EFFector 18.16: Give the Broadcast Flag a TKO!

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: EFFector list <editor () eff org>
Date: May 20, 2005 9:08:20 PM EDT
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: EFFector 18.16: Give the Broadcast Flag a TKO!
Reply-To: EFFector list <editor () eff org>


EFFector  Vol. 18, No. 16  May 20, 2005  donna () eff org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
ISSN 1062-9424

In the 332nd Issue of EFFector:

 * Action Alert: Give the Broadcast Flag a TKO!
 * EFF Obtains Draft PATRIOT Bill
 * California Debates Bill to Keep RFIDs Out of IDs
 * Can Florida's Election Officials Ignore the Law?
 * Cambridge Researchers Analyze Tor Security at IEEE
   Symposium
 * MiniLinks (12): Attack of the Recursive End-User License
   Agreements
 * Administrivia

For more information on EFF activities & alerts:
 <http://www.eff.org/>

Help EFF protect privacy, innovation, and free speech.
Make a donation and become a member today!
 <http://secure.eff.org/support>

Tell a friend about EFF:
 <http://action.eff.org/site/Ecard?ecard_id=1061>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Action Alert - Give the Broadcast Flag a TKO!

We have the Broadcast Flag on the ropes, but its supporters
are flailing back.  The Broadcast Flag, a plan to give
Hollywood remote control of how you record, copy, transfer,
or replay over-the-air digital television, was knocked
flat by the courts.

Now the film and TV industries are running to Congress to
get the fix in.

The current plan: sneak a few lines of innocuous-sounding
law past legislators to give the FCC the sweeping
regulatory authority it needs re-instate the Flag.  That
would restore Hollywood's power to dictate the design
of any digital equipment capable of receiving broadcasts
- and once again, technology innovators would be forced to
beg permission to provide you with the features and
functionality for exercising your fair use rights.

The lawyers and lobbyists are moving fast, but you can
move faster.  Tell your representative you don't want
Hollywood to hobble your digital media devices, and knock
out the Broadcast Flag for good.

Make your voice heard with the EFF Action Center:
<http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=129>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* EFF Obtains Draft PATRIOT Bill

Bill Gives Justice Department More Power to Demand Private
Records

San Francisco, CA - On Thursday, May 26, the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence will consider in closed session a
draft bill that would both renew and expand various USA
PATRIOT Act powers.  EFF has obtained a copy of the draft
bill, along with the committee's summary of it, and has
made them available to journalists and interested citizens
on its website.

"Even though Congress is still debating whether to renew
the broad surveillance authorities granted by the original
USA PATRIOT Act,  the Justice Department is already
lobbying for even more unchecked authority to demand the
private records of citizens who are not suspected of any
crime," said Kevin Bankston, EFF attorney and Equal Justice
Works/Bruce J. Ennis Fellow.  "The Senate's intelligence
committee should focus on adding checks and balances to
protect against abuse of already-existing PATRIOT powers,
or repealing them altogether, rather than working to expand
them behind closed doors."

For this release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php#003594>

Draft bill:
<http://eff.org/patriot/sunset/sunset_bill_draft_20050517.pdf>

Summary:
<http://eff.org/patriot/sunset/sunset_bill_summary_20050517.pdf>

More about the PATRIOT Act:
<http://www.eff.org/patriot/>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* California Debates Bill to Keep RFIDs Out of IDs

Bill to Protect Californians' Privacy, Personal Safety,
and Financial Security Advances in State Senate

Sacramento, CA - The California State Senate this week
approved a groundbreaking bill that would prohibit state
and local governments from issuing identification
documents containing a Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) tag, a device that can broadcast an individual's
most private information - including name, address,
telephone number, and date of birth - to anyone with
an RFID reader.  The bill, called the Identity
Information Protection Act of 2005 (SB 682), is the
first of its kind in the country, and has drawn national
attention after the federal government proposed
embedding RFIDs in US passports.  It will now move to
the State Assembly.

RFID tag readers are readily available to the general
public, making it easy for anyone to collect personally
identifying information.  The information could
then be used for identity theft, stalking, kidnapping,
or worse.  It could also be used by the government or
individuals to identify and track people in a variety
of sensitive contexts, including abortion clinics,
political rallies, and religious gatherings.  The bill
would make such tracking illegal.

