The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

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========================================================================= ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ========================================================================= EFFector Online Volume 09 No. 12 Sept. 7, 1996 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 IN THIS ISSUE: ALERT: Crypto Action Week Sep. 3-10; Pro-Crypto Petition News from the frontlines What you must do Concluding the meeting Tips on how to conduct your visit Angles on encryption Questions about encryption you might be asked Participating Organizations / More Information Online Civil Liberties Groups Condemn Singaporean Net Censorship Alert: UK in Throes of Newspaper-Generated "Cyberporn" Hysteria NewsNybbles Chinese Government on a "spiritual pollution" Net Censorship Rampage Pseudonymous Remailer anon.penet.fi Closed; No Online Privacy in Finland Anti-Terrorism Bill's Fallout Looks Suspiciously Orwellian AOL's Attempt to Block "Spam" Halted by Court Upcoming Events Quote of the Day What YOU Can Do Administrivia * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ALERT: Crypto Action Week Sep. 3-10; Pro-Crypto Petition ----------------------------------------------------------------- Please gear up for "Crypto Action Week", Sept. 3-10. Time to contact your legislators and make your views heard loud and clear. In the interim, *please sign the petition in support of the encryption deregulation bills.* See http://www.crypto.com/petition/ for the petition. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___ _____ _____ _____ ___ / __| _ \ \ / / _ \_ _/ _ \ JOIN THOUSANDS OF OTHER NET.AMERICANS AS | (__| /\ V /| _/ | || (_) | THEY WORK FOR BETTER PRIVACY AND ENCRYPTION \___|_|_\ |_| |_| |_| \___/ September 3-10, 1996 ___ ___ _____ ___ ___ _ _ __ _____ ___ _ __ / _ \ / __|_ _|_ _/ _ \| \| | \ \ / / __| __| |/ / | _ | (__ | | | | (_) | .` | \ \/\/ /| _|| _|| ' < |_| |_|\___| |_| |___\___/|_|\_| \_/\_/ |___|___|_|\_\ SENATE PRO-CRYPTO PRO-CODE BILL COULD BE VOTED OUT OF COMMITTEE YOUR HELP IS NEEDED TO PREPARE CONGRESS FOR THE DEBATE! http://www.crypto.com/caw/ Reproduce this where appropriate until September 15, 1996 ___________________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents News from the frontlines What you must do Concluding the meeting Tips on how to conduct your visit Angles on encryption Questions about encryption you might be asked Participating Organizations / More Information ___________________________________________________________________________ NEWS FROM THE FRONTLINES Congress as a whole is beginning to focus on encryption - bills moving through both House and Senate would improve availability of privacy and security for the Net. With three hearings in the Senate and one scheduled in House Judiciary Committee for early September - pro-encryption bills have a chance of passing, or at least helping to lay the groundwork for the next Congress. Recently in a live chat from the Republican Convention in San Diego, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) said he believed he had enough votes to pass Pro-CODE out of the Senate Sub-Committee and Committee. This is the farthest encryption activists will have come in the crypto fight in years. We need your help to make the case to Congress that encryption is important to privacy and security online, as well as the future potential of the Internet to create jobs and promote US competitiveness. Here's what you can do: -sign the petition at http://www.crypto.com/petition/ -make an appointment with your legislator's local office With the directions below, visit your Congressperson - urge them to support the two bills: Pro-CODE "Promotion of Commerce Online in the Digital Era" (S.1726) & SAFE "Security and Freedom Through Encryption" (HR 3011). Now is the time to tell your member of Congress that government restrictions on encryption are unacceptable to the future of the Internet. In recent months, the FBI and the White House have been using local sheriffs to lobby members of Congress on this issue. If you don't tell your member of Congress our side of the story, they won't hear it from anyone. WHAT YOU MUST DO Here's what you need to do: 1. Make an appointment with your Senators'/Representative's local office. It's probably best to make an appointment with the local office manager. It's great if you can get an appointment with your legislator, but don't worry if your legislator cannot be there. If you don't know who your Representative and two Senators are, simply call the local League of Women Voters office and ask! You might also try using the Zipper at http://www.voxpop.org:80/zipper/ 2. Sign the petition at http://www.crypto.com/petition/ A petition has been setup to help show Congress that encryption policy must be driven by the market's concerns. 3. Setting up the meeting When making the appointment, you should say that the topic is privacy and encryption on the Internet. Ensure they know you are a constituent. If possible, take a friend who owns a small Internet business (web design, ISP, whatever) who also lives in the district. It's crucial that you do not wait to get someone to go before making the appointment. Make the appointment, then go looking for someone to go with you. 4. Carry the following message as a theme through your meeting. Encryption is important to privacy - the Internet is vulnerable and the future of American competitiveness is at stake. Encryption is NOT a terrorist weapon any more than a hammer is a terrorist weapon. While there are difficult national security issues, these should not be the driving force of this debate. The future of the Internet should not be held hostage by a cold-war era world view. 5. Send us mail at vtw@vtw.org when you've made your