Date: Tue, 28 Apr 92 15:22:57 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator 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 Subject: Re: Cordless phones Date: 27 Apr 92 06:08:35 GMT >In article 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 Subject: Cordless Phones > From: Craig "Powderkeg" DeForest > 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 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" 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 Subject: Re: Cordless phones Date: 27 Apr 92 06:08:35 GMT Followups-To: comp.society.privacy >In article 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 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 Subject: Re: All the Myriad Ways... Reply-To: bs891@cleveland.freenet.edu I'm responding to Ronald Green's (<) 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" 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 ******************************