Pleasant@Rutgers.ARPA (03/26/83)
HUMAN-NETS Digest Saturday, 26 Mar 1983 Volume 6 : Issue 12 Today's Topics: Queries - Network Protocols & Electronic Mail Resource Usage Statistics, Technology - EFT (2 msgs) & WorldNet (2 msgs), Computers and the Law - Stay-Home Ankle Bracelet (3 msgs) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri 7 Jan 83 03:41:54-EST From: Marc Shapiro <Shapiro@MIT-XX.ARPA> Subject: Request for info I need info on the following topics: * Are there any implementations of either TCP/IP or TCP alone *above* X.25 for DEC-20 and/or Vax/unix * all possible info on Ethernet/X.25 gateways, supported protocols and what they are worth. Thanks. Please reply directly to SHAPIRO@MIT-XX. ------------------------------ Date: 9-Mar-83 16:42 PST From: WBD.TYM@OFFICE-3 Subject: Electronic Mail System Info Wanted Does anyone have a list of references for EM system usage? Has anyone done any studies on electronic mail usage and comparisons of mail systems? Thanks, --Bill ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 83 23:28:39 EST (Mon) From: Ron Natalie <ron@Brl-Bmd.ARPA> Subject: EFT Charles Osgood (CBS News) tells a story of a man who gets angry at a malfunction 24-hour teller machine and starts beating on it. A couple of days later the police come and arrest him for criminal damage of property (or something like that). The moral being... ...Before you hit a machine, make sure it doesn't know where you live. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 83 10:59:13 PST (Tuesday) From: Poskanzer.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA Subject: Bleeding-heart Libertarian objection to EFT. Please don't object to EFT of the basis of Big-Brotherism / infringement of personal freedoms. The current non-cash systems (checks, credit / debit cards) are far more prone to mis-use and error than any reasonable EFT system would be. It is certainly true that EFT systems will leave audit trails for all transactions. However, these audit trails \need not/ be available to {insert favorite bogeyman}. The crucial element is a proven trapdoor encipherment scheme. Here is a scenario: You pull into the Mustang Ranch for some good clean fun. Since you're on the board of directors of the Moral Majority, you don't want your "indiscretion" to become public. But not to worry - you're carrying the American EFTpress card. The card contains an encrypting circuit, your private key Ypri, your bank's public key Bpub, some storage, a clock, and a numeric keypad. You punch the amount of the transfer into the card: $50.00. It composes an inner message saying "pay bearer $50, the time is 030015feb83 and this is transaction #5678". It enciphers that using Ypri, and adds a preamble saying "this is from Jef Poskanzer and the time is 030015feb83". This message it saves, enciphers with Bpub, and adds another preamble saying "send me to DataBank of Kansas". Now you're ready - you plug the card into the appropriate receptacle. The card transmits its message, which is basically equivalent to a $50 check made out to CASH. Now the whorehouse's computer enciphers and sends the message to its bank, Clearinghouse of Nevada. (I'm leaving out some steps now.) That bank deciphers, verifies the whorehouse's identity, and sends to your bank. Your bank deciphers with Bpri, sees your name and the date, deciphers with Ypub, checks that the two dates match, checks that your transaction #5678 has not already been used, and then debits your account and transfers $50 to Clearinghouse of Nevada. There the $50 is credited to the Mustang Ranch's account and a confirming message is sent back to the ranch, where a little green light comes on. All in less then ten seconds. Now, note that \no-one/ knows both who you are and where you are. The ranch and its bank know that someone with an account at the DataBank of Kansas likes a little fun. The DataBank knows that you just paid $50 to someone with an account at Clearinghouse of Nevada. Of course, the banks could conspire and pool their information, but then why are you banking with a company you can't trust? And remember that the point is not to achieve perfect security and privacy, but to have \better/ security and privacy than we have right now. And if you're still not happy, you can always use cash! As long as you don't worry about fingerprints... Jef ------------------------------ Date: 7 February 1983 07:35 EST From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> Subject: Re: Worldnet & Lawyers I think the way of distinguishing libel slander and free-speech will have to change. (I.e. I want it to change.) Instead of the distinction being on whether it was spoken, handwritten, typed, typeset, or computer-mailed, the distinction should be on whether the utterer allows the victim reasonable redress. If I send out a message to HUMAN-NETS saying "John Doe is a rotten programmer and shouldn't be trusted to write a 10-line program", and if John Doe is on this mailing list and has the ability to reply to rebut my claim, then he has been offered reasonable redress and although my statement might be nasty and unsociable it's within the range of free discussion. But if I print up 10,000 leaflets and distribute them around town, making the same statement, and I don't offer John Doe a chance to rebut my statements in the same manner, or if I broadcast my statement on television or radio and the station or network doesn't offer John Doe a chance to speak in rebuttal, then I'm not offering reasonable redress, and it's slander or whatever. If I broadcast my statement on nationwide TV, but then offer a chance to reply, it's borderline, because the harm to his reputation may have been already done by the time he can reply. Perhaps on future networks the law can be that anyone making a derogatory claim about anyone else is subject to slander suit unless he first offers the slandered person a chance to reply. If the reply is given, ten counter-reply is allowed, etc. until one or the other passes. Then all the back and forth stuff is put in the public domain at the same time. Like bills to be signed by the President, if the offer to reply isn't answered within a prescribed time (2 working days?) then it's an automatic pass. ------------------------------ Date: 8 February 1983 04:43 EST From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> Subject: Do we really want a worldnet? Robert, I read your message with interest, but I don't think my attitude is quite the same as yours. From: Robert Elton Maas <REM> "Anybody want to warn about some of the Orwell-style misuses possible with what I claim I want?" I spent five (5) minutes listing all the abuses I could think of. I have let my fantasy run wild, so please do not mail me responses of the form "THIS CAN'T HAPPEN HERE." Thank you. In all fairness I should note that most of the abuses listed here are the