Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pacbell!vixie!avsd!childers
From: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Computer Virus Hearings
Message-ID: <1252@avsd.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 89 17:18:59 GMT
References: <154@oldcolo.UUCP> <4246@ficc.uu.net> <513@atlas.tegra.UUCP> <729@corpane.UUCP> <21465@news.Think.COM>
Reply-To: childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers)
Organization: Metaprogrammers International
Lines: 134

barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes:

>sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes:

>Re: Electronic Communication Privacy Act

>>So why aren't cordless phones included? eh? It's the same situation on a
>>different frequency and a shorter range. 

Because the government already has a well-established base of equipment for
listening to such transmissions, and doesn't want to outlaw itself. Just us.

>I think the shorter range has a lot to do with it.  Someone can't just
>set up a single receiver and start tapping into the cordless phone
>conversations of everyone in town.

What ever happened to those notes of Nikola Tesla ? The ones that the U. S.
Government seized for reasons of national security ? You think they didn't
read them ? And why haven't they been published ?

I hear they've got listening to the electronic noise generated by CPUs down
to such a fine art that people whom take security seriously - like the U. S.
Government - place their CPUs in lead-lined safes. Why do you suppose that
is ? ( Those buss lines make fine antennae, I hear ... )

>>... I think if they don't want people listening in on phones they should
>>scramble the signal so you can't listen in. The burden should be on the phone
>>manufacturers and the phone company, not the public. If the radio waves come
>>into my house uninvited and unscrambled then I should have the right to listen
>>to them. Laws shouldn't be passed to make listening illegal. That's working
>>from the wrong end. It takes away from our freedom. 

>Just because you CAN listen, doesn't mean that you have the right to
>listen.  If I leave my door unlocked that doesn't give you the right
>to walk in uninvited.  I'm not required to put a lock on my mailbox,
>yet it is still illegal for someone to look at my mail.  And the phone
>company isn't required to scramble their signals (some of which go
>through microwave links, i.e.  through the "public" air), yet it is
>illegal to put on a wire tap.

This is blatant sophistry. A mailbox doesn't permeate the entire ecosphere,
and microwaves travel in a line of sight. You have to work hard to get into
the line of sight, and you stand a good chance of getting irradiated in the
process. Can we see an example more true to the circumstances, as opposed
to being true to the desired outcome of the discussion ?

>Also, even if the data is scrambled, it's possible for eavesdroppers
>to get descramblers.  I hope you don't think it should be legal for
>them to listen and descramble.

Right. You make it sound like a scrambler is like a modem. The whole idea
of a scrambler is that it's _damned hard_ to descramble it. It takes brains
and hardware even to make a start, you can't do it with pencil and paper.

Which is why Uncle Slime (tm) doesn't want you scrambling your conversation.
Or encrypting your files. So they can have free access to anything without
fail. In many ways, this represents a power trip on the part of the government
and its agents, a function of hiring people whom believe they have not only a
right, but a responsibility, to invade your privacy so as to insure that you
are no threat to them, under the doddering twin premises that (a) if you have
nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of, and (b) what you don't know
won't hurt you.

>Come on, give people the benefit of some intelligence.  Everyone knows
>it's illegal to steal, but we all know that theft occurs.  But we also
>know that if we catch someone doing it, we can send them to jail.

Interception is separate from stealing. If you send mail to my house, I have
no responsibility to deliver it, and making it a law instead of tightening
the circumstances around delivery of letters is plain laziness on the part
of all concerned with correct delivery of mail. If there's a line of people
concerned with correct delivery of mail, the people _not_ at the address
have no reason to be in that line. They'll be at the tail end, if anywhere.

I read private mail several times a week. Occasionally I am amused or intrigued
by what I read in bounced mail that's delivered to 'postmaster', but I don't
think a law telling me I can read the header but not the contents would be
helpful in guaranteeing that the mail arrived. I deliver it because it's the
right thing to do, because it's my job ... and I read it because I need to
decide whether it needs to be forwarded manually. To assume machiavellian
tendencies without substantial proof is to engage in outrageous projections
of your fears upon my person. The fact that you are able to get it encoded as
a law that I must obey under penalty of imprisonment doesn't do anything to
lessen the psychological abberation(s) at the heart of such an assumption on
your part.

No, this evaluates to coercion on the part of politically powerful people, to
avoid taking responsibility for the communications they initiate, instead they
abuse the system to make everyone responsible for their private doings. What
a crock of feces.

>>But what they really end up doing is limiting our freedoms.

And thus expanding theirs. Sounds kind of like a parasitic relationship to me.

>I agree that it is a good idea for cellular phone companies to
>scramble their signals.  But I don't think anyone has a RIGHT to
>listen to my phone conversation, scrambled or otherwise.  Therefore, I
>don't think phone companies should be REQUIRED to scramble their
>signals.

I disagree. The aether is in the public domain, by the laws of nature, and
any effort to make it appear otherwise will only facilitate arresting lots
of talented and intelligent people. The trucks puttering around, scanning
for people receiving on frequencies they aren't supposed to - a la World War
II's Nazi-occupied territories and the Cold War countries we supposedly
detest for their complete lack of freedoms - will be paid for by your tax
dollars. Presumably the government - or selected members of it - feel their
position of power will be secured if they arrest everyone who disagrees.
Much like what's happened - and continues to happen - in South America.

What this comes down to is a not-so-subtle attempt to convict The People
without establishing guilt first. It's an old trick. They've already got
it well established in traffic court, police have a ticket quota based upon
the unreasonable and unproven assumption that a statistical percentage of
the population is already guilty - what's known as the Napoleonic Code of
Justice, you're presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The Constitution is exactly as good as your intentions to stick with it,
no matter how hard the going gets. Taking the easy way out is simple to do,
but the long-term consequences of your unwillingness to protect the U. S.
Constitution are sure to come back and haunt you, too, eventually.


>Barry Margolin
>Thinking Machines Corp.

-- richard

-- 
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