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Bits And Bytes Online Edition Volume 1 Number 07
BBB III TTT SSS BBB Y Y TTT EEE SSS
B B I T S B B Y Y T E S ONLINE EDITION
BBB I T SSS AND BBB YYY T EEE SSS VOL 1, NUMBER 7
B B I T S B B Y T E S 8/23/93
BBB III T SSS BBB Y T EEE SSS FOCUS ON PRIVACY
======================================================================
We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one
another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another.
Henry David Thoreau
======================================================================
Privacy and Free Speech on the Digital Frontier
It is a characteristic of our evolving civilization that we are
developing an increasing respect for the individuality and privacy of
every human being in addition to a recognition of proprietary rights
in real estate and other material possessions. Therefore, it follows
logically that we will also evolve a body of law to protect
information about ourselves as well as information concerning our
corporate enterprises and public institutions.
(SOURCE: Information Technologies and Social Transformations. Bruce R.
Guile, Editor [National Academy Press, 1985. $14.95])
======================================================================
How Safe Is Your Information: Some Cautionary Tales
The arrival of personal digital assistants such as Apple Computer,
Inc.'s Newton MessagePad and EO, Inc.'s Personal Communicator,
coupled with skyrocketing sales of cellular phones, packet radio
modems, sky pagers and wireless electronic mail devices, has created
new points of vulnerability for electronic data interchange, experts
said.
"None of us would ever leave a confidential memo lying on a
restaurant table, but then we turn around and don't think twice about
transmitting data electronically without a safeguard," said Bob
Geisler, a senior consultant at CCT, Inc., a consultancy in
Minneapolis.
Because all methods of wireless data transfer are accomplished by
devices that are essentially radio transmitters, anyone with the right
receiver can tune into your voice or data transmission. "Ask Princess
Diana how problematic it can be if someone is tapping into your phone
conversation," Geisler said. (James Daly, "Whither Wireless Security,"
Computerworld, 8/16/93, p. 1)
* * *
Late last month, a resident of St. Albert, a town in the Canadian
province of Alberta, purchased a used PC hard-disk drive from
Multitech Electronics, an Edmonton computer store. After installing
the drive, the customer searched it for any files that might have
been left there by the previous owner. It turned out there was quite
a bit of information left on the drive, much to the dismay of the
province's land titles offices. The disk drive contained the personnel
records of every employee, including their salaries, attendance
records, performance evaluations, and home addresses and phone
numbers. Also on the disk were confidential memos about plans to take
the land title department private. A local newspaper, The Edmonton
Journal, published the story last week, along with the text of some of
the embarrassing documents, and opened up a can of worms as enraged
representatives of a government-workers union called the situation a
breach of the public trust. A full investigation of the incident is
underway. Here in the good old USA, a similar situation occurred to
Super-Patriot Oliver North as some of his 'deleted' email came back
to haunt him. Moral: Understand the technology you are working with
and use proper precautions to safeguard your privacy. With a DOS
machine, for instance, merely DELeting files from your hard drive does
not actually erase them from the drive, it just marks the space where
the file resides as being available for use by the system. So until
some other program uses that space, the information is still
physically on the drive. That's why the DOS UNDELETE command works.
Any number of "disk wiping" utilities exist. (SOURCE: John P.
McPartin, "Loose Disks Sink Ships," Information Week 8/9/93, p. 60)
* * *
In a related story, A U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the government
must preserve millions of electronic messages and memoranda under the
same standards used for paper communications. The decision was hailed
by historians and journalists. You can bet elected officials
everywhere will be learning how to wipe their files carefully. Hint:
a big magnet will do a pretty good job.(SOURCE: E-D-U-P-A-G-E 8/17/93)
======================================================================
Membership Has Its Privileges
Last week Visa International introduced an executive information
service that will let banks analyze their cardholders' buying patterns
more effectively in order to target promotions to receptive customers.
