Re: government eavesdropping

[William Allen Simpson <wsimpson () greendragon com>]

Thanks for all the private messages (I guess), but you all certainly 
know that I get at least as much email as you do, and if it's important 
enough to write you a personal reply, then it's important enough to 
send to the list....

====

First, the Moskowitz story, excerpted.  If you want the whole thing, 
buy him lunch, he's a nice guy -- just remember he eats kosher.

Chrysler owned a big share of an Austrian company (now, Chrysler is 
owned by a German company, how time flies).  They started running 
IPSec on the international link.  They got a call from the French, 
saying it is/was illegal to send encrypted data over their lines.  
Chrysler had to reroute its link, through Italy as best I remember.

This confirms several things, not the least of which is the French are 
monitoring commercial data circuits.

====

No, I've never been inside any MAE/NAP, and I have no photographs of 
men in black.  But, besides the abundant persistent rumors, I've been 
on privacy panels hosted by my local congresscritters.  And, I'm told 
by said congresscritters that the administration brags about their 
monitoring of Internet traffic at the international exchange points, 
as an indication of their wonderful efficacy in tracking pernicious 
activities, such as terrorists, pornographers, gambling, gun, and 
alcohol sales, and asked for more funding in last year's appropriations
cycle.  They also claim that commercial information is removed.

This confirms several things, not the least of which is that there is 
intercepted commercial data to be removed.  

I presume that the techniques used are similar to the French.

And not too different from their investigations of me, still classified 
secret.  The files refer to email messages and excerpt voice 
conversations, none of which they got from court orders served upon me!

The small parts of these I've been able to get under FOIA are posted on 
the net -- mostly blacked out -- but careful reading indicates that the 
investigation began after the posting of an internet-draft for PPP CHAP, 
back when it was called the "cryptographic handshake authentication 
protocol".  Securing the net considered harmful....

Please FOIA your own FBI files before you tell me that I'm paranoid.
Be prepared to pester them for 6 years to meet their statutory 20 day
deadline.

====

Some patents have been widely circulated, being number 5,937,422 among 
others.  Remember that the patent office can keep patents secret when 
they affect "national security".

I presume, based on my experience, that in addition to those alcohol 
peddlers, the semantic trees search for "security" and "cryptography".

====

Merit has been around longer than most ISPs.  They have had machines 
compromised.  They have had machines attacked by DoS.  They serve 
college campuses.  They have a clue coefficient.  'nuff said.

WSimpson () UMich edu
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32