Paul Hardwick: Standards

Activists Claim Success: No RFID Chips Required in Driver's License Regulations - March 2007

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 04:49:12 GMT

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) declared a victory for taxpayers and drivers yesterday after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released proposed regulations for personal identification that do not mandate the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. The REAL ID Act requires DHS to establish federal standards for state-issued driver's licenses and identification cards.

Homeland Security offers details on Real ID | CNET News.com

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 03:52:36 GMT

Hundreds of millions of Americans will have until 2013 to be outfitted with new digital ID cards, the Bush administration said on Thursday in a long-awaited announcement that reveals details of how the new identification plan will work.

The announcement by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security offers a five-year extension to the deadline for states to issue the ID cards, and proposes creating the equivalent of a national database that would include details on all 240 million licensed drivers.

According to the draft regulations (PDF), which were required by Congress in the 2005 Real ID Act and are unlikely to assuage privacy and cost concerns raised by state legislatures:

âo¢ The Real ID cards must include all drivers' home addresses and other personal information printed on the front and in a two-dimensional barcode on the back. The barcode will not be encrypted because of "operational complexity," which means that businesses like bars and banks that require ID would be capable of scanning and recording customers' home addresses.

âo¢ A radio frequency identification (RFID) tag is under consideration. Homeland Security is asking for input on how the licenses could incorporate "RFID-enabled vicinity chip technology, in addition to" the two-dimensional barcode requirement.

Homeland Security Offers Details on Real ID.

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 03:48:45 GMT

Homeland Security Offers Details on Real ID. pr0nqu33n writes "C|Net is running an article on the DHS's requirements for the Real ID system. Thursday members of the Bush administration finally unveiled details of the anticipated national identification program. Millions of Americans will have until 2013 to register for the system, which will (some would argue) constitute a national ID. RFID trackers for the cards are under consideration, as is a cohesive nation-wide design for the card. States must submit a proposal for how they'll adopt the system by early October of this year. If they don't, come May of next year their residents will see their licenses unable to gain them access to federal buildings and airplanes. The full regulations for the system are available online in PDF format. Likewise, the DHS has a Questions and Answers style FAQ available to explain the program to the curious." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

Windows for Warships nears frontline service | The Register

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 03:07:50 GMT

The Type 45 destroyers now being launched will run Windows for Warships: and that's not all. The attack submarine Torbay has been retrofitted with Microsoft-based command systems, and as time goes by the rest of the British submarine fleet will get the same treatment, including the Vanguard class (V class). The V boats carry the UK's nuclear weapons and are armed with Trident ICBMs, tipped with multiple H-bomb warheads.

All this raises a number of worrying issues. First up is basic reliability and usability. Most of us have stared in helpless despair at the dreaded blue screen; how much worse would you feel if that wasn't just your desktop gone but your combat display, and it really was the screen of death?

NGA Praises Congressional Movement to Correct Real ID.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:07:42 GMT

NGA Praises Congressional Movement to Correct Real ID. "The substantial costs and looming implementation deadline make Real ID unworkable and unreasonable." [GT: Security and Privacy]

DHS Proposal for State Driver License Enhancements Posted for Public Comment.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:04:53 GMT

DHS Proposal for State Driver License Enhancements Posted for Public Comment. DHS will grant states an extension of the compliance deadline until December 31, 2009. [GT: Security and Privacy]

Real ID Act Deadline Pushed Back to 2009.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:53:08 GMT

Real ID Act Deadline Pushed Back to 2009. "We will work closely with states to implement these standards and protect American's privacy against identity theft and the use of fraudulent documents." [GT: Security and Privacy]

National ID Card Rules Unveiled.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:48:35 GMT

National ID Card Rules Unveiled. The DHS chief reveals how he'll turn state driver's licenses into internal passports. By Ryan Singel. [Wired News: Security Blanket]

Berners-Lee Speaks Out Against DRM, Advocates Net Neutrality.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:31:36 GMT

Berners-Lee Speaks Out Against DRM, Advocates Net Neutrality. narramissic writes "Speaking before the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Tim Berners-Lee advocated for net neutrality, saying that the Web deserves 'special treatment' as a communications medium to protect its nondiscriminatory approach to content. Berners-Lee's more controversial statements came on the topic of DRM, in which he suggested that instead of DRM, copyright holders should provide information on how to legally use online material, allowing users the opportunity 'to do the right thing.' This led to an odd exchange with Representative Mary Bono who compared Berner-Lee's suggestion to 'having a speed limit but not enforcing the speed limit.'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

DHS Issues REAL ID Regulations; CDT Urges Repeal of Law.

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:17:49 GMT

DHS Issues REAL ID Regulations; CDT Urges Repeal of Law. The Department of Homeland Security has issued proposed regulations implementing the REAL ID Act, which would require states to adopt tighter standards and create a networked system for driver's license issuance. Given the Act's fundamental flaws, CDT has joined other civil liberties groups in supporting legislation introduced in recent days in the House and Senate to repeal the hastily-enacted 2005 law and return to the driver's license reform process begun by the previous Congress. CDT is especially concerned that the Act would result in the creation of a linked network of government databases of personal information, without standards or limits on access and use. [Center for Democracy and Technology]

Administrivia: Now we have a overheated CPU ( 60 degrees centigrade )

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:39:01 GMT

OK, if the DDOS attack wasn't enough. Now our server went down with a temperature overload. We were up to 60 degrees centigrade when we shut down. The CPU and a broken fan have been replaced.

Administrivia: Our data-center was hit by a DDOS attack today.

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 22:19:59 GMT

Sorry for being either very slow or off the net for a while recently. The data-center we are part of was hit by a DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attack recently. At the moment it looks to be under control, but we are keeping an eye on things.

Windows Genuine Advantage Gets More Lenient.

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 21:37:02 GMT

Windows Genuine Advantage Gets More Lenient. Troglodyte writes in with word that Microsoft is revamping its Windows Genuine Advantage program so that it labels fewer users pirates. WGA now has a third category besides "genuine and "not genuine," called "not sure." Quoting: "[I]t's quite obvious what is going on here: Microsoft has added 'not sure' as a way of cutting down on the number of false positives associated with WGA. As many as one in five PCs were failing WGA checks, but this new setting should both reduce this and give Microsoft the chance to investigate further the kinds of things that are landing folks in the 'not sure' category." [Slashdot]

Music moguls seek security blanket - Los Angeles Times

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 16:24:50 GMT

One way to judge the music industry's troubles is to watch annual sales figures for CDs, which have slumped 25% since 2000. But it's more revealing to chart how the major record companies' attitudes about new business models online have been shifting.

At first the shifts were almost too small to notice, as when the labels started making a handful of downloadable songs available for $2.50 or more. But as the file-sharing phenomenon grew and CD sales slipped, the changes became more pronounced. The labels started offering the rights to songs on terms that didn't cripple their online partners. They embraced Apple's iTunes Music Store, whose anti-piracy technology doesn't actually limit copying. They cut deals with file-sharing companies for subscription services that let users share the songs they rented.

Along the way, though, the major labels adamantly refused to do the kind of deal necessary to replicate what the original Napster, Kazaa and eDonkey had provided: they would not accept a flat fee a "blanket" license that lets Internet service providers sell an all-you-can-eat sonic buffet, enabling customers to download, burn and swap as much as they pleased. The rights would be included in the cost of a high-speed Internet access line, so the downloads would seem free while still generating royalties for artists, songwriters, labels and publishers.