appointment. Check back at http://www.crypto.com/caw/ for progress and tips on Crypto Action Week! ___________________________________________________________________________ CONCLUDING THE MEETING There are a few things you should remember as you finish your meeting. If talking to a member, find out if we can count on his/her support for the PRO-CODE/SAFE bill. If talking to a staffer, make it their mission to find out the answer to this question. As you leave the meeting, run, don't walk, to the nearest card shop and buy a thank you card. Write a thank you and address it immediately. Stick it in the nearest mailbox. Send us mail at vtw@vtw.org, letting us know how it went. ___________________________________________________________________________ TIPS ON HOW TO CONDUCT YOUR VISIT Always be polite. Never threaten. Never lose your cool. Many staffers have no idea what encryption is. Moreover, they might have never used the Internet. You should view this as an opportunity: you will get the chance to define the debate and educate them. You may even want to bring a laptop with a modem and take the member/staff on a breif Internet tour. (Be careful about what you show them.) Remember we're all taxpayers, so the phrase "I'm a taxpayer" is meaningless. Be brief. If you're going in a group, plan out the topics each person will hit. Appoint someone to act as a spokesperson for the group, so there can be a central contact. Remember the first law of Real Estate: LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. It's crucial that everyone at the meeting be a potential vote for the legislator. Remind yourself that your legislator probably hasn't yet made a decision on this issue yet; you're there to educate as much as anything. Go as *individuals* or *business owners* who have a stake in the debate on encryption issue. ___________________________________________________________________________ ANGLES ON ENCRYPTION Internet business angle: When speaking from the point of view of an Internet Service Provider or Web design firm, you have available several arguments, such as: "The popularity of the Net has created a gold rush which has benefitted my business and the local voters I employ. Concerns about security on the net could dampen that excitement, and diminish the potential for industry" "Many types of services that I would like to offer online cannot be done without strong security. The current level of security is too weak to engender public trust, and will diminish the types of business people will put on the net." Clipper angle: If someone brings up the issue of Clipper and the idea that government should be trusted to hold your private encryption key, you have several options available to you: "It's not clear that the Administration can be trusted to hold any information secret, after incidents like the FBI Filegate scandal." "Handing over one's encryption keys to the gov't is just like giving the local police station a copy of your house key, just in case they need to search your apartment. Of course they would promise never to use it unless authorized." ___________________________________________________________________________ QUESTIONS ABOUT ENCRYPTION YOU MIGHT BE ASKED There are a number of questions you will probably be asked by the staff or member that you should be prepared to answer. Here's a few of them and some answers you should feel comfortable with. WHAT IS ENCRYPTION? Encryption is a method of scrambling information with one or more "keys" so that only the sender and receiver can read it, and an eavesdropper cannot. Your bank card PIN, telephone conversations, love letters, health records, and business correspondence are all things that might need to be encrypted. WON'T TERRORISTS AND CRIMINALS USE ENCRYPTION? Perhaps. But criminals and terrorists already have access to strong encryption from overseas, and are unlikely to use encryption technologies which they know are breakable by the US government. Would you send sensitive information using a code that you knew your adversaries could break? Criminals and terrorists will, for better or worse, have access to strong encryption regardless of U.S. efforts to restrict its availability. Meanwhile, current U.S. policy leaves sensative personal and business communications vulnerable and actually creates opportunities for crimes like industrial espionage. WHAT IS 40 BIT ENCRYPTION? Quite often the strength of an encryption system is measured by the size of the key. Forty bits is about the same as a five or six letter word, such as "apple". The US government has stated that American companies that wish to sell products with encryption can only implement encryption whose keys are forty bits long. At one time it was quite difficult to attack and recover messages that were encrypted with 40 bit encryption. Because of advances in computer power and research, it has become much easier to do this. As recently as last year, a graduate student in France broke 40-bit encryption using University resources he had available in his spare time. DON'T EXPORT RESTRICTIONS PREVENT ENCRYPTION PRODUCTS FROM GOING ABROAD? No. The idea that export restrictions actually keep encryption out of the hands of non-U.S. citizens implies that all encryption products come from the U.S. This is simply untrue, and the plethora of products available from non-U.S. sources now shows how absurd it is to continue to keep such regulations intact. DO EXPORT RESTRICTIONS HURT U.S. COMPANIES IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE? Yes. American hardware and software companies compete globally with products from around the world. For many companies, a majority of their business comes from international sales. In the crowded marketplace of this fast- paced business, developing a product with a single feature that outshines a competitor's product can