Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 17:28:31 EST Errors-To: Comp-privacy Error Handler From: Computer Privacy Digest Moderator 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 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]. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ~ -------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ 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 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 > > > > 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 ------------------------------ From: "Derek B. Noonburg" 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 ------------------------------ 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] ------------------------------ ------------------------------ 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 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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] ------------------------------ End of Computer Privacy Digest V1 #075 ******************************