The VisaVue service will gives member banks software to analyze
customer data, calculating for example how the purchasing patterns of
certain age groups compare with national norms. Member banks, who will
license the service from Visa, will receive monthly updates from
Visa's customer database. (SOURCE: Information Week, 8/16/93, p. 16)
* * *
FREE CREDIT REPORT: SECOND THOUGHTS. It was pointed out to me be that
the free credit report from TRW (B&Bv1#5) may not be so "free" after
all, that even if you make the call you will be required to provide
(by mail) proof of address, SSN, and (get this) your addresses for the
past five years! Seems to me like a sneaky way of getting even more
data on you.
======================================================================
Excerpts From Computer Privacy Digest 7/28-30/93
On 7/28/93, Kevin Calmes <tmis1692@altair.selu.edu> wrote:
I thought the thing about private e-mail was a bit of a stretch. After
all it is the employer's computer and it is the employers right to
know what is there. Simply, don't put your private information in the
company's computer.
(REPLY 1)
I would probably agree with that in principle, but I think there are
laws or things that sound like laws that talk about a "reasonable
expectation of privacy". I know first hand that a LOT of non-techie
people who use corporate e-mail have no idea that someone other than
the intended recipient can read their mail, and they are understand-
ably rattled when they find out otherwise.
-David Hoffman <hoffman@xenon.stanford.edu>
(REPLY 2)
In the United States, *Federal Law* sets certain standards for any
computer system that handles mail that is transferred intersystem,
and it's called the Electronic Communications Protection Act, the
same law that makes it illegal to monitor cellular phones. If your
system is on the Internet or is otherwise connected to an outside
network, certain rules are automatic and mandatory unless the system
manager explicitly denies them. Failure to deny makes them automatic
and mandatory. These provisions are:
1) Private Mail may not be intercepted, monitored or read by third
parties.
2) In the absence of a subpoena, warrant or other process, the
information in private E-Mail cannot be used in a court proceeding.
3) Violating these provisions is a federal crime punishable by
fines and imprisonment, and the victim(s) can also sue civilly for
up to $10,000 or provable damages.
Let me ask you: your employer owns the telephone on your desk; should
he have the right to record your telephone calls? He's paying for the
call, shouldn't he be able to monitor anything transmitted?
- Paul Robinson <TDARCOS@MCIMAIL.COM>
(REPLY 3)
I agree with your basic premise that all company resources belong to
the company, may only be used as sanctioned by the company, and may be
monitored, accessed, and controlled as deemed appropriate by the
company. However I find it difficult to apply a common standard to
seemingly similar situations. If we assume, for sake of argument,
that it's acceptable for my employer to monitor and access my
"private" e-mail, then:
o Is it also acceptable for my employer to do monitor my telephone
calls as well? It is, after all, their telephone, and they put
it on my desk for business use. Does this then give them the
right to monitor my calls, with or without my knowledge?
o How about voice mail? Isn't voice mail the moral equivalent of
e-mail that just uses an alternate storage and I/O format?
Should different rules apply to voice mail and e-mail?
o Let go the limit: when the mail robot stops by and I drop a
bill payment in the "Outbound" box, does my company have the
right to open it? (Please, debate the ethics, not the
legalities; I'm not sure when the mail in this box formally
becomes U.S. Mail with which it would be illegal to tamper.)
o How does the previous example change if the "Outbound" box is,
by policy, for business related mail only, but I ignore policy
and use it for personal use? Have I relinquished any rights?
I'm not as interested in who has what rights as I am in how anyone can
justify applying *different* policies for these various scenarios. It
seems to me we need a single, consistent policy that covers all these
bases. - Todd Jonz <Todd.Jonz@corp.sun.com>
======================================================================
"Bozo" Filters
A microbiologist from Rootstown, Ohio, has stirred up a storm of
controversy with a program that automatically wipes out anonymous
messages on Internet, the nation's largest on-line network. He was
offended by an anonymous user who posted a joke about the last words
of the space shuttle Challenger's crew. Several colleges have also
blocked electronic discussions on some subjects. Many online veterans
complain that such actions threaten freedom of expression.
