| ==Phrack Magazine== | |
| Volume Four, Issue Forty-Four, File 6 of 27 | |
| Conference News | |
| Part I | |
| **************************************************************************** | |
| [Official Announcement / Call For Participation] | |
| (Distribute Freely) | |
| dFx, Phrack Magazine and cDc - Cult Of The Dead Cow proudly present : | |
| The Fourth Annual | |
| H O H O C O N | |
| "Cliff Stoll My K0DEZ!@$#!" | |
| Who: All Hackers, Journalists, Security Personnel, Federal Agents, | |
| Lawyers, Authors, Cypherpunks, Virtual Realists, Modem Geeks, | |
| Telco Employees, and Other Interested Parties. | |
| Where: Austin North Hilton & Towers and Super 8 Motel | |
| 6000 Middle Fiskville Road | |
| Austin, Texas 78752 | |
| U.S.A. | |
| Hilton : (800) 347-0330 / (512) 451-5757 | |
| Super 8: (800) 800-8000 / (512) 467-8163 | |
| When: Friday December 17 through Sunday December 19, 1993 | |
| What is HoHoCon? | |
| ---------------- | |
| HoHoCon is the largest annual gathering of those in, related to, or | |
| wishing to know more about the computer underground. Attendees generally | |
| include some of the most notable members of the "hacking" and "telecom" | |
| community, journalists, authors, security professionals, lawyers, and a | |
| host of others. Previous speakers include John Draper (Cap'n Crunch), Ray | |
| Kaplan, Chris Goggans (Erik Bloodaxe), Bruce Sterling, and many more. The | |
| conference is also one of the very few that is completely open to the | |
| public and we encourage anyone who is interested to attend. | |
| Hotel Information | |
| ----------------- | |
| The Austin North Hilton recently split its complex into two separate | |
| hotels; the Hilton and the newly added Super 8. HoHoCon guests have the | |
| choice of staying in either hotel. Group rates are as followed : | |
| Super 8: Single - $46.50, Double - $49.50, Triple - $52.50, Quad - $55.50 | |
| Hilton : Single - $69.00, Double - $79.00, Triple - $89.00, Quad - $99.00 | |
| Once again, the hotel has set aside a block of rooms for the conference | |
| and we recommend making your reservations as early as possible to | |
| guarantee a room within the block, if not to just guarantee a room period. | |
| Rooms for the handicapped are available upon request. To make your | |
| reservations, call the number listed above that corresponds with where | |
| you are and where you want to stay and make sure you tell them you are | |
| with the HoHoCon conference or else you'll end up throwing more money | |
| away. The hotel accepts American Express, Visa, Master Card, Discover, | |
| Diner's Club, and Carte Blanche credit cards. | |
| Check-in is 3:00 p.m. and check-out is 12:00 noon. Earlier check-in is | |
| available if there are unoccupied rooms available. Please note that in | |
| order for the hotel to hold a room past 6:00 p.m. on the date of arrival, | |
| the individual reservation must be secured by a deposit or guaranteed | |
| with one of the credit cards listed above. Also, any cancellations of | |
| guaranteed reservations must be made prior to 6:00 p.m. on the date of | |
| arrival. You will be responsible for full payment of any guaranteed | |
| reservations which are not cancelled by this time. | |
| The hotel provides transportation to and from the airport and will give | |
| you full information when you make your reservations. | |
| Directions | |
| ---------- | |
| For those of you who will be driving to the conference, the following | |
| is a list of directions provided by the hotel (so, if they're wrong, | |
| don't blame me): | |
| Dallas : Take IH 35 south to exit 238-B, the Houston exit. At the first | |
| stop light, turn right on to 2222. Turn off of 2222 onto Clayton | |
| Lane (by the Greyhound Station). At the stop sign, turn right | |
| onto Middle Fiskville, the hotel is on the left. | |
| San Antonio : Take IH 35 north to exit 238-B, the Houston exit. At the | |
| second stop light, turn left onto 2222. Turn off 2222 onto | |
| Clayton Lane (by the Greyhound Station). At the stop sign, | |
| turn right onto Middle Fiskville, the hotel is on the left. | |
| Houston (on 290) : Take 290 west into Austin. Exit off of 290 at the IH35 | |
| exit (do not get on 35). Stay on the access road | |
| heading west, you will pass two stop lights. Turn off | |
| the access road onto Clayton Lane (by the Greyhound | |
| Station). At the stop sign, turn right onto Middle | |
| Fiskville, the hotel is on the left. | |
| Houston (on 71) : Take 71 west into Austin. Exit onto 183 north. Take | |
| 183 north to 290 west. Take 290 west to the IH 35 exit. | |
| Exit off of 290 at the IH 35 exit (do not get on 35). | |
| Stay on the access road heading west, you will pass two | |
| stop lights. Turn off the access road onto Clayton Lane | |
| (by the Greyhound Station). At the stop sign, turn | |
| right onto Middle Fiskville, the hotel in on the left. | |
| Airport : Exit the airport parking lot and turn right onto Manor Road. | |
| Take Manor Road to Airport Boulevard and turn right. Take | |
| Airport Boulevard to IH 35 north. Take IH 35 to exit 238-B. At | |
| the second stop light, turn left onto 2222. Turn off of 2222 | |
| onto Clayton Lane (by the Greyhound Station). At the stop sign, | |
| turn right onto Middle Fiskville, the hotel is on the left. | |
| Call the hotel if these directions aren't complete enough or if you need | |
| additional information. | |
| Conference Details | |
| __________________ | |
| HoHoCon will last 3 days, with the actual conference being held on | |
| Saturday, December 18 starting at 11:00 a.m. and continuing until 5 p.m. | |
| or earlier depending on the number of speakers. Although a few speakers | |
| have confirmed their attendance, we are still in the planning stages and | |
| will wait until the next update to release a speaking schedule. We welcome | |
| any speaker or topic recommendations you might have (except for, say, "Why | |
| I Luv Baked Potatos On A Stik!"), or, if you would like to speak yourself, | |
| please contact us as soon as possible and let us know who you are, who you | |
| represent (if anyone), the topic you wish to speak on, a rough estimate of | |
| how long you will need, and whether or not you will be needing any | |
| audio-visual aids. | |
| We would like to have people bring interesting items and videos again this | |
| year. If you have anything you think people would enjoy having the chance | |
| to see, please let us know ahead of time, and tell us if you will need any | |
| help getting it to the conference. If all else fails, just bring it to the | |
| con and give it to us when you arrive. Any organization or individual that | |
| wants to bring flyers to distribute during the conference may do so. You | |
| may also send your flyers to us ahead of time if you can not make it to | |
| the conference and we will distribute them for you. Left over flyers are | |
| included with information packets and orders that we send out, so if you | |
