Subject: PATRIOT/USA followup: ongoing House debate

From: William Allen Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 11:45:14 -0400

Last night, in a highly unusual maneuver, the Speaker recessed the 
House at 10:25 pm EDT, and didn't adjourn until 8:59 am, reconvening 
one minute later at 9:00 am.

The reason?  To file a "report" from the Committee on Rules at 8:58 am, 
on how to handle the anti-terrorism bill.

The House will now "debate" and vote on this report, even though few 
members of the House have actually seen the report.  Even minority 
members of the Rules committee haven't seen the report.

This may rank as one of the biggest raw power grabs in US history.

-- 
William Allen Simpson
    Key fingerprint =  17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26  DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32

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From: "Neil Carpenter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 15:16:38 -0400

Perhaps I missed it -- this has what to do with Internet engineering?

Neil

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 15:44:46 -0400

> Perhaps I missed it -- this has what to do with Internet engineering?

At least some readings of the original bill would require ISP's to save
"addressing information", such that the ISP would basically have to log
every SYN or SYN/ACK packet.  Forever.

You should worry about that as an engineering issue.

There was also the equating of "hacking" to "terrorism".  With the retroactive
removal of a statute of limitations.  And provisions for "providing significant
aid" to terrorists.  This means that Steve Bellovin could (under the original
proposals) end up in jail for life, because he wrote a paper on TCP sequence
numbers, because Mitnick used a sequence number attack on somebody.  Anybody
who has ever posted to the Bugtraq or comp.risks or IETF lists regarding
security issues is similarly vulnerable under the original draft.  This
would probably include most of the IAB and IESG.

You should worry about that just out of self-preservation.

I'm told that the Senate bill as amended fixes a lot of the worst aspects
of the hacking side, and I'm also told that an amendment was proposed to
exempt ISPs from the most onerous of the logging requirements.  However,
I have *NOT* tracked down pointers to the current legislation as being
discussed to verify how much things have improved.

-- 
				Valdis Kletnieks
				Operating Systems Analyst
				Virginia Tech

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From: Mark Durham <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 12:48:21 -0700

Better classified as "social engineering"....

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From: grenville armitage <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 16:04:48 -0700

> Perhaps I missed it -- this has what to do with Internet engineering?

Internet engineers risk becoming the new witches of Salem.

cheers,
gja

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From: "Perry E. Metzger" <[email-masked]>
Date: 12 Oct 2001 19:27:05 -0400

> Perhaps I missed it -- this has what to do with Internet engineering?

Do you want your internet designed with permanent surveillance
capacities to meet a temporary exigency? Then look no further -- your
legislation has arrived.

Perry

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From: "Don McMorris Jr." <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:30:27 -0400

I have to agree with Mr. Carpenter on the fact that this appears to have
nothing to do with internet engineering.  Please discontinue spamming the
IETF with off-the-subject posts.  Thank you.

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From: Dominic Pinto <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 10:18:22 +0100

> Better classified as "social engineering"....
Internet engineering should reflect societal needs, has had (and will
continue to have) a profound impact on social and other
organisation........

Re-posted from the istf list - www.istf.org:

>As has been pointed out time and again here in the last few days, 
>the only impact (relevant to this list) in action terms has been 
>efforts to constrict the free and self-determining nature of the 
>Internet. How will this help terrorism from taking shape in the 
>future? Does anyone truly believe it will?
>
>May I request that we continue to focus on ways to ensure that the 
>freedoms inherent in the structure of the Internet be preserved, 
>rather than destroyed by creeping limitations. The only way to 
>battle terror is through knowledge (capturing hearts and minds). 
>Limiting the flow of knowledge will only be destructive. And will 
>not serve the purpose anyway. To quote John Viscount Morley, a 
>British parliamentarian and pacifist, "You have not converted a man 
>because you have silenced him".
>
>Some of the effective anti-terror solutions will be through policy, 
>some through technology, just as some of the putative restrictions 
>are through policy (e.g. the use of Carnivore) and some through 
>technology (e.g. Ellison's fingerprinter, and MS' XP distortion of 
>802.11).

-- 
Dominic Pinto
-------------
Associate Director @ TCUK		| Barn Cottage, Hill House
Senior Associate Telesphere Limited	| Somerton Road, Souldern
http://www.telespherelimited.com	| Bicester, Oxon, OX25 6LS, UK	
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