom comes at the price of bloodshed, folks. And these days, it's surprising little bloodshed. Terrorism exists precisely because the enemies of freedom lack the power to do significant damage, so they concentrate on some high-profile but not especially great carnage. Terrorism should be suppressed to the best of our ability, of course, but please bear in mind that more people die in domestic disputes every night in America than die in terrorist attacks in a decade. Terrorism is only an issue because we allow ourselves to be panicked by a few crazies.
In the one case that could have been a major terrorist disaster -- the World Trade Center bombing -- the disaster was averted by the ignorance of the terrorists, not Carnivore. The intelligence agencies like to make mysterious noises about all the attacks they've averted, but we never see any evidence to back up those claims.
State security is a dangerous thing. The very apparatus necessary to ensure total security is the same apparatus necessary to ensure totalitarian rule.
I can't speak for other countries, but we have much more pressing problems in America. Tens of thousands die every year on the highways due to drunk drivers; somewhere between one-sixth and one-third of all women will be sexually assaulted at least once in their lives; child abuse and neglect is rampant; the two leading causes of death for minors are murder and suicide. When we make progress on those fronts, then let's pour our resources into chasing a handful of terrorist acts. Until then, don't tread on me.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
I've got to wonder: if you're so concerned about privacy with all this email snooping going on, why use email at all? If you're doing something clandestine, you're pretty much assured that someone is looking in. Encryption and that steg-o-something or other merely wave a big flag that says "hey! we're doing something clandestine, look into us more closely!"
So if you know they're watching, why bother hiding? I'd suggest something like a private website in a secure (physical) location that logs access; perhaps [encrypted] voice chat which would be expensive to monitor and hard to distinguish from the general internet traffic, rather than a dumb proxy that just logs email sessions.
--
I was having a discussion a week or so ago on a mailing list about Carnivore and how to get around it by using encryption. Encrypting email between specific people is relatively easy (if you can convince them to use encryption), but the question came up about how we could easily encrypt list traffic.
The list structure is the common one where there's a central address that recieves mail and churns it out lots of times to everyone who's signed onto the list - but since people can subscribe and unsubscribe dynamically, posters don't know who is on the list at any given time.
The only obvious way I can think of doing this is if everyone encrypted their postings to the central list-server, which would in turn decrypt it and re-encrypt it maybe hundreds or thousands of times over for each person subscribed to the list. This doesn't seem very efficient and I'm not sure if there are any list servers out there that will do this, anyway. (Please yell out if you know of any.)
Does anyone know of any relatively efficient methods of running distributed mailing lists where all the traffic is encrypted? (Preferably something that's not very difficult to set up.)
I'm fully aware that people could just subscribe to the list, but I don't think it's as important because there might still be standard security steps like requiring authorisation before joining.
===
It's very smart of governments around the world to begin to take away people's civil liberties quickly, and before the entire population of the world is online.
Why are they trying to get it done so quickly?
So when EVERYONE and their mother is online, the won't know the difference betwixt the (non-existant) privacy they have now, and the privacy people used to enjoy years ago.
Now is pretty much the time to get our asses in gear and make a statement that we will not tolerate this kind of flagrant violation of our civil liberties. Anyone else remember anything about illegal search and seizure? Write your congressmen, vote...and most importantly - VOTE WITH YOUR POCKETBOOK! This is the online equivalent of the FBI or whomever basically just coming into your home and looking through your shit while you're not there. The only difference is most people don't know enough right now to care. CHANGE THAT! MAKE PEOPLE AWARE!
I, for one, am making PGP a standard. (Apologies for the US specific references....you all get the point).
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Yeah, but that's false reasoning and the public and the authorities must be taught that encryption does not imply that crime.
Encryption on its own is not enough to deal with the issue of mail interception. The interceptors are giving themselves progressively greater powers to ensure that encrypted mail can either be decrypted by them or used as incriminating evidence in its own right by being encrypted in the first place.
The problem is inherent in the current naive SMTP/POP3/IMAP model of mail service. It served us well for two decades, at a time of network openness and innocence. That time has now gone. DARPA researchers wanted to make their network stand the odd atomic bomb. Now we have a different evil to overcome.
