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Post by jonnygemini on Oct 19, 2005 9:52:03 GMT -5
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Post by jonnygemini on Oct 24, 2005 10:02:23 GMT -5
FBI Papers Indicate Intelligence Violations
Secret Surveillance Lacked Oversight
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 24, 2005; A01
The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.
Records turned over as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit also indicate that the FBI has investigated hundreds of potential violations related to its use of secret surveillance operations, which have been stepped up dramatically since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but are largely hidden from public view.
In one case, FBI agents kept an unidentified target under surveillance for at least five years -- including more than 15 months without notifying Justice Department lawyers after the subject had moved from New York to Detroit. An FBI investigation concluded that the delay was a violation of Justice guidelines and prevented the department "from exercising its responsibility for oversight and approval of an ongoing foreign counterintelligence investigation of a U.S. person."
In other cases, agents obtained e-mails after a warrant expired, seized bank records without proper authority and conducted an improper "unconsented physical search," according to the documents.
Although heavily censored, the documents provide a rare glimpse into the world of domestic spying, which is governed by a secret court and overseen by a presidential board that does not publicize its deliberations. The records are also emerging as the House and Senate battle over whether to put new restrictions on the controversial USA Patriot Act, which made it easier for the government to conduct secret searches and surveillance but has come under attack from civil liberties groups.
The records were provided to The Washington Post by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group that has sued the Justice Department for records relating to the Patriot Act.
David Sobel, EPIC's general counsel, said the new documents raise questions about the extent of possible misconduct in counterintelligence investigations and underscore the need for greater congressional oversight of clandestine surveillance within the United States.
"We're seeing what might be the tip of the iceberg at the FBI and across the intelligence community," Sobel said. "It indicates that the existing mechanisms do not appear adequate to prevent abuses or to ensure the public that abuses that are identified are treated seriously and remedied."
FBI officials disagreed, saying that none of the cases have involved major violations and most amount to administrative errors. The officials also said that any information obtained from improper searches or eavesdropping is quarantined and eventually destroyed.
"Every investigator wants to make sure that their investigation is handled appropriately, because they're not going to be allowed to keep information that they didn't have the proper authority to obtain," said one senior FBI official, who declined to be identified by name because of the ongoing litigation. "But that is a relatively uncommon occurrence. The vast majority of the potential [violations] reported have to do with administrative timelines and time frames for renewing orders."
The documents provided to EPIC focus on 13 cases from 2002 to 2004 that were referred to the Intelligence Oversight Board, an arm of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board that is charged with examining violations of the laws and directives governing clandestine surveillance. Case numbers on the documents indicate that a minimum of 287 potential violations were identified by the FBI during those three years, but the actual number is certainly higher because the records are incomplete.
FBI officials declined to say how many alleged violations they have identified or how many were found to be serious enough to refer to the oversight board.
Catherine Lotrionte, the presidential board's counsel, said most of its work is classified and covered by executive privilege. The board's investigations range from "technical violations to more substantive violations of statutes or executive orders," Lotrionte said.
Most such cases involve powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs the use of secret warrants, wiretaps and other methods as part of investigations of agents of foreign powers or terrorist groups. The threshold for such surveillance is lower than for traditional criminal warrants. More than 1,700 new cases were opened by the court last year, according to an administration report to Congress.
In several of the cases outlined in the documents released to EPIC, FBI agents failed to file annual updates on ongoing surveillance, which are required by Justice Department guidelines and presidential directives, and which allow Justice lawyers to monitor the progress of a case. Others included a violation of bank privacy statutes and an improper physical search, though the details of the transgressions are edited out. At least two others involve e-mails that were improperly collected after the authority to do so had expired.
Some of the case details provide a rare peek into the world of FBI counterintelligence. In 2002, for example, the Pittsburgh field office opened a preliminary inquiry on a person to "determine his/her suitability as an asset for foreign counterintelligence matters" -- in other words, to become an informant. The violation occurred when the agent failed to extend the inquiry while maintaining contact with the potential asset, the documents show.
The FBI general counsel's office oversees investigations of alleged misconduct in counterintelligence probes, deciding whether the violation is serious enough to be reported to the oversight board and to personnel departments within Justice and the FBI. The senior FBI official said those cases not referred to the oversight board generally involve missed deadlines of 30 days or fewer with no potential infringement of the civil rights of U.S. persons, who are defined as either citizens or legal U.S. resident aliens.
