Tuesday, October 08, 2002

New York Times - free registration required Protesting the Big Brother Lens, Little Brother Turns an Eye Blind. A national debate over the ethics of surveillance continues to grow as video cameras proliferate. [ ... ] In recent weeks there have been a growing number of incidents involving video-surveillance cameras, ranging from the mother who recently surrendered after she was recorded hitting her 4-year-old daughter in an Indiana parking lot to a man who filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against the Marriott hotel chain last month after discovering a video camera hidden in a bathroom light fixture. The growing reliance on surveillance is giving some of the pioneers of the video camera industry second thoughts. "I have lots of worries about how this technology is being used," said John Graham, who is the founder of BroadWare Technologies, a Cupertino, Calif., maker of software for video-camera networks, and who was one of the first researchers to send audio and video over the Internet. "I've become Big Brother, but I didn't mean to be," Mr. Graham said. "It's just that there's no money in education or scientific collaboration." [ ... ] The value of video cameras to improve safety and detect terrorists has been greatly overrated, according to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. Like the Surveillance Camera Players, Mr. Rotenberg said he worries that while Internet-viewable cameras might offer entertainment, there are other networks of private and law enforcement cameras that collect information secretly on behalf of the government. "There has been a reduction in privacy and there has been an expansion in government secrecy," he said. "We give up our privacy, but we don't gain openness in exchange." [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:41:24 PM          Now am uneducated about the real solution to protecting ourselves.  I know I would rather not have another 2002.09.11.  However I also worry about my loss of privacy.  Not like I really have a lot of secrets anymore.  Just that my business is not the publics concern.  New York Times - free registration required Report Calls for Plan of Sharing Data to PPrevent Terror. Unless information provided by state and local officials, as well as the private sector, is shared with Washington, "we may wind up getting all of the disadvantages of invasion of privacy with none of the national security gains," conclude the task force's co-chairmen, Zoë Baird, the president of the New York-based Markle Foundation, and James L. Barksdale, a businessman and former chief executive of Netscape. Although the Bush administration did not commission the report or formally participate on the 44-member panel that studied the issues for more than six months, senior administration officials who followed the group's work praised the effort. [ ... ] Treading carefully in one of the most sensitive policy areas, particularly for conservative Republicans, the task force avoids recommending the creation of a stand-alone domestic collection agency -- such as Britain's MI-5 -- or placing that responsibility under the F.B.I. "The people running criminal investigations should not be seeking all kinds of information from businesses, state and local officials all over the country," Ms. Baird said. The case for "fundamental separation" of criminal investigation and domestic counterintelligence "is strong," the report concludes. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:39:48 PM      Political Commentary by Lauren Weinstein from Wired News - Register Air Travelers? P-shaw!. In the wake of 9/11, it's understandable that concerns over airport security would become de rigueur for both politicians and ordinary airline passengers. The flurry of reaction has ranged from sensible to bizarre. The poor training and pay of U.S. airport screeners finally came into the limelight, resulting in steps toward a long-needed upgrade. [ ... ] The holy grail for the profilers is an accurate analysis of the behavior and background of potential flyers to determine who presents the greatest risk. The Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), now in the process of being expanded, is a major effort in this direction. These systems introduce significant privacy concerns. Any time you collect vast amounts of personal information, even from public record sources, the potential exists for an Orwellian nightmare if the databases are misused or abused. Also, the underlying information in the databases may often be inaccurate, due to purposeful manipulation, the passage of time or human error. Incidents of innocent persons being snared by airport blacklists have already come to light. [ ... ] Transportation Security Administration chief James Loy recently announced that the United States plans to plow ahead with the "registered traveler" program, a concept also known under monikers like "known traveler," "trusted traveler" and other similar names. [ ... ] The payoff for those carrying this travel ID "flying passport" would presumably be lessened scrutiny at airport security checkpoints. Fewer of those so-called random searches. No need to remove your smelly shoes to be X-rayed. That sort of thing. [ ... ] Registered traveler IDs could well become extremely coveted by terrorist organizations. Some of these groups would likely be willing to recruit and prepare operatives who remained law-abidingly dormant for years, in order to place terrorist sleepers in a position to obtain those nifty ID cards. All the fancy computerized biometric systems in the world won't tell you if the person holding the card is a would-be terrorist who successfully qualified for registered status. They could be all-American, too. Oklahoma City bomber and decorated Vietnam vet Timothy McVeigh might well have qualified for a registered traveler card. Even one screwup in handing out these IDs -- if it permits a terrorist to pass through airport security with a lesser degree of scrutiny -- could be catastrophic. John Magaw, until recently Transportation Security Agency head, opposed a trusted/known/registered traveler program precisely due to its potential for manipulation by terrorists. That opinion, unpopular with the airlines and many in government, probably contributed to his reportedly forced resignation from that post. Some inappropriate uses of technology are simply ill-advised. The registered traveler plan looks downright dangerous. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:31:02 PM      Technology News from Wired News - Codebusters Crack Encryption Key. It took four years, 331,000 participants and a difficult legal case, but the relentless efforts of Distributed.net and its supporters have finally broken a 64-bit encryption key developed by RSA Data Securities. When Distributed.net set up shop in 1997 to test various forms of encryption by essentially breaking through them, organizers figured it could take 100 years to uncover the RC5-64 sequence due to limited computer power and the fact that so many people would have to participate in the effort. Still, they forged ahead. [ ... ] While the accomplishment of breaking the 64-bit encryption standard is noteworthy, there are even greater challenges ahead for Distribution.net. Next up is breaking through RC5-72, RSA's next highest encryption key. RSA also has a 128-bit key, but trying to break a key that long is practically impossible because there are so many combinations of keys to consider, McNett said. "Major advances would have to be made in keyrate processing before that would be even approachable," he said. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:30:14 PM          I realize we're really just numbers to a computer anyway, but distilling myself down to just one number is a little sci-fi for me. NEWS.com.au | Phone system could have your number. A single telephone number doubling as an email address could soon be available in Australia despite fears the technology could become a de facto identification number. Under the ENUM system being analysed by the Australian Communications Authority, one number could track down a person via a home or mobile phone number, or an email or website address. The technology has attracted controversy overseas because of privacy implications of people being identified by a single number. The ACA wants feedback on a discussion paper it has issued, saying privacy is one of its concerns. But ACA numbering manager Neil Whitehead said potential benefits of the system could be enormous. [Privacy Digest]      dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:24:12 PM      Fedscope . Welcome to FedScope Development, creators of the free FedScope Plugin for websites. FedScope v1 was released on October 6th, 2002 and has been a smash hit for us. Using reverse host lookups, FedScope determines if each visitor of your website is surfing from a computer that is connected to a US Government-owned Network. If it is, the hit and associated information is logged into a "MySQL" database and you can (optionally) print the last hit information to your webpages using server-side includes. You can see an example of this to your left. FedScope works on any webserver that can parse PHP and has the capability to write to a MySQL database. Best of all, the software is made available to you free of charge. This program is released under The General Public License ("GPL"), so you are free to use and redistribute it without charge. That is assuming that they use an address registered correctly. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:21:12 PM      Analysis: New applications sniff out pirated software. Macrovision, Websense team up to develop tools [InfoWorld: Top News]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:10:55 PM      New York Times - free registration required House Passes Bill to Review Federal Agencies' Privacy Rules. Without dissent, the House passed legislation today to require federal agencies to review the effects on personal privacy of any new regulations that they propose and to let individuals go to court to attack those reviews as inadequate. The bill, originally sponsored by Representative Bob Barr, Republican of Georgia, and co-sponsored by Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, was supported by a wide ideological range of interest groups from the American Civil Liberties Union to the National Rifle Association. [ ... ] Mr. Sensenbrenner, Mr. Scott and Representative Robert B. Aderholt, an Alabama Republican who was in the speaker's chair, were the sole members in the House chamber when the bill came up. It was considered under a procedure that allows 40 minutes of debate and requires a two-thirds vote for passage. The debate and the 2-to-0 vote took six minutes. It is unclear whether the measure will be considered in the Senate this year, where legislation to control the use of personal information gathered by the Internet has been stalled because of objections by Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi, the minority leader. But this bill, because it does not threaten any private industry whose political action committees help members win re-election, may prove more attractive to senators who want to connect with growing privacy concerns in the electorate. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 11:04:07 PM      CNET NEWS.COM - House backs new rules for snooping. The measure encountered no opposition on the sparsely populated House floor and was passed by voice vote 6 minutes after it was taken up. Government agencies would be allowed to collect personal information from citizens but would be required to say how that information would be used. Citizens would have a right to review information collected about them, which could not be used for other purposes. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:58:13 PM      Alist 0.6 is a program that collects hardware and software information about systems and stores it in a database for users to browse and search via a Web interface [freshmeat.net]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:55:27 PM      San Jose Mercury News - Trading privacy for security without a thought. In fact, the public air was full of heated opinions and judgments about everything . . . except the videotape itself. No one seemed too concerned about the image or its trail from Kohl's to CNN. We have gotten so used to the idea of a security camera peering at us out of every ATM and parking lot, every airport and school, every department store and public square, that we no longer question it. When the booty of a department store's private eye is open to the public eye, we don't flinch. We just watch. Indeed, the only story alarming enough to raise privacy hackles these days came from Washington state, where two men were arrested for taking pictures up women's skirts. But these men were acquitted of voyeurism by the state Supreme Court because the pictures were taken in public places where, the justices ruled, people don't have a ``reasonable expectation of privacy.'' [ ... ] We've become a nation of surveillance with remarkably little discussion. Few of us are asking the questions offered by David Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center: ``What becomes of any tapes created by such systems, who has access to them and how might they be used?'' Nor are we asking what it means for a nanny or a student or a shopper to be on permanent candid camera. [ ... ] Frankly, I am comforted by a security camera in a parking garage late at night. And I know that videotapes are useful for police investigations . . . after the crime. But if security is overrated, intrusion may be underrated. [Privacy Digest]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:52:34 PM      Polygraph Is Poor Tool for Screening Employees, Panel Says. In a report to the government, a panel of leading scientists said that polygraph testing is too flawed to use for security screening. By William J. Broad. [New York Times: Science]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:44:56 PM      State presses Amazon for privacy response. Consumer protection regulators in Massachusetts are urging Amazon.com to respond to criticisms of its privacy policy. [CNET News.com]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 10:44:03 PM      BlackHole Spam/Virus Filter 1.0.2 (Stable) provides spam and virus filtering using dot files in all the major MTA/SMTP servers for UNIX and similar systems.  [freshmeat.net]     dennisRadio Encouragement  [] 5:56:39 PM

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. © Copyright 2003 Larry Boy aka Dennis S. Last update: 6/4/2003; 12:05:57 AM. This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.