That reticence may be giving way, too, thanks to the relentless decline in revenue. Just look at what the head of the major record companies' global trade group, let slip last month at a music-industry gathering in France. If Internet service providers "want to come to us and look for a blanket license for an amount per month," IFPI chief John Kennedy said, "let's engage in that discussion."

His U.S. counterpart, Mitch Bainwol of the Recording Industry Assn. of America (RIAA), quickly added that the licenses should be negotiated voluntarily, not compelled by the government. So that part of the labels' thinking hasn't changed. Nevertheless, Kennedy's remark reflects a potential sea change in the way the record companies do business. If the labels follow through, it could trigger the greatest explosion in innovation since engineers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany developed the MP3 format.

That's a big "if," but two of the four majors have already taken the first step. In England, a venture called PlayLouder MSP is negotiating deals with record companies and music publishers for a competitively priced high-speed Internet access service that will include the right to download millions of songs, transfer them to portable devices and share them with friends. The main restriction is that subscribers can't send songs to people who aren't customers of PlayLouder MSP. In other words, it's a private electronic playground for music lovers.

The company, which expects to launch its service this year, plans to put a chunk of the monthly service charges into a royalty pool that would be divided according to popularity--the more often a song is downloaded, the larger the share of the pool that its copyright holders will receive. To monitor the network and enforce its borders, PlayLouder MSP relies on technology that can identify songs as they pass through the network--and, if necessary, block them. So far, several large independent labels from the U.S. and the U.K. have agreed to let the company offer MP3s of all their songs, while two of the majors, Sony BMG and EMI, have agreed to supply songs wrapped in electronic locks. Those locks won't make much difference, though; as part of the deal, subscribers will be free to share MP3s from all of PlayLouder MSP's partners, including Sony BMG and EMI.

AOL and OpenID: Where we are

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:59:33 GMT

It's not really a secret that AOL has been experimenting with OpenID. As I've said, I think that user-centric, interoperable identity is hugely important to enable the social experiences we're trying to provide. This is a work in progress, but things are coming along thanks to our authentication team's diligent effort. Here's where we are today:

Every AOL/AIM user now has at least one OpenID URI, http://openid.aol.com/<;sn>.
This experimental OpenID 1.1 Provider service is available now and we are conducting compatibility tests.
We're working with OpenID relying parties to resolve compatibility issues.
Our blogging platform has enabled basic OpenID 1.1 in beta, so every beta blog URI is also a basic OpenID identifier. (No Yadis yet.)
We don't yet accept OpenID identities within our products as a relying party, but we're actively working on it. That roll-out is likely to be gradual.
We are tracking the OpenID 2.0 standardization effort and plan to support it after it becomes final.

Update: Thanks for all the responses; I've posted a followup over on dev.aol.com.

AOL Now Supports OpenID.

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 23:56:54 GMT

AOL Now Supports OpenID. Nurgled writes "On Sunday John Panzer announced that AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL's userbase how to make use of this new technology." [Slashdot]

Upgrade to Vista, Get More DRM.

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:02:51 GMT

Upgrade to Vista, Get More DRM. Watching "premium content" in Windows Vista requires users to play nice with Microsoft's built-in digital rights controls. In Monkey Bites. [Wired News: Top Stories]

QDN: The growing consensus behind OpenID

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:28:06 GMT

It's because of this that I'm so happy to see an initiative like OpenID succeeding. A few years ago, the idea of OpenID was floated by the inestimable Brad Fitzpatrick (the father of LiveJournal, now a Six Apart property) as a way for people to carry around virtual identity cards on the net, and to securely use those credentials as a way of demonstrating to others on the internet who they really are. Between then and now, OpenID's development has taken place out in the open, on mailing lists and wikis and web forums, and the result is a technology that Microsoft adopted last week and AOL has been quietly rolling out to its online service and instant messenger users for a few months now. That's a great adoption rate, and I'd like to think that it's because it's a technology that's sorely needed on today's web. I'm not naive enough to think that it's a salve to cure all the net's wounds -- for example, there's still work to be done to make sure that anonymous ID providers don't become the way spammers and miscreants get around the system -- but I'm hopefuly enough to recognize that OpenID might be one of the more important building blocks to us all being able to trust our online interactions just a bit more.

KMVT - Real ID Sparks Controversy in Idaho

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 02:04:21 GMT

Idaho may become the latest state to oppose a federal law requiring a national driver's license, on concern over its cost and intrusiveness on personal privacy.

At least 17 states including neighboring Washington and Utah have passed or are considering legislation asking Congress to dump the "Real I-D" project.

The Idaho House Transportation Committee will debate a resolution opposing it Wednesday.

Supporters in the federal Department of Homeland Security say Real I-D is needed to prevent terrorists such as those behind the September 11th attacks and illegal immigrants from getting fake I-D cards.

But the conservative Cato Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union, groups normally on opposite sides, have formed an unusual alliance to call on Idaho lawmakers to send Congress a message: That Real I-D should to be reconsidered.

Governor Otter co-sponsored Real I-D in 2005 while he was a U-S representative from Idaho, but a spokesman in Boise says the Republican chief executive now has concerns about its cost.

RFID Implementations Require Industry Specific Expertise, Survey Reveals.

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:59:30 GMT

RFID Implementations Require Industry Specific Expertise, Survey Reveals. Results should help manufacturers identify how to justify new RFID projects in terms of business objectives, technologies, and more. [GT: Security and Privacy]

E-Commerce News: Privacy: Web Privacy Group Certifies Safe Ad, Tracking Programs

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:57:16 GMT

TRUSTe, an organization that aims to safeguard the privacy of Web surfers, is providing certification to advertising or behavior-tracking software programs that it deems safe to download. "The Trusted Download Program represents another important step toward making downloadable software more transparent," said Ari Schwartz, deputy director of Center for Democracy and Technology.

Hacker cracks HD copy protection.

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 00:51:01 GMT

Hacker cracks HD copy protection.

Years to develop; days to break

A lone hacker has unlocked the master key preventing the copying of high-definition DVDs in a development that is sure to get the entertainment industry's knickers wrapped tighter than a magnet's coil. What's more, the individual was able to defeat the technology with no cracking tools or reverse engineering, despite the millions of dollars and many years engineers put into developing the AACS (Advanced Access Content System) for locking down high-definition video.

[The Register - Music and Media]

Maine Senator Announces Legislation to Delay Implementation of Real ID.

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 02:02:22 GMT

Maine Senator Announces Legislation to Delay Implementation of Real ID. "I will be introducing this legislation so that we can pause and take a more measured approach to Real ID." [GT: Security and Privacy]

Debate growing over data security - baltimoresun.com

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 01:40:57 GMT

When Johns Hopkins officials announced this week that a courier had lost nine backup computer tapes containing personal data on 135,000 employees and patients, security specialists were critical, even though the information probably was destroyed without being compromised.

The reaction came not just because the tapes were lost, but because they weren't encrypted -- coded so that they could be read only with a computerized key.

"Have we not learned from history yet, that if you're going to give [data] to a third party that you either encrypt or password protect it?" said Linda Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.

Amid a spate of lost or stolen data, some organizations and industries have begun taking steps to better protect employee and customer information, yet far too many have not, privacy advocates say. Many still leave sensitive information uncoded or hand it off to sometimes-careless employees or third parties.