(William M. Bulkeley, "Censorship Fights Heat Up On Academic
Networks," The Wall Street Journal, May 24, p. B1.)
This article failed to mention that the type of program mentioned,
known to many on the net as a "bozo filter," is actually somewhat
common and quite useful to net workers. If you subscribe to a lot of
mailing lists, you will eventually want to use one. In addition to
filtering out anonymous users, bozo filters can also filter out
specific users who (in your humble opinion) have nothing useful to say
about the subject at hand, and are wasting your time by forcing you to
download and then delete their postings. Some mailing lists have many
"threads," or topics of conversation going on, and bozo filters allow
you to exclude topics you have no interest in. It's all very primitive
at this point, but I anticipate that in the future, bozo filters will
evolve into sophisticated programs that will scan incoming messages
by subject and author and other user-definable criteria for relevance
and sort them into meaningful queues for further processing by human
operators.
======================================================================
High-Tech Harassment
USA Today reports that sexual harassment is making inroads in
cyberspace as female users increasingly report instances of lewd
messages, suggestive graphics or even electronic stalking over
computer networks. Most reported incidents have been at universities.
(Ah, those crazy college kids - our hope for the future of America)
Last year school officials at the University of Oregon posted signs
warning against sexual harassment via e-mail after female students
received nude pictures pulled off an Internet erotica news group.
Some females deliberately choose gender neutral names online, and some
find they are treated differently if it is known they are women. On
the flip side of the coin, some men log on as women and proceed to
come on to any and all males, who of course being manly men, respond
to the objects of their imagined desires. All parties involved come
out looking like bigger fools than they already are. Everyone, take a
cold shower! (SOURCE: USA Today 8/6/93 p. B2, EDUPAGE 8/10/93)
======================================================================
High-Tech Censorship
Here's are some interesting self-censorship concepts that *should*
satisfy the people who want more control over the sex and violence on
TV without depriving those of us who can tell the difference between
TV and real life our cheap, vicarious thrills:
+A patented digital technology offered by VideoFreedom Systems in San
Diego lets you do your own censoring. The idea is that producers of
digitally transmitted media can blur objectionable scenes and sounds,
the way news programs on TV distort the faces and voices of anonymous
sources. TV viewers (or movie theater operators) can then use the
device to "de-blur" to their taste.(SOURCE: Information Week, 8/16/93)
+The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee introduced legislation
requiring new TV sets to be equipped with a violence detection chip,
or "V chip." According to subcommittee chairman Senator Edward Markey,
installing the chip will not add more than $1 to $5 to the cost of a
TV set. The article I saw did not explain how the chip works.
(SOURCE: E-D-U-P-A-G-E 8/12/93)
======================================================================
If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.
- Cypherpunk Saying
======================================================================
Meet the Cypherpunks
Data encryption standards may be the ultimate battleground for privacy
rights in on-line America. Twenty years ago, nobody outside the
National Security Agency knew much about cryptography, the study of
codes, but the PC and the network have changed all that. Citing
national security concerns, the NSA wants to limit the right to use
cryptography. Concerned citizens, as well as a loose-knit group known
as Cypherpunks, are fighting the government and making encryption
technology generally available. (SOURCE: Steven Levy, "Crypto Rebels,"
Wired 1.2, May/June 1993, p. 54) Another good source of information
about the cypherpunks and their agenda is the article "Cypherpunks,
E-Money and the Technologies of Disconnection" by Kevin Kelly in the
Whole Earth Review, #79 (Summer 1993). The Whole Earth Review is the
single greatest magazine on earth. See At The Newsstand section below
for access info.
======================================================================
PRIVACY RESOURCES:
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the effect of
technology on privacy. The digest is moderated and gatewayed into the
USENET newsgroup comp.society.privacy (Moderated). Submissions should
be sent to comp-privacy@pica.army.mil and administrative requests to
comp-privacy-request@pica.army.mil. Back issues are available via
anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil [129.139.160.133].