"People have a right not to be tracked.  The government
shouldn't be putting tracking devices into driver's
licenses and other ID cards that people need to go about
their daily lives," said Lee Tien, Senior Staff Attorney
at EFF.

SB 682 has garnered strong bipartisan support.  Former
Congressman Bob Barr (R-Georgia) recently featured the
bill's author, California State Senator Joe Simitian
(D-Palo Alto), on his weekly show on Radio America.
Other supporters include the Capitol Resource Institute,
the Free Congress Foundation, the AARP, The California
Alliance Against Domestic Violence, the Statewide
California Coalition for Battered Women, California NOW,
and the California Commission on the Status of Women.

For the full-length version of the release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php#003586>

If you're a California resident, tell your representative
to support SB 682 today!
<http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=125>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Can Florida's Election Officials Ignore the Law?

Circuit Court Deliberates Manual Recount Problems with
Touchscreen Voting Machines

Florida - EFF and a coalition of national groups concerned
about voting integrity have filed a friend-of-the-court
brief in a seminal e-voting case brought by Florida
Congressman Robert Wexler and others.  Florida law
requires manual recounts in close races.  In the
lawsuit, Congressman Wexler argues that when Florida
election officials purchased touchscreen voting machines
that do not leave a paper trail, they prevented true
manual recounts and violated the law.  The case is
now on appeal before the 11th Circuit.

"While touchscreen voting machines offer some promising
advances, critical shortcomings still exist in both
design and implementation, not the least of which is
a failure to allow for meaningful recounts," said EFF
Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman.  "With better solutions
available for Florida voters, systems that can't be
audited simply have to go."

"In the aftermath of the 2004 election, we saw county
after county engage in phony 'recounts' on touchscreen
machines that lacked paper trails.  If the 11th Circuit
court recognizes that true manual recounts are not
possible on these machines, it will not only help
Florida voters, it could help encourage election
officials across the country to choose voting
technologies that increase, rather than decrease,
voter confidence," added EFF Legal Director Cindy
Cohn.

In its amicus brief, EFF lists 17 instances when
touchscreen voting machines used in Florida caused
significant problems - including throwing election
results into doubt - because they were not designed
to allow manual recounts.  EFF also notes that a
number of currently available technologies preserve
the ability to conduct manual recounts, meaning that
Florida election officials are simply choosing to
use machines that flout state law.

Joining EFF on the brief are Common Cause, People for
the American Way Foundation, VerifiedVoting.org,
Center for Constitutional Rights, Computer Scientists
for Social Responsibility, and Voters Unite.

For the full release:
<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_05.php#003580>

For the amicus brief:
<http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/wexler/wexler_amicus.pdf>

More about e-voting:
<http://www.eff.org/Activism/E-voting/>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Cambridge Researchers Analyze Tor Security at IEEE
Symposium

Two computer scientists from Cambridge University, Steven
Murdoch and George Danezis, presented a paper on the
anonymous communication system Tor last week at the IEEE
Symposium on Security and Privacy.  Entitled "Low-Cost
Traffic Analysis of Tor," the paper describes one possible
attack on Tor's security that allows an attacker to
learn the nodes in a user's circuit, but not the
identity of the user.  The attacker must also control the
server that users are trying to reach.  No aspect of the
attack compromises user anonymity - Tor users' identities
are still secure.

"The paper is useful because it points out problems in
some future design directions we were considering," said
Tor developer Roger Dingledine.  "I'm happy that we're
getting serious academic research on Tor, and I'm happy
that they didn't discover any attacks that could uncover
users' identities.  The next research question here is
to try to show that their attack becomes weaker as the
Tor network grows."

Tor is an open source, anonymous communication tool for
the Internet, developed primarily by Dingledine and Nick
Mathewson, and is currently supported by EFF.

"The reason Murdoch and Danezis picked Tor for their paper
is that Tor is publicly documented, easily accessible, and
is a free-route system to research," said Mathewson.  "Not
only is Tor advancing the state of anonymity research, but
it's also getting better each time we learn about a new
vulnerability."

"Low-Cost Traffic Analysis of Tor":
<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland05torta.pdf>

Wired: "Tor Torches Online Tracking":
<http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,67542,00.html>

More about the Tor project:
<http://tor.eff.org/>

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* miniLinks
miniLinks features noteworthy news items from around the
Internet.