This year alone, Social Security numbers were posted on a public Web site at the University of Nebraska; personal information on 537 people was stolen from the New York Department of Labor; a hacker accessed Social Security numbers for more than 1,200 people at the University of Missouri; and a laptop was stolen that contained medical records for 1,100 patients at the Salina Regional Health Center in Kansas.

Some consultants say that costs keep organizations from updating their security practices -- encryption software and developing privacy procedures can be expensive. But the No. 1 reason is complacency, according to Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC, in Washington.

"They don't see themselves as being in a position where they're going to lose something," Coney said.

Schneier: Why Microsoft Sold Out Consumers in Vista.

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 00:19:17 GMT

Schneier: Why Microsoft Sold Out Consumers in Vista.

Today, the PC industry needs Hollywood more than Hollywood needs the PC. Most consumers rely on traditional consumer electronics devices to view DVDs and TV content, but companies like Microsoft are betting on the converged digital home and desperately want a bigger piece of the media device market. Because of the DMCA, Microsoft has to get permission to build devices compatible with Hollywood's DRMed content. So when Hollywood demanded that Microsoft lard Vista with restrictions to access high-def DVD and digital cable content, the software giant was in a weak bargaining position.

But as Bruce Schneier explains in a recent editorial (via BoingBoing), Vista's DRM may also be a play to turn the tables and turn Microsoft's platform into a distribution channel on which Hollywood relies:

"[W]hile it may have started as a partnership, in the end Microsoft is going to end up locking the movie companies into selling content in its proprietary formats.
"We saw this trick before; Apple pulled it on the recording industry. First iTunes worked in partnership with the major record labels to distribute content, but soon Warner Music's CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. found that he wasn't able to dictate a pricing model to Steve Jobs. The same thing will happen here; after Vista is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, Sony's Howard Stringer won't be able to dictate pricing or terms to Bill Gates. This is a war for 21st-century movie distribution and, when the dust settles, Hollywood won't know what hit them....

"Microsoft is reaching for a much bigger prize than Apple: not just Hollywood, but also peripheral hardware vendors. Vista's DRM will require driver developers to comply with all kinds of rules and be certified; otherwise, they won't work. And Microsoft talks about expanding this to independent software vendors as well. It's another war for control of the computer market."

Schneier overstates his case a bit when he says Microsoft could have simply refused Hollywood's demands for DRM and Hollywood would have released today's high-def video content for Vista anyway. But he's right that Microsoft would very much like to lock content vendors into a distribution channel that it controls, including for channels like IPTV and digital downloads. And the more Hollywood depends on Microsoft, the more Microsoft may be able to limit competition from other tech companies' platforms and devices.

[EFF: Deep Links]

An American Idol for Crypto Geeks.

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 19:02:53 GMT

An American Idol for Crypto Geeks. The federal government is holding a competition for a new cryptographic hash function that will become the national standard. Really, this is exciting stuff. Commentary by Bruce Schneier. [Wired News: Security Blanket]

FCW.com News - Lack of info feeds public outcries about privacy, experts say

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:52:39 GMT

Federal agencies need to do a better job of informing the public about measures taken to protect their sensitive and private information, current and former government officials say.

A lack of information can lead to trouble, said several experts, speaking at the CTO Forum held by the Government Electronics and Information Technology Association.

In some cases, agencies have been forced to end programs -- such as data mining or surveillance projects -- because of public outcry that stemmed from misperceptions that might have been better addressed with better information.

"When we don't get the kind of meaningful public debate, decisions get based on inadequate knowledge and the public gets in an uproar on things based on incorrect information," said Linda Millis, director of the National Security Program at the nonprofit Markle Foundation.

RIAA urges Apple to spread DRM far and wide.

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 17:22:06 GMT

RIAA urges Apple to spread DRM far and wide.

Steve, you're so smart

The RIAA has seized on the weakest part of Steve Jobs' anti-DRM manifesto by banging on Apple to license its FairPlay technology to other companies.

[The Register - Music and Media]

Microsoft Pledges Support for OpenID.

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:55:39 GMT

Microsoft Pledges Support for OpenID. Microsoft throws its weight behind OpenID, an emerging Web authentication standard. [PC World: Latest Technology News]

Microsoft to Support OpenID.

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:51:02 GMT

Microsoft to Support OpenID.

SAN FRANCISCO: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates today said his company would throw its support behind "OpenID," an open-source, distributed identity management system that seeks give computer users a more secure way to manage their online credentials.

"Everywhere you go on the Web there are issues about reputation and trust," Gates said in the keynote address this morning here at the RSA Security conference here. "Some blog environments want anonymous people to [be able to] say anything, and in other environments, they want you to represent some credentials about who you are. And that's just not going to scale with the kind of password thing we have today."

In a (very simplified) example, OpenID works like this: The key to your online identity is a Web address, such as http://myblog.someplace.com. You pick one of several OpenID providers -- such as Vox, OpenID, Verisign or LiveJournal (OpenID is the brainchild of LiveJournal founder Brad Fitzpatrick) -- to be the trusted host for your identity credentials. When you visit a site that has implemented OpenID, you're asked to enter your personal Web address, which you've configured to query your identity credentials stored at your chosen OpenID provider, which in turn will ask you to login using whatever credentials it requires. These couple of blogs have more coherent and complete explanations of how OpenID is supposed to work.

OpenID is most often cited as a way to help Internet users navigate the zillions of blogs and other Web 2.0 applications that require users to sign up and manage different usernames and passwords. Some advocates say it also has the potential to help users guard against phishing scams and related forms of online fraud, but others say the whole system is likely to be a boon for phishers and online scam artists everywhere.

Gates said Microsoft would support OpenID 2.0 in conjunction with CardSpace, a feature similar in nature to OpenID that is built in to Windows Vista. CardSpace seeks to make managing digital identities easier and safer by replacing usernames and passwords as the means of identifying oneself on the Web.

Microsoft's acceptance of an open standard is being cautiously praised by many technologists in the blogosphere, who see the software giant's participation as key to fixing the more complex problems with online identity management and authentication. Microsoft has tried to control the online ID space in the past with programs like MSN Passport, which largely failed to gain traction beyond Microsoft's own online properties. Single sign-on programs also have been touted by Yahoo! and Google.

Bruce Schneier, a cryptography expert and chief technology officer for online security provider BT Counterpane, greeted Microsoft's announcement with reservation, saying Microsoft has a long history of "supporting and then co-opting" open standards.

"They tried to get their own system working, and I think it's telling that they are now supporting an open system," said Schneier, who's giving a talk at RSA later today on what he calls "the psychology of security."

"In some ways it's worrisome, but I'm reasonably confident in the Web 2.0 world that the distributed control of OpenID is strong enough, that it's not Microsoft-driven," he said.

[Security Fix]

Senators Introduce Strong Data Breach Bill.

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:48:40 GMT

Senators Introduce Strong Data Breach Bill. Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) today introduced legislation to protect consumers when their personal privacy is compromised by data breaches. First introduced in 2005, the Personal Data Privacy and Security Act is one of the stronger data-breach proposals that have been proposed in Congress. CDT is particularly supportive of a provision in the measure that strengthens oversight of the government's use of commercial databases to collect information about citizens. CDT supports federal data breach legislation so long as it improves on existing protections and does not undermine the strong protections already established by the states. [Center for Democracy and Technology]

Hollywood on the Hill: Time to Bury the Broadcast Flag?

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:43:44 GMT

Hollywood on the Hill: Time to Bury the Broadcast Flag?