"The FBI and the people who work in the FBI are very cognizant of the fact that people are watching us to make sure we're doing the right thing," the senior FBI official said. "We also want to do the right thing. We have set up procedures to do the right thing."
But in a letter to be sent today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sobel and other EPIC officials argue that the documents show how little Congress and the public know about the use of clandestine surveillance by the FBI and other agencies. The group advocates legislation requiring the attorney general to report violations to the Senate.
The documents, EPIC writes, "suggest that there may be at least thirteen instances of unlawful intelligence investigations that were never disclosed to Congress."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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Post by jonnygemini on Nov 14, 2005 16:00:39 GMT -5
www.drudgereport.com/flashmav.htm XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN NOV 13 2005 19:44:23 ET XXXXX DRONES 'TO FLY OVER CITIES' HONEYWELL is developing a micro flying spy drone -- that would be used for civilian law enforcement! The device, a hovering robot carrying video cameras and other sensors, is being created and tested at HONEYWELL's Albuquerque, NM plant. The first round of testing on the drone [MICRO AIR VEHICLE] has been completed, reports Bob Martin of CBS affiliate KRQE. The battery powered craft can stay in the air for 50-60 minutes at a time, and moves around at up to 55 kilometers an hour. The Micro Air Vehicle has flown more than 200 successful flights, including flying in a representative urban environment. "If there is an emergency, you could provide "eyes" on whatever the emergency is, for police or Homeland Security," explains Vaughn Fulton of HONEYWELL. In the meantime, the U.S. Army has prepared a promotional video showing the craft zooming over war-zone streets. Drones have been given to the military to test during training exercises. "It has the same system most fighter jets would have," explains Fulton. The vehicle will be used for reconnaissance, security and target acquisition operations in open, rolling, complex and urban terrain; it will be equipped with Global Positioning Satellite. HONEYWELL and government officials are meeting to discuss the status of the project. Troops in Iraq could get the craft in a year or two. The spy drone would be deployed for domestic use shortly thereafter. Developing...
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Post by jonnygemini on Nov 16, 2005 20:30:14 GMT -5
What is the National Security Agency doing chasing UFOs?
A few pages of perplexing documents made public on Nov. 3 through the Freedom of Information Act shows the NSA was involved for many years in the UFO problem.
(And perhaps the ultra-secret spook agency is still involved; these papers date only to the 1980s.)
The documents, available here as a PDF from the Federation of American Scientists, tell of NSA agents infiltrating meetings of UFO believers and monitoring radio conversations between pilots and control towers after UFOs have been sighted.
They are marked with the curious phrase "TOP SECRET UMBRA."
According to Space.com reporter Leonard David, that means these documents were once considered the "highest, most sensitive category of communications intelligence."
Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, makes the odd claims that the NSA files prove the government didn't consider UFOs to be extraterrestrial in origin.
"It turns out that the government does have something to hide," Aftergood is quoted as saying. "But it has nothing to do with extraterrestrials."
The NSA files made public actually say nothing about the origin of the UFOs or what theories top spies may have held at the time.
More intriguing are other classified papers and files referenced in the NSA documents. "UFO Hypothesis and Survival Questions" is one such referenced title. And, as usual in these heavily redacted documents, the scores of blanked-out names and whole paragraphs only make the mystery bigger.
