Saturday, March 25, 2006

Q & A With Canada's Michael Geist. Q & A With Canada's Michael Geist. Torrentz writes "P2PNet is running a question and answer session with Canada's Michael Geist, a leading Internet and copyright expert. Geist discusses P2P, the music business, and the future direction of copyright law." From the interview: "My focus has traditionally been on Internet issues and I'm very active on privacy, spam, Internet governance issues. The growing attention to copyright merely reflects its critical importance to the Internet and to creativity and culture more generally." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] 2:46:05 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Election commission takes light touch with Net regs | CNET News.com The Internet's freewheeling days as a place exempt from the heavy hand of federal election laws are about to end. Late Friday, the Federal Election Commission released a 96-page volume of Internet regulations that have been anticipated for more than a year and represent the government's most extensive foray yet into describing how bloggers and Web sites must abide by election law restrictions. The rules (click here for PDF) say that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated like political advertising in other types of media. They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech. If the regulations are approved by the FEC at its meeting on Monday, they will represent a substantial change from a far more aggressive version of the regulations seen by CNET News.com last year. An outcry from bloggers and even members of Congress appears to have caused FEC lawyers--who are under court order to regulate the Internet--to rethink the rules and adopt a more laissez-faire approach. Though not all the implications of the 96-page document were immediately clear, one prominent advocate of Internet free speech said the rules are preferable over what could have happened. 2:42:40 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Election Commission Takes a Light Touch With Net Regs. Election Commission Takes a Light Touch With Net Regs. CNet is reporting that the Federal Election Commission released a 96-page volume of internet regulations last Friday.  --  From the article:  "The rules [PDF] say that paid Web advertising, including banner ads and sponsored links on search engines, will be regulated like political advertising in other types of media. They also say bloggers can enjoy the freedoms of traditional news organizations when endorsing a candidate or engaging in political speech. [Slashdot: Your Rights Online] 2:39:57 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

DFW - AP Wire | 03/24/2006 | Doctors calls could have been captured The National Security Agency would not have been barred from capturing communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients during its controversial warrantless surveillance program, the Justice Department told Congress Friday. Such communications normally receive special legal protections. "Although the program does not specifically target the communications of attorneys or physicians, calls involving such persons would not be categorically excluded from interception," the department said in responses to questions from lawmakers. 1:48:01 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

A Key Recovery Attack on the 802.11b Wired Equivalent Privacy Protocol (WEP). A Key Recovery Attack on the 802.11b Wired Equivalent Privacy Protocol (WEP). This paper presents a practical key recovery attack on WEP, the link-layer security protocol for 802.11b wireless networks. The attack is based on a partial key exposure vulnerability in the RC4 stream cipher discovered by Fluhrer, Mantin, and Shamir. This paper describes how to apply this aw to breaking WEP, our implementation of the attack, and optimizations that can be used to reduce the number of packets required for the attack. It concludes that the 802.11b WEP standard is completely insecure, and it provides recommendations on how this vulnerability could be mitigated and repaired. [ITPapers.com - Recent Privacy Issues White Papers] 1:42:49 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

NSA Might Listen to Lawyer Calls. NSA Might Listen to Lawyer Calls. Responding to questions from Congress, the Justice Department says confidential calls between doctors and patients or attorneys and clients are not off limits to NSA warrentless surveillance -- and such material can be used in court. It's all legal says DOJ. [Wired News: Security Blanket] 1:39:42 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

CDT Says NSA Surveillance Bills Are Premature, Too Broad. CDT Says NSA Surveillance Bills Are Premature, Too Broad. Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) have introduced bills to authorize electronic surveillance that extends beyond the scope of the controversial National Security Agency (NSA) domestic spying program. Specter's bill would establish procedures for judicial review and approval of broad electronic surveillance programs that could target innocent Americans. DeWine's bill would establish special intelligence subcommittees to oversee electronic surveillance programs and would allow warrantless surveillance in some circumstances without judicial review. CDT believes that these bills are premature and that Congress should not legislate until it conducts an inquiry to understand fully the operational details of the program. [Center for Democracy and Technology] 1:36:01 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []

Secondary Screening: Ticket? Check. I.D.? Nope, but Not a Problem It's now official. You don't need identification to travel on an airplane. Now, the signs in the airport still tell you that you must have identification. The TSA's website itself states, "Each adult traveler needs to keep available his/her airline boarding pass and government-issued photo ID until exiting the security checkpoint." Neither those signs nor the TSA's website are true. Who says? The TSA. "Passengers are allowed to enter screening area without identification," TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa told this humble reporter today. I got an off-the-record reason for the untruthful statements in the nation's airports and on the website created with your tax dollars. The on-the-record answer: "Customers should present government-issued I.D." As far as I know, this is the first public acknowledgment that the government's official policy is to let people on planes without identification, that is attributed to a TSA employee (the fantastic Sarah Lai Stirland had an unattributed version here.) The TSA has told the Ninth Circuit in two separate cases (John Gilmore & Daniel Kuualoha Aukai) that airport policy was to let people enter security areas without identification. Gilmore's Identity Project has been asking for volunteers to see if that was true in ye olde meatspace. Results, currently mixed. Dog-ate-my homework excuse with contrition gets you less hassle than a flat-out refusal seems to be the pattern, according to folks at the I.D. Project. So, if you want to fly without identification without telling any white lies, I recommend taking a hearty amount of fortitude and a copy of at least one of the rulings from the Ninth Circuit. You are likely in for a battle when the security personnel point to the sign and you try to tell them that your government is not actually telling the truth. And that it knows it isn't telling the truth. Good luck with that. 1:33:51 PM  PermaLink   / trackback []