The Privacy Journal is an independent monthly journal on privacy in a
computer age. It will keep you well-informed of threats to your
privacy posed by computer data banks, government investigations,
electronic surveillance and other new technologies. They will send you
a sample issue on request. (Privacy Journal, PO BOX 28577, Providence,
RI 02908. or call 401/274-7861)
======================================================================
In Conclusion....
Such are the confounding issues of free speech in this brave new world
of electronic publishing. As readers, we take for granted the fact
that the information in responsible publications has been double-
checked by responsible editors. Unfortunately, there's no such luxury
where electronic bulletin boards or public E-mail systems are
concerned. As use of these electronic forums explodes during the next
several years, we could be looking at a legal nightmare. . . . As a
user, it pains me to think that every piece of flame mail or offhand
E-mail shot could be subject to the same legal scrutiny as something
written in a newspaper column. But as a journalist, I don't think it
can be any other way. The number of public bulletin boards has jumped
more than tenfold in the last five years and now numbers more than
44,000. Prodigy claims to have 1.75 million users and more than
80,000 messages daily. Thus, the potential audience for a defamatory
statement on Prodigy is the same as for the same statement in the
Sunday New York Times. (Source: Paul Gillin, "Flame Out,"
Computerworld, 4/12/93, p. 32.)
* * *
This is the end of our special focus on privacy and freedom of speech
in a digital universe, but by no means the end of our coverage of
these and related issues. We have not mentioned, for example, the idea
of computerized medical records as championed by health care
reformers. While potentially a life saving and cost cutting measure,
there is *enormous* possibility for misuse of such information. What
do *you* think of entrusting such sensitive information to an outside
party? Look for coverage of this issue in an upcoming B&B.
======================================================================
NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES:
+HIGH RESOLUTION FLAT SCREEN DISPLAY FROM XEROX. Scientists at Xerox
Corp's Palo Alto Research Center announced the development of color
and black-and-white flat-panel displays with resolutions of 16 million
pixels. The displays are reportedly the highest pixel-count active
matrix LCDs ever developed. The 13-inch B+W screen has a resolution of
3,072 by 2,048 pixels, 20 times the pixel count of a 13-inch B+W Video
Graphics Array (VGA) displays. The color screen offers 1,536 by 1,024
pixel resolution. The article did not mention when this technology
will be commercially available. (SOURCE: Computerworld 6/28/93, p. 28)
+MORPHING COMES TO THE DESKTOP. In another demonstration of just how
fast things are moving, here is access information for four different
morphing packages for desktop computers. A year or two ago, morphing
was *the* hot application in Hollywood. Michael Jackson used it to
incredible effect in his videos (Michael turns into leopard, people
blend into each other), and it was used for a lot of the fx in
Terminator II. Morphing takes one image, and smoothly transforms it
into another. Back in those days, you had to have a Silicon Graphics
workstation or better to even think about doing it, now you can do it
in the privacy of your own home. The packages are:
- MorphWizard, a Windows-based package from ImageWare Software, can
use images created in TGA, TIFF, GIF, PCX, BMP, CMP, JPEG, RLE, and
other file formats. It also produces video or animation files of the
morphing process in AVI, FLI or FLC format for viewing either within
MorphWizard or in third-party applications. MorphWizard requires a
386SX IBM-compatible PC or higher with at least 4 MB of memory,
running Windows 3.1 or later in enhanced mode. A 256-color VGA display
or better is also required. The package lists for $139.00, but is
available for $89.00 on an introductory basis. (CONTACT: ImageWare
Software 619/457-8600)
- PhotoMorph, from North Coast Software, is another Windows package.
It includes is a runtime version of Video for Windows so you can
distribute your animations. Several transitional effects are also
possible. The list price is only $149.95. Sorry, I don't have any
contact info for this one.
- Rmorph, from Fascinations Software Co., is shareware, and should be
available from your local BBS. It works just fine and is not a Windows
program. Contact the author, Richard Goedeken through Compuserve
[70304,1065], or call his support BBS, The Digital Phantom, at
319/396-4492 and leave a message to the Sysop or Richard Goedeken.