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Post by jonnygemini on Nov 29, 2005 12:27:23 GMT -5
Pentagon's Urban Recon Takes Wing By John Hudson Story location: www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69612,00.html 02:00 AM Nov. 29, 2005 PT A leading defense contractor has successfully demonstrated a system that lets foot soldiers command unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, to see real-time overhead images on their handheld computers while fighting in urban battle zones. Individual war fighters can receive video-surveillance data on a target of interest by moving a cursor over the subject, as part of a Northrop Grumman system to automate reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition, or RSTA, within urban environments. UAVs have already proven their worth in the kinds of urban battle zones that produce daily headlines out of Iraq -- places like Falluja and Najaf, where the drones can navigate the labyrinth of streets or stealthily peer into buildings. But ground troops don't currently have direct access to this surveillance and reconnaissance data, and they have no control of the aircraft that deliver it. That's what HURT, for Heterogeneous Urban RSTA, promises to change. Northrop demonstrated the system this fall on the former site of Georgia Air Force Base in Victorville, California, on a grid of abandoned streets and buildings used to train soldiers in urban combat. Two fixed-wing UAVs, a Raven and a Pointer, along with an Rmax rotorcraft, were put aloft under the control of the system. Participants on the ground were able to view wide-area surveillance of the battle zone on handheld monitors, but could also send one of the UAVs in for a closer look at a suspected enemy position by merely moving over the subject with their cursor. For the demo, a soldier observed a distant garage with a van backing out of it, and selected this target on his handheld screen. HURT autonomously selected the best UAV for the job based on location, and dispatched it to "shadow" the van. It also re-tasked the remaining three aerial units to secure a wide-area perimeter. "This is truly the system of systems," said Jim Hart, a spokesman for Northrop Grumman. "There is a simple interface that allows it to take just about any kind of ground or air-based sensor platform into its web." The elasticity of the HURT concept means that UAVs plugged into the system don't need any special modification. The system could also combine ground-based surveillance sensors with airborne platforms, with the potential to reduce manpower demands and risks to friendly forces associated with urban operations, according to a report by Rand. HURT can also store captured images -- sort of like a battlefield TiVo -- for playback on demand by any user. To generate the handheld computer's onscreen virtual cities, urban landscape models had to be created using 3-D datasets like the ones used for the high-res images that make Xbox or PlayStation games so visually compelling. "We've done applications for both the military and consumer markets," said David Colleen, CEO of Planet 9 Studios. "We love the challenge of field applications like this, because they're so much more complex." HURT is presently concerned only with intelligence gathering, but its versatility means it has the future potential to be used in offensive roles, like coordinating UAVs with tactical-strike capabilities, such as the RQ-1 Predator. Industry leaders such as Honeywell and AeroVironment are developing micro-UAVs that can loiter in the air and stare in windows, and larger "payload agnostic" units that could play a more offensive role, such as target designation for laser-guided munitions. Off the battlefield, HURT might one day extend the reach of U.S. homeland-security agencies, providing an airborne surveillance platform equipped with biometric imaging capability and other antiterrorism hardware. U.S. Customs and Border Protection units could adapt the technology to use networks of ground-based sensors and UAVs equipped with synthetic aperture radar along the border, said Hart. |
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Post by jonnygemini on Dec 9, 2005 13:27:28 GMT -5
 via: www.defensetech.org/archives/002005.htmlIf you stop by this site regularly, you probably know about Boeing's efforts to develop an killer drone for the Air Force. You might have read about how a prototype "unmanned combat aerial vehicle," or UCAV, has already gone on trial bombing runs. Or how a pair of the drones came up with attack plans of their own -- and executed them on a mock air-defense battery. It was one of more than 60 test flights for the UCAV. But that was just the first model, the 8,000-pound X-45A. The other day, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports, Boeing showed off its next edition, which, at 18,000 pounds, is more than twice as big: the X-45C. It will be powered by an F404-GE-102D engine, the same kind used on Boeing's two-engine F-18. The X-45C will be able to fly at 40,000 feet and at Mach .85. It will carry two 2,000-pound precision-guided bombs or up to eight small-diameter bombs. Its operational combat radius will be 1,100 to 1,300 nautical miles. That's far more range than manned fighters have without being refueled. Drones have been armed for a while, now. Look at what the Predator has done. But those planes are remote-controlled, completely. The UCAV is supposed to fly itself, make decisions for itself, the Seattle Times notes. The aircraft's sensors identify and approach targets autonomously. The remote pilot gives consent to strike with a mouse click. "Yet there are serious questions as to the long-term funding of the next-generation X-45-type unmanned aircraft," the Times adds. Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with the Teal Group, called the program "the worst-funded good idea in decades" and said it's unclear if the budget to produce combat versions will be there. THERE'S MORE: If the X-45's $1.2 billion price tag seems a little out of your reach, maybe this little remote-controlled spy plane will be more your speed. It takes 26 pictures from up to 1,000 feet. And it's selling at Wal-Mart for $148.32. |
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Post by jonnygemini on Dec 11, 2005 13:25:01 GMT -5
December 10, 2005
Live Tracking of Mobile Phones Prompts Court Fights on Privacy
By MATT RICHTEL
Most Americans carry cellphones, but many may not know that government agencies can track their movements through the signals emanating from the handset.
In recent years, law enforcement officials have turned to cellular technology as a tool for easily and secretly monitoring the movements of suspects as they occur. But this kind of surveillance - which investigators have been able to conduct with easily obtained court orders - has now come under tougher legal scrutiny.