Here are the key aspects of the problem, and the areas that a solution would need to address: Time to replace SMTP/POP3/IMAP.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
This Paul Swain guy, is he
(a) the Information Technology and Associate Justice Minister as referenced here or is he
(b) the Commerce Minister as referenced here?
I read this, and actually started getting interested in New Zealand politics. (slow weekend) A bunch of good starting points here
IANAL (I am not a Libertarian) but maybe these guys have the right idea: Libertarianz
Altho as a whole, Libertarians are pretty strong on intellectual property rights, a whole 'nother issue...
M$: "We're #2!"
PGP and GPG are a great technical solution, and I demand -- not recommend -- that you start encrypting your email. Set PGP up for your friends on their Windows boxen. Show them how to use it. Tell everyone to make it a habit to encrypt everything, but also do it yourself.
But also WRITE TO YOUR CONGRESSMEN and elected officials!! Tell them how you feel!
http://www.house.gov/
http://www.senate.goov/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Do it! Get off your butt and do it now! Now! It can't get too much easier, anyway. Just fax or email or snailmail or call -- your choice. "Hi, could you relay a message to Mr. Gore about an issue that's important to me." Then be short, concise, to the point. Just do it!
I heard somewhere that politicians believe for every person who writes to them about an issue, there are 20 others who feel the same way but didn't write.
MAKE YOURSELF COUNT -- RIGHT NOW!!
use gpg or pgp. use mailers like pine, mutt or eudora that support them.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
I don't think they have been suggested, because they wouldn't work.
1) would be useless, since most likely the FBI/police/etc would do the tapping at the ISP (either yours or the recipient's, depending who is beng tapped.)
BTW, if you really want secure transmission between two sites , use IPsec... then all your traffic would be safe on the way to their destination. However that still doesn't solve the problem if either endpoint ISP is tapped.
2) Well, 2) is basiaclly the same as using PGP or GPG, etc. Having the email client do the encryption/decryption rather than the SMTP server give you the additional security that it doesn't matter if the ISPs are being tapped, as long as your machine or the recipients is not.
then they should use encryption. use gpg or pgp. use mailers like pine, mutt or eudora that support them.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
So NZ is following the lead from the UK; which country will be the next to introduce email-snooping type laws?
First, the UK said it would survey email, then Janet Reno ruled that Carnivore would be allowed to be used, and now this. It seems as each day passes it is getting more and more important to encrypt your emails.
We'll, we've been hearing about the United States governments actions in regards to the monitoring of email (the carnivore system, etc), and now its about the right time for the rest of the world to come in a bit too. It does look as if all governments are taking it upon themselves to monitor email for "illegal activity" which brings up some interesting questions.
Why do governments beleive that email is different than snail mail? Is it because its easier to use, or just easier for them to read? I'm not quite sure, I tend to think that they are treating it like phone lines because they can, not because of any sort of precedent. You can't open up a snail mail letter because of the envelope and people would know you're reading it, but you can easily tap a phone line, as its not as easy to detect the intrusion of privacy. Email follows the path of the phone line, but its just easier, as they can just intercept it before it gets there, and there is really no way for anyone to know if they've read it. I guess this is quite obvious material...
While I have nothing to hide in my emails, I guess its just starting to piss me off that all the governments of the world are starting to take their turns reading my email just in case I might be a terrorist threat. Seriously now, how many terrorist organisations would be dumb enough to not encrypt their emails that they send to each other, its ludicrous. I for one am going to start encrypting everything just to piss of the government...
If enough people would do this sort of thing, it would be impractical for the government to do this sort of thing, and hopefully it will just go away.
Fucking government assholes... if you weren't such snooping bastards, maybe I wouldn't feel it was necessary to ensure my privacy. My problem is that not-so-savvy friends and business associates require me to use cleartext e-mail. Ah, life is depressing...
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
As for "encryption algorithms used must be arbitrary, multiple, and unidentified." that is just a wast of time. Just use one which is good.
For a dialup situation, which admittedly is becoming less of an issue as people get DSL and such like, using the ISP smarthost is a Very Good Thing from the getting-the-mail-there point of view. Otherwise the dialin user might go offline, and not have the ability to retry if the remote host (however it is defined) is down or inaccessible.