| want to send extras, go ahead. | |
| Cost | |
| ---- | |
| Unlike smaller, less informative conferences, we do not ask you to shell | |
| out hundreds of dollars just to get in the door, nor do we take your money | |
| and then make you sleep in a tent. We are maintaining the motto of "give | |
| $5 if you can", but due to the incredibly high conference room rate this | |
| year, we may step up to "$5 minimum required donation" or "give us $5 or | |
| we'll smash your head in". Five dollars is an outrageously low price | |
| compared to the suit infested industry conferences or even the new "Cons | |
| are k00l and trendy, I gotta do one too!" conferences that are charging | |
| up to $50 for admission alone. | |
| To encourage people to donate, we will once again be having our wonderless | |
| "Raffle For The Elite" during the conference. We will issue a prize list | |
| in a future update, but we can guarantee that this year there will be a | |
| lot more (and better) prizes than last year, including a full system (and, | |
| no, it's not a c64 or 286). Anyone who wishes to donate worthwhile items | |
| to the raffle, please let us know ahead of time, or if it's a last minute | |
| acquirement, just bring it to the conference. | |
| Miscellaneous Notes | |
| ------------------- | |
| To save myself some time by mailing responses to a lot of the same | |
| questions I expect to get, I'll answer a few of them here. | |
| Although I have not talked to him myself yet, Steve Ryan has told me that | |
| Bruce Sterling will indeed be in attendance and may say a few words. | |
| As far as I know, there will not be any visitors from any other planets | |
| at the conference. Scot Chasin is still on Earth and will be making an | |
| appearance. | |
| Video cameras will *not* be allowed inside the conference room without | |
| prior consent due to previous agreements made with speakers who do not | |
| wish for certain parts of their speech to be rebroadcast. Still cameras | |
| and Etch-A-Sketch's are fine and tape recorders are too easily hidden | |
| for us to be able to control. | |
| Videos and T-Shirts from last year's conference are still available, and | |
| will also be on hand during the conference. We do not handle the LoD World | |
| Tour shirts, but I can tell you that the old ones are gone and a | |
| *new* LoD shirt will be unveiled at the conference. The HoHoCon shirts are | |
| $15 plus $3 shipping ($4.00 for two shirts). At this time, they only come | |
| in extra large. We may add additional sizes if there is a demand for them. | |
| The front of the shirt has the following in a white strip across the | |
| chest: | |
| I LOVE FEDS | |
| (Where LOVE = a red heart, very similar to the I LOVE NY logo) | |
| And this on the back: | |
| dFx & cDc Present | |
| HOHOCON '92 | |
| December 18-20 | |
| Allen Park Inn | |
| Houston, Texas | |
| There is another version of the shirt available with the following: | |
| I LOVE WAREZ | |
| The video includes footage from all three days, is six hours long and | |
| costs $18 plus $3 shipping ($4.00 if purchasing another item also). Please | |
| note that if you are purchasing multiple items, you only need to pay one | |
| shipping charge of $4.00, not a charge for each item. If you wish to send | |
| an order in now, make all checks or money orders payable to O.I.S., | |
| include your phone number and mail it to the street address listed below. | |
| Allow a few weeks for arrival. | |
| There will be new HoHoCon '93 shirts available at the conference and a | |
| video of the festivities will be out early next year. | |
| Correspondence | |
| -------------- | |
| If anyone requires any additional information, needs to ask any questions, | |
| wants to RSVP, wants to order anything, or would like to be added to the | |
| mailing list to receive the HoHoCon updates, you may mail us at: | |
| hohocon@cypher.com | |
| drunkfux@cypher.com | |
| cDc@cypher.com | |
| drunkfux@crimelab.com | |
| dfx@nuchat.sccsi.com | |
| drunkfux@5285 (WWIV Net) | |
| or via sluggo mail at: | |
| HoHoCon | |
| 1310 Tulane, Box 2 | |
| Houston, Texas | |
| 77008-4106 | |
| We also have a VMB which includes all the conference information and is | |
| probably the fastest way to get updated reports. The number is: | |
| 713-867-9544 | |
| You can download any of the conference announcements and related | |
| materials by calling Metalland Southwest at 713-468-5802, which is the | |
| offical HoHoCon BBS. The board is up 24 hours a day and all baud rates | |
| are supported. | |
| Those of you with net access can ftp to cypher.com and find all the | |
| HoHoCon information available in /pub/hohocon. The .gifs from previous | |
| cons are *not* currently online. | |
| Conference information and updates will most likely also be found in most | |
| computer underground related publications and mailing lists, including | |
| CuD, CSP, Mondo 2000, 2600, Phrack, TUC, phn0rd, cypherpunks, etc. They | |
| should also appear in a number of newsgroups including comp.dcom.telecom, | |
| alt.security, comp.org.eff.talk, and sci.crypt. We completely encourage | |
| people to use, reprint, and distribute any information in this file. | |
| Same stupid ending statement from last year to make us look good | |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| HoHoCon '93 will be a priceless learning experience for professionals and | |
| gives journalists a chance to gather information and ideas direct from the | |
| source. It is also one of the very few times when all the members of the | |
| computer underground can come together for a realistic purpose. We urge | |
| people not to miss out on an event of this caliber, which doesn't happen | |
| very often. If you've ever wanted to meet some of the most famous people | |
| from the hacking community, this may be your one and only chance. Don't | |
| wait to read about it in all the magazines and then wish you had been | |
| there, make your plans to attend now! Be a part of what we hope to be our | |
| largest and greatest conference ever. | |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| COMPUTERS, FREEDOM, AND PRIVACY '94 | |
| Conference Announcement | |
| Scholarships, Writing Competition Notice | |
| 23-26 March 1994, Chicago, Il. | |
| The fourth annual conference, "Computers, Freedom, and | |
| Privacy," (CFP'94) will be held in Chicago, Il., March 23-26, 1994. | |
| The conference is hosted by The John Marshall Law School; George B. | |
| Trubow, professor of law and director of the Center for Informatics | |
| Law at John Marshall, is general chair of the conference. The | |
| program is sponsored jointly by these Association for Computing | |
| Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Groups: Communications (SIGCOMM); | |
| Computers and Society (SIGCAS); Security, Audit and Control | |
| (SIGSAC). | |
| The advance of computer and communications technologies holds | |
| great promise for individuals and society. From conveniences for | |