often be deciding factor in a consumer's mind. Yet, American hardware and software businesses are at a disadvantage, as many competing non-U.S. products can offer stronger encryption than they can. This places American products at a distinct competitive disadvantage. DO EXPORT RESTRICTIONS LIMIT AMERICANS' CHOICE OF SECURITY PRODUCTS? Yes. Although it is possible to sell two versions of a product, one with strong encryption for sale domestically and one with weak encryption for sale abroad, most companies find this schizophrenic product development approach to be too burdensome and risky. The result is that companies that produce hardware and software products that require security tend to omit such features entirely, or weaken them so that the same product can be used for export as for domestic use. The end result of this is that Americans end up with products that are becoming increasingly incapable of protecting their privacy, hampered by regulations that can longer accomplish their goal. ___________________________________________________________________________ PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS / MORE INFORMATION For more information on the encryption issue, check these important organizations' WWW sites: Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT): http://www.cdt.org Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): http://www.eff.org Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC): http://www.epic.org Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW): http://www.vtw.org Wired Ventures Ltd.: http://www.hotwired.com Also check these great educational sites: Encryption Policy Resource Page (http://www.crypto.com) Internet Privacy Coalition (http://www.privacy.org) ======================================================================== ------------------------------ Subject: Online Civil Liberties Groups Condemn Singaporean Net Censorship ------------------------------------------------------------------------- *** GLOBAL ACTION BRIEF *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 28, 1996 * Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact * Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 30 September 1996 Singapore Government Curtails Online Freedoms The government of Singapore recently established strict controls on all Internet Service Providers and many World Wide Web pages. ISPs and content providers will be licensed, and required to adhere to a rigid set of content guidelines which apply to political speech, ethnic and religious remarks including satire, and public morals including "contents which propagate permissiveness or promiscuity." We believe that the licensing policy and broad content guidelines will effectively chill the free flow of information not only in Singapore, but worldwide. Because the Internet is global, transcending geographical bounds, we are convinced that censorship within any nation or state, whether implicit or explicit, poses a threat to all users of the global network. We therefore encourage the government of Singapore, and other governments implementing or considering policies of content control, to stress education rather than regulation. Singapore's approach, like the Communications Decency Act that was passed but quickly rescinded in the U.S., applies a broadcast regulatory standard to the Internet. The application of broadcast-inspired, "one-to-many" regulation to this new *many-to-many* medium indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Internet. Unlike television and radio broadcasting, the Internet does not push material at the viewer, but simply makes material available on demand - not unlike a rapid inter-library loan. And unlike broadcasting, the Internet does not present the views of a limited few privileged speakers, but allows all participants to publish, comment on, and even refute, what they read. Recognizing that every culture has its own standards regarding what is or is not appropriate, the undersigned organizations recommend that Singapore's government allow its citizens to use Internet filtering tools, with which they can block out any material that is offensive to them, rather than embark upon a closed-border approach that will cut Singapore off from the new global online library. Support of individually customizable filtration services, instead of a broad top-down censorship effort, would enable Singapore to participate in a more positive and effective way in the evolution of this new open medium, and would indicate trust in the ability of Singaporeans to choose what is right for Singapore and for themselves. *** WHERE TO FIND MORE INFORMATION For more information on the Singapore censorship situation, and other global efforts to abridge the flow of information over the net, see these web sites: http://www.eff.org/~declan/global/index.html and http://www.io.org/~sherlock/doom/threat.html Human Rights Watch's letter to George Yeo, Singapore Minister for Information and the arts, is located on HRW's gopher, at gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:5000/00/int/hrw/asia/asia/4 WHO TO CONTACT The following organizations have issued this advisory: Press Contacts: ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) * http://www.aclu.org Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) * http://www.cdt.org CITADEL-Electronic Frontier France * http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel CommUnity (UK) * http://www.community.org.uk EFF-Austin * http://www.eff-austin.org Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/ Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) * http://www.sn.no/~efn Electronic Frontier Foundation * http://www.eff.org Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) * http://www.epic.org Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a (Electronic Frontiers