Hollywood is in full force today on Capitol Hill,hosting "The Business of Show Business Industry Symposium"(pdf) with stars such as Sex, Lies & Videotape director Steven Soderbergh and An Officer and a Gentleman Director Taylor Hackford talking about how central copyright is to the business of movie making.

We don't disagree with that notion of course, but what we don't usually agree with Hollywood about is the means by, and the degree to which, government should protect those copyrights. Over the past 5 years, Hollywood and the recording industry have pushed numerous proposals in Congress, and they have tended to fall into several categories: 1) government technology mandates like the broadcast flag; 2) expanding secondary copyright liability (like the "Induce Act"); 3) expanding the permissions culture (e.g., licensing temporary or buffer copies); and 4) increasing punishment for copyright infringement that falls just short of death by hanging. The good news is that most of these efforts have failed. The bad news is that with a Democratic-controlled Congress and one year until a Presidential election, you can bet your mortgage that they will be pushing these, and other initiatives hard in 2007.

But as time goes on and the public's (and the content industry's) use of technology and digital media change, it makes it harder and harder to make the case for these proposals. Take, for example, our favorite technology mandate, the broadcast flag. For those newcomers to this blog, the FCC's 2003 broadcast flag rules would have given the government the power to dictate technological design, and as a result, limit lawful uses of digital technology. The rules would have required FCC pre-approval for every technology that could demodulate a digital TV signal, as well as for those technologies (like Digital Video Recorders or even cellphones) that are "downstream" from digital TV devices. Public Knowledge brought a court challenge on behalf of it and eight other public interest, library and cyberliberties organizations, and in May 2005 a federal appeals court struck down the rules. Hollywood has been trying to get Congress to reinstate it ever since.

Even assuming that there was ever a rationale for the broadcast flag, does it exist anymore? And would such a rule even be in the best interests of the content industries? Let's take a look:

[Public Knowledge - Policy Blog]

EFF Tackles New Role in Europe - Office Opens in Brussels

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:39:19 GMT

EFF Tackles New Role in Europe.

EFF Europe Office Opens in Brussels

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opened a new office in Brussels today to work with various institutions of the European Union (EU) on innovation and digital rights, acting as a watchdog for the public interest in intellectual property and civil liberties policy initiatives that impact the European digital environment.

The new EFF Europe office, made possible by the generous support of the Open Society Institute and Mr. Mark Shuttleworth of the Shuttleworth Foundation, will allow EFF to have an increased focus on the development of EU law. EFF also plans to expand its efforts in European digital activism and looks forward to working with many groups and organizations to fight effectively for consumers' and technologists' interests. EFF's new European Affairs Coordinator, Erik Josefsson, will be an on-the-ground analyst, activist, and educator about critical intellectual property and civil liberties issues.

"In a networked world, protecting innovation and digital rights must be a global effort," Josefsson said. "We hope this new office in Brussels will increase awareness of European developments and enrich the policy debate."

[EFF: Breaking News]

CDT Faults Guidelines for Terror Information Sharing.

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 15:35:46 GMT

CDT Faults Guidelines for Terror Information Sharing. A CDT analysis finds that privacy guidelines issued by the Bush Administration for the Information Sharing Environment are inadequate. The ISE is a potentially revolutionary system for exchanging personally identifiable information that was mandated by the intelligence reform act of 2004. Adoption of detailed guidelines to protect privacy was supposed to be a pre-condition for its development. Moving forward with the ISE without adequate guidelines jeopardizes privacy, due process and First Amendment rights. [Center for Democracy and Technology]

Senator, witnesses say health IT office is dropping ball on privacy

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:23:12 GMT

"I fear that HHS is not acting fast enough" to build privacy and security into the emerging Nationwide Health Information Network, Akaka said.

The senator's position was bolstered by testimony from Mark Rothstein, director of the Institute for Bioethics, Health Policy and Law at the University of Louisville School of Medicine in Louisville, Kentucky. In Kolodner's office, "the focus on privacy is currently lagging behind" work on technical issues such as network architectures, Rothstein testified.

And Carol Diamond, managing director of the Markle Foundation's health programs, said privacy and security policies should be finalized before technology is developed.

"If technology is developed in advance of, or in the absence of, the relevant policy framework, our nation runs the risk of inappropriate uses of personal information followed by a public clamor for hasty remedies," Diamond said. "In those circumstances, we may find ourselves retrofitting complex technologies at great costs....This unnecessary cycle will undermine the sustainability of a health information sharing network."

Research Reveals Data Loss Still Major Threat Despite Increased Corporate Efforts.

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:13:18 GMT

Research Reveals Data Loss Still Major Threat Despite Increased Corporate Efforts. Focus on threat of outside attacks overlooks danger employee behavior. [GT: Security and Privacy]

GAO questions HHS efforts to secure electronic health records.

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:03:33 GMT

GAO questions HHS efforts to secure electronic health records. The Government Accountability Office is calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to come up with a plan to protect the security of health data exchanged electronically. HHS said it's already doing so. [Computerworld Privacy News]

More States Challenging National Driver's Licenses.

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 19:22:19 GMT

More States Challenging National Driver's Licenses. berberine writes "A revolt against a national driver's license, begun in Maine last month, is quickly spreading to other states. The Maine Legislature on Jan. 26 overwhelmingly passed a resolution objecting to the Real ID Act of 2005. The federal law sets a national standard for driver's licenses and requires states to link their record-keeping systems to national databases. Within a week of Maine's action, lawmakers in Georgia, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Vermont and Washington state also balked at Real ID. They are expected soon to pass laws or adopt resolutions declining to participate in the federal identification network. Maine's rejection was recently discussed on slashdot." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

E-Mail Security: Coping With New Threats, Legal Requirements, And Archiving Challenges.

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 05:42:39 GMT

E-Mail Security: Coping With New Threats, Legal Requirements, And Archiving Challenges. (Source: St. Bernard) This webcast will help you evaluate whether or not you have adequate protections and safeguards in place for securing and managing e-mail. It will discuss policies, best practices, and technology solutions that you can use to make your enterprise e-mail secure and in compliance. [Computerworld Privacy News]

EFF - Maine Rejects Real ID.

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 18:16:36 GMT

Maine Rejects Real ID.

The Real ID Act took a blow last week, when Maine became the first state to formally declare its opposition. The Maine legislature voted overwhelmingly to refuse to comply with the act's mandates, and requested that Congress repeal the law.

The Real ID Act essentially forces states to create a national ID. Under the law, state drivers licenses will only be accepted for "federal purposes" -- like accessing planes, trains, national parks, and court houses -- if they conform to certain uniform standards. The law also requires a vast national database linking all of the ID records together. Estimated costs of $12 billion or more will be passed on to the states and, ultimately, average citizens in the form of increased DMV fees or taxes.

"It's not only a huge federal mandate, but it's a huge mandate from the federal government asking us to do something we don't have any interest in doing," said Maine's House Majority Leader Hanna Pingree.

Meanwhile, opposition in other states is growing. Similar measures rejecting the Real ID Act are under consideration in 11 states, including Montana, Georgia, Massachusetts and Washington state.

For more information on the problems with the Real ID Act of 2005, visit EFF's Real ID page, as well as the ACLU's www.realnightmare.org.

[EFF: Deep Links]

It's Time to Forge Global Privacy Rules.