| consumers and efficiencies in commerce to improved public health | |
| and safety and increased participation in government and community, | |
| these technologies are fundamentally transforming our environment | |
| and our lives. | |
| At the same time, these technologies present challenges to the | |
| idea of a free and open society. Personal privacy and corporate | |
| security is at risk from invasions by high-tech surveillance and | |
| monitoring; a myriad of personal information data bases expose | |
| private life to constant scrutiny; new forms of illegal activity | |
| may threaten the traditional barriers between citizen and state and | |
| present new tests of Constitutional protection; geographic | |
| boundaries of state and nation may be recast by information | |
| exchange that knows no boundaries in global data networks. | |
| CFP'94 will assemble experts, advocates and interest groups | |
| from diverse perspectives and disciplines to consider freedom and | |
| privacy in today's "information society. Tutorials will be offered | |
| on March 23, 1994, from 9:00 a.m. - noon and 2:00 - 500 p.m. The | |
| conference program is Thursday, March 24, through Saturday, March | |
| 26, 1994, and will examine the potential benefits and burdens of | |
| new information and communications technologies and consider ways | |
| in which society can enjoy the benefits while minimizing negative | |
| implications. | |
| STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION | |
| Full time college or graduate students may enter the student | |
| paper competition. Papers must not exceed 3000 words and should | |
| address the impact of computer and telecommunications technologies | |
| on freedom and privacy in society. Winners will receive financial | |
| support to attend the conference and present their papers. All | |
| papers should be submitted by December 15, 1993, (either as | |
| straight text via e-mail or 6 printed copies) to: Prof. Eugene | |
| Spafford, Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West | |
| Lafeyette, IN 47907-2004. E-Mail: spaf@cs.purdue.edu; Voice: | |
| 317-494-7825 | |
| CONFERENCE REGISTRATION INFORMATION | |
| Registration fees are as follows: | |
| If paid by: 1/31/94 3/15/94 4/23/94 | |
| Early Regular Late | |
| Tutorial $145 $175 $210 | |
| Conference 315 370 420 | |
| NOTE: ACM members (give membership number) and John Marshall Alumni | |
| (give graduation date) receive a $10 discount from Tutorial and $15 | |
| discount from Conference fees. | |
| CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: Inquiries regarding registration should be | |
| directed to RoseMarie Knight, Registration Chair, at the JMLS | |
| address above; her voice number is 312-987-1420; E-mail, | |
| 6rknight@jmls.edu. | |
| CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Communications regarding the conference | |
| should be sent to: CFP'94, The John Marshall Law School, 315 S. | |
| Plymouth Ct., Chicago, IL 60604-3907 | |
| (Voice: 312-987-1419; Fax: 312-427-8307; E-mail: CFP94@jmls.edu) | |
| ROOM RESERVATIONS: The Palmer House Hilton, located in Chicago's | |
| "loop," and only about a block from The John Marshall Law School, | |
| is the conference headquarters. Room reservations only should be | |
| made directly with the hotel, mentioning "CFP'94" to get the | |
| special conference rate of $99.00, plus tax. (17 E. Monroe., | |
| Chicago, Il., 60603, Tel: 312-726-7500; 1-800-HILTONS; Fax | |
| 312-263-2556) | |
| NOTE: More specific information about conference program | |
| content will be available December 1, 1993. | |
| *********** | |
| George B. Trubow, Professor of Law | |
| Director, Center for Informatics Law | |
| The John Marshall Law School | |
| 315 S. Plymouth Ct. | |
| Chicago, IL 60604-3907 | |
| Fax: 312-427-8307; Voice: 312-987-1445 | |
| E-mail: 7trubow@jmls.edu | |
| ......SCHOLARSHIPS | |
| The Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy (CFP'94) is pleased to | |
| announce that it will once again provide a number of full tuition | |
| scholarships for attendance at the conference. The conference will be held | |
| in Chicago, IL from March 23rd through March 26th, 1995 and will be hosted | |
| by the John Marshall Law School under the chairmanship of George Trubow. | |
| The conference traditionally attracts an extremely diverse group of | |
| persons concerned with issues relating to the rapid development of the | |
| "information society"; civil libertarians, information providers, law | |
| enforcement personnel, privacy advocates, "hackers", sociologists, | |
| educators and students, computer professionals, cryptography advocates, | |
| government policy makers and other interested parties have all played | |
| major roles in the three previous conference. | |
| Speakers at previous conferences have included Electronic Frontier | |
| Foundation (EFF) co-founders John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor, FBI Deputy | |
| Director William A. "Al" Bayse, writer Bruce Sterling, privacy advocate | |
| Simon Davies, Harvard University law professor Lawrence Tribe, hacker | |
| "Phiber Optik", Georgetown University's Dorothy Denning, "Cuckoo's Egg" | |
| author Clifford Stoll, Prodigy counsel George Perry, USA Today founder Al | |
| Neuwith, former FCC Chairman Nicholas Johnson, Computer Professionals for | |
| Social Responsibility (CPSR)'s Marc Rotenberg, Arizona prosecutor Gail | |
| Thackeray, and Bay Area Women in Computing's Judi Clark. | |
| The scholarships are intended to provide access to the conference to those | |
| that would like to attend the conference but are unable to afford the | |
| tuition. They are available to undergraduate and graduate students in any | |
| discipline (previous student attendees have come from computer science, | |
| law, sociology, liberal arts, journalism, and womens' studies | |
| backgrounds), law enforcement personnel, hackers, social scientists, and | |
| others interested in the future of the information society. | |
| Persons interested in a scholarship should send the following information | |
| (e-mail greatly preferred) to: | |
| John F. McMullen | |
| Perry Street | |
| Jefferson Valley, NY 10535 | |
| mcmullen@panix.com | |
| (914) 245-2734 (voice) | |
| (914) 245-8464 (fax) | |
| 1. Personal Information -- Name, Addresses (including e-mail), Phone | |
| Numbers, School and/or Business Affiliation | |
| 2. Short Statement explaining what the applicant helps to get from CFP'94 | |
| and what impact that attendance may have in the applicant's community or | |
| future work. | |
| 3. Stipulation that the applicant understands that he/she is responsible | |
| for transportation and lodging expenses related to the conference. The | |
| scholarship includes tuition and those meals included with the conference. | |
| 4. Stipulation that the applicant would not be able to attend the | |
| conference if a scholarship is not granted. The applicant stipulates | |