In the last four months, three federal judges have denied prosecutors the right to get cellphone tracking information from wireless companies without first showing "probable cause" to believe that a crime has been or is being committed. That is the same standard applied to requests for search warrants.
The rulings, issued by magistrate judges in New York, Texas and Maryland, underscore the growing debate over privacy rights and government surveillance in the digital age.
With mobile phones becoming as prevalent as conventional phones (there are 195 million cellular subscribers in this country), wireless companies are starting to exploit the phones' tracking abilities. For example, companies are marketing services that turn phones into even more precise global positioning devices for driving or allowing parents to track the whereabouts of their children through the handsets.
Not surprisingly, law enforcement agencies want to exploit this technology, too - which means more courts are bound to wrestle with what legal standard applies when government agents ask to conduct such surveillance.
Cellular operators like Verizon Wireless and Cingular Wireless know, within about 300 yards, the location of their subscribers whenever a phone is turned on. Even if the phone is not in use it is communicating with cellphone tower sites, and the wireless provider keeps track of the phone's position as it travels. The operators have said that they turn over location information when presented with a court order to do so.
The recent rulings by the magistrates, who are appointed by a majority of the federal district judges in a given court, do not bind other courts. But they could significantly curtail access to cell location data if other jurisdictions adopt the same reasoning. (The government's requests in the three cases, with their details, were sealed because they involve investigations still under way.)
"It can have a major negative impact," said Clifford S. Fishman, a former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney's office and a professor at the Catholic University of America's law school in Washington. "If I'm on an investigation and I need to know where somebody is located who might be committing a crime, or, worse, might have a hostage, real-time knowledge of where this person is could be a matter of life or death."
Prosecutors argue that having such information is crucial to finding suspects, corroborating their whereabouts with witness accounts, or helping build a case for a wiretap on the phone - especially now that technology gives criminals greater tools for evading law enforcement.
The government has routinely used records of cellphone calls and caller locations to show where a suspect was at a particular time, with access to those records obtainable under a lower legal standard. (Wireless operators keep cellphone location records for varying lengths of time, from several months to years.)
But it is unclear how often prosecutors have asked courts for the right to obtain cell-tracking data as a suspect is moving. And the government is not required to report publicly when it makes such requests.
Legal experts say that such live tracking has tended to happen in drug-trafficking cases. In a 2003 Ohio case, for example, federal drug agents used cell tracking data to arrest and convict two men on drug charges.
Mr. Fishman said he believed that the number of requests had become more prevalent in the last two years - and the requests have often been granted with a stroke of a magistrate's pen.
Prosecutors, while acknowledging that they have to get a court order before obtaining real-time cell-site data, argue that the relevant standard is found in a 1994 amendment to the 1986 Stored Communications Act, a law that governs some aspects of cellphone surveillance.
The standard calls for the government to show "specific and articulable facts" that demonstrate that the records sought are "relevant and material to an ongoing investigation" - a standard lower than the probable-cause hurdle.
The magistrate judges, however, ruled that surveillance by cellphone - because it acts like an electronic tracking device that can follow people into homes and other personal spaces - must meet the same high legal standard required to obtain a search warrant to enter private places.
"Permitting surreptitious conversion of a cellphone into a tracking device without probable cause raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns, especially when the phone is monitored in the home or other places where privacy is reasonably expected," wrote Stephen W. Smith, a magistrate in Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas, in his ruling.
"The distinction between cell site data and information gathered by a tracking device has practically vanished," wrote Judge Smith. He added that when a phone is monitored, the process is usually "unknown to the phone users, who may not even be on the phone."
Prosecutors in the recent cases also unsuccessfully argued that the expanded police powers under the USA Patriot Act could be read as allowing cellphone tracking under a standard lower than probable cause.
As Judge Smith noted in his 31-page opinion, the debate goes beyond a question of legal standard. In fact, the nature of digital communications makes it difficult to distinguish between content that is clearly private and information that is public. When information is communicated on paper, for instance, it is relatively clear that information written on an envelope deserves a different kind of protection than the contents of the letter inside.
But in a digital era, the stream of data that carries a telephone conversation or an e-mail message contains a great deal of information - like when and where the communications originated.
In the digital era, what's on the envelope and what's inside of it, "have absolutely blurred," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy group.