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 18:02:40 GMT

It's Time to Forge Global Privacy Rules. Opinion: Privacy columnist Jay Cline says the time is ripe for a global privacy standard to replace the hodgepodge of privacy principles that multinational businesses must cope with. The first step is to agree on what privacy really means. [Computerworld Privacy News]

Enterprise Rights Management (ERM): Architectural Approaches.

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:25:04 GMT

Enterprise Rights Management (ERM): Architectural Approaches. This document compares the architectural approaches to implementing an effective enterprise rights management (ERM) system, namely tethered and untethered models. The document attempts to explore the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches and the impact the two models have on a corporate installation of such a system. By Avoco Secure. [Infosec Writers Latest Security Papers]

Are Privacy Notices Worthless?

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:06:43 GMT

Are Privacy Notices Worthless? Jay Cline wonders whether it's time to reconsider the ubiquitous Web site privacy notice. [Computerworld Privacy News]

Fight DRM While There's Still Time.

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 02:29:34 GMT

Fight DRM While There's Still Time. ageor writes "It seems (not only) to me that DRM is about far more than intellectual property. It's also about monopoly and freedom of choice. It's one of those cases where we, the consumers, must decide against accepting the new industry's rules, which care only about control and making money. The whole matter is very well put in DRM, Vista and your rights, where you can follow the subject as deeply as you like through the numerous relevant links." [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

IBM to Open Source Novel Identity Protection Software.

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 22:16:22 GMT

IBM to Open Source Novel Identity Protection Software. coondoggie handed us a link to a Network World article reporting that IBM plans to open source the project 'Identity Mixer'. Developed by a Zurich-based research lab for the company, Identity Mixer is a novel approach to protecting user identities online. The project, which is a piece of XML-based software, uses a type of digital certificate to control who has access to identity information in a web browser. IBM is enthusiastic about widespread adoption of this technology, and so plans to open source the project through the Eclipse Open Source Foundation. The company hopes this tactic will see the software's use in commercial, medical, and governmental settings. [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

First Official State Act Resisting Real ID Act Passes in Maine. Concerns

Sat, 27 Jan 2007 20:18:10 GMT

First Official State Act Resisting Real ID Act Passes in Maine. Concerns regarding the Real ID Act have manifested themselves in Maine becoming the first state to express formal opposition to the federal legislation. The Real ID Act prohibits all federal agencies, starting May 2008, from accepting for any official purpose state-issued identifications unless they meet new federal standards, and effectively calls for creation of electronically readable, federally approved IDs for all individuals for purposes of air travel, banking, Social Security, and most government services. While state-issued driver licenses can be tailored to satisfy the statute, as a practical matter they would have to be re-issued in almost all cases in order to meet federal standards, which the Real ID Act gives the Department of Homeland Security the power to establish.

The criteria, which states must certify to the Homeland Security that their IDs meet, include that they bear the holder's full legal name, signature, date of birth, gender, address of principle residence, and driver license or identification card number. To meet the federal standard, before issuing a driver's license or ID, states must require the prospective holders to show a photo ID or other identity document that includes both their full legal name and date of birth, documentation showing date of birth, proof of social security number or verification of ineligibility for an SSN, and documentation showing name and address of principle residence. States are required to verify with the issuing agency each document required to be presented, and must confirm the SSN information with the Social Security Administration. The IDs also must include a digital photograph of the holder, physical security features that prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication, and a common machine-readable technology. Homeland Security has not yet adopted regulations to effectuate the requirement that the IDs be "machine-readable," which could take the form of being a magnetic strip, an enhanced bar code or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips.

Yesterday, Maine's legislature approved a resolution that rejects the federal requirements by stating the state "refuses to implement the REAL ID Act" and force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with the federal law, and by calling on Congress to repeal it. The vote in the state legislature was nearly unanimous - 34-0 in the state Senate and 137-4 in the House - and accordingly was wholly nonpartisan. The resolution reflects that complying with the Act would cost the state $185 million over five years and require every state resident to visit the motor vehicle agency so the various documents required by the Act could be uploaded to a federal database. Other states, including Georgia, Massachusetts, Washington and Montana have similar measures under consideration. In Montana, this week saw a legislative hearing on a bill that says the state "will not participate in the implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005" and that directs the motor vehicle department "not to implement the provisions."

Some observers expect that Congress, newly under Democratic control, will act to repeal or modify the law, and that the Maine vote will be a catalyst for other states to follow suit. Civil liberties watchdogs that oppose a national ID card surely would welcome such a development.

[Privacy and Security Law Blog]

The best practices for network security in 2007.

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 18:00:20 GMT

The best practices for network security in 2007. We all face it - the daily barrage of spam, now infested with zero-day malware attacks, not to mention the risks of malicious insiders, infected laptops coming and going behind our deep packet-inspecting firewalls and intrusion-prevention systems. Some even have to worry about how to prove steps of due care and due diligence towards a growing roster of regulatory compliance pressures. [CSO Online Data Security Briefing]

Watch out for PHP holes.

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:53:14 GMT

Watch out for PHP holes. In the first half of 2006, desktop filtering software maker Websense counted a 100 percent rise in Web sites that contained code potentially harmful to visitors. The company declined to reveal how many Web sites it tallied, but it did say that 40 percent of the sites were hacked -- that is, they had their site code altered by outsiders. Of those hacked Web sites, the vast majority (91 percent) were commissioned to install Trojan horses that take control of visiting computers to turn them into bots -- to relay spam, wage denial-of-service attacks or carry out ID theft schemes -- or use them as bases for spreading malicious programs such as worms and keyloggers inside the enterprise. [CSO Online Data Security Briefing]

Wired News: Computer Privacy in Distress

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 05:29:18 GMT

My laptop computer was purchased by Stanford, but my whole life is stored on it. I have e-mail dating back several years, my address book with the names of everyone I know, notes and musings for various work and personal projects, financial records, passwords to my blog, my web mail, project and information management data for various organizations I belong to, photos of my niece and nephew and my pets.

In short, my computer is my most private possession. I have other things that are more dear, but no one item could tell you more about me than this machine.

Yet, a rash of recent court decisions says the Constitution may not be enough to protect my laptop from arbitrary, suspicionless and warrantless examination by the police.

At issue is the Fourth Amendment, which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents. As a primary safeguard against arbitrary and capricious searches, property seizures and arrests, the founding fathers required the government to first seek a warrant from a judge or magistrate.

The Failing Right of Laptop Privacy.

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 05:21:44 GMT

The Failing Right of Laptop Privacy. davidwr writes "Wired has an interesting editorial on laptop searches and seizures. It raises some interesting issues, including employee rights against police searches in the workplace, routine vs. non-routine searches at ports of entry, and police use of unrelated data found in a database search. The article ends saying: 'Of course, there's a chance that the courts will not recognize the different scope of privacy interests at stake in computer searches, or will not be adept at crafting a rule that gives enough leeway and guidance to law enforcement, while also protecting privacy. At that point, the Constitution may fail us, and we will have to turn to Congress to create rules that are better adapted for the information age.'" [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

WIPO Meeting on the Broadcast Treaty: Day 2.

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 04:14:05 GMT

WIPO Meeting on the Broadcast Treaty: Day 2.

One of the major issues that arose in yesterday[base ']s was how to come to an agreement on a treaty. The existing draft from last year runs over a hundred pages long, with each significant provision having several alternative versions suggested by different delegates and embodying different values. Since the WIPO General Assembly has instructed the Committee to come up with a document that can actually serve as the basis for a treaty, trimming this behemoth draft down to size is a priority.