~ Canadian Appeals Court Denies P2P Subpoenas
The Canadian Federal Court of Appeals has affirmed a lower
court's decision denying the Canadian Recording Industry
Association (CRIA) the right to subpoena the identities
of 29 alleged filesharers.  Michael Geist breaks it
down:
<http://www.michaelgeist.ca/home.php#406>

~ CopyNight May 24: Freedom is On the March
May's CopyNight was supposed to be about the Broadcast
Flag and how it would be forced on every digital device
capable of receiving DTV broadcasts by this summer -
then the Flag was trounced in court.  Join fellow
copyfighters in 10 North American cities this coming
Tuesday to celebrate:
<http://copynight.org/>

~ US Register of Copyrights Misconstrues the Founders
Ed Felten criticizes the US Register of Copyrights'
maximalist interpretation of the Founding Fathers'
intent for copyright:
<http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/archives/000817.html>

~ Lessig in Technology Review
MIT's Technology Review includes pieces by, and responses
to, EFF Board member Lawrence Lessig on copyright and DRM.
Ernest Miller gives us a brief tour:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=475>
(Importance Of...)

~ Attack of the Recursive End-User License Agreements
Ben Edelman discovers the fractal EULA for 3D Desktop's
Flying Icons Desktop.  The click-through license
includes, by hyperlink, the EULA of another program
installed in concert with the screensaver.  That program
itself installs a family of at least four other
third-party programs.  Each has its own separate license,
which are included, Russian Doll-style, in the parent
EULA.  Click once, tacitly agree to three levels of
misdirection:
<http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/installations/3d-screensaver/>

~ Does TV Filesharing Boost Audiences?
Just as the MPAA begins its smackdown of TV BitTorrent
sites, Mark Pesce argues that widespread filesharing
may have helped make the new Battlestar Galactica and
Dr. Who series mega-hits:
<http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html>

~ Required Reading for Copyright Reformers in Australia
Kim Weatherall continues her comprehensive coverage of the
deliberations over fair use in Australia with this
collection of links to government and law reform reports
relevant to the proposed copyright exceptions:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=478>
(Weatherall's Law)

~ Swedish Justice Minister Proposes Banning DRM for CDs
Because "it should be possible to make a copy of your
own newly-purchased CD for an mp3 player, or to make an
extra copy of the CD to have in the car."  Hear that,
Australia?
<http://www.thelocal.se/article.php?ID=1457&date=20050519>

~ Data for Dissidents
Ethan Zuckerman's terrific technical guide to anonymous
blogging, written from the perspective of "a government
whistleblower in a country with a less-than-transparent
government":
<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/?p=125>

~ University Uses Copyright to Unmask Blog Critics
St. Lawrence University is using copyright claims to
discover the identity of the people behind a website
that criticizes the faculty:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=476>
(Copyfight)
Meanwhile, one faculty member is using his blog to
defend the right to online anonymity:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=477>
(Big Monkey/Helpy Chalk)

~ Thinking of the Orphans
Joe Gratz helpfully summarizes the reply comments submitted
in the Copyright Office's Orphan Works proceeding:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=479>
(JoeGratz.net)

~ Filtering Still Fallible
Consumer Reports tests show that filtering software
has marginally improved, but still blocks perfectly
legitimate websites like KeepAndBearArms.com
and National Institute on Drug Abuse:
<http://www.eff.org/cgi/tiny?urlID=480>
(Consumer Reports)

: . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :

* Administrivia

EFFector is published by:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation
454 Shotwell Street
San Francisco CA 94110-1914 USA
+1 415 436 9333 (voice)
+1 415 436 9993 (fax)
 http://www.eff.org/

Editor:
Donna Wentworth, Web Writer/Activist
 donna () eff org

Membership & donation queries:
 membership () eff org

General EFF, legal, policy, or online resources queries:
 information () eff org

Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is
encouraged.  Signed articles do not necessarily represent the
views of EFF.  To reproduce signed articles individually,
please contact the authors for their express permission.
Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be
reproduced individually at will.

Current and back issues of EFFector are available via the
Web at:
  <http://www.eff.org/effector/>

Click here to unsubscribe or change your subscription
preferences:
  http://action.eff.org/site/CO?i=n- 
uqqfxfndpDEUxWSrkBnY8uFizeWeKm&cid=1041

Click here to change your email address:
  http://action.eff.org/addresschange



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/