True, sometimes convenience has to be sacrificed for security, but really, the address that you are sending to is not that important in the vast majority of cases, so really with gpg, there isn't that much of a problem.
All we need to do is convince people to use it.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 This is just yet another wonderful reason to start informing people of PGP, what it is, and how to use it.
h h/9//okvcAn2+u +XGNFWpb9zM+t8Dk3+UlEBkO =JyHX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Stop whining, and start encrypting. Then they can read all the email they like... course... decrypting it would be harder... and you'd at least be aware of the fact that your email is compromised if they court-order your private key.
Be vigilant. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP 6.5.3 iQA/AwUBOYNAL8Q/V8QYw1ouEQKrjQCfSajlPpgnBxpDeWJNi
I'm very ignorant of New Zealand's government or Constitution (if any), so I'll speak of the US. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights (first 10 amendments) were written by men who feared and distrusted strong central governments. Read their other writings if you doubt this... The SOLE purpose of the Constitution and Bill of Rights was to DENY power to government. It grants NO rights to citizens, it assumes that citizens have all powers that the Constitution does not EXPLICITLY grant Government. But I digress (apologies) Why is it that government so fears anon, encrypted, private communication that cannot be intercepted without showing probable cause to a judge to get a warrant? Because government fears ideas. Ideas that it does not like. Information that it does not like. Look at Bill Clinton and his taxpayer-financed operation that has smeared (and IRS audited) people who have had legitimate allegations of his wrongdoing? The Internet is a threat to all would-be Napoleons in power because it is a FLOOD of information that is cheap, fast, and open to ALL. Not controlled by any single or collecticve corporate or government interest. In such an enviornment no corrupt government officials and/or actions is free of public scrutiny. They FEAR this. That's why Carnivore, Echelon, RIP, etc are all needed, to protect them.
In 2000 America, is a non-lawyer truly free?
This is why the trend towards internationalization is perhaps not as pleasant as it seems. Now, international communication like the kind on the Internet is fine with me -- it's mostly American-run, and no international bodies have any real power. But I hate to see Eastern Hemisphere governments somehow influencing public policy in the United States. Look at all the anti-land mine and anti-nuclear weapons treaties that keep getting signed -- treaties that are undermining the safety of our boys abroad (do you think rogue nations like North Korea or Cuba are going to play by those rules?). Why do they pass? Because the so-called "international community" puts so much pressure on the United States to do so.
Geeks always espouse the virutes of standing out from the masses and doing what's right, not what makes you look cool. Well, it's time to stop listening to the United Nations (aka "Microsoft") says and do what's right.
> Its not really that big a change if the taps are held to pre-existing standards of survielance.
No, it is a problem if held to pre-existing standards, because as Choudry pointed out, the existing standard of implementation already violates civil rights on an all-too-common basis. Until the fundamental issue of police tolerating free speech and thought is resolved, granting further powers of covert intrusion and surveillance is going to result in further persecution of innocents based on bigotry and idealogy. I feel that cost is too high because I seriously doubt such powers will revolutionise the abilities of the police to catch genuine criminals.
I support such powers, but not before the current problems with unreasonable police persecution have been fully resolved. And quite frankly, I don't see that happening any time soon.
Dr Smalls high profile case is unique in being a high profile, fought through the courts, and won. It is not unique as an instance of violation of civil rights by those charged with defending them.
There are five aspects of Internet mail services that have attracted this attention from the interceptors:
1. Mail addressing is in the clear during transport.
2. Mail content is in the clear during transport.
3. Mail storage is in the clear after delivery.
4. Senders send mail to their own ISP's servers.
5. Recipients receive mail from their own ISP's servers.
(This refers to the mail services used by the largest proportion of Internet users, the ordinary Joe Bloggs with a dynamic dialin account with a free or very low-cost high-volume ISP.)
These features together have been instrumental in the current domino effect as more and more countries decide to violate their citizens' privacy. They provide the interceptors with a known fixed point at which to intercept any given person's mail, full knowledge of where his mail is going, full knowledge of the source of incoming mail, and full legibility of the content of correspondance.