Spain) * http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin HotWired * http://www.hotwired.com Voters Telecommunication Watch (VTW) * http://www.vtw.org Please choose an organization above and visit their web site for contact information. A copy of this advisory is available on the World Wide Web, at http://www.well.com/~jonl/singapore.html. [END] ------------------------------ Subject: Alert: UK in Throes of Newspaper-Generated "Cyberporn" Hysteria ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** GLOBAL ALERT *** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE SEPT. 6, 1996 - Please redistribute this document widely with this banner intact - Redistribute only in appropriate places & only until 30 September 1996 Global Alert: Hysteria in the UK Threatens Free Speech on the Net The Sunday, August 25 issue of the London Observer splashed across its front page a sensationalized account of child pornography on the Internet, falsely accusing two Internet Service Providers, Clive Feather of Demon UK (a full service site) and Johan Helsingius of anon.penet.fi (an anonymous remailer) of involvement in the distribution of child pornography. Why were these accusations made? Demon UK had refused to remove a broad range of sexually-oriented newsgroups identified by UK authorities as possible sources of child pornography, and anon.penet.fi was identified without substantiation as a source for `90% of child pornography on the Internet.' In fact, Demon UK was simply acknowledging that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) cannot police the data that traverses their systems, or assume responsibility for it, any more than the post office can assume responsiblity for content that is sent through traditional mail. And Helsingius, contrary to allegations in the London Observer, had long before restricted the size of files that could be transferred through anon.penet.fi, effectively eliminating the possibility that binary files containing pictures could be exchanged. This story was extreme, but not without precedent: much has been written associating the Internet with those who make and distribute child porn, and there have been many attempts to hold ISPs responsible for objectionable or illegal content. ISPs are not content providers; they channel content provided by their users. It is outside the scope of the ISP to monitor, evaluate, and attempt to remove objectionable content. In fact, any attempt by an ISP to block particular kinds of content will ultimately be fruitless, as providers of that content will simply find alternate channels of distribution. Moreover, it is wrong to assume that the Internet has no rules, and is friendly to the exchange of objectionable materials. In fact the Internet is a `virtual community' of users with a distinct culture incorporating diverse views but finding consensus in opposition to censorship and access control. There is also strong opposition to the exploitation of children; in fact, many Internet users have cooperated in attempts to identify those who create and distribute child pornography. Summary: The physical abuse and exploitation of children is a very real problem demanding a proactive response; however we vigorously oppose attempts to stifle the free and open exchange of information over the Internet in the mistaken belief that overbroad restrictions on the flow of information will protect children from abuse. We support Demon UK and anon.penet.fi (which Helsingius has shut down), and deplore the Observer's lurid attempt to make respectable Internet providers the "cause" of a problem for which they have no responsibility. The Observer story is not the first of its kind: it represents an ongoing confusion about a complex new medium. Unfortunately this misunderstanding has become a global problem, represented in proposed or enacted restrictive legislation as well as negative press. Consider these possible analogies to the Internet: - The Internet is a vast mail system, like a post office. Would you favor a law that required postal authorities to open each piece of mail and evaluate its acceptability? - The Internet is a huge library system. Would you favor a law that would restrict information a library can provide? - The Internet is a collection of virtual communities. Would you favor a law that required routine searches of your community? Our position: These measures constrain everyone because of the misdeeds of a few. It is more sensible to find and deal with the sources of child pornography than to impede the flow of data over the Internet. The imposition of censorship and additional constraints applied to ISPs will not solve the existing problem, but will create a new problem, a barrier to the free and democratic exchange of ideas. For press contacts, and for more information about the Internet, see homepages for the signatories to this message: ALCEI - Electronic Frontiers Italy * http://www.nexus.it/alcei American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) * http://www.aclu.org CITADEL-Electronic Frontier France * http://www.imaginet.fr/~mose/citadel CommUnity (UK) * http://www.community.org.uk Electronic Frontier Foundation (USA) * http://www.eff.org EFF-Austin (USA) * http://www.eff-austin.org Electronic Frontier Canada * http://www.efc.ca/ Electronic Frontiers Australia * http://www.efa.org.au/ Electronic Frontiers Houston (USA) * http://www.efh.org Elektronisk Forpost Norge (Electronic Frontier Norway) * http://www.sn.no/~efn Fronteras Electronicas Espan~a (Electronic Frontiers Spain) * http://www.lander.es/~jlmartin/ HotWired * http://www.hotwired.com ------------------------------ Subject: NewsNybbles -------------------- * Chinese Government on a "spiritual pollution" Net Censorship Rampage Furthering previous moves to limit Western news distribution, by piping it through the government-controlled Xinhua news