| that, if granted a scholarship, he /she will attend the conference. | |
| 6. Stipulation that the applicant, if granted a scholarship, will provide | |
| a contact John McMullen at the above e-mail address or phone numbers with | |
| any questions. | |
| The number of available scholarships will be determined by funding available. | |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | |
| Notes from the Austin Crypto Conference, September 22, 1993 | |
| by Gregory W. Kamen | |
| --- Dinosaur Warning --- | |
| Disclaimer: A lot of people here noted disclaimed what they said as "not | |
| legal advice". In addition, this was prepared from notes which were not | |
| necessarily legible or complete, therefore I disclaim any responsibility | |
| for misquoting or mistranscribing this information. (If you don't like | |
| it, you try typing "cypherpunks" over and over again :P). Please note | |
| that in Q & A sessions, the answers were relevant, though not always | |
| responsive to the questions. In addition, I state that this information | |
| does not represent legal advice from me or solicitation of legal | |
| representation, and does not necessarily represent the position of EFH, | |
| EFF, EFF-Austin, the individual conference participants, or any living | |
| person. | |
| ----------- | |
| The room was set up to seat approximately 180 people. It was essentially | |
| full, and there were a few people standing--not bad for a Wednesday | |
| afternoon. | |
| There was a large (about 14 people) contingent from EFH present. | |
| Steve Jackson opened the meeting with a few introductory remarks, among | |
| which were that a subpoena had been served on Austin Code Works, a | |
| publisher of cryptographic software. | |
| We can expect to hear about the case in news magazines of general | |
| circulation in about two months. | |
| Bruce Sterling delivered the keynote address. | |
| He began by establishing a context by defining cryptography: | |
| -- as secret coding to avoid the scrutiny of a long list of entities, | |
| -- as a way to confine knowledge to those initiated and trusted, | |
| -- as a means to ensure the privacy of digital communication, and | |
| -- as a new form of information economics | |
| Sterling then noted that crypto is "out of the closet" | |
| -- it is heard of on the streets | |
| -- the government acknowledges it by bringing forth its Clipper chip | |
| -- it is in the hands of the people | |
| -- public key crypto is out there and commercially available | |
| -- the typical time to market from first publication of a new idea is | |
| 20 years. Diffie published the first public key crypto algorithm in 1975, | |
| thus the target date for mass crypto would be 1995. Bringing it to market | |
| will require bringing of political pressure, lawsuits, and money. | |
| Next, Sterling moved to the subject of the grand jury proceedings in San | |
| Jose on 9/22. | |
| -- Export law violations have been alleged. Whatever the outcome, | |
| this proceeding is certainly not the end of the subject. | |
| Finally, before closing by noting that EFF-Austin is not EFF, Sterling | |
| shared a brief background of the panelists: | |
| -- they are people who can tell us about the future | |
| -- they are directors of national EFF and can share information | |
| Panelists on First Panel | |
| -- Mitch Kapor - co-founder of EFF, software designer, entrepreneur, | |
| journalist, philanthropist, activist. He spoke out on obscure issues in | |
| the beginning and made them seem less obscure. He has done good deeds for | |
| the public. | |
| -- Jerry Berman - President of EFF, activist background, published | |
| widely on security and privacy issues, formerly active with ACLU, and is | |
| on Clinton administration's National Information Infrastructure team. | |
| Panelists on Second Panel | |
| -- Esther Dyson - journalist, has widely read project "Release 1.0", | |
| is a guru in Europe. | |
| -- Mike Godwin - lawyer for EFF, veteran public speaker, attended UT- | |
| Austin, on the board of EFF-Austin as well as EFF. | |
| Panelists on Third Panel | |
| -- Eric Hughes - not EFF member, started cypherpunks mailing list, | |
| from California | |
| -- John Gilmore - 20 year programmer, pioneer at Sun, civil | |
| libertarian | |
| -- John Perry Barlow - co-founder of EFF, media junkie, and author. | |
| PANEL #1: POLICY | |
| Kapor - Opening remarks: Framing the issue | |
| a. Series of conferences in Washington, briefed EFF on how laws are | |
| made, at a technical level of the process. Berman was instrumental in | |
| passing the ECPA, which was later used successfully in Steve Jackson Games | |
| case. | |
| b. ECPA is a good thing: it says Email should be as private as postal | |
| mail. However, it doesn't go far enough because it is easy to listen in | |
| on cell phones. | |
| c. Kapor felt need technology to protect privacy. Laws alone are not | |
| enough. Berman stated view (at that time. He has since changed his mind) | |
| widely held within the Beltway that laws were sufficient. | |
| d. Survey: 20 percent of those present use PGP. 80 percent have | |
| heard of PGP. | |
| Berman - | |
| a. Following on Kapor's point that ECPA was soft, Berman says the | |
| politicians will remain clueless until we educate them. If it is | |
| knowledge that can alter the political process, it must be done. | |
| b. EFF established a Washington presence because policy is being made | |
| to design and govern the electronic frontier by the big commercial | |
| players. The public and the consumer are not represented. | |
| c. We're working on a goal that the national information | |
| infrastructure serve the public interest. For example, if the big players | |
| are allowed to dominate the process, they will control access and the NII | |
| will look like 500 cable channels rather than a point-to-point switched | |
| network like Internet. | |
| d. There's a big battle coming: computers and communication are in | |
| abundance such that everyone can be a publisher. This raises at the very | |
| least a First Amendment issue. | |
| e. The Clipper Chip | |
| -- has great potential for the net; however, government agencies are | |
| not sure of control | |
| -- privacy and security are essential for development of the national | |
| information infrastructure. This is a threat to the law enforcement | |
| community. | |
| -- the response of the law enforcement community has been to attempt | |
| to throttle the technology. | |
| -- in order to capture the future, they want to develop the | |
| technology themselves. | |
| -- EFF's role has been to say that we shouldn't go ahead with the | |
| Clipper chip proposal. | |
| -- the ultimate big question: What to do when all communications are | |
| encrypted. | |
| -- Clinton led off with a study of cryptography policy and introduced | |
| the Clipper chip at the same time, which demonstrates that the policy was | |