If you consider the nature of the people concerned, one might as well have called these mail standards the Please Intercept Me Protocol. We've made it ridiculously easy for them to snoop, so they're doing it. It's our fault. You can't blame them for lack of scruples -- if they had any, they wouldn't have placed themselves in a position where they can wield coercive power over others.
So, let's take our standard catch-all phrase and modify it to suit the new circumstances: The Internet interprets mail interception as a fault and routes around it.
In other words, let's create a mail system with the following attributes:
1. Mail addressing details are not visible except between pairs of delivery points, which see only the from/to information that applies to them at that point in the transport. Multiple layers of encryption keep all other details of addressing invisible. Something along the lines of onion routing seems feasible.
2. Separation of payload from addressing, and the payload is of course always encrypted. Encryption must not be optional, ever, and apart from a strong default, the encryption algorithms used must be arbitrary, multiple, and unidentified.
3. No storage of mailboxes on a customer's ISP's servers. This can be addressed either by using remote servers in safe jurisdictions, or preferably by doing away with the concept of remote mailboxes altogether, ie. keeping mail in transit at various dynamic funnel points until the destinee appears online and signals his presence.
4. No single transit destination for a person's mail. The biggie here is that MX records direct mail to the fixed point of the ISP's choosing, so this whole methodology needs revising to allow the use of a dynamic set of customer-chosen remote funnels instead.
5. Senders should not send mail to their own ISP's relay as smarthost, but bypass it, ie. communicate directly with some remote destination. Unix-type boxes already do direct end-to-end delivery by default anyway, but the new scheme should make that the norm on all platforms.
Well, that doesn't sound like a particularly difficult spec. Let's have a little think about it, rummage around the IETF to see if there's anything already in the works that might do the trick or be a good starting point, and get to it.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I can't exactly say I like snooping, but I don't think it's unnatural given what the Internet is.
The Internet is just a bunch of networks joined together with archaic unreliable agreements, carrying each other's traffic. It's impossible to tell what's going to happen to data once it's transmitted into the open system, and if people want to monitor the traffic passing through their system I don't think anyone can really complain about it. I do have a problem when governments coerce ISP's into letting them watch, but it even if they didn't it can't be relied upon that the ISP wouldn't simply choose to show the government what was in your email anyway.
The whole point is that by default the net is insecure, and the idea has always been that integrity and security have to be established at each end. To do otherwise is like talking in an open courtyard and assuming everyone will turn their backs, ignore you, and not talk over the top of you.
Right now we have some great end-end protocols for ensuring integrity (and I guess TCP is the most obvious), but it really irritates me that there are so many people out there who don't give a damn about the security part of it. (Probably because of the sudden explosion in people who aren't interested in what goes on behind the send button.)
Has anyone out there ever had any real success in convincing people (not just computer geeks) to use encryption automatically?
===
Cmdr Taco: Is fan of actresses on TV show Friends, Visits porn sites featuring edited version of same. Runs Slashdot news. Recomended action: Use for blackmail if nessisary.
RMS: Posably a Communist, Recomendation: Distory Current status: Unknown.. running for life...
Felinoid: Sadistic evil. E-mail unknown due to spam rummored non-existent. NonThreat. Recomended action: Continue gathering data and attempt to discover consealed pattern.
Presedent Jimmy Sperston: Affade of computers, easy to manupulate Recomended action: Use paranoia to get more Internet observation laws and outposts.
Troll Massia: Internet cult leader, identity unknown. Preveously considered a threat by users but after the Internet hunt law of 2011 people starting to turn to him for guidence. He has sence moved base of operatins from Slashdot (where he is still unwelcomed) to www.TrollMassia.org. The domain holder is not the cult leader himself but mearly a folower. Suspect the cult leader is infact many organised people. Recomended action: Track down and kill. Status: We successfully elliminate A Troll Massia only to discover the cult leaders pressence on the Internet is alive and well. This may take a while...
Notes: Recent rummors that encryption experts are commiting suiside over the idea that the hardwork they produced is being used to thrwart our need for the instient and unrestricted search of the Internet has backlashed. In future don't allow famaly to examine body after an assasination.
Notes Dated 2020 released on the full discolsure act of 2008.