agency, Beijing has announced blockage of as many as 100 Web sites around the world, prevening those in China from reaching these sites. The "blacklist" includes US new media (CNN, Wall Street Journal), Taiwanese and Hong Kongese news and commentary, sites critical of Chinese policy, and a few (but hardly all) sites providing sexually explicit material, such as Playboy. [Sources: Wall Street Journal, 960905.] * Pseudonymous Remailer anon.penet.fi Closed; No Online Privacy in Finland Losing a year-long battle with the Church of Scientology, Johan "Julf" Helsingius has closed his popular privacy-protecting remailer service at anon.penet.fi. A preliminary court ruling in a case brought under Finnish law by representatives of the Church of Scientology has concluded that under current Finnish law, there is essentially no privacy online. Helsingius predicts a rapid change to his country's privacy laws to fix the loophole, has kept the anon.penet.fi system operational for it's 500,000+ users' non-pseudonymous communications, and brushes off claims that he is shutting the system down due to the child pornography allegations of UK newspaper _The_Observer_. "Julf" says he will be filing a defamation suit against the newspaper, and will appeal the Finnish court ruling, but is taking the system down to prevent a repeat of an earlier CoS victory: the court ordered Helsingius to produce the identifying information of person who had allegedly used the remailer to violate CoS intellectual property rights. In a press release, Helsingius wrote, "I will close down the remailer for the time being because the legal issues governing the whole Internet in Finland are yet undefined. The legal protection of the users needs to be clarified. At the moment the privacy of Internet messages is judicially unclear." Though some Net users feel distraught at the closure of anon.penet.fi, others point out that the remailer system was intentionally designed to avoid government censorship and privacy invasion. Nodes in this meta-network are expendable, with others, in different jurisdictions, popping up to replace those that go down. And anon.penet.fi may have gone down just in time. Noting the Scientology cases' preliminary ruling, the government of Singapore (busy aren't they?) has begun demanding that Helsingius tell the the real identity of a person who has posted messages critical of Singaporean regulation policies. Internet security thinkers point out that cryptographically-protected and truly anonymous "Type II" remailers do not keep databases that translate pseudonym to real email address, but instead strip the real address out entirely. This precludes being able to reply to anonymous messages, but also precludes seizure of the email address database, or court-ordered release of information on those who have used the system. Related information: hysterical London _Observer_ article http://www.scallywag.com/obtext.htm Helsingius' press release http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Anonymity/960830_penet_closure.announce [Source: Reuters, 960830; Hotwired "Netizen", 960906; Helsingius press release, 960830.] * Anti-Terrorism Bill's Fallout Looks Suspiciously Orwellian In the wake of the House Anti-Terrorism Bill's demands for increased airport security, various proposals have been floated, including a particularly disturbing one from an aviation commission led by US Vice President Al Gore. The commission recommends computerized background checks on all airline passengers, seeking travel "irregularities" that supposedly indicate possibility of terrorist activity, to determine whose luggage should be searched! Such background checks might include travel histories, financial records, and contact information. [Source: New York Times, 960901] * AOL's Attempt to Block "Spam" Halted by Court For some time, America Online has been running an e-blockade to prevent the "spamming" (junk e-mailing) of AOL subscribers by Cyber Promotions and other online marketing companies who have aroused the ire of, well, just about everyone with an email address. CP says AOL is being hypocritical, since the online service sends AOL-sponsored unsolicited ads to the same subscribers (and, though CP didn't point this out, much of the "spam" that's hit Usenet and a thousands of mailing lists was sent by people abusing free temporary AOL trial accounts). CP also claims the filtration violates AOL users' right to read what they want, and CP's rights to publish and disribute what it wants. Some numbers: AOL receives 1.8 million junk emails per day (not counting the internally generated ones.) CP accounts for about 900,000 of them, and sends an additional mass-mailing of 400,000 ads to non-AOL Internet addresses daily, according to CP president Sanford Wallace. CP, filing suit against AOL in March, moved in the Philadelphia district courtroom of Judge Charles Weiner for a temporary restraining order against AOL interfering with Cyber Promo's advertising emailings. The judge granted the order (which does not affect AOL's block against two other "spammers") on Sept. 5, pending a civil trial set for November. AOL may appeal the order, according to AOL counsel David Phillips. How does the online community feel about all of this? A majority appear to detest e-junkmailing, but an increasinly vocal minority criticize attempts to cancel or block "spam" as a violation of advertisers' free speech rights, at least in a philosophical if not legal sense. And opinions on AOL's actions range from considering the AOL blockade to be a kind of imperialism on the online service's part, to another example of AOL trying to give back to and participate more fully in the Internet. The eventual solution to the problem of swelling, ad-filled email boxes and increasingly unreadable newsgroups filled with virtual billboards may rely on technical changes to