| already determined in the opinions of many. It was introduced not as | |
| something being studied, but as a fait accompli. | |
| -- Clipper proposal is bad because it is based on a secret algorithm | |
| which has not been subjected to adequate scrutiny, it is counterintuitive | |
| to interoperability because stronger crypto is being developed outside the | |
| United States, and it includes a key escrow provision that includes only | |
| "insiders" who developed the technology. | |
| -- We don't prescreen the content of communications. The law | |
| enforcement community needs a warrant. That is fundamental to the First, | |
| Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. | |
| f. We oppose the Clipper/Skipjack chip | |
| -- there's no evidence showing that law enforcement will be unduly | |
| hampered in its efforts to stop crime if crypto is available. | |
| -- the positive and negative implications of widespread crypto have | |
| not been considered. | |
| -- law enforcement may have a problem, but if they have a warrant | |
| they should be able to get access. | |
| -- as long as Clipper is not mandated, people can use other types of | |
| crypto. | |
| g. Conclusions | |
| -- if Clipper is voluntary, it doesn't work, because people who want | |
| to encrypt safely will use other products. | |
| -- if Clipper is mandated, there are serious constitutional issues. | |
| -- Even if the Clipper chip proposal fails, we still lose under the | |
| current scheme, because the export control laws guarantee that we will not | |
| have crypto interoperable with the rest of the world. | |
| h. EFF chairs a large coalition including representatives of | |
| Microsoft, IBM, and ACLU to work against this. | |
| i. Congress only needs one bad case, like a terrorist attack, to go | |
| the other way. | |
| Q & A - | |
| Q. Is the key in the hardware or software with Clipper? | |
| A. It's in the hardware, therefore the instrument is permanently | |
| compromised once the keys are released from escrow. The law enforcement | |
| arguments are really fronts for NSA and their religious commitment to | |
| prevent the spread of crypto. It's NSA's mission to make sure it "busts" | |
| every communication in the world, therefore why would they propose any | |
| encryption without a "back door" through which they could decipher all | |
| transmissions. | |
| Q. What is the current state of the law between NIST and NSA? | |
| A. NSA was selling "secure" phones. They wanted a new classification of | |
| information. Responsibility for classified systems rests with NSA. NIST | |
| is brought in to handle domestic crypto. In terms of budget and | |
| experience, however, NSA is dominant, and NIST relies on them. | |
| Q. How does GATT relate to the Clipper proposal | |
| A. It's not dealt with in GATT. There's no agreement on an international | |
| standard. | |
| Q. What's going on with PGP? | |
| A. Pretty Good Privacy is the people's crypto. It was independently | |
| developed, and has been widely distributed for our information and | |
| security. There are two current controversies regarding PGP. First is | |
| whether it is subject to export controls, and second is its intellectual | |
| property status. | |
| Q. What facts do we have regarding the history of Clipper? | |
| A. The project began during the Bush administration after AT&T introduced | |
| phones implementing DES, the Data Encryption Standard. Clinton looked at | |
| it early in his administration. NSA pushed the program, and the staff | |
| wanted to "do something". A worst-case scenario about the introduction of | |
| Clipper is that it was leaked to the press, and the story about a study | |
| was cooked up to cover the leak. People might be surprised about how | |
| little expertise and thought about issues goes on. Policy makers operate | |
| under severe time constraints, handling the crisis of the moment. Most of | |
| them are reasonable people trying to do the best thing under the | |
| circumstances. If we push certain ideas long enough and hard enough we | |
| can affect the outcome. | |
| Q. Following the _AMD v. Intel_ case, there's nothing stating you cannot | |
| clone the Clipper chips to circumvent the law enforcement field, correct? | |
| A. It's difficult to say. The chips have not yet been delivered. There | |
| have been technical problems with the chip. At NIST hearing a couple | |
| weeks ago, Dorothy Denning revealed that she had reviewed the Skipjack | |
| algorithm alone because the other four cryptographers selected to review | |
| the algorithm were on vacation. There's a certain degree of cynicism | |
| because the government has said it will twist people's arms using its | |
| purchasing power and the threat of prosecution to establish Skipjack as a | |
| de facto standard. EFF is trying to get AT&T and Motorola to do | |
| something. Maybe the chip cannot easily be cloned. John Gilmore wants to | |
| see how easy it is to reverse engineer. | |
| Q. What are specific steps that can be taken? | |
| A. Send Email to the White House, and cc to EFF. Also, focus on the | |
| debate concerning ownership and leasing of the national information | |
| infrastructure. Southwestern Bell wants authority to own and lease the | |
| net and isn't quite sure whether government should be involved. This is | |
| the other longest-running EFF policy concern: the owner of the electronic | |
| highways shouldn't be able to control content. Bandwidth should be | |
| provided based on the principles of common carriage and universal access. | |
| Construction of the NII should be done by the private sector because | |
| government doesn't have the resources available. We can't allow ourselves | |
| to be limited to upstream bandwidth. The net should retain those of its | |
| characteristics equivalent to BBS's. | |
| Q. If NIST is to be an escrow agent, why are they not secure? | |
| A. This is a source of moral outrage, but moral outrage only goes so far. | |
| We need to swallow our distaste for dealing with the government to | |
| compromise. It is worthwhile to get involved in the decision-making | |
| _process_. | |
| Q. What is the position of the ACLU and Republican think tanks on Clipper? | |
| A. A lot of organizations have bumped into NII. ACLU is fighting the | |
| Clipper chip. For other organizations, it's not a top priority item. | |
| Q. With regard to DES: Export restrictions apply to scramblers, but they | |
| are exported anyway. Why this policy of selective enforcement? | |
| A. Don't look for consistency. SPA has recognized that there are 231 DES- | |
| equivalent products. The genie is out of the bottle. DES source is | |
| widely available, but more so inside the US than outside. | |
| Q. If the government has their way, what good products are out there for | |
| us? | |
| A. The government can only have its way by mandating use of Skipjack. If | |
| it holds up, legally and politically, there _is_ no alternative. The | |