Time machine by [name withheld as device not invented yet] called the past post system.
Note to CmdrTaco: I'm aware this violates your no timetravle post rule however the data was nessisary to be delivered on topic before you receaved your first blackmail attempt...
Thanks for being so strong in thies trying times and getting the news out. Without your strighth I douput the other news agentcys would have held up so well.
PS. No time machine.. the true date of this post is July 30 2000. I'm just using creative liccens to paint an image of the slippery slope that could result from this...
I don't actually exist.
Yes, it will be intersting to see if anybody ever goes to jail over refusing to give up his keys.
I think the standard answer to the problem of the key requests is to give out the plain text instead (which the RIP allows you to do). I mean, if your encryption is good then "they" will have no way of knowing if it really is the plaintext, will they...?
---
"Where do you come from?"
Hi!
I find it interesting that the more socialist governments seem to be the ones first out of the box with these sorts of proposals. Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, France, etc. talk a good game about being for the ordinary person, but are the first ones to heave individual rights over the side when it suits them.
If they are going to snoop on all email like the article says, they will have to look for keywords and that would be pointless as they would not be able to break encryption as long as it was good, ie. PGP or GPG, so what are you all so bothered about.
Slashdot has been pissing me off lately, why the fsck do they bother the nutters, once they have sorted their own act out I'll be happy.......
I'm a big flaming gay nigger
>If you're doing something clandestine, you're pretty much assured that someone is looking in. Encryption and that steg-o-something or other merely wave a big flag that says "hey! we're doing something clandestine, look into us more closely!"
The idea is to encrypt everything and not worry about what is or isn't clandestine.
In fact just don't do anything clandestine on the Internet (per your suggestion) and encrypt anyway.
It's the same idea as the idea of throwing out random words to be scooped up by Eschelon. Just throw out garbage "Explodes, Terrorist activitys, bombs, Sex Driven Nude bombs" and keep em from targeting anyone for anything.
"Ohh he encrypts let's go bother him"
"Ohh he visits socally unacceptable websites let's go after him"
"Ohh he holds opinions we disagree with. Let's pay him a 'specal visit'".
"Oh shit... over 30,000 people using encrypted e-mail and most of it is spam... shit.. shit.. shit" Yeah.. I say encrypt spam too... encrypt EVERYTHING!!!
Even the message on your t-shirt...
I don't actually exist.
I'm unaware of anything simialr for the UK's RIP bill or New Zealand's current attempt to do something similar, however citizens of the US can, at the very least, speak out against carnivore by going to this page at the ACLU's website and faxing/emailing a premade letter to their congressmen.
How long before all that "anti-criminal" email snooping turns into just another way that the NZ government serves its overseas masters.
Can anyone say Echelon?
Even if this wasn't the case, it's not as if the New Zealand police are really interested in anything remotely democratic.
"Ohh those students are having a peaceful protest at parliament. Lets arrest 71 of them and then abuse their statutory rights some more."
Damn, but this whole thing stinks.
--
Dyolf Knip
Everyone has heard this before: "You should send all your email encrypted, not just the important stuff, so that (insert many good reasons here)".
/var/mail) in an encrypted form. Again, this involves adding something onto sendmail, this time when the mail is written into the mail spool. This would be a bit more tricky than 1), since user mail programs would either have to be able to do the decryption or call some agent to do it for them.
In a perfect world, this would in fact be the optimal solution. But, realistically, since this isn't happening any time soon, how about some other options that at least get us part of the way there?
1) Add encryption into sendmail's transmission of mail. The goal here is to have the actual email traffic sent over the open wire encrypted, like ssh traffic is. OpenSSL could be used for this. Of course this does nothing to protect you if your computer is cracked or stolen (including by the gov't), hence:
2) Store mail (in
Despite the complications in 2), these still both seem very doable to me. 1) would require extending the SMTP protocol slightly, so that mailers can talk to each other and send things between each other in an encrypted form only if both are encrypted-capable. Has anyone else thought of doing something like this before? Is it as feasible as I think it is (or am I just low on sleep and not thinking clearly)?
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At least mafia-owned pizzarias make excellent pizza. Compare to Bill Gates.