various Usenet and Internet protocols that make massmailing more difficult, improvements to personal filtration software, and/or tighter online service contracting. Marketers' viewpoints tend toward preserving the ability to broadly advertise while narrowing target audiences by profiling and other direct marketing techniques, many of which raise user privacy concerns. However this plays out over the next few years, whether online adverts follow postal models, are illegalized via extension of junk fax laws, or subject to some other outcome, it's going to be "interesting", in more ways than one. Related information: Full text of Judge Weiner's TRO http://www.phillynews.com/Sep/06/aolmail.htm [Source: New York Times, 060905; Philadelphia Inquirer, 960906.] ------------------------------ Upcoming Events --------------- This schedule lists EFF events, and those we feel might be of interest to our members. EFF events (those sponsored by us or featuring an EFF speaker) are marked with a "*" instead of a "-" after the date. Simlarly, government events (such as deadlines for comments on reports or testimony submission, or conferences at which government representatives are speaking) are marked with "!" in place of the "-" ("!?" means a govt. speaker may appear, but we don't know for certain yet.) And likewise, "+" in place of "-" indicates a non-USA event. If it's a foreign EFF event with govt. people, it'll be "*!+" instead of "-". You get the idea. The latest version of the full EFF calendar is available from: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff See also our new Now-Up-to-Date HTML calendar at: http://events.eff.org 1996 ---- Sep. 9- INTERNET LAW SYMPOSIUM 96 (ILS96); second annual international 10 - law and policy summit for the global Internet; experts on and delegates from business, education, public policy, legislation, security, and justice will examine places where technology and law converge; Seattle, Washington, USA http://www.internetlaw.org Sep. 9- 10 - "The Communications Act of 1996 - Deriving Order from Chaos"; ! Two-day conference Washington, DC, conference will examine the * sweeping changes in store for the telecommunications industry and public with the implentation of the Telecoomunications Reform Act; Congressmen Rick Boucher, Jack Fields and Senator Conrad Burns are scheduled to participate; sponsored by Bell Atlantic. Similar programs to take place in Chicago, IL (Sep. 11-12), Dallas, TX (Sep. 16-17), San Francisco, CA (Sep. 19-20; EFF Board Member Louise Velazquez will join a panel discussion here). Contact: Bell Atlantic Telephone: 1-800-242-7675 Fax: 1-609 452-1288 Sep. 9- 11 - Connect 96: The Global Summit on Building Electronic Communities; information society leaders will discuss the challenges of developing electronic infrastructures; hosted by Smart Valley, Inc., and Stanford University (event is on campus); contact: Leslie Kareckas (408) 562 7747 or email: lesliek@svi.org Sep. 10 * Workshop on Digital Cash and Public Policy sponsored by the ! Institute for Technology Assessment; EFF Staff Counsel Shari - Steele will speak on legal issues surrounding online banking and commerce; Members of Congress will attend and participate in discussions; U.S. House of Representatives' Cannon Office Building; Email ita@ita.mtppi.org for more infomration Sep. 17 + Advanced Surveillance Technologies II; Ottowa, Ontario, Canada. Email: pi@privacy.org Sep. 18- 19 +! Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. No Contact Info. Contact: Conference Coordinator, 112 Ketn St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 1H3 Phone: +1 613 995 2410 Fax: +1 613 947 6850 Email: jroy@fox.nstn.ca URL: http://infoweb.magi.com/~privcan/ Sep. 24- 26 - Electronic Publishing 1996; an international conference in Palo Alto (USA) organized by Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; Contact: EP96; Xerox Corporation; XSoft Division; 3400 Hillview Avenue PAHV-127; Palo Alto, California 94304; USA tel: +1 415/813-7293; fax: +1 415/813-7188 email: ep96@xsoft.xerox.com Sep. 27 * American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law; EFF Staff - Counsel Shari Steele will speak on issues of trademark online, including the recent Georgia law which has greatly chilled free speech online; New York City. American Bar Association 740 15th St., NW Washington, DC 20061-0001 Phone: (202) 331-2200 Oct. 8- 11 - EDUCOM '96; Philadelphia, PA Contact: +1 202 872 4200 (voice) Email: conf@educom.edu Oct. 11 * American Bar Association Forum on Communications Law; EFF Staff - Counsel Shari Steele will speak on issues of trademark online, including the recent Georgia law which has greatly chilled free speech online; San Francisco American Bar Association 740 15th St., NW Washington, DC 20061-0001 Phone: (202) 331-2200 Oct. 12- 13 - Supreme Law Seminars - Freedom Law and Internet Technology: The Full Faith and Credit Clause; Holiday Inn Palo Verde in Tucson, Arizona; focus of the seminar will be the constitutional law of freedom, and available Internet technologies for teaching and learning this law, and making freedom a reality. Richard McDonald of Canoga Park, California will be the featured guest speaker; Advanced tickets are available by sending $100 in cash or blank U.S. Postal Money order to Paul Andrew Mitchell, Supreme Law Seminars, c/o 2509 North Campbell, Apartment 1776, Tucson, Arizona. For more info, Email to: Paul Andrew Mitchell <pmitch@primenet.com> Oct. 16- 19 - Web Net-96: World Conference of The Web Society, organized by the Association of Computing in Education; San Francisco, CA. Contact: +1 804 973 3987 Email: AACE@virginia.edu URL: http://aace.virginia.edu/ace Fax: +1 804 978 7449 Oct. 19- 20 - Computer Professionals for Social Reponsibility (CPSR) - Two-day conference at Georgetwon University (Washington, D.C., USA) will investigate the role