Of course they can! Like 20min.ch:

NaN Votes

NaN votes, great stuff Too bad it’s fixed already.

Scenario 1: Terrorist operative “A” uses Twitter with… a cell phone camera/video function to send back messages, and to receive messages, from the rest of his [group]… Other members of his [group] receive near real time updates (similar to the movement updates that were sent by activists at the RNC) on how, where, and the number of troops that are moving in order to conduct an ambush.

Scenario 2: Terrorist operative “A” has a mobile phone for Tweet messaging and for taking images. Operative “A” also has a separate mobile phone that is actually an explosive device and/or a suicide vest for remote detonation. Terrorist operative “B” has the detonator and a mobile to view “A’s” Tweets and images. This may allow “B” to select the precise moment of remote detonation based on near real time movement and imagery that is being sent by “A.”

Scenario 3: Cyber Terrorist operative “A” finds U.S. [soldier] Smith’s Twitter account. Operative “A” joins Smith’s Tweets and begins to elicit information from Smith. This information is then used for… identity theft, hacking, and/or physical [attacks]. This scenario… has already been discussed for other social networking sites, such as My Space and/or Face Book.

Yeah, what the 304th Military Intelligence Battalion (which is so utterly well-versed in information technology that their security certificate doesn’t fit their URL) writes in their PDF report makes a lot of sense. And the PDF report likening all muslims to jihadist terrorists is tremendously coherent as well, after all, it’s what our media tells us, and our media is Always Right™.

I think my stupidity allergy is acting up, I’ll have to stop writing for now.

Via Matthias Gutfeld, who had it via Ugugu.

Update 08-10-30, 15:18: Meanwhile, Schneier has a post about this as well. Apparently, somebody on Slashdot commented:

Wait until they find out about email and chatrooms!!!!

Sarah Palin

Apart from her being rather incompetent (“cramming a lot of information”, as if, she just doesn’t find her way around the notes others have prepared for her), Sarah Palin apparently really likes fashion. And hairdressers. And makeup.

According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.

The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.

The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.

Ah well. I refrained from posting about the US election so far, it’s just too hyped up even in European media, and the US voters seem to be less informed by the day, start being openly and no longer covertly racist again, but this is just silly.

Although, on second thought, maybe the money is better spent that way.

Via tou.ch (German).

Yes, that just was my meager tribute to today’s Talk like a Pirate Day

Ingame Map

Washington Map

It’s a fact that there’s 10 million WoW players (by official count), and that not all ingame chat is about the game itself. It’s also a fact however that some CIA folks have seen too many conspiracy movies. You might have heard about it: A Pentagon researcher gave a presentation early this month (via Wired, heise), where he alerted the world to the inherent dangers in such online worlds: Jargon! Coded messages! To the left, you see an ingame map, to the right the overlaid secret attack plan. Boo!

Now … yes. Of course, this is theoretically possible. Of course terrorists could forfeit encrypted mails, a private Ventrillo server, or some other secure means of communication, in favour of in-WoW chat. But it’s a prime example of a movie plot threat, a term coined by security expert Bruce Schneier. He clearly illustrates why defending against those is a very bad idea:

The problem with movie plot security is that it only works if we guess right. If we spend billions defending our subways, and the terrorists bomb a bus, we’ve wasted our money. To be sure, defending the subways makes commuting safer. But focusing on subways also has the effect of shifting attacks toward less-defended targets, and the result is that we’re no safer overall.

Seems those Pentagon researchers haven’t read that, though. Nor have they heard about his later movie plot threat contest (which made it to the NY Times), just you wait until they expand on more of those possible dangers – here’s a long inspirational list.

Terror in Lineage

I particularly like this broken toys post, where the blogger draws parallels in other popular MMOs.

Indeed, the point can be made that they only use the above WoW picture as a clever way to make even politicians realize that “emerging media” are something that has to be watched for potential terrorist attacks. But the main issue remains: However many movie plot threats you watch, however many communication channels you supervise, we’re gladly living in a not-quite-yet-1984 world, which has the downside that terrorists have plenty of communication alternatives.

And once again I’m quoting Schneier, in his brilliant analysis of the subject matter:

My guess is still that some clever Pentagon researchers have figured out how to play World of Warcraft on the job, and they’re not giving that perk up anytime soon.

I guess that’s the best explanation for all this.

RFID - How It Works

The Swiss government has decided that our passports, like a few before ours, should store data on RFID chips. Meaning, the following data would be stored in that chip:

• fingerprints
• a digital photograph
• all the data that’s also available in printed form (name, gender, date of birth, eye color, and so on)

All this data could then be read out via electrical readers (as pictured in the diagram to the right, labels German).

That in and of itself isn’t necessarily evil! The current proposal concerning regulations and technology lets it be implemented in ways that make it evil though. Let me lay out why that is.

