Slashdot | Microsoft's New Spamming Technique.

Slashdot | Stacked Carnivore Review Team.

MS-NBC - Are digital signatures a threat?. Do we need to worry about government tracing and identity theft? A leading technology expert has warned that digital signatures, an increasingly prevalent Internet security technology, could hail a future devoid of privacy.

ZDNet: News: MSN turns users into spammers. Users of the MSN Explorer beta may inadvertently be sending their friends seemingly personal e-mail gushing praise over the new Microsoft program. The catch is, the spam was written by Microsoft and attached to change-of-address e-mails sent by some users who have signed up for MSN Explorer.

Naughty naughty.

But, in one reply to an angry customer who received the e-mail, Hotmail -- a Microsoft subsidiary -- denied that the message was spam.

The really bad part of this is that the message is written in the first person as if it was actually written by the user and NOT Microsoft. If had been placed at the bottom of the message and labeled as an advertisement I doubt that there would have been such an uproar. Disappointment yes, but not an uproad.

Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 2000 ( from Thomas)- Bill Summary & Status. To amend title 18, United States Code, to modify certain provisions of law relating to the interception of communications, and for other purposes.

Political News from Wired News - Keeping Cops' Hands Off Email. The House Judiciary Committee approves a privacy act which would require law-enforcement officials to get a search warrant before reading email messages. But election-year politics could delay action on the bill.

Political News from Wired News - Carnivore Review Team Exposed!.

The FBI's electronic surveillance system seems to have a hex on it all the way around. In the latest snafu, confidential info on a team hired to review the program is inadvertently exposed, thanks to an oversight by the Justice Department.

It's uncertain whether the irony of public disclosure of personal information, by the very people who are in the midst of claiming they can be trusted to protect it, was lost on Justice Department officials, because they declined to comment on Wednesday.

CDT POLICY POST Volume 6, Number 17 September 27, 2000 - Policy Post 6.17 | Strong Privacy Bill Approved by House Judiciary Committee.

CDT POLICY POST Volume 6, Number 17 September 27, 2000

A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE
from
THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY

CONTENTS:
(1) Strong Pro-Privacy Bill Passes House Judiciary Committee
(2) Expansions of Government Power Rejected
(3) Future Prospects for H.R. 5018 Uncertain
(4) Senate Legislation Would Threaten Privacy

CDT - Summary of H.R. 5108, The Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 2000. By a vote of 20-1, the House Judiciary Committee on September 26 approved H.R. 5018, legislation to strengthen privacy protections governing law enforcement surveillance.

CNET.com - News - Entertainment & Media - IE 5.5 hole lets hackers into personal records . A veteran bug hunter detects yet another security hole in Microsoft's software that could potentially give hackers an easy route to personal computer files.

Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. - Improved Cryptanalysis of Rijndael. ABSTRACT: We improve the best attack on Rijndael reduced to 6 rounds from complexity 272 to 244. We also present the first known attacks on 7- and 8-round Rijndael. Finally, we discuss the key schedule of Rijndael and describe a related-key attack that can break 9-round Rijndael with 256-bit keys.

Slashdot | Rijndael Cryptanalysis Results.

New York Times - free registration required D.O.J. to Study F.B.I. Tool.

The DOJ-commissioned study lost some clout after several prominent universities including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) backed out of the application process, saying restrictions placed on the scope of the review took away from its independence.

MIT network manager Jeffrey Schiller said he was concerned that the raw material used in the study could not be published alongside the findings and that the DOJ intends to review and edit the report before it is released to the public.

Fox News - DOJ Picks School to Review 'Carnivore'.

The Justice Department has chosen a Chicago-based research group to evaluate the FBI's Carnivore e-mail surveillance system.

But some prominent computer experts refused to apply for the job, and one said anyone who did so was "prostituting" themselves because the Justice Department would have too much control over the final report.

Along with senior faculty members from the Chicago-Ken College of Law, the IIT Research Institute will review the controversial system, the Justice Department said. (IITRI is affiliated with the Illinois Institute of Technology.)

Slashdot | IIT To Review Carnivore.

Slashdot | Your Rights Online: U.S. And EU Ready International Cybercrime Treaty .

Slashdot | Linux Encryption HOWTO.