of computers in political activism, election processes, and rights of access to information. Invited keynote speaker is Ralph Nader. More info contact CPSR: tel: 415-322-3778, 703-739-9320 email: cpsrannmtg@cpsr.org Internet: http://www.cpsr.org/home.html Oct. 19- 24 - ASIS 1996 Annual Meeting - Global Complexity: Information, Chaos and Control; meeting will consider the complexity of the working world of information professionals as well as theoretical perspectives involving the nature and use of information; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; more information, registration... see http://www.asis.org under Conferences Oct. 23 + International Bar Association's Media Law Seminar - Berlin; Seminar discussion of Internet freedom of expression issues; part of IBA annual conference drawing 4,000+ lawyers from all acround the globe. Oct. 29- 30 ! "The First 100 Feet: Options for Internet and Broadband - Access," sponsored by the Freedom Forum, the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, the National Economic Council, and the U.S. Dept. of Energy; The Freedom Forum Building, Arlington, Va.; submission deadline: June 20 Contact: Tim Leshan, Coordinator, Information Infrastructure Project, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 79 JFK St., Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: +1 617 496 1389 Fax: +1 617 495 5776 Email: leshan@ksgrsch.harvard.edu URL: http://ksgwww.harvard.edu/iip/first.html Nov. 6- 8 + ETHICOMP96: Ethical Issues of Information Technology; Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca - Madrid, Spain; seeks to provide practical guidance on socially and ethically sensitive applications of IT -- the social benefits and drawbacks of using IT; will include the presentation of case studies which raise or illustrate significant ethical problems of IT usage (1) in the workplace, (2) in education, (3) at home and (4) in leisure. Nov. 6-8, 1996 For further general information contact: Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility School of Computing Sciences De Montfort University The Gateway Leicester LE1 9BH UK Telephone: +44 116 257 7475 Fax +44 116 254 1891 E-mail: ccsr@dmu.ac.uk Nov. 13- 15 - Fourth Biennial Participatory Design Conference, sponsored by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; Cambridge, MA. Submission deadline: May 3. Email: pdc96@ncat.edu URL: http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/conferences/pdc96/pdc96.html Nov. 15- 22 + Communication and the Empowerment of Civil Society in Africa, 10th Biennial Conference; Cape Town, South Africa. Contact: Tel. 25~2-216135 /227043 Fax:25~2-216135/750329/229168 Email: acceb@arcc.permanet.org URL: http://www.ru.ac.za/departments/journ/civil.html Dec. 1 - Computer Security Day (started by Washington DC chapter of the Assoc. for Computing Machinery, to "draw attention to computer security during the holdiay season when it might otherwise become lax." Dec. 5- 8 + Tel*Ed/Multimedia '96, "a conference where communication technology is used to create learning experiences for the participants...where participants show, not tell, how telecommunication can bridge distances"; Tampa, FL and Monterrey, Mexico. Email: mriel@iearn.org URL: http://isteonline.uoregon.edu ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Day ------------------------- "Indeed, the Government's asserted 'failure' of the Internet rests on the implicit premise that too much speech occurs in that medium, and that speech there is too available to the participants. This is exactly the benefit of Internet communication, however. The Government, therefore, implicitly asks this court to limit both the amount of speech on the Internet and the availability of that speech. This argument is profoundly repugnant to First Amendment principles." - Judge Stewart Dalzell, ACLU v. Reno, 1996. Find yourself wondering if your privacy and freedom of speech are safe when bills to censor the Internet are swimming about in a sea of of surveillance legislation and anti-terrorism hysteria? Worried that in the rush to make us secure from ourselves that our government representatives may deprive us of our essential civil liberties? Concerned that legislative efforts nominally to "protect children" will actually censor all communications down to only content suitable for the playground? Alarmed by commercial and religious organizations abusing the judicial and legislative processes to stifle satire, dissent and criticism? Join EFF! http://www.eff.org/EFFdocs/join_eff.html (or send any message to info@eff.org). Even if you don't live in the U.S., the anti-Internet hysteria will soon be visiting a legislative body near you. If it hasn't already. ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * New Crypto-Privacy Legislation Urge your Represenatitives to support the Pro-CODE crypto export bill (and to fix the few remaining bugs in it). For years US export controls on encryption have hampered the development of secure communications online. This technology is vital for online commerce, for national security, and for YOUR electronic privacy. The new Pro-CODE legislation will go a long way to rectifying the situation. Join Crypto Action Week - see lead article in this issue for more info. Join in the Golden Key Campaign - see http://www.eff.org/goldkey.html PARTICIPATE IN GOLDEN KEY ACTIVISM EFFORTS: http://www.eff.org/goldkey/activism.html Support the EFF Cyberspace Legal Defense Fund: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce See also: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ http://www.privacy.org/ipc/ http://www.crypto.com/ for more info. * Digital Telephony/Comms. Assistance to Law Enforcement Act The FBI has been seeking both funding for the DT/CALEA wiretapping provisions, and preparing to require that staggering numbers of citizens be