I doubt the NZ government is really aiming for a NSA-esque supercomputer to scan all emails (as we all know they do). Extending the concept of phone-tapping to emails is not so terrible. 'thin edge of the wedge' and 'splippery slope'? i doubt it. But if i lived there id get some spanky new crypto happening. Hell, everyone should use it, not because of the police, who we know are there, but for others we dont know of.
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"Almost isn't good enough - but it's almost good enough."
-Me
you should write a screenplay!
I believe it's just standard power control freak activity. Look at telephone wiretaps. I personally find them abhorrent, a violation of privacy, etc. Way too open to abuse. I don't even like the idea of police listening to closed doors. But I digress :-)
Think back to before the telephone. Criminals has to meet face to face or send letters, and I doubt letters did much for simple crime. Most likely, to organize a bank robbery or any kind of activity, they met face to face. The only way for police to listen in was informers in the meeting, or ear to the door. I doubt there was much ear to the door stuff, it would be too easy to prevent. So there wasn't a whole ot of police listening in on crooks.
Then along comes the phone. Crooks weren't stupid, they could see how they could get together for a combined effort so much easier with a few phone calls. Police recognized this too, but suddenly they had the *capability* of listening in without having to put their asses in danger from twitchy guards protecting the meeting. And just like nowadays, they conned a mostly ignorant public into going along with their plans, with much the same message -- the innocent had nothing to fear, there would be no abuses, etc.
IIRC wiretaps were originally thrown out of court until Congress passed some enabling legislation, which did not get completely smooth sailing. There was debate, but not enough. Probably a web search would refresh my memory, but I haven't a clue now where I read this, or how much I remember correctly.
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Infuriate left and right
One of the things about New Zealand that lends itself to this sort of official snooping is the small number of providers. There's maybe three nationwide providers, and not that many smaller ones, so the government has only a few points to cover in order to read 90%+ of email. Added to that is the limited number of overseas links, and you have a situation ripe for official suppression.
The funny thing is that, at least in NZ, this is completely the opposite way around. The government that let the secret service (SIS) off the hook without explanation was the same one that pushes for free market etc. Hell there was even a report from the Herald that they were intending to give the SIS the ability to search someone/someplace without a warrant. They got found out and had to back-pedal on that one.
The people most likely to shoot this one down are both extremes of the spectrum. The Greens (You can't get more socialist!) and Act (Almost managed a flat tax rate, and ditching of social welfare). The real evil is the ignorant centre, who have never had to campaign for anything in their lives.
Recipe for SUCCESS!
1. an international shipment of diamonds
2. one hacker, preferably a paid cop in New Zealand
3. GPS!! Route that ship right to your door!
"Who will gaurd the gaurdians themselves?" - and old Latin saying...
Yes, I think its "OK" for law enforcement agencies to monitor my communications after demonstrating reasonable cause for suspicion but before formally charging me. Thats what warrents are for. So, I guess I don't need to worry ablout constitutional garantees of privacy.
Personally, I do believe in privacy, but as a balanced, rather than absolute right. That is, all things being equal, people should have a right to personal privacy. However, the world is full of situations in which all things are not equal and the right to privacy must be balanced against other equal or more important rights. Unfortunately, /. is the land of absolutes and slippery slopes, making a reasonable balancing of rights nigh impossible.
As for the title question, I don't think criminals will "wise up" to the extent of making this useless. Taps are useful at the stage where the criminal does not yet know how suspicious the leos are of him/her. Everyone who commits a crime is not a criminal mastermind with an evil tech wizard advising them on how to stay one step ahead. Email taps will be helpful for leos, and public watchdogs will continue to act against excesses of all kinds by leos. Its not really that big a change if the taps are held to pre-existing standards of survielance.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Imagine your boss giving you the feedback: "Ooops, your poorly worded e-mail got the organization into trouble today..."
Your last jibe about corporate spying could shed more insight into the continued Echelon sabre rattling...
US spy relic has Europe talking quietly
(I doubt the referenced corporate example was from a *random* Echelon interception.)
NZ, been there, lived there, been involed with the police... from the wrong side of the law.
Now I aint that bad a boy that I cant travel around the world, and this is an interesting thing that i have noted.