About RFID

If you haven’t heard of RFID before, it’s high time you read up at Wikipedia – and even if you did, there’s quite intriguing things I haven’t read before in there too. Short version:

An RFID tag is an object that can be applied to or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. Some tags can be read from several meters away and beyond the line of sight of the reader.

Additionally, the RFID chip can be passive – meaning, it has no energy source of its own and thus potentially lives forever. And as I’ll explain later more in-depth, you can’t track who obtains information from it. There are also active RFID chips, but since the ones used in passports are passive and there are no other fundamental differences beyond range between active and passive types, I’ll neglect active RFID chips for the rest of this post.

There are places where RFID chips make sense and most privacy concerns don’t apply (like race tracking, inventory systems, some kinds of animal tracking). But passports definitely aren’t one of them.

The Referendum

The referendum (a federal facultative referendum, that is) is carried from a surprisingly (in a very positive way) large number of independent political forces.

The referendum was launched because there is a vast number of unresolved issues that are introduced with biometric RFID passes (details see below).

Here is the RFID referendum website

If you’re Swiss, I strongly urge you to sign it within the next 10 days, if you haven’t already, and spread it among your friends and coworkers. Time is running out, the referendum only runs until September 22th, and apparently, over 30′000 more signatures are needed. Signature sheets are available on their site.

Privacy

It is not a coincidence that the RFID chip started out, originally, as an espionage device. Its passive nature and long life make it perfect for stealth placement and readout.

Accesses to the chip are not trackable, and while the chips in passports are protected by a metal mesh covering them that shields them against malicious scans, this (just like other things when it comes to RFID) doesn’t work as it should. Uncovered at the Blackhat 2006, a proof of concept showed:

The problem, according to Flexilis, is that the shielding does not fully protect passport against remote scans. Kevin Mahaffey from Flexilis says a medium powered scanner could detect a partially opened passport from four to six inches away. The theoretical maximum detection range is more than 10 feet, but Mahaffey said that would require a “huge amount of power.”

So, when you have such a passport, you’re trackable, identifiable, by anyone who has access to that kind of technology. Which is just about anyone who’s determined enough.

Furthermore, even “legitimate” (as per the legal text) kinds of tracking can go way beyond what we’re comfortable with. Airline companies, other companies with special permissions, your own and foreign governments, can and may track your every move. And once enough companies have your data in their databases, it’s bound to be stolen and out in the open eventually – data leaks do happen.

If you’re in the fortunate position to understand German, the StopRFID pages of the FoeBuD e.V. have way more info.

Security

There is a simple fact about RFID chips that no lobbyist will openly admit:

They are not secure.

You may have heard of MythBusters. It’s a Discovery Channel series that … busts myths. Often funny, like “can you surf on a wave created by a dynamite explosion”, but also stuff like “can you hack security fingerprint systems”. They tried to do an episode on RFID, and they were shut down by the industry. You draw the conclusions. References here: tom’s hardware, cnet news, the consumerist, all via Bruce Schneier.

“But”, I hear you say, “they’re meant to be made secure!” Well … yes. Read for yourself, in the federal Swiss decree:

Der Datenchip ist gegen Fälschungen und unberechtigtes Lesen zu schützen. Der Bundesrat bestimmt die entsprechenden technischen Anforderungen.

More or less, the chip is to be protected against malicious readouts, and details are to be determined by the executive.

But, there’s a problem with this: The same thing was meant to happen with the British passes’ RFID chips. And what happened? They were hacked a couple weeks after they were released. Read the details on The Guardian:

“The reader – I bought one for £250 – has to say hello to the chip and tell it that it is authorised to make contact. The key to that is in the date of birth, etc. Once they communicate, the conversation is encrypted, but I wrote some software in about 48 hours that made sense of it.”

More info on TechNewsWorld. Now, this was a white hat hacker. Who tells us that black hats have problems with what he achieved in 48 hours? We already know that it’s easy to access credit card numbers like that, why should full blown identity theft be made as easy as the (too easy) credit card theft?

Teleology

As we know, the main reason for adding those RFID chips in the first place is that the US wants everybody to do so. In their Enhanced Border Security and Visa Reform Act of 2002, we find:

Additionally, by October 26, 2004, in order for a country to remain eligible for participation in the visa waiver program its government must certify that it has a program to issue to its nationals machine-readable passports that are tamper-resistant and which incorporate biometric and authentication identifiers that satisfy the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

Why is it that the US government wants everybody to use those RFID chips in the first place then? Bruce Schneier has, yet again, brilliant vista:

The Bush administration is deliberately choosing a less secure technology without justification. If there were a good offsetting reason to choose that technology over a contact chip, then the choice might make sense.

Unfortunately, there is only one possible reason: The administration wants surreptitious access themselves. It wants to be able to identify people in crowds. It wants to surreptitiously pick out the Americans, and pick out the foreigners. It wants to do the very thing that it insists, despite demonstrations to the contrary, can’t be done.

This, of course, is speculation. I haven’t seen another reasonable explanation to date yet though.