simultaneously wiretappable. To oppose the funding, write to your own Senators and Representatives urging them to vote against any appropriations for wiretapping. In the wake of the Olympics bomb, the US government, both legislative and executive branches, are hot to pass new wiretapping laws, and fund the DT/CALEA wiretapping provisions. SPEAK OUT NOW. There is not a moment to lose! See lead article in this issue for more information. See http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI/ for background info. * Anti-Terrorism Bills Several bills threatening your privacy and free speech have been introduced recently. Urge your Congresspersons to oppose these unconstitutional and Big-Brotherish bills, which threaten freedom of association, free press, free speech, and privacy. One such bill passed some time ago, stripped of some of the more onerous provisions. It could have been worse, and could yet still be worse: A new anti-terrorism bill posing many threats to YOUR privacy may arise this month. SPEAK OUT NOW. There is not a moment to lose! Keep up the pressure. Write to your legislators: No secret trials and deportations, no expansion of wiretapping scope or authority, no national or "smart-card" ID systems! For more information on some of this legislation, see http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Terrorism_militias/ * The Communications Decency Act & Other Censorship Legislation The Communications Decency Act and similar legislation pose serious threats to freedom of expression online, and to the livelihoods of system operators. The legislation also undermines several crucial privacy protections. Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt. affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own Representatives and Senators, letting them know that such abuses of public trust will not be tolerated, that legislators who vote against your free speech rights will be voted against by you in the next elections. Join in the Blue Ribbon Campaign - see http://www.eff.org/blueribbon.html PARTICIPATE IN BLUE RIBBON ACTIVISM EFFORTS: http://www.eff.org/blueribbon/activism.html Support the EFF Cyberspace Legal Defense Fund: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/cyberlegal_fund_eff.announce For more information on what you can do to help stop this and other dangerous legislation, see: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ If you do not have full internet access (e.g. WWW), send your request for information to ask@eff.org. IMPORTANT! KEEP AN EYE ON YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATURE. All kinds of wacky censorious legislation is turning up at the US state and non-US national levels. Don't let it sneak by you - or by the online activism community. Without locals on the look out, it's very difficult for the Net civil liberties community to keep track of what's happening locally as well as globally. * The Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act This bill is unlikely to pass in any form, being very poorly drafted, and without much support. However, the CDA is just as bad and passed with flying colors [the jolly roger?] in Congress. It's better to be safe than sorry. If you have a few moments to spare, writing to, faxing, or calling your Congresspersons to urge opposition to this bill is a good idea. * Medical Privacy Legislation Several bills relating to medical privacy issues are floating in Congress right now. Urge your legislators to support only proposals that *truly* enhance the medical privacy of citizens. More information on this legislation will be available at http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Medical/ soon. Bug mech@eff.org to make it appear there faster. :) * Child Privacy Legislation A new bill to protect children from unethical marketing practices (e.g. tricking kids into revealing personal information by offering prizes or games) has been introduced. EFF and other civil liberties organizations like, and dislike, various points in this bill. The legislators sponsoring the bill appear interested in resolving the problems in the statutory language they have proposed. More information on this will be provided soon. * Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues. EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well as lists of Congressional committees. These lists are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively. Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such information provided to us, so pass it on! If you are having difficulty determining who your US legislators are, try contacting your local League of Women Voters, who maintain a great deal of legislator information, or consult the free ZIPPER service that matches Zip Codes to Congressional districts with about 85% accuracy at: http://www.stardot.com/~lukeseem/zip.html Computer Currents Interactive has provided Congress contact info, sorted by who voted for and against the Communcations Decency Act: http://www.currents.net/congress.html * Join EFF! You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard in government are important. You have probably participated in our online campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join EFF today! For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form. ------------------------------ Administrivia ============= EFFector Online is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1550 Bryant St., Suite 725 San Francisco CA 94103 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) Membership & donations: membership@eff.org Legal services: ssteele@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Activist, Webmaster (mech@eff.org) This newsletter is printed on 100% recycled electrons. Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ- ually at will. 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