And that makes it harder for courts to determine whether a certain digital surveillance method invokes Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
In the cellular-tracking cases, some legal experts say that the Store Communications Act refers only to records of where a person has been, i.e. historical location data, but does not address live tracking.
Kevin Bankston, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group that has filed briefs in the case in the Eastern District of New York, said the law did not speak to that use. James Orenstein, the magistrate in the New York case, reached the same conclusion, as did Judge Smith in Houston and James Bredar, a magistrate judge in the Federal District Court in Maryland.
Orin S. Kerr, a professor at the George Washington School of Law and a former trial attorney in the Justice Department specializing in computer law, said the major problem for prosecutors was Congress did not appear to have directly addressed the question of what standard prosecutors must meet to obtain cell-site information as it occurs.
"There's no easy answer," Mr. Kerr said. "The law is pretty uncertain here."
Absent a Congressional directive, he said, it is reasonable for magistrates to require prosecutors to meet the probable-cause standard.
Mr. Fishman of Catholic University said that such a requirement could hamper law enforcement's ability to act quickly because of the paperwork required to show probable cause. But Mr. Fishman said he also believed that the current law was unclear on the issue.
Judge Smith "has written a very, very persuasive opinion," Mr. Fishman said. "The government's argument has been based on some tenuous premises." He added that he sympathized with prosecutors' fears.
"Something that they've been able to use quite successfully and usefully is being taken away from them or made harder to get," Mr. Fishman said. "I'd be very, very frustrated."
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Post by jonnygemini on Dec 13, 2005 11:43:30 GMT -5
The Microchip Agenda Marches Forward ...
Four months ago, I wrote an article entitled THE MICROCHIP AGENDA, where I discussed the steps of gradualism that are being used to brainwash the American public into accepting this disgusting plan. I mentioned FIVE SPECIFIC STEPS that need to be taken to properly condition the population into accepting this gross miscarriage of high-technology.
The five steps of gradualism were as follows:
01) Farm Animals and Livestock (identification and inventory)
02) Household Pets (protection from getting lost)
03) Alzheimer's Patients and the Mentally Impaired (medical info, identification, and location)
04) Children (protection and kidnapping prevention)
05) Total Adult Population (military and police, security, identification, and medical info)
However, a mere 110 days later, in an article on Tommy Thompson refusing to get chipped, the following appeared:
" ... only about 60 living persons in the U.S. have agreed to be chipped. In addition to the voluntary recipients, the company's implants were injected into the deceased victims of hurricane Katrina, and there are plans to chip mentally disabled patients at a residential center in Chattanooga. VeriChip has also had talks with the Pentagon about chipping military personnel ...."
In recent developments, TiVo has filed a patent application for the use of their system with an embedded microchip in the customer's body.
The agenda marches ever onward ...
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Post by jonnygemini on Dec 15, 2005 11:09:23 GMT -5
Let’s see some ID, please
The end of anonymity on the Internet?
By Michael Rogers
Columnist
Special to MSNBC
Updated: 7:53 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005
As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world.
Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are.
Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space. But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone.
The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well.
With a TPM onboard, each time your computer starts, you prove your identity to the machine using something as simple as a PIN number or, preferably, a more secure system such as a fingerprint reader. Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you. Thus, even if someone steals your username and password, they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also use your computer and log in with your fingerprint. (In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.)
The same would go for online merchants — once you’d registered yourself and your computer with an Amazon or an e-Bay, they’d simply look for the TPM on your machine to confirm it’s you at the other end. (Of course you could always “fool” the system by starting your computer with your unique PIN or fingerprint and then letting another person use it, but that’s a choice similar to giving someone else your credit card.)
Another plus for the TPM is that your computer will be able to make sure that it’s really a legitimate e-commerce site you’re connected to, and not some phishing-style fraud. There would still, of course, be ways that you could access your bank or e-commerce accounts from other computers when you were traveling, but the connection wouldn’t be as secure as using your own computer. Plans are already underway to put TPMs into smartphones and other portable devices as well.
The TPM will become even more important as we move toward Web-based applications, where we may actually store our documents and files on remote servers. The TPM could automatically encrypt any files as soon as they left your computer, and only allow decryption privileges to your TPM and any others you might specify. It could automatically encrypt email as well, so that only specific recipients are able to read it. And it could more firmly identify where email originates, taking a big step forward in controlling spam at the source.
That is the potential good news. But some critics are worried that the TPM is a step too far. Their concern particularly revolves around using the TPM to control “digital rights management” — that is, what you can and cannot do with the music, movies and software you run on your computer.