result of improper control of the information capability which might be offered by worldnet. Of course, proper control can never QUITE be guaranteed. "I don't like the current system where one must carry around papers to prove you are a valid person . . ." Instead we can create a system where you must have a worldnet account to be a valid person. What if you lost your worldnet card? You'd be the worst kind of unperson without the proper worldnet validation. What about people who haven't been able to join worldnet for legal (undocumented aliens) or practical (illiteracy, poverty) reasons? Are these people unpersons in the worldnet economy? This also brings to mind an interesting way to screw people over in the worldnet economy -- just delete their accounts. ". . . not having to carry around cash would reduce the incentive to get robbed in the first place . . ." Have you ever had trouble with your bank account? It's not pleasant even today, but with worldnet it could prevent you from eating. In the cashless society, credit problems are serious business. What good does the cashless society do about crime anyway? Someone can always force you to transfer money to them. Do you intend that credit transfer outlets are to be restricted? I can just see having to visit the bank to lend a friend money. Also, people can still take your car, or break into your home. Or do you intend that major expensive objects would be inventoried in worldnet as well? (Clearly all major objects should be equipped with location tracers to assure against theft.) It has been pointed out before (in HUMAN-NETS, I think) that there is great potential for tracing the everyday activity of an individual (or perhaps I should say, "account-id") when all transactions are EFT. I'd like to also note the wonderful potential for regulation and planning of the economy. Why fill out tax returns when the IRS can simply assess charges against your worldnet account? They can surely do a better job than you can -- they have all your records! And what better method for enforcing the law than a computerized record of what you've been doing recently? There are already laws about the amount of cash you can take out of the country in one year. What about enforcing the minimum wage laws for a change? How about really cracking down on illegal gambling? Which reminds me, who needs a search warrant? Why should the police need to ask anyone about looking into your personal effects, when everything anyone would want to know is available on file? "Why can't they accept thumbprints as an alternate way of identifying people?" Why not voiceprints, for that matter? This sounds like another excellent way of keeping track of everyone's personal movements. And if fingerprint and voiceprint identifying equipment is sufficiently widespread, there is no need to carry ID. There's also no way to hide your everyday movements from anyone, either. "Or why can't they connect with TRW or other major credit firm and identify I'm really me by asking me personal questions that aren't known to anybody except me and the credit agencies?" Here you must mean "aren't known to anybody except me, TRW, and people who can connect with TRW to read this information." "if everybody carried around a little radio transmitter that detected your . . . losing vital functions . . ." Do you really expect to be rescued in time? Instead of creating an incentive for people not to rob you, rather they will shoot first and remove your wallet later! Of course, equipment like this makes all the previous computer work at finding your location rather useless, as all the data is right there for the taking. Making medical data available on-line makes for some interesting possibilities. Data connections are two-way, so you could have a remotely-controlled sedative inducer when you got too excited. Another possibility is described in the SF story, "Shadrach in the Furnace," by Robert Silverberg. Lest you think I haven't been sufficiently paranoid, I draw your attention to the synergetic effects which can be obtained from widely available voiceprinting, recording devices, psychological stress evaluators (a form of "lie detector"), and AI word-recognition techniques. Not to mention the potentials of subliminal advertising and color display terminals. I hope I'm just kidding, -- Steve ------------------------------ Date: 15 March 1983 22:47 EST From: Steven A. Swernofsky <SASW @ MIT-MC> Subject: The future is now? NEWSWEEK, March 21, 1983, p. 53: ``WEARING A JAIL CELL AROUND YOUR ANKLE'' It's waterproof, two inches wide, worn on the ankle and it tells your probation officer when you've left home. Beginning this week in an Albuquerque district court, small-time criminals will have a choice: go to jail or agree to wear an electronic device that will alert authorities when they are more than 200 feet from their home phones. ``The idea is to substitute a curfew at home for jail,'' says Judge Jack Love, who got the idea for the anklet from a Spider-Man cartoon. Whenever offenders leave home -- or try to remove the anklet -- a transmitter planted in their telephones will send a special signal to a probation-department computer. If the offender doesn't have a good excuse for leaving, he could go directly to jail. Public defender Bruce Kelly opposes the anklet and will challenge its constitutionality as soon as one of his clients is asked to wear one. ``The idea of having Big Brother monitoring people at all times should be resisted,'' he says. But the New Mexico Civil Liberties Union endorsed the anklet as a way to reduce jail crowding. And the company that makes them, National Incarceration Monitor and Control Services, hopes that the 30 units New Mexico has purchased will lead to sales of 200,000 nationwide. ------------------------------ Date: 15 March 1983 23:31 EST From: Robert Elton Maas <REM @ MIT-MC> Subject: The future is now? I think the stay-home ankle bracelet is a great use for technology, making easy something that was totally impossible 200 years ago when this nation started. But it shouldn't be used in any case except as an alternative to jail/prison. Perhaps *all* nonviolent convicted criminals should be kept at home with these devices instead of jail, being sent to jail only after they have broken this computerized curfew. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Mar 1983 0106-EST From: ZALESKI@RUTGERS (Mike Zaleski) Subject: Stay-home Ankle Bracelet Although this seems like a good idea, I wonder how well it will work in practice, since presumably the criminal working in the privacy of his/her home will be able to work out some method of circumventing this device. (Such as building a radio transmitter which transmits on the same frequency and "looks" like the real thing.) -- Mike^Z ------------------------------ End of HUMAN-NETS Digest ************************