| government is saying that it is considering banning the use of crypto | |
| other than Skipjack, but has not yet adopted such a policy. | |
| Q. If crypto is a munition, is it protected under the Second Amendment? | |
| A. The Second Amendment probably doesn't affect the export question. | |
| Q. Are there any legal weaknesses in the public key cryptography patents? | |
| A. EFF has its hands full with other issues and hasn't really formulated | |
| an answer to this, but believes there's a fatal weakness as to all | |
| software patents. However, it would be prohibitively expensive to make | |
| such a case at this time. | |
| Q. Do we need different copyright laws because of encryption? | |
| A. Recognize that without changes in the copyright law, it will be | |
| difficult to get a true net economy going. Producers want a way to make | |
| money from the net. Consumers want the equivalent of home taping. It's | |
| tough to cover all the bases. | |
| Q. How do law enforcement issues in civil cases relate? | |
| A. This is an interesting point because the line between a commercial | |
| dispute and a criminal act are fuzzy. There are dangers in obtaining a | |
| wiretap. The law enforcement community shouldn't have a case to tap a | |
| line in the event of a two-party dispute. There is a danger of misuse for | |
| traffic analysis of calls. | |
| Q. ECPA could have been used to regulate access to the airwaves. Has it | |
| been tested against the First Amendment? | |
| A. This demonstrates that technological security measures, rather than | |
| merely laws, are needed. People have listened to cell phone calls with | |
| scanners, and they made scanners illegal to manufacture, but cell phones | |
| can be modified to act as scanners. Experimentation of privacy with | |
| encryption shifts the balance. RSA is available outside the US. RICO is | |
| being overused. | |
| PANEL #2: INDUSTRIAL AND LEGAL ISSUES | |
| Dyson - Beyond commercial people being citizens, there are three big | |
| issues: | |
| 1. Protection of trade secrets | |
| 2. Intellectual property protection for net businesses and database | |
| information | |
| 3. Exporting encryption devices: US businesses like to do business | |
| overseas. It is cost ineffective to develop a US-only standard. There is | |
| better encryption available in Russia and Bulgaria on BBS's. | |
| Godwin - Talking about law enforcement arguments government makes. There | |
| are general issues regarding computers, communication, and privacy greater | |
| than just Clipper. | |
| -- Godwin is the first person people talk to when they call EFF in | |
| trouble. In addition to giving a lot of general information regarding | |
| liability, he monitors the intake of cases for EFF. He talks at | |
| conventions about criminal and constitutional issues. | |
| -- This effort has produced at least one change already: law | |
| enforcement personnel are no longer completely incompetent and clueless | |
| about computers. | |
| -- the most interesting are issues dealing with hackers and crypto. | |
| FBI's involvement with digital telephony: they wanted to make it more | |
| wiretap friendly. They discovered it is worthless without a restriction | |
| on encryption, and Clipper was introduced a short time later. | |
| Legal History | |
| The right to communications privacy is a fairly new thing. The | |
| Supreme Court faced it in the 1928 _Olmstead_ case, and held that | |
| there was no Fourth Amendment interest to be protected at all because | |
| there was no physical intrusion on the property. The doctrine has bee | |
| reveisited a number of times since then. | |
| -- a suction cup mike next door to the defendant's apartment produced | |
| the same holding. | |
| -- In a later case of a "spike mike" penetrating the heating duct of | |
| the defendant's apartment, the Court held that the Fourth Amendment | |
| applied but did not extend general Fourth Amendment protection. | |
| Finally in the _Katz_ case in the late 60's the Court formulated its | |
| present doctrine in holding that the defendant has a reasonable | |
| expectation of privacy in a phone booth. The Court said that the Fourth | |
| Amendment protects people, not places. Justice Brandeis, in dissent, | |
| cited Olmstead, but also noted that "The right most prized by civilized | |
| men is the right to be let alone." | |
| Arguments regularly advanced by law enforcement types in favor of Clipper: | |
| 1. Wiretapping has been essential in making many cases. | |
| -- this argument seems reasonable. | |
| 2. Even if they can't point to a case now, they are taking a proactive | |
| approach, trying to anticipate problems rather than reacting. | |
| -- Dorothy Denning was involved early on in framing the issues. Now | |
| she's in favor of the government line. Point is that an attitude of "us | |
| vs. them" is counterproductive. | |
| 3) There are nuclear terrorists out there | |
| -- this argument is the result of false reasoning. Like Pascal's | |
| wager, the price of guessing wrong is so high that the rational person | |
| chooses to be a believer, even where the probability is very low. | |
| -- the problem with it is that you can't live that way. There's not | |
| necessarily one single right answer. Also there is a substantial | |
| opportunity cost. Whenever you empower individual rights, there's a | |
| tradeoff against government efficiency. As an example, take the case of | |
| compelled confession. It would be very efficient for the government to be | |
| able to compel a confession, but the cost in individual rights is too | |
| high. There is no constitutional precedent on which to base the outlawing | |
| of encryption. The way it ought to be, the law enforcement types should | |
| have the right to try to intercept communications under certain | |
| circumstances, but they should have no guarantee of success. | |
| 4) Wiretapping has created an entitlement to have access to the | |
| communications: this argument is blatantly ridiculous. | |
| Q & A | |
| Q. Before the A-bomb was built, proponents said that it would cost $1 | |
| million to build. The eventual cost was $1 billion. Congress asked what | |
| was the probability that it could work, and was told 1 in 10. Thus the | |
| nuclear terrorist argument works, right? | |
| A. Terrorists won't use Clipper | |
| Q. NSA has had scramblers working. Why does it hurt for us to have the | |
| devices? | |
| A. We're not opening Pandora's Box. Encryption is already out there. | |
| They think the majority of communications are not encrypted now. | |
| Encryption will create a bottleneck, which will change the way law | |
| enforcement does its job. | |
| Q. What about the Davis case in Oklahoma? If convicted is there any chance | |
| for parole? | |
| A. Davis was a BBS owner prosecuted because he allegedly had obscene | |
| material on his board. I don't know about Oklahoma parole law. | |
| Q. What is the current legal status of PGP? | |
| A. That will be answered later. | |