A movie, for example, would be able to look at the TPM and know whether it was legally licensed to run on that machine, whether it could be copied or sent to others, or whether it was supposed to self-destruct after three viewings. If you tried to do something with the movie that wasn’t allowed in the license, your computer simply wouldn’t cooperate.
The same would go for software. Now that Apple is moving to Intel processors, Mac fans are watching closely to see if the new machines will incorporate TPMs. That may be the way that Apple makes sure that its Macintosh operating system only runs on Apple computers — otherwise, hackers will probably be quick to figure out ways to make the new Intel-based Macintosh software run on HP or Dell machines as well. Similar concerns arise around how Microsoft might make use of TPM to insure that its software is used only on machines with paid-up licenses (as one joke has it: “TPM is Bill Gates’ way of finally getting the Chinese to pay for software.”)
(MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.)
Ultimately the TPM itself isn’t inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it’s used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology. Users will still control how much of their identity they wish to reveal — in fact, for complex technical reasons, the TPM will actually also make truly anonymous connections possible, if that’s what both ends of the conversation agree on. And should a media or software company come up with overly Draconian restrictions on how its movies or music or programs can be used, consumers will go elsewhere. (Or worse: Sony overstepped with the DRM on its music CDs recently and is now the target of a dozen or so lawsuits, including ones filed by California and New York.)
To future historians, the anonymity we’ve experienced in the first decade of the commercial Internet may in retrospect seem aberrant. In the real world, after all, we carry multiple forms of fixed identification, ranging from our faces and fingerprints to drivers’ licenses and social security numbers. Some of these are easier to counterfeit than others, but generally most of us are more comfortable when we can prove who we are. In some situations — driving cars, boarding aircraft — we’re required to have identification. Of course, our real world policies on identification — what kind we must have, when we need to display it — have evolved over centuries of social and political thought and is still, post 9/11, a national hot-button. With the arrival of the Trusted Computing Module, the argument will now extend to cyberspace as well.
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Post by Healthy Merking on Dec 15, 2005 17:38:13 GMT -5
Let’s see some ID, please The end of anonymity on the Internet? By Michael Rogers Columnist Special to MSNBC Updated: 7:53 a.m. ET Dec. 13, 2005 As the joke goes, on the Internet nobody knows you’re a dog. But although anonymity has been part of Internet culture since the first browser, it’s also a major obstacle to making the Web a safe place to conduct business: Internet fraud and identity theft cost consumers and merchants several billion dollars last year. And many of the other more troubling aspects of the Internet, from spam emails to sexual predators, also have their roots in the ease of masking one’s identity in the online world. Change, however, is on the way. Already over 20 million PCs worldwide are equipped with a tiny security chip called the Trusted Platform Module, although it is as yet rarely activated. But once merchants and other online services begin to use it, the TPM will do something never before seen on the Internet: provide virtually fool-proof verification that you are who you say you are. Some critics say that the chip will change the free-wheeling Web into a police state, while others argue that it’s needed to create a safe public space. But the train has already left the station: by the end of this decade, a TPM will almost certainly be part of your desktop, laptop and even cell phone. The TPM chip was created by a coalition of over one hundred hardware and software companies, led by AMD, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft and Sun. The chip permanently assigns a unique and permanent identifier to every computer before it leaves the factory and that identifier can’t subsequently be changed. It also checks the software running on the computer to make sure it hasn’t been altered to act malevolently when it connects to other machines: that it can, in short, be trusted. For now, TPM-equipped computers are primarily sold to big corporations for securing their networks, but starting next year TPMs will be installed in many consumer models as well. With a TPM onboard, each time your computer starts, you prove your identity to the machine using something as simple as a PIN number or, preferably, a more secure system such as a fingerprint reader. Then if your bank has TPM software, when you log into their Web site, the bank’s site also “reads” the TPM chip in your computer to determine that it’s really you. Thus, even if someone steals your username and password, they won’t be able to get into your account unless they also use your computer and log in with your fingerprint. (In fact, with TPM, your bank wouldn’t even need to ask for your username and password — it would know you simply by the identification on your machine.) The same would go for online merchants — once you’d registered yourself and your computer with an Amazon or an e-Bay, they’d simply look for the TPM on your machine to confirm it’s you at the other end. (Of course you could always “fool” the system by starting your computer with your unique PIN or fingerprint and then letting another person use it, but that’s a choice similar to giving someone else your credit