The Chair yesterday attempted to accomplish this by condensing and abstracting some of the provisions of the treaty into several [base "]non-papers,[per thou] which he introduced in the hopes that the member nations could decide upon the general outlines of the treaty, instead of plowing into discussing the details of 15/2 directly. Many delegations had some problems with this approach, since they had been preparing positions and statements based on the draft treaty, and would have to conduct detailed analyses anew on the new non-papers.

[Public Knowledge - Policy Blog]

Companies, Groups Address Global Civil Liberties Challenges.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:09:46 GMT

Companies, Groups Address Global Civil Liberties Challenges. CDT has joined with a broad group of companies, investors, academics, and human rights groups to address the free expression and privacy challenges facing companies that do business internationally. That process -- which aims to produce a set of principles guiding company behavior when faced with laws, regulations and policies that interfere with the achievement of human rights -- marks a new phase in efforts that the groups began in 2006. The joint process represents the merging of several concurrent efforts by companies, academics and public interest advocates to address the issues. One of those efforts was a series of consultations coordinated by CDT last year. [Center for Democracy and Technology]

DRM threat to net radio returns.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:08:04 GMT

DRM threat to net radio returns.

You cannot be Sirius...

A bill re-introduced last week to the US Senate compels digital radio broadcasters to use DRM.

[The Register - Music and Media]

AACS: Modeling the Battle.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:06:18 GMT

AACS: Modeling the Battle.

By this point in our series on AACS (the encryption scheme used in HD-DVD and Blu-ray) it should be clear that AACS creates a nontrivial strategic game between the AACS central authority (representing the movie studios) and the attackers who want to defeat AACS. Today I want to sketch a model of this game and talk about who is likely to win. (Previous posts in the series: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.)

First, let[base ']s talk about what each party is trying to achieve. The central authority wants to maximize movie studio revenue. More precisely, they[base ']re concerned with the portion of revenue that is due to AACS protection. We[base ']ll call this the Marginal Value of Protection (MVP): the revenue they would get if AACS were impossible to defeat, minus the revenue they would get if AACS had no effect at all. The authority[base ']s goal is to maximize the fraction of MVP that the studios can capture.

In practice, MVP might be negative. AACS makes a disc less useful to honest consumers, thereby reducing consumer demand for discs, which hurts studio revenue. (For example: Alex and I can[base ']t play our own HD-DVD discs on our computers, because the AACS rules don[base ']t like our computers[base '] video cards. The only way for us to watch these discs on our equipment would be to defeat AACS. (Being researchers, we want to analyze the discs rather than watch them, but normal people would insist on watching.)) If this revenue reduction outweighs any revenue increase due to frustrating infringement, MVP will be negative. But of course if MVP is negative then a rational studio will release its discs without AACS encryption; so we will assume for analytic purposes that MVP is positive.

We[base ']ll assume there is a single attacker, or equivalently that multiple attackers coordinate their actions. The attacker[base ']s motive is tricky to model but we[base ']ll assume for now that the attacker is directly opposed to the authority, so the attacker wants to minimize the fraction of MVP that the studios can capture.

We[base ']ll assume the studios release discs at a constant rate, and that the MVP from a disc is highest when the disc is first released and then declines exponentially, with time constant L. (That is, MVP for a disc is proportional to exp(-(t-t0)/L), where t0 is the disc[base ']s release date.) Most of the MVP from a disc will be generated in the first L days after its release.

We[base ']ll assume that the attacker can compromise a new player device every C days on average. We[base ']ll model this as a Poisson process, so that the likelihood of compromising a new device is the same every day, or equivalently the time between compromises is exponentially distributed with mean C.

Whenever the attacker has a compromised device, he has the option of using that device to nullify the MVP from any set of existing discs. (He does this by ripping and redistributing the discs[base '] content or the keys needed to decrypt that content.) But once the attacker uses a compromised device this way, the authority gets the ability to blacklist that compromised device so that the attacker cannot use it to nullify MVP from any future discs.

Okay, we[base ']ve written down the rules of the game. The next step [~] I[base ']ll spare you the gory details [~] is to translate the rules into equations and solve the equations to find the optimal strategy for each side and the outcome of the game, that is, the fraction of MVP the studios will get, assuming both sides play optimally. The result will depend on two parameters: L, the commercial lifetime of a disc, and C, the time between player compromises.

It turns out that the attacker[base ']s best strategy is to withhold any newly discovered compromise until a [base "]release window[per thou] of size R has passed since the last time the authority blacklisted a player. (R depends in a complicated way on L and C.) Once the release window has passed, the attacker will use the compromise aggressively and the authority will then blacklist the compromised player, which essentially starts the game over. The studio collects revenue during the release window, and sometimes beyond the release window when the attacker gets unlucky and takes a long time to find another compromise.

The fraction of MVP collected by the studio turns out to be approximately C/(C+L). When C is much smaller than L, the studio loses most of the MVP, because the attacker compromises players frequently so the attacker will nullify a disc[base ']s MVP early in the disc[base ']s commercial lifetime. But when C is much bigger than L, a disc will be able to collect most of its MVP before the attacker can find a compromise.

To predict the game[base ']s outcome, then, we need to know the ratio of C (the time needed to compromise a player) to L (the commercial lifetime of a disc). Unfortunately we don[base ']t have good data to estimate C and L. My guess, though, is that C will be considerably less than L in the long run. I[base ']d expect C to be measured in weeks and L in months. If that[base ']s right, it[base ']s bad news for AACS.

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VoIP and Broadband Internet Access Providers Face Upcoming CALEA Deadlines.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 21:03:58 GMT

VoIP and Broadband Internet Access Providers Face Upcoming CALEA Deadlines. In the next several months providers of interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services and facilities-based broadband Internet access must become compliant with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). Enacted in 1994, CALEA imposes obligations on traditional wireline and wireless telephony service providers to design their networks to facilitate law enforcement surveillance of voice communications. However, in 2005 the Federal Communications Commission extended that obligation to providers of VoIP and facilities-based broadband Internet access services. Under the new regime, the scope of entities covered by CALEA is broader than in the past - specifically, in addition to VoIP services, providers of broadband Internet access services, including cable modem, DSL, satellite, wireless, fixed wireless, and broadband over powerline services, are now also subject to CALEA. Interestingly, the FCC defined "broadband" services are those with ability to support upstream or downstream speeds exceeding 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in the last mile.
[Privacy and Security Law Blog]

Washington Governor and Attorney General Urge Agencies to Reduce Identity Theft.

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:19:05 GMT

Washington Governor and Attorney General Urge Agencies to Reduce Identity Theft. The Employment Security Department recently removed Social Security information from lien documents and now uses bar coding for internal purposes. [GT: Security and Privacy]

BBC NEWS | UK | Tories attack data-sharing plans

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:00:32 GMT

A plan to share people's personal details between government departments on a database would be a threat to privacy, the Conservatives say.

Shadow constitutional affairs secretary Oliver Heald accused the government of "moving one step closer to a 'Big Brother' state".

But the government believes a database would give the public better access to vital services.

Tony Blair is expected to unveil the proposal in Downing Street on Monday.

Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton said departments already stored "vast amounts of data about individual citizens".

But the information is not shared intelligently across various government agencies, he said.

AACS: Title Keys Start Leaking.

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 04:15:48 GMT

AACS: Title Keys Start Leaking.

(This is the fifth post in our series on AACS, the encryption scheme used for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Previous posts: 1, 2, 3, 4.)

