Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 15:22:57 EST
Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler <comp-privacy-request@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator <comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL>
To: Comp-privacy@PICA.ARMY.MIL
Subject: Computer Privacy Digest V1#003
Computer Privacy Digest Tue, 28 Apr 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 003
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
FBI & Mailing Lists
Re: Cordless phones
Cordless Phones
Re: Shoulod political speech be censored online?
Re: Cordless phones
[Glenn S. Tenney: Should political speech be censored online?]
Re: All the Myriad Ways...
Re: Should political speech be censored online?
The Computer Privacy Digest is a 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
[129.139.160.200].
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1992 19:49 EDT
From: MCULNAN@guvax.georgetown.edu
Subject: FBI & Mailing Lists
The April 20 issue of DM News, a direct marketing trade publication,
reports that within the past two weeks, Metromail and Donnelly
Marketing (two of the very largest mailing list companies) were
approached by the FBI which is seeking mailing lists for use in
investigations. Other mailing list firms also received feelers
according to the story. "Neither of the identified firms would discuss
details, but one source familiar with the effort said the FBI
apparently is seeking access to a compiled consumer database for
investigatory uses."
"The FBI agents showed 'detailed awareness' of the products they were
seeking, and claimed to have already worked with several mailing list
companies, according to the source."
Metromail, according to the article, has been supplying the FBI with
its MetroNet address lookup service for two years. The FBI said that
the database is used to confirm addresses of people the FBI needs to
locate for an interview.
This marks the first time since the IRS tried to buy mailing lists in
1984 that a government agency has attempted to use mailing lists for
enforcement purposes.
In a separate but related story in the April 24 issue of the Friday
Report, a direct marketing newsletter, the RBOC's are teaming up with
other firms to develop white page directories on CD-ROM. For example,
US West has a joint venture with PhoneDisc USA of Marblehead, Ma. The
article states that the company offers lists failing mailing list
enhancements to law enforcement agencies. [NOTE: an enhanced list
means the names and addresses were matched with a marketing database
and additional demographic information was added to the list from the
marketing database].
Mary Culnan
School of Business Administration
Georgetown University
MCULNAN@GUVAX.GEORGETOWN.EDU
------------------------------
From: Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest <zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Cordless phones
Date: 27 Apr 92 06:08:35 GMT
>In article <Apr.23.16.38.01.1992.22195@pilot.njin.net> mla@pilot.njin.net (Marc L. Appelbaum) writes:
>>I've been reading all these msgs about cellular phone calls. I just
>>don't see why anyone would want to monitor cellular phone calls. Yes,
> [stuff about tabloids & privacy]
But it's none of your business!
Damn it! Those photons are hitting *me*! They're *MINE*. I'll do whatever
the hell I want with *my* photons, regardless of the law.
I firmly believe in privacy -- I won't go looking into people's houses, or
tapping their phones, or whatever.
But, if you want privacy, you *don't* shout so that everyone within ten
miles can hear it. If you want privacy, you don't broadcast your conversation.
If people don't want me to hear their conversation, they ought not to
be shooting photons at me!
followups elsewhere; this ain't folklore anymore.
--
Craig DeForest: zowie@banneker.stanford.edu *or* craig@reed.bitnet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, if you guys make a living looking at the SUN, why do you spend so much
time at the SYNCHROTRON, working UNDERGROUND at NIGHT?"
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1992 21:02:13 -0700 (PDT)
From: David Ptasnik <davep@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Cordless Phones
> From: Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest <zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu>
> Damn it! Those photons are hitting *me*! They're *MINE*. I'll do whatever
> the hell I want with *my* photons, regardless of the law.
> I firmly believe in privacy -- I won't go looking into people's houses, or
> tapping their phones, or whatever.
> But, if you want privacy, you *don't* shout so that everyone within ten
> miles can hear it. If you want privacy, you don't broadcast your conversation.
> If people don't want me to hear their conversation, they ought not to
> be shooting photons at me!
Although I am a strong privacy advocate, and am not supprotive of laws to
regulate scanners and such, this post gave me pause. Craig seemed almost
enthused about gathering up all those photons. If your neighbors are
talking, is it OK to turn a shotgun mike on them? After all, they are
shooting sound waves at you. If they don't want you to hear, they should
be whispering in the basement with the water running. Tough issue.
Dave davep@u.washington.edu
------------------------------
From: William Pfeiffer <wdp@airwaves.chi.il.us>
Subject: Re: Shoulod political speech be censored online?