The registration fee is only $20. This is an excellent way to get
your feet wet with this technology. There is a Windows shareware
Morphing program, but I have not seen it yet.
- For the Mac, there is Morph, from Gryphon Software. This outputs a
finished 'film' in a variety of formats, including quicktime. Retail
Price is $149. Sorry, no contact info was provided.
(SOURCES: Newsbytes 7/26/93, Randy's Rumor Rag 8/93, and Black Ice,
Issue #1 [see At The Newsstand section below])
======================================================================
AT THE NEWSSTAND
CD-ROM Today. A new magazine covering CD-ROM technologies on IBM and
Mac platforms for general audiences. Lots of reviews in the premiere
issue.
Black Ice (Issue 1). This one may be a bit harder to find, so I will
provide access info below. Black Ice is a new "cyberpunk" zine from
England, along the lines of MONDO 2000, but much better editorially.
Topics covered include virtual reality, future TV, smart drugs,
computer technology, multimedia, video games, alternative science and
street tech (uses of technology out of context). Issue one has an
interview with the guys that produced MTV's BUZZ, a short-lived
cyber-esque news show(?), an article on Japanese junk food that
must be read to be believed, and an interview with the people behind
the Virtuality VR gaming system which can be found at malls across the
US. (Black Ice Subscription Dept., PO Box 1069, Brighton BN2 4YT,
England)
The Whole Earth Review, just celebrating its 25th anniversary, is the
single greatest magazine on earth. Covering a variety of subject
matter with great panache is their forte. If I could only buy one
magazine, this would be the one. It has introduced me to more useful
books, tools and ideas than any other single source. The latest issue
(#79, Summer 1993) has info and articles and reviews on cypherpunks,
fuzzy logic, fractals, trees and man, living in small spaces, a
beginner's guide to the world economy, electric screwdrivers, wood
finishing, handheld sewing machines, mind/body medicine, AND MORE!!!!!
You'll never know what to expect from this magazine. At better
newsstands, or call 800/938-6657.
======================================================================
A Giant Leap... Sideways?
For $99, Signature Software of Portland, Oregon will scan your
handwriting into a MacIntosh and convert it into your own personalized
Postscript font. This should be ideal for doctors and pharmacists
who want to move into the digital age but still maintain that aura of
complete unintelligibility when printing out prescriptions or
directions for taking medication. (CONTACT: Signature Software:
508/386-3221) (SOURCE: Black Ice, Issue #1, January 1993)
======================================================================
### ADMINISTRIVIA ###
I'm running a little long this issue so I'll keep it brief.
REQUEST FOR CONTRIBUTIONS. Send me interesting information.
ACCESS. B&B is available for downloading on America Online in their
telecom files area, and in Compuserve's telecom forum library. Delphi
access is forthcoming.
INTERNET ANONYMOUS FTP SITES:
ftp.dana.edu in /sys/gopher/pub/journals
INTERNET GOPHER ACCESS.
- gopher.law.cornell.edu in the Discussions and Listserv archives/
Teknoids directory
- gopher.dana.edu in the Electronic Journals directory
If you decide to receive B&B Elsewhere, PLEASE DON'T FORGET TO
UNSUBSCRIBE!
THANKS! Thanks for all the letters of support and encouragement. If I
wasn't such a humble guy, my head might swell just a little... I can
also take a little criticism without crying; feedback of any kind is
encouraged. See you next week!
======================================================================
BITS AND BYTES ONLINE, is a weekly electronic newsletter with too much
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===============================================
Jay Machado = (Copyleft 1993 Jay Machado) *UNALTERED* =
1529 Dogwood Drive = electronic distribution of this file for =
Cherry Hill, NJ 08003 = non-profit purposes is encouraged. The =
ph (eve) 609/795-0998 = editor is solely responsible for the =
====================== = contents of Bits and Bytes Online, and he =
I have no problems = likes it that way. The opinions expressed =
with DOS either - I = herein do not necessarily represent =
use UNIX. -anonymous = anyone's actual opinion. =
=============== end of Bits and Bytes Online V1, #7.==================