Last week we predicted that people would start extracting the title key (the cryptographic key needed to decrypt the contents of a particular next-gen DVD disc) from HD-DVD discs. Indeed, it turns out that WinDVD, a popular software player that runs on PCs, leaves the title key laying around in memory when it finishes playing a disc. This may seem like an elementary mistake, but it is more common and harder to avoid than you might think. Fairly easy methods for capturing these keys are already well known.

There are even websites, such as aacskeys.com and hdkeys.com, that claim to contain title keys for about fifty HD-DVD discs. (That[base ']s about one-third of the discs available on Amazon.) At least some of these title keys are correct. Within days, expect to see a software program that downloads keys from such a site and uses the keys to play or copy discs.

So far the attackers have published most of what they know. We know which title keys they (claim to) have found, and we know they extracted those keys from WinDVD and possibly PowerDVD. As Alex explained on Thursday and Friday, a clever attacker will withhold some information strategically so as not to provoke a response from the AACS central authority.

The authority might respond by blacklisting the device keys assigned to WinDVD. To avoid angering honest WinDVD users, they might first push out a software update to WinDVD containing new keys along with new programming to better protect the keys.

But as Alex suggested last week the authority might not want to blacklist WinDVD, even if it can. As long as the attackers limit what they publish, the authority might be better off accepting the damage they see now rather than provoking more damage by cutting off the usefulness of WinDVD to the attackers. The result is a kind of uneasy equilibrium between the attackers and the central authority.

Even if the attackers want to cause maximum financial harm to Hollywood (which probably isn[base ']t their goal), their most effective strategy is to limit how many title keys they publish. One way to do this is to give Hollywood a [base "]release window[per thou] [~] a kind of grace period after each disc is released, in which the title key doesn[base ']t get published. A site could let people upload the headers of a disc; the site would then wait N days before decrypting and releasing the title key.

Interestingly, this release window strategy resembles the studios[base '] current approach to extracting revenue from films, in which a film is available first in the highest-revenue format [~] in theaters [~] then later in a succession of lower-revenue formats [~] DVD and television. The idea is to extract more revenue from the most enthusiastic fans in early stages and pick up whatever revenue is available from everyone else later.

What[base ']s the optimal length of the release window (for the attackers); and what is the financial effect on the studios? We can answer these questions with a simple economic model; but that[base ']s a topic for another day.

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The Return of the Fairness Doctrine?

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:52:51 GMT

The Return of the Fairness Doctrine? Slithe writes "Last week at the National Conference for Media Reform, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich (a long-shot candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination) stated that the Fairness Doctrine may be reinstated. Kucinich will be heading up a new House subcommittee that will focus on issues around the FCC. The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcast media to present controversial issues in an honest, equal, and balanced manner. The FCC repealed it in 1987 -- Democrats at the time tried to forestall this move but were ultimately thwarted by a veto by President Ronald Reagan. Critics of the Fairness Doctrine have stated that it was only used to intimidate and silence political opposition. At the convention, Kucinich said, 'We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda. We are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible.'" In the interest of fairness, here is a Republican, free-market perspective on the return of the Fairness Doctrine. [Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

PERFORM Act = DRM Mandate.

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 05:28:45 GMT

PERFORM Act = DRM Mandate.

Hey, RIAA, satellite radio and webcasters already pay you licensing fees. Leave their engineers alone.

Much of the coverage of the PERFORM Act, S. 256, recently reintroduced by Senator Feinstein (D - Calif.), seems to treat the issue as a tussle between XM and the RIAA over royalties. More important, however, is the DRM mandate tucked in there.

Webcasters and satellite radio both rely on compulsory licenses that permit them to broadcast whatever music they like, so long as they pay a license fee and follow a variety of rules (like playing no more than 3 songs from any one album in any 3-hour time period, if you're a webcaster).

While the compulsory license imposes certain restrictions, it does not tell you what technology to use. Instead, it leaves webcasters free to use non-DRMd formats (like streaming MP3). In fact, all the streaming radio stations in iTunes use MP3 streams. And it's the use of non-DRMd formats that has permitted innovative technology like Streamripper and RadioLover to evolve to meet the home recording demands of music fans.

The PERFORM Act would change all that by requiring that anyone who wants the compulsory license must use a DRMd format. (For a full analysis of the statutory language, take a look at the analysis we posted last year.)

This is not only bad news for the world's MP3 webcasters (like Shoutcast, Live365, and public radio stations like KCRW and KEXP, as well as any 'caster who wants to be included in iTunes), but it's also a bad precedent for our copyright laws. Over the course of a century, our copyright laws have responded to changing technology not with government technology mandates, but rather by letting new business models evolve or, when absolutely necessary, by plugging revenue shortfalls with compulsory licenses.

And government technology mandates are particularly bad for copyright because they tend to stick around in the statute books long after they become obsolete, complicating the lives of future generations of innovators (hey, anyone remember SCMS? it's still in the Copyright Act!).

This is not about "piracy". The music flowing so freely today in darknet channels is not sourced from recordings off satellite radio and webcasts. This is just another example of the entertainment industries using DRM to put a chokehold on tomorrow's disruptive innovations.

Help us hold the line against government DRM mandates. Ask your members of Congress to oppose the PERFORM Act.

[EFF: Deep Links]

AACS: Game Theory of Blacklisting.

Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:13:31 GMT

AACS: Game Theory of Blacklisting.

This is the fourth post in our series on AACS, the encryption scheme used for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. (Part 1, part 2, part 3)

We've already discussed how it's possible to reverse engineer an AACS-compatible player to extract its secret set of device keys. With these device keys you can extract the title key from any disc the player can play, and the title key allows anyone else with the same disc to decrypt the movie. Yesterday we explained how the AACS central authority has the ability to blacklist compromised device keys so that they can't be used to decrypt any discs produced in the future. This defense is limited in two obvious ways: the central authority needs to know which keys have been compromised in order to put them on the blacklist, and this only protects future discs, not ones that have already been produced.

It turns out there's a third way in which blacklisting is limited. Counterintuitively, it is sometimes in the central authority's best interest not to blacklist a compromised device key even when they have the ability to do so.

We can model one such scenario as a simple game between the central authority and an attacker. Suppose there is only one attacker who has compromised a single player and extracted its device keys. Initially, he keeps the device keys secret (for fear they will be blacklisted), but he and his friends acquire some number of discs every week and post the title keys on the web. Let's also suppose that the central authority has enough resources to infiltrate this cabal and learn which player has been cracked, so that they can blacklist the device keys if they wish.

The authority faces a very interesting dilemma: if it does blacklist the keys, the attacker will have no reason to keep them secret any longer. He will publish them, irrevocably breaking the encryption on all previously released discs. If the authority doesn't blacklist the keys, the attacker will continue to trickle out title keys for certain movies, but the rest will remain secure.

In other words, the authority needs to weigh the value of continuing to protect all the old discs for which title keys have not been published against the value of protecting the new releases that will be cracked if it doesn't blacklist the keys. The result is that the central authority will need to exercise more restraint than we would naively expect when it comes to blacklisting. Once attackers realize this, they will adjust how quickly they release title keys until they are just below the threshold where the authority would resort to blacklisting.

Things get even more interesting if we consider a more realistic scenario where different players are gradually cracked over time. We'll write more about that next week.

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Another Step Towards Cable Set-Top Competition

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:10:03 GMT

Another Step Towards Cable Set-Top Competition.