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 5:46:09 CDT
>[in a recent Comp.Privacy digest, "Glenn S. Tenney" <tenney@netcom.com>
writes ...]
> Before this newsgroup was formed I posted a few items to the
> moderator of the mailing list. These postings announced my
> online candidacy to the U.S. Congress *and* raised the issues
> in my platform that we need more access to information, more
> and better uses of technology, etc.
>
> The moderator refused to allow these postings to be
> delivered to the mailing list claiming that since
> he works for/at the Army the Hatch Act precluded him
> from campaigning.
[...]
>
> When should a moderator censor postings to this newsgroup?
> Should the moderator even BE a Federal employee if there
> is possibility of restrictions on article submissions
> imposed by the government (or his superiors)?
[...]
> What do you think?
> [Moderator's Note: I was the moderator of telecom-privacy. A couple of
> points: His submission was an announcement and a copy of his platform.
> To me there was little difference between his submission and advertising
> which is generally prohibited from the net.
Dear Moderator:
I am sorry, but I must side with the poster on this one, based on
his and your comments.
First of all, announcing a candidacy is hardly the same thing
as selling a product. I don't know what this gentleman stands for,
but if his platform did, indeed, revolve around issues of information
access and privacy, then it would seem to me that such subject
matter would be appropriate to this forum. We are all interested in
positions of elected officials (or potential elected officials)
where privacy in involved.
Second, I dont believe that selling IS prohibited on the net. I see
it all the time. There are newsgroups dedicated to it and I have
never heard of any such prohibition.
------- BUT -------
Be that as it may, I appreciate that you allowed him to speak his
piece now, and hopefully you may re-think the position of deleting
other such articles from the newsfeed in the future.
If you did not have space in a digest, you might have considered putting
out an issue solely for this purpose. Just a thought.
In any event, it matters less to me since I can't vote for him
anyway. It is just that I would not expect censorship in THIS
forum.
I am not angry, nor am I trying to flame anyone, just expressing my
opinion based upon the limited facts presented here.
Thank You
William Pfeiffer
wdp@airwaves.chi.il.us
--
------------------------------
From: Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest <zowie@daedalus.stanford.edu>
Subject: Re: Cordless phones
Date: 27 Apr 92 06:08:35 GMT
Followups-To: comp.society.privacy
>In article <Apr.23.16.38.01.1992.22195@pilot.njin.net> mla@pilot.njin.net (Marc L. Appelbaum) writes:
>>I've been reading all these msgs about cellular phone calls. I just
>>don't see why anyone would want to monitor cellular phone calls. Yes,
> [stuff about tabloids & privacy]
But it's none of your business!
Damn it! Those photons are hitting *me*! They're *MINE*. I'll do whatever
the hell I want with *my* photons, regardless of the law.
I firmly believe in privacy -- I won't go looking into people's houses, or
tapping their phones, or whatever.
But, if you want privacy, you *don't* shout so that everyone within ten
miles can hear it. If you want privacy, you don't broadcast your conversation.
If people don't want me to hear their conversation, they ought not to
be shooting photons at me!
followups elsewhere; this ain't folklore anymore.
--
Craig DeForest: zowie@banneker.stanford.edu *or* craig@reed.bitnet
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, if you guys make a living looking at the SUN, why do you spend so much
time at the SYNCHROTRON, working UNDERGROUND at NIGHT?"
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 10:23:05 EDT
From: Brinton Cooper <abc@brl.mil>
Subject: [Glenn S. Tenney: Should political speech be censored online?]
Glenn Tenney argues that his political candidacy should be announced in
this newsgroup/mailing list and that he checked with the "Office of
Special Counsel" who, HE alleges, "is in charge of administering the
Hatch Act for the Federal Government..." He argued, "...the staff
assured me that there would be no violation of the Hatch Act, yet the
moderator still refused to allow my postings to go out."
Glenn Tenney fails to take into account a few things:
1. The computer from which this forum originates is on a U.S.
Army installation and is under operational control of the U.S. Army.
2. The moderator of this forum is a federal civil servant. He
is not directly responsible to the "Office of Special Counsel" but to
his supervisor and the Commander of his installation.
3. The Hatch Act is administered by *every* supervisor and
commander of civilians.
Therefore, if the moderator's supervisor finds that a posting under
moderator's control is in violation of the Hatch Act, the moderator can
be given some time off from work *without pay.*
Such a finding would also likely result in the loss of the use of the
moderator's installation computer to operate the forum.