card.) Another plus for the TPM is that your computer will be able to make sure that it’s really a legitimate e-commerce site you’re connected to, and not some phishing-style fraud. There would still, of course, be ways that you could access your bank or e-commerce accounts from other computers when you were traveling, but the connection wouldn’t be as secure as using your own computer. Plans are already underway to put TPMs into smartphones and other portable devices as well. The TPM will become even more important as we move toward Web-based applications, where we may actually store our documents and files on remote servers. The TPM could automatically encrypt any files as soon as they left your computer, and only allow decryption privileges to your TPM and any others you might specify. It could automatically encrypt email as well, so that only specific recipients are able to read it. And it could more firmly identify where email originates, taking a big step forward in controlling spam at the source. That is the potential good news. But some critics are worried that the TPM is a step too far. Their concern particularly revolves around using the TPM to control “digital rights management” — that is, what you can and cannot do with the music, movies and software you run on your computer. A movie, for example, would be able to look at the TPM and know whether it was legally licensed to run on that machine, whether it could be copied or sent to others, or whether it was supposed to self-destruct after three viewings. If you tried to do something with the movie that wasn’t allowed in the license, your computer simply wouldn’t cooperate. The same would go for software. Now that Apple is moving to Intel processors, Mac fans are watching closely to see if the new machines will incorporate TPMs. That may be the way that Apple makes sure that its Macintosh operating system only runs on Apple computers — otherwise, hackers will probably be quick to figure out ways to make the new Intel-based Macintosh software run on HP or Dell machines as well. Similar concerns arise around how Microsoft might make use of TPM to insure that its software is used only on machines with paid-up licenses (as one joke has it: “TPM is Bill Gates’ way of finally getting the Chinese to pay for software.”) (MSNBC is a Microsoft - NBC joint venture.) Ultimately the TPM itself isn’t inherently evil or good. It will depend entirely on how it’s used, and in that sphere, market and political forces will be more important than technology. Users will still control how much of their identity they wish to reveal — in fact, for complex technical reasons, the TPM will actually also make truly anonymous connections possible, if that’s what both ends of the conversation agree on. And should a media or software company come up with overly Draconian restrictions on how its movies or music or programs can be used, consumers will go elsewhere. (Or worse: Sony overstepped with the DRM on its music CDs recently and is now the target of a dozen or so lawsuits, including ones filed by California and New York.) To future historians, the anonymity we’ve experienced in the first decade of the commercial Internet may in retrospect seem aberrant. In the real world, after all, we carry multiple forms of fixed identification, ranging from our faces and fingerprints to drivers’ licenses and social security numbers. Some of these are easier to counterfeit than others, but generally most of us are more comfortable when we can prove who we are. In some situations — driving cars, boarding aircraft — we’re required to have identification. Of course, our real world policies on identification — what kind we must have, when we need to display it — have evolved over centuries of social and political thought and is still, post 9/11, a national hot-button. With the arrival of the Trusted Computing Module, the argument will now extend to cyberspace as well. finally now we get to separate the champs from the chumps if they put everybody in jail they wont need jails anymore feel sorry for the politicians who wont be able to browse child pornography or post on hentai forums anymore |
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Post by jonnygemini on Dec 15, 2005 19:48:52 GMT -5
OKLAHOMA CITY - In the days after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the U.S. government used a spy satellite to gather intelligence on a white separatist compound in Oklahoma, according to a published report. The McCurtain Daily Gazette reported Wednesday that it had obtained a Secret Service log indicating that on May 2, 1995 _ two weeks after the April 19 bombing _ the FBI was trying to locate suspects for questioning. They were thought to be in Elohim City, a compound near the town of Muldrow.
"Satellite assets have been tasked to provide intelligence concerning the compound," the document says.
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Shown a copy, Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry told The Associated Press he could not confirm it was a Secret Service document and declined further comment.
There was no indication in the document of what information the satellite might have gathered, or what the spacecraft was capable of doing.
U.S. officials typically rely on photo-reconnaissance satellites to gather intelligence from space on hostile governments and foreign terrorists. It would be unusual to use such a satellite domestically.
Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001 for the bombing, which killed 168 people. Terry Nichols, is serving a life sentence.
Theories have persisted that a group of white supremacist bank robbers with ties to Elohim City may have played a role in the bombing. But prosecutors have rejected such theories.
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