Way back in 1996, Congress directed the FCC to foster useful, competitive alternatives to cable providers' proprietary set-top boxes. As we saw at CES, several alternatives that rely on CableCARD technology are finally coming to market, and now the FCC took another step towards putting them on a more level competitive playing field.

Yesterday, the FCC denied Comcast's request for a permanent waiver from the "integration ban," which in effect forces cable providers to rely on CableCARD in their own set-top boxes. Without the ban, providers would be able to continue pushing their own proprietary set-top boxes on customers, treating CableCARD devices (such as TiVo Series 3 HD) like second-class citizens. The ban had been delayed twice before due to cable industry pressure and will go into effect on July 1.

Unfortunately, CableCARD devices are DRM-laden, but consumers could face even worse DRM if cable providers' set-tops were the only game in town. Set-top competition should help hold the DRM in check as well as bring more features and lower prices to consumers.

EFF, Public Knowledge, and a coalition of public interest groups recently asked the FCC to reject the cable providers' requests. Also, over 2000 people used EFF's Action Center to file comments with the FCC and support set-top competition.

The FCC did grant two more limited requests from other cable providers, but Chairman Kevin Martin stated at CES that, "I think the commission should be saying no to some of the largest carriers [requesting "blanket waivers" of the integration ban]."

Keep the letters to the FCC coming by visiting EFF's Action Center now.

[EFF: Deep Links]

Is Google Falsely Flagging Harmless Sites?

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:56:14 GMT

Is Google Falsely Flagging Harmless Sites? Web site operators say Google is mistakenly warning users that visiting some sites in search results may be dangerous. [PC World: Latest Technology News]

AACS: Blacklisting, Oracles, and Traitor Tracing.

Thu, 11 Jan 2007 21:37:11 GMT

AACS: Blacklisting, Oracles, and Traitor Tracing.

This is the third post in our discussion of AACS, the encryption scheme used for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Yesterday Ed explained how it is possible to reverse-engineer a player to learn its secret device keys. With the device keys, you can extract the title key for any disc that the device can play. Anybody with the same disc can use this title key to decrypt the movie.

We[base ']Äôve already talked about two scenarios where this information could be used for widespread circumvention. One possibility is for the attacker to keep the device keys to himself and publish title keys for discs he has access to. This means anyone can decrypt those discs, but other discs remain secure.

Another option is for the attacker to publish the device keys outright. That would let anyone decrypt any available disc, but it would also tell the AACS central authority which device keys were compromised. Once the central authority knows which device keys to target, it can blacklist those device keys.

Blacklisting in AACS works like this: disc producers can change the way new discs are encrypted so that the blacklisted device keys cannot decrypt the new discs[base '] headers and therefore cannot extract title keys or decrypt the movies. Of course, blacklisted device keys can still decrypt all the older titles they could before, since the data on old discs doesn[base ']Äôt magically change, but they can[base ']Äôt decipher any new discs.

Blacklisting would be a PR and business disaster if it meant a lot of consumers had to throw away their fancy players as a result of a crack. That[base ']Äôs why AACS allows each individual player to be assigned its own unique set of device keys that can be uniquely blacklisted without adversely affecting other players.

(Some serious crypto wizardry is required to enable a huge number of distinct device keys with surgically precise blacklisting, while keeping device memories and disc headers manageably small.)

Can blacklisting be avoided? Here[base ']Äôs one way an attacker might try: He could keep his device keys secret and create a web site where people can upload header information from discs they want to decrypt. Then he would use his device keys to extract the title keys for those headers and post the title keys back to the site[~]a sophisticated attacker might automate this process. Cryptographers call this kind of site a decryption oracle.

As it turns out, the designers of AACS anticipated decryption oracles, so the system includes a way to track down and blacklist the device keys used to operate them. This process is called [base ']Äútraitor tracing,[base ']Äù and it works roughly like this: The central authority creates a phony disc header that can be decrypted by about half of the possible devices. (They just need the header, so there[base ']Äôs no need to press an actual disc.) They upload this to the oracle and see whether it can find the title key. The result lets the authority narrow down which devices the oracle[base ']s keys might have come from. The authority repeats the process, creating a new header that will reduce the set of suspects by half again. With a few of these probes, the authority can home in on the oracle[base ']s device keys.

(The full story is more complicated. The oracle might know keys from more than one device; it might try to trick the authority by pretending it can[base ']t decrypt certain headers when it really can; it might try to detect the authority[base ']s probing and change its behavior; and so on. Regardless, the authority can use a sequence of probes to devise a blacklist that will make new discs immune to decryption by the oracle, without affecting noncompromised players.)

The upshot is that if the attacker makes an oracle available to the public, the central authority can render the oracle useless for future discs. However, a clever attacker has another surprisingly effective strategy: limiting who can submit queries to his oracle. We[base ']Äôll have more on that in tomorrow[base ']Äôs post.

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HD DVD's AACS Protection Bypassed.

Tue, 02 Jan 2007 03:06:39 GMT

HD DVD's AACS Protection Bypassed. Mr. BS writes "Playfuls.com is running a story how HD DVD's AACS protection has been compromised. Although the video of the hack leaves much to be desired, the source code has already been made available. Feel free to start backing up your HD DVD's whenever you feel the need."[Slashdot: Your Rights Online]

Computers, Freedom and Privacy - Montreal, May 1-4 2007

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:41:06 GMT

Come to CFP2007 in Montreal, May 1-4 2007. There's a lot at stake.

Computers, Freedom and Privacy 2007 - Call For Proposals

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:37:58 GMT

Call For Proposals - The deadline for proposals is January 20, 2006

The Program Committee of the Seventeenth Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy (CFP2007) seeks your proposals for innovative conference sessions and speakers.

Secure Flight Violated Federal Privacy Law, Homeland Security Privacy Office Finds - Electronic Privacy Information Center

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 00:27:12 GMT

A report from the privacy office of the Department of Homeland Security has found that information provided by the DHS about the airline screening system was misleading and incomplete. The DHS report follows a 2005 Government Accountability Office statement and documents obtained by EPIC in 2004 which revealed that the government airline screening system would make extensive use of commercial data without informing the public as required by law. As condition of funding the Department of Homeland Security, Congress suspended the Secure Flight program. Separately, the DHS Privacy office issued a report on the now defunct MATRIX project. More information at the EPIC Secure Flight page. (Dec. 22)

Akaka-Sununu Bill Corrects Many Bad Aspects of Real ID Act.

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 15:44:57 GMT

Akaka-Sununu Bill Corrects Many Bad Aspects of Real ID Act.

In 2005, Congress hastily passed legislation that rolled back privacy rights and moved the country towards a national ID system. The REAL ID Act states that drivers' licenses will only be accepted for "federal purposes"[~]like accessing planes, trains, national parks, and court houses[~]if they conform to certain uniform standards. The law also requires a vast national database linking all of the ID records together. Estimated costs of $12 billion or more will be passed on to the states and, ultimately, average citizens in the form of increased DMV fees or taxes.

Thankfully, new bipartisan legislation could correct some of REAL ID's many flaws and add critical privacy and civil liberties safeguards. With the "Identification Security Enhancement Act of 2006," Senators Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and John Sununu (R-NH) would cancel most of the standardization that might have led to a national ID card, call for more flexible standards, require encryption of the data itself, and prohibit the use of ID data by third parties.

For more information on the problems with the Real ID Act of 2005, visit www.realnightmare.org.

[EFF: Deep Links]