Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 17:28:31 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#075
Computer Privacy Digest Mon, 31 Aug 92 Volume 1 : Issue: 075
Today's Topics: Moderator: Dennis G. Rears
you heard it here!
Re: Feds seek customer records on "Grow-lamps"
Re: use of SocSec# as student ID
Scientists cry foul over NASA security raid at Ames
USA Weekend - "They're Watching You"
The Computer Privacy Digest is a forum for discussion on the
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(Moderated). Submissions should be sent to
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Back issues are available via anonymous ftp on ftp.pica.army.mil
[129.139.160.200].
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From: keith.willis@almac.co.uk
Subject: you heard it here!
Date: 27 Aug 92 21:30:28 GMT
It's interesting to note that not more than three weeks after
I was chatting in here with one or two others about the
absolute lack of privacy in Cellphone communication, Her
Royal Highness The Princess of Wales is allegedly taped, by a
guy in his living room using a 900 scanner, having a
Cellphone conversation with a 'male friend', said friend not
being her husband. Cue headlines in every rag tabloid in the
UK, and probably several elsewhere.
Maybe we should invite Diana to join the newsgroup here? I
would make a sizeable wager that had she known that such
conversations can be intercepted at will, by anyone, she
would indeed have been more discreet. If, of course it _was_
her voice on the tape.
---
~ PQ 2.15 194 ~
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Keith Willis | Consultant to the Stars! |
email: keith.willis@almac.co.uk | |
vmail: +44 (0)202 668239 | "To discover one knows nothing |
smail: 67, Garland Road, Poole, | is the beginning of wisdom." |
Dorset BH15 2LD, England | |
| |
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From: S_TITZ@iravcl.ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz)
Subject: Re: Feds seek customer records on "Grow-lamps"
Organization: Fachschaft Informatik, Uni Karlsruhe
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 16:01:22 GMT
In <comp-privacy1.74.1@pica.army.mil> David writes:
> Clearly you don't see the good that these cash-registers are doing. They
> are making records which can be examined to prove that you committed a
> crime, just as soon as we get around to that particular crime...
>
> We all know that there are crimes so heinous that the people who perpetrate
> these crimes must be caught and punished.
Operating grow lights is not a crime that has to be punished, or did I
get something wrong? ;-)
I know of people who routinely light their rooms with them, as they
prefer the daylight-like light temperature over the comon yellow. To
be punished, to be suspectible to marijuana growing, to what?
And now for the real concerns...
> > From: Dan Veditz <daniel@borland.com>
> >
> > An AP story in today's paper (21 Aug 1992) date-lined
> > San Francisco states that Federal prosecutors sought court
> > orders yesterday to force three local businesses to turn over
> > their customer lists, sales receipts and shipping records
> > for indoor "Growing lights" since the start of 1990. They
> > also want copies of any correspondence mentioning marijuana.
>
> This particular ploy has been being used in the "war on drugs" for so
> long that reporting on it used to be a regular feature of "High Times",
> and even that venerable olde ragg "Rolling Stone".
And you don't need cutomer registers (still very uncommon here in
Germany). Remember the journalist who has been arrested and held
custody for months just for buying a 20DM electronic alarm clock on
the charge of supporting terrorists, being observed by police in the
store. (That particular type of clock had been used 2 or 3 times in
terrorist bombs before.) She refused to tell the police the name of
the friend to whom she had given the clock, being sure that he would
be arrested too. And this is a country which is very aware of
protecting civil rights.
MfG,
Olaf
--
Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student - Univ of Karlsruhe - s_titz@iravcl.ira.uka.de -
uknf@dkauni2.bitnet - praetorius@irc - +49-721-60439 - did i forget something?
Coding is "90% finished" for half of the total coding time. Debugging
is "99 % complete" most of the time. - Fred Brooks
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From: "Derek B. Noonburg" <derekn@vw.ece.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: use of SocSec# as student ID
Organization: ECE Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 18:46:54 GMT
Student IDs here at Carnegie Mellon are SSNs (I unfortunately didn't
know better when I enrolled). I discovered that the registrar has a
form which one uses to request a new ID# (presumably of the same
series given to foreign students, etc.), so I submitted the form and
waited. I found out, after talking to somebody in the registrar's
office, that if you are on university payroll, you can't have your ID
changed. Their story is that "the payroll computer is linked to the
registration computer, so they both have to use the same number".
(Payroll needs the number to report to the IRS, of course.)
