Use a grow-light -- go to jail!

The records are sought for the DEA's ongoing "Green Merchant" operation
aimed at home growers of marijuana. As was reported by the news broadcast,
DEA knows full well that they can't make even a small dent in the marijuana
home-growing industry, since the "War on Drugs" has driven up the price of
marijuana at the same time as the "crack" prices plunged and with the price
of pot now being higher than the price of gold, stimulating domestic small
crop production. The action was explained as aimed at "showing the Govt's
of countries like Bolivia and Columbia that we mean business and cracking
down on the drugs at home."

Right! Give them a signal! "Yo! We are making the cocaine market safer
for you, guys!"

Remember a few months ago I posted a rather bitter little article that said
something like "Go ahead, buy metal halides at the hydroponics shop and
expect the cops to be breaking down your doors a few months later when their
sales records are confiscated by the police in the name of the 'War on Drugs'
farce"? Well, they are close to doing it now.

And lest you think that just because you are a law-abiding citizen and
bought your lights to grow tomatoes or to light your reef tank, that will
not stop the Government goons from breaking down your doors (remember,
"no knock" search warrants are legal now, thanks to the Reagan-staffed
Supreme Court), rushing in, may be shooting you because they confuse the
TV remote control for a gun (which has already happened at least once),
ransacking your house, terrorizing you, confiscating half of your household
(which is often done, and then you have to prove that you did not buy it
all with drug profits), possibly freezing your bank accounts (they have the
power to do that), etc... And when you are looking at your demolished
front door, destroyed furniture, trampled tomatoes or smashed up $10,000 reef
tank and adrenalin is slowly leaving your system as your hands shake and
your heart beat finally slows down to the semblance of "normal," remember
why this happened -- you bought a bag of peat moss, or a 5 lb can of
iron chelate, or a high-pressure sodium vapour lamp on a sale you could
not resist and were dumb enough to put down your address on the bill of sale.
Because why should you be worried about it, since you aren't doing anything
wrong, right?!

--
DISCLAMMER: I speak for myself only, unless explicitly indicated otherwise.
Oleg Kiselev ol...@veritas.com
VERITAS Software ...!{apple|uunet}!veritas!oleg
(408)727-1222x586

Just My $0.02,
john "it's right there under the fish that looks like a rock" bowden
bow...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
"I speak for no one! Ha."

What shocks me is that so many people comply with this sort of thing
without even putting up token resistance. That's really the core of
the problem.

A lesser intrusion was the long census form last year. I got one. Of
course I refused to fill it out. In the end they accepted the short
form. But I was surprised to discover that relatively few people who
got the long form reacted as I did.

Nick

Don't blame me, I held my nose and voted for Dukakis!

;-(

-rich

>

I voted for Ron Paul, Libertarian Party candidate for President.

For an information kit on the Libertarian Party, write:

Libertarian Party
1528 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20003

1-800-682-1776

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Ken Koellner (k...@sw.stratus.com)
Disclaimer: The above writings are the ramblings of one human being
and have nothing what-so-ever to do with Stratus Computer Inc.

We get no good choice because we LET ourselves have our choices reduced.
--
Christopher M. Conway | U*ix and C Guru
wom...@nfinit.enet.dec.com | The Second Amendment is ABOUT military
wom...@jupiter.nmt.edu | weapons. We have the RIGHT and DUTY to
wom...@juliet.ll.mit.edu | overthrow a tyrannical government.

For the 1990 census, my wife and I gave our names and our address. Period.
They sent a census worker to "confirm our non-cooperation" with the census:

Census Official: So you will not cooperate with the census?
Me: I will not answer questions which are not required by the constitution.
CO: Thank you. Goodbye.

Technically, I could be fined $100 for non-cooperation. I have not been
contacted any further for any reason. If they ever do anything, I will take
them to court on constitutional grounds.

I wish more people would realize that they need to stand up NOW for the rights
they want to have in the future.

The moral of the story being...always pay cash, and never give 'em your
name and address. Privacy is getting to be an endangered species, not just
because of the WoD, but also because of direct marketers who would just _love_
to get all the info on you they can...

Personally, I only use checks when I'm sending $$ thru the mail, and I try
to keep my credit card purchases to a non-informational minimum. (Knowing
that I used by Visa card at the campus bookstore to buy a physics textbook
doesn't tell anyone anything they couldn't get from other sources.)

Be aware that wherever you go, whatever you do, you leave an electronic
and paper trail...it's up to you how hard that trail is to follow.

===============================================================================
Tom Swiss/fan...@wam.umd.edu * "You put a baby in a crib with an apple and a
"What's so funny 'bout peace,* rabbit. If it eats the rabbit and plays with the
love, and understanding?" * apple, I'll buy you a new car."-Harvey Diamond
My opinions are definitive; reality is frequently inaccurate.

This is why you should always buy in cash and never give your name.

...until cash is outlawed, and I believe there is some mention of a
movement to do that, too.