Freedom, you americans have it better then most, although most of the public is concerned about the government when MORE attention should go to big business. While in the UK and Europe the governments deal from the bottom of the deck when people arnt looking.
In New Zealand, unlike the UK and the US, you cant get a copy of your police record. Think about that for a moment.
What is happening is that NZ is following suit, like the lapdog it is in international politics, and allowing foriegn governments to spy on it's own people through New Zealand with it's spybases.This bypasses all those documents that need to be signed by government officals..
When did it the world catch fire and start burning?
I had a SIG once... it was years ago.
Hi.
/. community, I have submitted almost every type of post, ranging from preeminent insights to over-the top and vulgar flames. I've trolled, been trolled, shot from the hip and been torched when speaking-of-that-which-I-do-not-know. But for me at least, there is one situation I find myself in time after time. I suddenly have an insight into some topic that has no relevant story to post in. I post anyway, only to lose karma and have my insights buried as (-1: Off Topic), and few regular readers ever get to see them. I've taken to operating a couple of UIDs in order to burn or preserve my karma as appropriate, but I find it all rather cumbersome. I like this UID, and I dislike logging in different accounts several times a day.
I am a typical Slashdot reader. I have a couple of accounts, and I am posting this from my 'troll' account because it is rather off-topic, and deserves to be modded down. But this is a serious post, and I encourage you to read on:
As a typical member of the
I have been waiting for Slashdot to open up some persistent sids on recurrent topics, and maybe even list them on the front page. I've written this suggestion to Hemos and Taco both, though it probably just got lost in the noise. So, in the spirit of Open Source Everything©, I hereby introduce my own unsanctioned Open Editorial Decision©. See, I realized one day that the trolls had taken to making their own sids, so I thought to myself, 'how can I harness this phenomenon in a positive, productive way?'
And so I've decided to create the following sids:
Open Source Advocacy
Operating Systems
Hardware
Sci-Fi / Anime
Slashdot Culture
Technology and Politics
Trollsville
Now there is a place for us to go to vent our spleen, contribute, rant, spam, joke about, whatever you may want( within the limits of legality, of course) and yet remain entirely on-topic.
I know this is rather pushy of me, but it really is for the best. Now, if you find yourself with a brilliant insight for the Slashdot crowd, and there aren't any relevant stories to post it on, you've a place to go without thrashing your karma.
I have already made FP! introductory posts at each of the sids. C'mon by and tell me what you think. Especially the Slashdot staff- I realize you may be irritated at my forthright feature-creep, but there are so many worse things I could be spending my time on, while this is actually positive, useful, and will hopefully increase banner ad revenues for you. Oh, and I assure you, I hereby state that I hold no claim to the design or ownership of any aspect of this idea. I just wanted a feature, and utilized the 'Open' philosophy to my advantage, with the tools on hand.
Thank you very much,
-=(V)0(V)0cr0(V)3=-
All we need is 100000 votes from concerned kiwi citizens. Remember what happened when Telecom started the )*^& woops I mean 0867 racket? Someone set up an online petition and sent it into govt. It had something to do with citizen initiated referendum and got heaps of publicity well some anyway and it has now been modified. Can someone please tell Max (Newman that is)!
Hard to watch just a few people's email.
Whilst I don't like the fact that mail is going to be intercepted, It is going to happen but can't the intrusion be limited?
Why is it that all these email monitoring stories refer to indiscriminate email snooping?
What's wrong with delaying the mail a whole 5 seconds and (with a script) copying the new mail from the mail spool to another place for retrieval later, or an aliases for the address on the server so 2 people get it (one hidden from the other)?
If they want the mail both ways it aint that hard to setup a mail rule for outgoing that does pretty much the same (if a real mail server is being used don't know about exchange).......
There is not 2 ways about it "they" are going to get access to email but if you want to read someones letters, you don't need to open every bit of mail that goes into the post office.
From the article:
So, won't criminals just use PGP and anonymous remailers (based in other countries with strict privacy laws) now?
Citizens should be pushing for constitutional protection of privacy (in nations that don't have it already; it exists in the US, but only by Supreme Court fiat, AFAICT). Unless you think it's OK to read your mail before even charging you with anything.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.