| Q. If "only outlaws will have crypto", how effectively can the clamp down? | |
| A. It will probably be very easy for them to chill nonstandard crypto if | |
| -- they investigate for another crime and find it, or | |
| -- it may itself be probable cause for a search. | |
| Q. Doesn't a lot of this boil down to "you wouldn't be encrypting if you | |
| had nothing to hide"? | |
| A. There's not any probable cause for law enforcement taking that | |
| position. Business likes crypto. In a scenario where only certain types | |
| of crypto are allowed, there could presumably arise a presumption from | |
| nonstandard crypto. The more people who encrypt, the more will say it is | |
| all right. | |
| Q. Do you get the sense that there is a political will to protect privacy | |
| in this country? | |
| A. It is not clear that is the case. There is a real education hurdle to | |
| teach the importance of technology. | |
| Q. The law enforcement aspect is not important to NSA, right? | |
| A. The Russians and the Japanese have done more theoretical work. Read | |
| "The Puzzle Palace" | |
| Q. Virtual communities and net businesses need crypto on all systems to | |
| validate digital signatures. | |
| A. It is not required universally. It will become cheaper as digital | |
| signatures take off. The Clipper proposal does not address digital | |
| signatures. NIST is also talking to IRS about helping implement Clipper | |
| by extending the ability to file tax returns electronically to those using | |
| Clipper. | |
| Q. What restrictions are there right now on the IMPORT of crypto? | |
| A. None right now. | |
| Q. Is law enforcement misuse of commercial information anticipated? | |
| A. It is a wash. There are laws available to protect against such things, | |
| like the Electronic Funds Transfer laws, and also that the wiretap law | |
| requires eventual notification of the tap. That's why they have called | |
| for two escrow agents. The weakness is that people can be compromised. | |
| The answer to law enforcement is that you could have more than two escrow | |
| agents to make the bribe prohibitively expensive. Also the problem of | |
| human weakness is not unique to the Clipper chip or key escrow systems. | |
| Q. There's no mapping between the chip and the phone, correct? | |
| A. The only link is the word of the officer seeking a warrant. There is | |
| no provision right now for a database containing identities of all chips. | |
| Q. Can the President or Congress outlaw encryption by Executive Order? | |
| A. The president cannot by Executive Order. It's not clear whether | |
| Congress could constitutionally. | |
| Q. What about steganography? | |
| A. Steganography is defined as a message appearing to be unencrypted but | |
| containing a code. There's a constant competition between the law | |
| enforcement community and the criminal element to stay ahead on the | |
| technology. | |
| Q. Are one time pads illegal, or covered by export regulations? | |
| A. No. Few policymakers have ever heard of them. | |
| Q. What's a vision of what we would like to see? | |
| A. Try to give people a technological means to protect their own privacy. | |
| Freedom to exchange information. Communities conforming to a standard | |
| without oversight, so that we can export. | |
| Godwin - more mystical approach. In person, you can be sure of someone's | |
| identity. This creates intimacy. Technology has the potential to free | |
| intimacy from the accident of geography. With crypto, you know the | |
| identity of the other person, and that you're not being overheard. | |
| Q. Who are the law enforcement people you've been dealing with? Do they | |
| represent the highest levels of their organizations? | |
| A. (Godwin) I don't claim to know what NSA thinks. I have talked to FBI, | |
| state and local law enforcement authorities, and they all say the same | |
| things. | |
| PANEL #3: CYPHERPUNKS | |
| Barlow - Doesn't have the I/O bandwidth to be a cypherpunk. Doesn't know | |
| how they do it. The net is the biggest technological development since | |
| fire. There's a very difficult choice to be made, and it may already be | |
| made: Either anything is visible to anyone who is curious, or nothing is | |
| visible. Barlow comes from a small town. He's not bothered by privacy | |
| invasions at that level. But there's a difference between locals and the | |
| possessors of a database. | |
| The problem of giving up privacy (which without encryption will | |
| happen), is that it allows "them" to protect us from ourselves. Also, no | |
| matter how benevolent the current government may be, there will always be | |
| a corrupt one down the road. Hidden crypto economies could break most | |
| governments. It's not necessarily good to have no government either. | |
| What drives the cypherpunks is a law of nature: Anarchy is breaking | |
| out, and Barlow is one. However, the libertarian impulse begs a few | |
| questions about crypto: What are we trying to hide, from whom, and why? | |
| There are a lot of victimless crimes out there for which no one wants | |
| to take responsibility. | |
| Barlow wants crypto to create trust in identity. The real cypherpunk | |
| question is: The war is over, and we have won. How do we make the | |
| transition of power graceful? Human nature is to acquire some power | |
| structure of some kind. It is critical to acquaint friends and those who | |
| could care less with crypto. | |
| Gilmore - There are too many laws, and they make the wrong things illegal; | |
| We need to explain. In the existing system, the natural outgrowth has | |
| been for cypherpunks to be labeled as "them". Gilmore's vision is | |
| unprecedented mobility by creating privacy and authenticity at a distance. | |
| Thus you don't have to live near work, or play near home. By focusing on | |
| conspirators, the law enforcement community loses the focus on business | |
| use. The formal topic of the panel is cypherpunks. | |
| -- Crypto is not all that hard. Denning's book shows how to | |
| implement DES and RSA. | |
| -- Cypherpunks push the limits - taking cryptography from theory into | |
| the realm of the practical. | |
| -- Trying to put crypto in the hands of the people, so that the | |
| government cannot take it back. That's why PGP is freely distributed. | |
| -- Also working on anonymity and digital money schemes. | |
| The areas the cypherpunk group has worked on are: | |
| 1) Anonymity - anonymous Email. What is the impact on how we | |
| communicate? Most of the debate has been relatively uninformed. The | |
| Supreme Court thinks there is a right of anonymity. A Los Angeles law | |
| requiring that demonstrators who handed out flyers put their name and | |
| address on the flyers was overturned on the grounds that it chilled free | |
| speech. In other media, telephones are anonymous. There has been a big | |
| ruckus with Caller ID. The postal service does not enforce return address | |