And you forgot that the halide lamp was confiscated as "evidence" :-)

"Where's my camcorder ??"
--
/***************************************************************************\
/ Phil Howard -- KA9WGN -- ph...@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu | Guns don't aim guns at \
\ Lietuva laisva -- Brivu Latviju -- Eesti vabaks | people; CRIMINALS do!! /
\***************************************************************************/

Gee, the last time it happened about 1.75 years ago, they just stormed the
Indoor Gardening shop here in People's Berkeley and seized everything that even
remotely resembled a record, including the firm's computer.

The shop now sports a different name, but they appear to be in a similar
business. I wonder if they keep a client list anymore...

Is it any coincidence that crack cocaine appeared right after they
started driving up the price of pot?

Right. The DEA is now a gov't profit center..or rather is run like a
business and is behaving just like any other business that can make a
lot of money if they don't care what happens to their customers.
--
real address: ba...@catnip.berkeley.ca.us
last choice: lll-winken!catnip.berkeley.ca.us!bandy

As though he weren't another drug thug.

Vote LP. We'll make you free. The Libertarian Party

--
David Feustel, 1930 Curdes Ave, Fort Wayne, IN 46805, (219) 482-9631
EMAIL: feu...@netcom.com or feu...@cvax.ipfw.indiana.edu

Lenora Fulani was on the ticket for the New Alliance party (I started to
type Gnu Dalliance, the way when I'm intentionally distorting them).

Okay...maybe someone on here could suggest some good information, bookwise,
on how to reduce and eliminate the paper and electronic trails...becoming
--
---------------
| _> ### |
| | |
---------------

Besides "Get off this net..." :-)

Actually, there are people who prefer to receive the long form. Genealogists
for one -- they view census information as valuable for future historians
(Congress typically makes a census available to the public about 75 years
after it is taken) and want to ensure that future data is as good as the
data we have from the past. A couple of the major genealogical periodicals
had letters from subscribers lamenting they couldn't request a long form...

Personally, I view this as consistent with the general notion of privacy
expressed on this list, namely people should have relatively strong
control over the information about themselves that is collected (or
distributed). The genealogists wish to provide more information -- that's
their right.

Craig

Is there any legal recourse available to someone who has had his property destroyed/confiscated, family terrorized, life disrupted, etc. wrongfully by overzealous drug-warriors? Can he make a bundle by sueing the hell out of the government? Or are the drug warriors above reproach?
Any legal experts care to comment?

A legal expert will tell you that the law provides a remedy to anyone
who is wronged.

But that's in theory. In practice, the legal system is heavily biased
in favor of the side which has more $$$. If *you* take on the U.S.
Government, guess which side has more resources. Remember the huge
staff which was assembled, and the millions of dollars that were
spent, in the prosecution of Col. North. (Just an e.g. of the
way the govt can outmatch individuals, I take no position on
whether or not it was justified in that case).

The post you responded to cited the case of the man whom the police
shot dead while he was watching TV, after they broke into his home
unannounced. Their excuse was that he was holding a TV remote control
which they mistook for a gun. It's difficult to imagine what legal
decision could adequately compensate the dead man, his widow, or
his children. I believe the police involved were not even disciplined
in any way.

Just another little tidbit that probably didn't make it into the
national press: about a couple of years ago, it was decided that the
ammunition used by the Baltimore police should be dum-dum bullets
(expanding bullets). Of course, these are outlawed in warfare under
the Geneva Conventions, to which the US is a signatory, because they
tend to leave survivors permanently disabled.

Nick

"Privacy: How to Protect What's Left of It"
by Robert Ellis Smith
(1979)

Sorry, taxing this much won't solve the problem...just restate it.
If you tax it to this point, you inadvertently create a market for
smuggled drugs and stuf that happens to avoid gov't inspection and
taxation. This once again leads to grow-lights in basements for
people own personal crop, and their own private chem labs, etc.
It'd be just like we have now, only the gov't would be making $$$
off it. ---Actually, I take even that back. I'll bet they wouldn't make
hardly anything at all, 'cause they'd end up spending most of it on
enforcement of the tax laws and busting smugglers, etc.

---Steve

It seems to me, perhaps incorrectly, that the situation of legalising
and taxing a substance is one that has already occured wrt booze. Is the
cost of enforcing the various booze taxes higher than the revenues from the
taxes? I suspect that the market for untaxed booze in a 'legal but taxed'
situation is smaller than the market in a 'illegal' situation. Anyone
have figures on this?

James Nicoll

You're right. The taxes on ethanol should be removed, too.
The last time I checked, though, the tax was nowhere near 10k%

PUBLIC KEY CRYPTO FREEWARE PROTECTS E-MAIL

At a time when the Government seems bent on keeping the public from
having access to electronic privacy technology, there is now a
freeware MSDOS software application that protects E-mail and files
via public key cryptography. Philip Zimmermann's program, PGP
(Pretty Good Privacy), provides privacy and authentication without
the hassles of managing keys associated with conventional
cryptographic software. No secure channels are needed for users to
exchange keys. PGP combines the convenience of RSA public key
cryptography with the speed of conventional cryptography, fast
message digests for signatures, data compression, and sophisticated
key management. And PGP performs the RSA functions relatively fast.
PGP is RSA public key cryptography for the masses.