The fun thing is that the US government keeps pursuing that course, despite even large independent bodies like the Smart Card Alliance (who actually represents RFID vendors, among others, and thus has it in their best economic interest that RFID chips are used) warning them from privacy and security dangers. If you have a long breath, you might want to read this extensive report from May 2006.

The future

Maybe some time in the future, the technology will be where it needs to be in order to make a private, secure chip that makes international travel easy without exposing its users to unnecessary risks. The proposed RFID chips certainly aren’t that technology.

Of course, even when we eventually do have the technology, other things like better tolerance and education would be more effective in preventing terrorism. But that’s an entirely different discussion.

The Republican Party is gathering in St. Paul, to put forth its vision of the future. [...] Which makes us wonder: what does science fiction, the literature of the future, have to say about liberal-run dystopias? And it turns out, there are plenty of horrendous futures blighted by the heavy hands of our zinfandel-spitting liberal elites. Here are the scifi stories John McCain should mention in his acceptance speech.

There there, it’s OK. McCain is everything but elected just yet. Let’s talk about the subject matter though, and let’s even ignore the three or four implied insults in “zinfandel-spitting liberal elites”.

Liberalism and the Americans

It’s funny how Americans use the word “liberalism”. As US Democratic politics are not actually (traditional) liberal politics at all. Liberalism is freedom from what liberals perceive as “oppression from the state”, it is the strive for maximum liberty for both individuals and corporations, and as such particularly not things such as the gouvernment of 1984, which allows no individual liberties whatsoever.

The context makes it clear that this is not the kind of liberalism the author is speaking about, but still I find it puzzling how the wide array of policies and agendas that call themselves (derivates of) liberal in one way or another is often thrown into the same pot, although they’re quite contradictory in important points.

Not even A Clockwork Orange should be seen as a work about liberal dystopia in this strict sense. Indeed it does start out with some kind of liberal dystopian world, in that law and order are overthrown and everybody does what they want. But it then goes on to show that even in such a society, too severe restriction of individual liberties (by restriction of the free will) can only lead to harm. And when Alex truly changes, it’s because of his inner drives and the free will the gouvernment nearly took from him, not because of the Pavlovian treatment.

Those Works and Social Liberalism

I think it’s correct to assume that the author knew this and talked about social liberalism, which is more or less the Democrat’s policies, instead. I’m actually rather convinced that’s true, in face of this comment of hers:

About half the works I’m discussing are by conservative commentators seeking to use science fiction to dramatize what they see as liberal ideas taken to their furthest extreme. The other half are all-purpose dystopian works that one could claim (and that people have claimed) represent an extreme view of liberal ideals.

Even so I’d disagree with some interpretations. Admittedly, I haven’t read more than half the works there, so I can’t analyze them all, and even if I could I wouldn’t want to because it’s not specifics we should be talking about.

It’s still important to note that political correctness is everything but egalitarianism: It’s realization of and respect for the fact that we’re different and the belief that it doesn’t and shouldn’t influence our judgements. It’s also important to note that redefining “discrimination” to include things like abilities and fitness for jobs doesn’t make a particularly convincing argument. And even social liberals don’t want to suppress religion, they just don’t want religion to suppress science. Finally, socialism is a different thing than liberalism (and “liberalism”) entirely.

Why This Kind of Propaganda is Wrong

Now, even with the works where the above reservations don’t apply: abusing them for pro-Republican propaganda seems just wrong to me. Which US party again was it that made Homeland Security (which is essentially utterly useless, but about as totalitarian as the western world gets) as powerful as it is now? Who made nationalism en vogue (via Stupid Evil Bastard) again? Whose current-day politics are the ones that are closer to totalitarian dystopias?

Swashbuckling aside, and acknowledging that republican policies are everything but politically correct or egalitarian, we’re getting to the core issue with using those books for propaganda. Yes, they’re warning signs, but they should warn us from something else than the ideas they take to the extreme:

Every “simple” idea taken to the extreme leads to implications nobody can want, and only fundamentalist indoctrination can reach. Just look at Utilitarianism, which is the idea of “everybody should be happy” transcribed to “the sum of all happiness combined should be maximized”. So you have two thirds of the population incredibly happy and the rest in slavery and not happy at all – strictly utilitarian speaking, that’s better than everybody half as happy as the two thirds served by slaves would be. Now, utilitarians of course don’t want that, and do everything to avoid that conclusion, but their idea taken to the extreme would lead there.

I’m carefully avoiding talking about the Islam in this context just yet, just want to make it clear that for Muslims, the same applies as does for Christians: Fundamentalism is wrong and exists. It’s just that western (US like European) media likes to portray Muslim fundamentalists instead of reasonable people when they’re talking about the evil east. Anyway.

So, taking “liberal” (or “Democratic”, both with the meanings Americans commonly apply to them) ideas to the extreme does nothing to show anything about their fitness for anything, bar the fitness for being taken to extremes that reasonable people (and presidential candidates) never mean to reach.