From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 06:13:29 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Fwd: Internet security (VERY LONG)
Message-ID: <v04003981b0e8296631c0@[139.167.130.248]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




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Subject: Fwd: Internet security (VERY LONG)
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 98 12:34:36 -0500
From: Somebody
To: "Robert Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0


---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
Date:        01/17  3:25 PM
Received:    01/17  5:24 PM
From:        Richard Fairfax, richard_fairfax@compuserve.com
Reply-To:    CSA Talk, csa@blueworld.com
To:          CSA Talk, csa@blueworld.com

The following forwarded mail may have implications for clients with
sensitive data. The field encription features in Troi FM Plug-in could
prove to be a valuable asset.

Richard Fairfax
Oakwood Designs

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From: gp-uk@mailbase.ac.uk,Net
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Aus: z-netz.datenschutz.spionage:

 A GLOBAL electronic spy network that can eavesdrop on every telephone,
 email and telex communication around the world will be officially
 acknowledged for the first time in a European Commission report to be
 delivered this week.

 The report - Assessing the Technologies of Political Control - was
 commissioned last year by the Civil Liberties Committee of the European
 Parliament. It contains details of a network of American-controlled
 intelligence stations on British soil and around the world, that
 "routinely and indiscriminately" monitor countless phone, fax and email
 messages.

 It states: "Within Europe all email telephone and fax communications
 are routinely intercepted by the United States National Security Agency
 transfering all target information from the European mainland via the
 strategic hub of London then by satellite to Fort Meade in Maryland via
 the crucial hub at Menwith Hill in the North York moors in the UK."

 The report confirms for the first time the existence of the secretive
 ECHELON system.

 Until now, evidence of such astounding technology has been patchy and
 anecdotal. But the report - to be discussed on Thursday by the commit-
 tee of the office of Science and Technology Assessment in Luxembourg -
 confirms that the citizens of Britain and other European states are
 subject to an intensity of surveillance far in excess of that imagined
 by most parliaments. Its findings are certain to excite the concern of
 MEPs.

 "The ECHELON system forms part of the UKUSA system (see 'Cooking up a
 charter for snooping') but unlike many of the electronic spy systems
 developed during the Cold War, ECHELON is designed primarily for non-
 military targets: governments, organizations and businesses in vir-
 tually every country.

 "The ECHELON system works by indiscriminately intercepting very large
 quantities of communications and then siphoning out what is valuable
 using artificial intelligence aids like MEMEX to find key words".

 According to the report, ECHELON uses a number of national dictionaries
 containing key words of interest to each country.

 For more than a decade, former agents of US, British, Canadian and New
 Zealand national security agencies have claimed that the monitoring of
 electronic communications has become endemic throughout the world.
 Rumours have circulated that new technologies have been developed which
 have the capability to search most of the world's telex, fax and email
 networks for "key words". Phone calls, they claim, can be automatically
 analysed for key words.

 Former signals intelligence operatives have claimed that spy bases
 controlled by America have the ability to search nearly all data
 communications for key words. They claim that ECHELON automatically
 analyses most email messaging for "precursor" data which assists in-
 telligence agencies to determine targets. According to former Canadian
 Security Establishment agent Mike Frost, a voice recognition system
 called Oratory has been used for some years to intercept diplomatic
 calls.

 The driving force behind the report is Glyn Ford, Labour MEP for
 Greater Manchester East. He believes that the report is crucial to
 the future of civil liberties in Europe.

 "In the civil liberties committee we spend a great deal of time
 debating issues such as free movement, immigration and drugs.
 Technology always sits at the centre of these discussions. There
 are times in history when technology helps democratise, and times
 when it helps centralise. This is a time of centralisation. The
 justice and home affairs pillar of Europe has become more powerful
 without a corresponding strengthening of civil liberties."

 The report recommends a variety of measures for dealing with the
 increasing power of the technologies of surveillance being used at
 Menwith Hill and other centres. It bluntly advises: "The European
 Parliament should reject proposals from the United States for making
 private messages via the global communications network (Internet) a
 ccessible to US intelligence agencies."

 The report also urges a fundamental review of the involvement of the
 American NSA (National Security Agency) in Europe, suggesting that
 their activities be either scaled down, or become more open and
 accountable.

 Such concerns have been privately expressed by governments and MEPs
 since the Cold War, but surveillance has continued to expand. US intel-
 ligence activity in Britain has enjoyed a steady growth throughout the
 past two decades. The principal motivation for this rush of development
 is the US interest in commercial espionage. In the Fifties, during the
 development of the "special relationship" between America and Britain,
 one US institution was singled out for special attention.

 The NSA, the world's biggest and most powerful signals intelligence
 organisation, received approval to set up a network of spy stations
 throughout Britain. Their role was to provide military, diplomatic and
 economic intelligence by intercepting communications from throughout
 the Northern Hemisphere.

 The NSA is one of the shadowiest of the US intelligence agencies. Until
 a few years ago, it existence was a secret and its charter and any
 mention of its duties are still classified. However, it does have a Web
 site (www.nsa.gov:8080) in which it describes itself as being respon-
 sible for the signals intelligence and communications security activ-
 ities of the US government.

 One of its bases, Menwith Hill, was to become the biggest spy station
 in the world. Its ears - known as radomes - are capable of listening in
 to vast chunks of the communications spectrum throughout Europe and the
 old Soviet Union.

 In its first decade the base sucked data from cables and microwave
 links running through a nearby Post Office tower, but the communi-
 cations revolutions of the Seventies and Eighties gave the base a
 capability that even its architects could scarcely have been able to
 imagine. With the creation of Intelsat and digital telecommunications,
 Menwith and other stations developed the capability to eavesdrop on
 an extensive scale on fax, telex and voice messages. Then, with the
 development of the Internet, electronic mail and electronic commerce,
 the listening posts were able to increase their monitoring capability
 to eavesdrop on an unprecedented spectrum of personal and business
 communications.

 This activity has been all but ignored by the UK Parliament. When
 Labour MPs raised questions about the activities of the NSA, the
 Government invoked secrecy rules. It has been the same for 40 years.

 Glyn Ford hopes that his report may be the first step in a long road
 to more openness. "Some democratically elected body should surely
 have a right to know at some level. At the moment that's nowhere".

 See also in this week's issue: Pretty good Phil bounces back (a report
 on the consolidation of the reputation of Phil Zimmermann, creator of
 PGP). 14 October 1997: Europe's private parts to expand

                              * * * * *

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<Somebody's .sig>


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-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/
Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>