I intend to write a letter to person I talked to at the registrar's
office. Here's my question: can anyone suggest some concrete examples
of why it is a bad idea to have my SSN on my ID card? Knowing a
person's SSN makes it easier to get hold of personal info (other
reasons?), but I'd like some more specific examples that might
convince a bureaucrat. References to newspaper articles ("this could
happen to you"), etc., would be great.
- Derek
--
Derek Noonburg derekn@vw.ece.cmu.edu
Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept., Carnegie Mellon University
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Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 14:30:49 -0700
From: eugene@nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Scientists cry foul over NASA security raid at Ames
[Moderator's Note: This orginally appeared in the RISKS-FORUM Digest
(08/27/92) Volume 13 : Issue 76. I thought it might be of interest to
you. _dennis]
Markets * High Tech * Economy
San Jose Mercury News, Saturday, August 15, 1992
Business section, Pages 9E and 14E
Scientists cry foul over NASA security raid at Ames
By Michelle Levander, Mercury News Staff Writer
A security raid that one scientist likened to a "KGB attack" at NASA/Ames
Research Center two weeks ago has pitted scientists who depend on the free
international exchange of ideas against government bureaucrats afraid of losing
economically valuable technology.
On the weekend of July 31, a security force from NASA headquarters in
Washington, D.C., descended on research facilities at Ames in Mountain View,
changing locks, sending scientists home without explanations, searching through
papers on desks and reading people's electronic mail and computer files. The
security team, sent by NASA's new administrator, Daniel Goldin, then
interrogated some of the most distinguished experts in the country in
aeronautics research and temporarily denied about 10 researchers access to
offices and computer files.
Harvey Lomax, chief of the Computational Fluid Dynamics Branch at NASA/Ames,
said the search -- conducted by men without badges who sent people home or
interrogated them without any explanation -- violated the university-like
atmosphere he tries to create among his staff. Lomax said he understood the
need need to protect security, but, he said, in his 48 years at Ames, "I have
never seen an instance of such insulting contempt."
The NASA search was aimed at reviewing the center's handling of classified
material and to "review our safeguarding of technologies that are important to
national competitiveness," NASA/ Ames director Dale Compton said in a letter to
employees this week. Compton apologized in an open letter to NASA scientists
for an event that "disrupted" a work culture that "promotes an open exchange of
scientific information."
A center spokesman said he knew of no specific incident or security breach that
prompted the search but said it was legal for the government to search
employees' desks and files.
Now that fears of Cold War enemies have died down, government officials are try
to prevent information-sharing between government scientists and their
colleagues in other countries that compete with ours. But some critics say
such policies could isolate the U.S. scientific community and stymie basic
scientific research normally conducted in the international community. [...]
NASA/Ames scientists said they have also recently face increasingly tight
restrictions on what information they can share with others and often have to
submit work to a government official in Washington for approval. Scientists
agree that some research shouldn't be shared but complain that Washington
bureaucrats can't tell the difference between basic research and a sensitive
technology transfer.
In a meeting with staff this week, Compton said top NASA officials were
concerned that ideas on fluid dynamics or other topics could end up in the
hands of aerospace or auto companies abroad rather than U.S. firms. "He said
we are funded by the United States and one of our missions is to do basic
research for industry and not give a competitive edge to others," said one
scientist at a meeting held by Compton on the raid.
One irony apparently unnoticed by search team investigators, however, was that
while they were taking action against staffers who sent computer transmissions
of information abroad, scientists from Germany, France, Spain, Israel and Japan
were working on Ames computers and sharing research ideas with their U.S.
counterparts as the invited guests of the research center.
The theoretical research done at Ames often involves international
collaboration. In fact a good deal of the center's research is published in a
British journal.
The research units apparently targeted by the search use supercomputers to
solve complex equations governing how a fluid moves, which scientists said is
far removed from immediate practical applications. In such theoretical
research, involving a single equation can take as much as 500 hours of
supercomputer time.
[The article also notes allegations of racism from the Asian-American
Pacific Islander Advisory Group at Ames, and strong denials from Ames. PGN]
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Date: 30 Aug 1992 12:41:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: KEN219@delphi.com
Subject: USA Weekend - "They're Watching You"
Has anyone read the article in the USA Weekend supplement entitled: "They're Watching You"? I knew that information is being compiled in this manner
at an alarming rate, but I had no idea it could be accessed _legally_ by
outside sources.
--Ken Weber
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ken219@delphi.com
[Moderator's Note: I saw that article too. There was nothing really new
in it but it a good consolidation of how computers can be misused in
regards to privacy. BTW, I do believe that the writer of the story broke
a few laws in claiming he was somebody else in getting the information he
did. ._dennis]
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End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #075
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