Glenn Tenney proposes to become a member of the U.S. Congress. Perhaps
he should find out how the typical, hardworking U.S. taxpayer feels
about using machinery and communications funded by the U.S. taxpayer to
advertise his candidacy for the Congress.
Glenn Tenney asks,
When should a moderator censor postings to this newsgroup?
Should the moderator even BE a Federal employee if there
is possibility of restrictions on article submissions
imposed by the government (or his superiors)? Isn't this
medium of a moderated newsgroup/mailing-list more analogous
to the moderator being a letter carrier? etc. etc.
One answer is "When no one else will do it." This is how so much gets
done in our society: by those who, in an imperfect way, working through
imperfect institutions, try to make things better. Shutting down the
newsgroup solely to make a point in behalf of Glenn Tenney's candidacy
seems hardly worth the cost.
Perhaps, somewhere in one of these fora, we should discuss the fairness
and equitability of the disenfranchisement of millions of people via the
Hatch Act while President, Vice-President, and thousands of "political
appointees" in the executive branch merrily go about spending taxpayers'
money on efforts designed solely for partisan political ends.
_Brint
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 14:31:54 -0400
From: Robert Anderson <bs891@cleveland.freenet.edu>
Subject: Re: All the Myriad Ways...
Reply-To: bs891@cleveland.freenet.edu
I'm responding to Ronald Green's (<<rmgreen@watyew.uwaterloo.ca>) posting
suggesting topics for discussion:
Scanners (radio monitors for "private" (laugh) frequencies)
Although scanning like this is illegal around here, I think the
long-term solution is the use of effective, cryptographically-strong
voice scrambling devices. I believe we'll see these becoming more
available in a couple of years. The government was trying last year
to force manufacturers to make the cryptography breakable by law
enforcement. Anyone in favor of that?
Phone Phreaking (by-passing of telephone protocols and fees)
I don't see much connection with privacy issues. Except: I'd like
to be able to make phone calls without the phone company being able to
know who I'm calling, and without the person I'm calling being able to
know who's calling them (presently 800 and 900 numbers can tell who's
calling them, and Caller ID may allow the display of the caller's
number). Maybe phone phreaking would allow this, by bypassing the
telco's protocols. But most people just use it to avoid paying, which
would not be my goal.
Mi of bugging and tapping)
Bugging requires fairly invasive and labor-intensive procedures to
plant and monitor the devices, I imagine. So I'm not too worried
about it as a widespread privacy threat. Tapping (phone tapping, I
assume?) can be defeated by the voice-scrambling technology mentioned
above. As long as they don't make it illegal, people should soon be
able to communicate privately.
Net-Watching (tracking folks through their Net activities)
This could be avoided by the use of aliases for posting in various
areas. Anonymous mail servers could strip off mail headers and pass
messages on for posting. People should be able to post privately.
The content of a message is what matters, not the person it comes
from. Ideas are valid irrespective of their source, right?
Here's a related topic Ronald didn't mention:
Electronic cash (untraceable electronic transactions)
"Smart cards" can work like credit cards to let you make purchases,
but in such a way that the bank or credit card company has no way of
knowing exactly which transactions were done by which accounts. There
may soon be a system to allow you to buy things across the net,
untraceably, using your computer to run the cryptographic protocols.
There are a lot of proposals for ways computers can enhance our
privacy. The only question is, will we be so afraid of privacy that
we make it illegal?
--
Bob Anderson
bs891@cleveland.freenet.edu
------------------------------
From: "Robert E. Laughlin" <bel@cod.nosc.mil>
Subject: Re: Should political speech be censored online?
Date: 28 Apr 92 19:16:16 GMT
As a Federal Government Employee myself I sympathize with our moderator. The
opinion of one person, no matter how placed, is not the ruling law, unless that
person is a judge in a court. The fact is that we federal employees MUST
APPEAR clean at all times. We can not do anything that, while legal, appears
to *some* observer to be illegal. Therfore while the ofiginal author may
beleave that our moderator was censoring his messages, the moderator was only
protecting himself against appearences. Besides I saw the authors announcment
in several other news groups.
bel
---------------------
Of course I do not speak for NOSC, the Navy, DOD, or the Federal Government.
--
Robert E. Laughlin Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC)
email bel@nosc.mil
------------------------------
End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #003
******************************