PGP version 1.0 is now available through electronic distribution for
MSDOS in the compressed archive file PGP10.ZIP, containing the
executable binary and user documentation. This release file can be
found on BIX, Compuserve, FidoNet, in comp.binaries.ibm.pc and
alt.sources on Internet, the WELL, PeaceNet, EcoNet, EXEC-PC, and
many other BBS systems. A separate file, PGP10SRC.ZIP, contains all
the C source code and can be found on most of these same networks.

"Phil Zimmermann has made a real contribution to communications
privacy. `Pretty Good Privacy' is a damn good idea."
--Marc Rotenberg,
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Washington DC

cheers
kelly

[ ... ]

A patent was issued for the RSA algorithm. Does the author of
PGP hold a license to use it?

Nick Jacobs

Actually, the patent was issued for a particular RSA device which
included the algorithm. The lawyers will decide if the algorithm was
covered. (Does anyone have the patent # handy?)

Does reading a paper on the RSA constitute use? Does thinking about it
constitute use? Does writing a paper on the subject (appropriately
referenced) constitute use? Does translating the algorithm into a
programming language constitute use? Does compiling that algorithm
constitute use? Does running the implementation thus produced in order
to better understand the paper constitute use? Does giving away the
implementation to other university researchers constitute use? Does
giving away the implementation to the general public constitute use?
Does selling the implementation constitute use?

I would argue that everyone would agree on the answers to the first and
last of these questions. I am not so sure you will get even two people
to agree on the rest.

Rowan

Email ro...@ima.isc.com
Fax->email 508-294-0128
Fax (ISC) 617-661-2070
Phone 617-661-7474 x206

I find this claim hard to believe.

I would have thought that you would need a channel that is secure
from spoofing in order to safely transmit the public key. In
other words you have to make sure that your public key is accurately
received by the people who are going to send you encrypted messages
using it.

Otherwise an attacker could (1) intercept your key-transmittal
message, (2) pass along a forgery of your key-transmittal
message, with his own key substituted, (3) intercept all messages
transmitted to you that were encrypted with his substituted public
key, (4) read the message using the private-key associated with
his substituted public key, (5) if desired, re-encrypt the message
using your original public key and forward it to you, with or
without modifications.

The use of public/private keys for authentication is subject to
a similar attack.

My understanding is that the advantage of the RSA scheme is that
it doesn't require the channel to be secure from reading, but it
still requires that it be secure from interception and spoofing.

Dave
--
The U.S. constitution has its flaws, but it's
a damn sight better than what we have now!

Actually, that's true. A more precise description would be that no _private_
channels are needed for exchange of keys. The channel may be public, but
you need, as you point out, some sort of anti-spoofing mechanism. That's
rather easy, in most circumstances.

RSA is slow and expensive, and for my money, best suited for the initial ex-
change. Thereafter, RSA may be used for the exchange of key information,
which keys are used in a traditional, symmetric and cheap cryptosystem. The
same channels may, of course, be employed.

The same would apply to exponential key exchange, which is a method of mutual-
ly generating a key by passing info over the public channel while giving THE
ENEMY no useful information.

The use of RSA would usually be a centrally-distributed catalog of names and
public keys, by which _anyone_ could send an encrypted message to a given
person by encrypting with that person's published key. No one else, _inc-
luding_the_sender_, has a reasonable probability of being able to decrypt that
message. That published catalog would constitute the public but secure chan-
nel.

Similarly, the person could encrypt a message with his private key, transmit
same, and anyone could decrypt it with his public key. Only he (again, we're
talking very small probabilies) could have sent a message which that public
key would decrypt (digital signature).

Now, combine the two: I encrypt a message with my private key, add a cover
message in plaintext, then encrypt with your public key. This is sent over a
public, insecure channel to you. You decrypt it with your private key, get-
ting the cover message (no one else could have taken this step), then decrypt
with my public key to assure that only I could have sent the message. It's
a beautiful concept, but...

...for all the cryptographic security it (may) provide, the methods of "prac-
tical cryptanalysis" still can break it. That's where you go out and steal
the key....

Txkdnqtidnnemdse tee netuin,
d

How long befre Public Key Technologies comes crashing down on Phil, charging
him with Billion$ and Billion$ in lost revenues due to violation of their
patent? (I seem to recall a threatening letter to someone else who released,
or attempted to release, a non-RSA based public key cryptography program.
Seems PKT has patented any device which uses public key technology to transmit
a private key for use in later private key cryptography....)
--
Matthew T. Russotto russ...@eng.umd.edu russ...@wam.umd.edu
.sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.