- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

Contempt of court
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Personal opinions: People should not be able to be forced by a subpoena duces tecum to provide incriminating documents. The fifth amendment protection against self- incrimination normally extends to personal papers. There are cases which show that corporate officers cannot avoid turning over corporate papers even if they incriminate themselves, but personal papers are provided much wider protection. People can be forced to produce handwriting samples, where the content of what is written is not significant but the physical writing will be analyzed; they can be forced to produce breath, blood or urine samples; they can be forced to stand in a police lineup, and to repeat words which a witness may have heard a criminal make (but the words do not carry significance); they may be forced to submit to psychiatric evaluation. But none of these involve giving testimony against themselves. Producing a personal diary or notes which provide incriminating testimony should be protected by the fifth amendment. By this reasoning, someone may be able to be forced to reveal an encryption key, since that is not testimony. But if the resulting documents, when decrypted, are personal and contain damaging, incriminating statements, they would not be usable in court. To introduce them in court against the wishes of the defendant would be a clear violation of his fifth amendment rights. By the same token, people are not obligated to keep records specifically to facilitate government investigation of any crime they may have committed. (They are required to keep normal records, such as those relating to the income tax.) It is perfectly permissible for people to destroy their personal records, notebooks, mail, in any way they wish, whether those records would be of use to law enforcement or not. (This is not true, of course, after receipt of a subpoena calling for those records.) "Digital flash paper" should be perfectly legal for all record keeping, whether or not those records would have contained evidence of a crime.

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"RSA sells out" hue and cry (fwd)
by Stanton McCandlish 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

More from Big Jim at RSA, criticizing the idea that RSA should have licensed "its" algorithms to NIST only on the condition that they not be used for clipper/capstone/key escrow and similar schemes ********* Quoth Jim Bidzos, verily I saith unto thee: **************

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help on hacking
by CWHITCOM＠bentley.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

This is a followup to a request I sent around last week. I have a bit more information now. The request is from a major news organization that is working on a project concerning privacy. They are interested in how one gains access to private and public databases, security measures, etc. If you are interested in helping out, please contact tye(a)nws.globe.com. Coralee By the way, don't forget the Computers and Social Change Conference this Friday and Saturday at Roxbury Community College. There is a wide variety of workshops offered as well as lunch. For more information call Marlene Archer at 617-252-0600.

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Subject lines for remailers
by nobody＠rosebud.ee.uh.edu 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Another way in which incoming and outgoing messages can be linked up in a remailer is the Subject line. Most of the remailers keep this the same for incoming and outgoing messages. Most of the remailers also have the ability to let the user change the subject line as it goes through the remailer. My "chain" program which I put on soda lets you set the subject line but only in the last remailer of the chain (so that it goes to the destination with the right subject). If more people did that and we also adopted the convention of not having a subject line at all for the mail up to that point, then all mail through the remailers would have no subject and it would all look the same. (Actually, my mailer won't conveniently let me have no subject, so I would either have to have a blank subject or some default string.) Hal Finney 74076.1041(a)compuserve.com

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"RSA sells out" hue and cry
by jim＠RSA.COM 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Re "source" requirements for Clipper: See my last email to you. ATT, Motorola, etc. are licensed to use RSA and Diffie-Hellman. They are free to use those techniques to manage Clipper keys, as long as they pay their royalties for those techniques, without any contact with us. Or perhaps, when we lciensed them back in the mid and late 80's, we should have limited the use of public key to key management of "future algorithms we approve of?" ********************** END FORWARD *********************************** Draw your own conclusions. I sure will. -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton(a)hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) *

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Contempt of court
by axelrod＠s106.es.llnl.gov 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

I gather that a court can order you to produce the means to decrypt cyphertext that the court has ruled is evidence. This would imply that the giving of the means to decrypt (which could simply be the uttering of a password) is not considered testimony, because you cannot be forced to give testimony under the 5th amendment. Is there a court decision on point for this issue. In another but similar context, can a court order you to give it the combination of a safe, that contains evidence? I suspect, if that is the case, then there is no 5th amendment protection against being so ordered to produce the means to decrypt messages, documents etc.

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Contempt of court
by Duncan Frissell 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

>>>I think that Mr. Frissell's suggestion falls into the category of what >>>I've humbly termed "digital flash paper" mechanisms. >>>My highly esteemed legal opinion is that this could be considered >>>criminal obstruction of justice I call it a network operating system designed to cope with local security breaches. I am not required by law to keep business records in any particular jurisdiction. I am not even required to have access to everything in a business with which I am connected. >>>such a charge might be preferrable to one of Sedition :-)<<< But a charge of Sedition is such a rare honor. It's tough to get the Feds to bring one. One Sedition trial during WWII and one against White Supremicists a few years back. Feds lost both. Besides, if the system is run by non-Americans outside of the US, sedition can't apply (can it? - no treason certainly). (Mike McNally) Duncan Frissell

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Re: yaa (yet another arti
by M..Stirner＠f28.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Uu> --Dave (trying to give some extra business to the anonymous Uu> remailers). I'd love to, but there hasn't been any sort of an updated description of the address syntax posted here since I got back on this list. I'd be thrilled if someone could post a current how-to for the remailers, or at least send it to me at the following address: ********************************************************************* * <m..stirner(a)f28.n125.z1.fidonet.org> - PGP Key D30909 via servers * * > What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not <* * > warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit <* * > of resistance? Let them take arms!" - Thomas Jefferson, 1787 <* ********************************************************************* ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 -- M. Stirner - via FidoNet node 1:125/1 UUCP: ...!uunet!kumr!shelter!28!M..Stirner INTERNET: M..Stirner(a)f28.n125.z1.FIDONET.ORG

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Re: YAA (yet another article)
by George A. Gleason 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

Re your "I like this ("Oh My God" proposal for tap authorisations): THis gives us a possibly interesting place to start from. Sponsor and lobby for (etc) new legislation which would update the existing wiretap laws to include the Oh My God! standard. The point being to put that standard in place & let it run in test mode for a while to see how it works. If it works out well in practice, and isnt subject to "venue abuse" (judge shopping), then it could be extended to key escrow systems. However, I still have a strong preference that even an "improved" key escrow system be implemented via the free market and make provision for free choice in cyphers. -gg

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Contempt of court
by Duncan Frissell 17 Jun '93

17 Jun '93

>>>Note that a court could cite you for contempt for not complying >>>with a subpoena duces tecum (a subpoena requiring you to produce objects >>>or documents) if you fail to turn over subpoenaed backups. Assume that your application is running (mirrored) on five machines in five different jurisdictions and the machines will lock out one or more of their number if they receive a panic code, or one goes offline unexpectedly, or is not accessed in exactly the right way, you could easily respond to a subpoena duces tecum by stating truthfully that the requested records are not (or are no longer) under your control. The machines themselves can also be protected by careful choice of location and judicious use of remailers and requirements that they only be accessed by telenetting, etc. Besides what's the big deal about contempt of court. If you are worried about doing 2 years or less, locate yourself in another jurisdiction. No need to expose your body to high risk legal regimes. Duncan Frissell "But your Honor, I'm desperately trying to *conceal* my contempt for this court."

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