| requirements. Telegrams and radio are similarly anonymous. | |
| 2) Privacy - Have been implementing key exchange systems for PGP, | |
| experimenting with encrypted audio. Digital cash systems - so many | |
| businesses would pop up on the net if it was possible to spend electronic | |
| money. There are people working on the legal aspects of it now. | |
| 3) Outreach - a mailing list, contributing articles to Village Voice, | |
| Wired, Whole Earth News. | |
| 4) Government interaction - Sent a list of questions regarding | |
| Clipper to NIST. Made several requests under the Freedom of Information | |
| Act. Someone searched the dumpsters at Mykotronx. In a recent FOIA | |
| request to an Assistant Secretary of Defense, we learned that the law | |
| enforcement and intelligence communities advocate making Clipper | |
| mandatory. There's a FOIA request in now on Clipper. FBI returned a | |
| clipping file, but says it will take 3 1/2 years to process and release | |
| all the documents requested. | |
| 5) Future projects - Building encrypted phones using PGP. Real | |
| digital banking. Automating anonymity and making an easier to use | |
| interface for anonymized mail. Tightening security from machine to | |
| machine protocols - Right now they transmit cleartext. At Gilmore's home | |
| machine at Cygnus recently, a hacker monitored a session remotely, then | |
| installed a daemon to monitor the first 200 bytes of ethernet traffic from | |
| each connection. The daemon was removed, and the problem fixed using | |
| kerberos. | |
| Hughes - Cypherpunks was created by Hughes and Tim May. It's surprising | |
| how much media attention we have gotten. They knew what they were doing | |
| was significant, but not that so many people thought so. They are now | |
| shooting a pilot for a TV show based on cypherpunks, and Hughes has held | |
| himself out as a media expert. Here are a few obvious things that | |
| nonetheless need to be stated: | |
| 1) In order to have a private key, you need to have your own CPU. To | |
| put your key online where someone else has physical access is dumb. | |
| Therefore, one of the consequences is that digital privacy is only for the | |
| rich. | |
| 2) Cypherpunks is not a "hacker privacy league", but rather seeks to | |
| ensure privacy for all. Crypto must be easy to use. It is just now | |
| feasible to have an anonymous remailer. The user interface _must_ be | |
| easy. The layperson's concept of security is that if the computer is not | |
| networked, it is secure. They don't see how much of a disadvantage it is | |
| not to be networked. Gibson calls non-networked computers "dead silicon". | |
| Therefore, encryption needs to be transparent to the user. The | |
| cypherpunks mailing list reached critical mass about 2 months ago with | |
| enough people understanding the concepts to move forward. We're at a | |
| crossroads historically now. | |
| 3) If you're the only one using crypto, it must be you who sent the | |
| cryptographic message. Anonymity is a social construct, and it doesn't | |
| work unless many people do it. The government is good at suppressing | |
| small things, but bad at suppressing big things. Therefore the best | |
| course of action is to spread the word. In the end, most of us will be | |
| private or most will not. If encryption is available to you, use it. | |
| In response to Dyson on the question of copyright: Copyright is dead, or | |
| at least moribund. It will not exist as we know it in 100 years. It is | |
| a means of using the government's power to suppress expression. You still | |
| will be able to sell the timeliness of information, indexing, delivery, | |
| etc. | |
| Gilmore - If we decide to be private, the only limit to secrecy is | |
| individual conscience. | |
| Comments from the audience: | |
| -- As it becomes less possible to hold on to information, marketing | |
| shifts toward a relationship rather than a product. | |
| -- If we want to make encryption easy, put out a mailer which | |
| supports it. (Response: We're working on it) | |
| Q & A | |
| Q. Can public keys be made available through the Domain Name Servers? | |
| A. PGP developers are working on it. Internet is an information motel. | |
| Data checks in, but it doesn't check out. | |
| Q. Is it possible to keep secrets at all? | |
| A. The larger an organization is, the tougher it is to keep a secret. | |
| Secrecy and digital signatures are not exactly related. One thing we may | |
| see if pointers to specific documents which contain self-verifying | |
| information. These will change the balance of power. | |
| Q. Can we sell strong crypto to Clinton as part of his national ID card | |
| for health care program? | |
| A. There's a problem in dealing with the administration right now, because | |
| they are currently defending a position and it will be tough to change. | |
| A parallel development may make the difference. Congress is getting | |
| Email. Seven or eight congressmen have access. A push to implement | |
| crypto to determine who is from the districts represented should come | |
| soon. A lot of this type application is based on the blind signature work | |
| of David Chaum. | |
| Q. What's the status with the legality of PGP vs. RSA? | |
| A. It is unsettled. There are two issues: patent infringement and export. | |
| RIPEM uses RSAREF, which is a watered down version of RSA. They're | |
| working on PGP using RSAREF for noncommercial users. | |
| Q. Compare the strength and security of PGP and RIPEM? | |
| A. PGP uses a longer key. RIPEM uses DES, but will probably go to Triple- | |
| DES. | |
| Q. How are blind signatures used? | |
| A. Voter cards, digital signatures, digital money. The government won't | |
| do it if they feel it's not in their best interest. Push it. | |
| Q. Can NSA break DES & PGP? | |
| A. Of course. | |
| Q. How long must a key be to slow NSA down? | |
| A. We estimate they can break one 512 bit RSA modulus per day. | |
| Q. Is PGP illegal, and if so, how? | |
| A. Patent infringement issue is whether PGP infringes RSA. If you use a | |
| product that infringes, you are civilly liable. If they were to enforce | |
| against a random user, worst case is that the user might be tied up in the | |
| courts for a while. Worse is copyright - it is a felony to engage in | |
| software piracy, which means making over 10 copies with a value over | |
| $2500. This poses a potential problem for sysadmins, and now companies | |
| use the threat of criminal charges to force licensing. Kapor is willing | |
| to take the case of whether or not there could ever be a valid software | |
| patent to the Supreme Court. Godwin says prosecutors will use other laws: | |
| Wire fraud, conspiracy, RICO. | |
| Hughes - there should be a local cypherpunks chapter. It should meet on | |
| the second Saturday of the month. Hughes is pursuing the idea of | |
| teleconferencing. | |
| Hughes concludes: "There's plenty of arguing to do. I'll see you online." | |