Positivity (Winter, 2002-2003)
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In the fast paced culture that we seem to find ourselves caught in the middle
of, it's very easy to get stuck in a default mood of euphoria or despair.
Lately it seems that we ve been despairing quite a bit. We're certainly not
alone.

While it's very important to not lose sight of the bad and ominous things that
are happening in the world of technology and what it could do to people like
us, nothing is gained if we lose our overall positive outlook. We certainly
couldn't have kept on publishing for nearly twenty years if we didn't feel a
strong sense of hope for the future.

There will never be a shortage of negative issues to focus upon. Let's take a
brief moment to look at the positive developments.

By the time you read this (and hopefully barring any last minute unfortunate
circumstances), the excruciatingly long ordeal of Kevin Mitnick will have
finally reached an end. January 20, 2003 was the date that Mitnick's supervised
release came to an end - three years after his release from prison. That means
that he will once again be able to use the Internet, travel without having to
ask permission, and talk to anyone he wishes to without having to check to see
if they've ever been convicted of a crime. Most of us take these freedoms for
granted so it's hard to even imagine what life must be like without them.

In these past three years, Mitnick has become a model for someone who can
overcome adversity and triumph in the end. Despite five years of isolation and
the aforementioned restrictive conditions upon his release, he refused to let
the system defeat him. The authorities made it almost impossible for him to
earn a living, insisting that he not be allowed anywhere near a computer and at
one point suggesting that he pursue a career in fast food. Instead Mitnick
landed a job at a major talk radio station and answered listener questions
about technology. He had kept himself educated on all the technological
advances, despite being incarcerated and forbidden from experimenting with them
upon his release. More recently he had a book published on the intricacies of
social engineering and went on a government-approved speaking tour to promote
it. Throughout this, Mitnick found time to testify before a Senate subcommittee
on the dangers of bad technology and uninformed people. He also provided key
evidence in a case against Sprint who had the audacity to claim that their
switches were unhackable.

It would have been easy to dwell on the negative in this case, and there
certainly was no shortage of negativity. After all, Mitnick hadn't actually had
a real day of freedom since 1988 meaning that when all is said and done,
fifteen years will have gone by since this all started. And in all that time,
there was never a charge filed against Mitnick of anything more substantial
than making free phone calls and looking at source code that didn't belong to
him. It was all an incredible waste of time. But we get nowhere by letting our
bitterness dictate how we live. We have everything to gain by continuing
forward in our spirit of curiosity, education, and rebellion against
conformity.

There's always a price to pay in order to take those steps and sometimes it's a
heavy price. Dmitry Sklyarov spent time in an American prison and was unable to
return to his native Russia for nearly six months, simply because he wrote a
program that could be used in a way that violated the absurd Digital Millennium
Copyright Act. It made no difference that he wrote the program in another
country. Even Adobe, the company that originally pressed charges against
Sklyarov, realized how ridiculous the whole thing was and tried to drop it. But
it was too late and the American justice system went to work, eventually
putting Sklyarov s company (Elcomsoft) on trial instead in exchange for his
testimony. The authorities didn t count on the defendants putting on a strong
fight and they didn't count on the massive show of support for Sklyarov.

There's a reason so few cases ever make it to a jury. People are rightfully
terrified of the system and what it can do to them. It's ironic that it took
someone from outside our country to stand up to the system and refuse to be
intimidated. The trial took place in December and it only took the jury one day
to rule in Sklyarov's and Elcomsoft s favor.

Part of the DMCA stipulates that there has to be intent and this was something
the jury was unable to find in this case. It doesn't address the overall
stupidity of the law itself, which means there will be more such cases. But
it's a good start and a significant step towards fixing the numerous problems
caused by this horrible legislation. And most importantly, it's proof that
determination and standing by one s convictions can ultimately lead to victory.

We have to also remember that there's a big world out there, one that doesn't
always initially grasp the importance of the issues we value. It's easy to
dismiss the general public as ignorant and pawns of the mass media. But, as in
all things, the truth is never quite that simple. The general public can get
it, they do tend to value the things that we do, and they are most definitely
not the enemy. The jury in the Elcomsoft case is living proof of this. The key
is getting the message out.

Over the past year or so we ve reported (along with many others) some of the
really bad ideas that have been passed down from Capitol Hill as a "response"
to terrorism - things like the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security color scheme,
Operation TIPS, Total Information Awareness, etc. And while many of these
things are still around, public awareness and public criticism has soared and
it has most definitely made a difference.

People are taking more time to think these things through and more of them seem
to be realizing that diminishing our freedoms really isn't going to accomplish
a whole lot other than diminishing our freedoms. We've seen less talk of the
alert status color coding system as it becomes mocked more than it's used.

The TIPS system was heavily criticized for its Stasi-like system of informing
on one s neighbors and having untrained civilians prowling around looking for
potential thought crime. And in true Orwellian style, all mention of TIPS was
removed from the citizencorps.gov web site where it had been prominently
featured. It never happened.

The Total Information Awareness initiative is still very much with us. In their
own words, TIA is meant to be a "total reinvention of technologies for storing
and accessing information... although database size will no longer be measured
in the traditional sense, the amounts of data that will need to be stored and
accessed will be unprecedented, measured in petabytes."  All of this will
supposedly identify terrorists by having every conceivable bit of data easily
available - from medical records to credit card purchases to Internet activity.
It doesn't take much to figure out that since they don't know who the
terrorists are they will have to scrutinize all of us using these yet to be
invented tools. It's clearly a sensitive topic for the folks at Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) who won't even reveal how much money
is being allocated for this. While public pressure has yet to kill this beast,
it's probably one of the few things that can. Public ridicule has already put
an end to the TIA logo a pyramid with an all seeing eye within it, apparently
looking out over the globe. That also never happened.

As we go to press, yet another monitoring plan is being announced-this time one
that makes Carnivore look friendly. It's part of a report entitled "The
National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace" and it would require Internet Service
providers to participate in a centralized system that would theoretically allow
the entire Internet to be monitored along with its users. The apparent
frustration the government is feeling is summed up in this statement by one of
the plan's coordinators: "We don't have anybody that is able to look at the
entire picture. When something is happening, we don't know it's happening until
it's too late." That is why the plan will fail. What they want is not only
impossible but it flies in the face of everything the Net represents. It would
be the equivalent of wiretapping everyone at all times and we suspect most
people just aren't going to go for that. Expect a backlash on this like nothing
we've ever seen if this scheme even makes it to spring.

Absurd and ridiculous as some of these plans may be, it's no excuse for not
remaining vigilant and fighting those who endanger our freedom. Our victories
may appear to be few and far between but they are quite significant. As is the
fact that none of them could have been accomplished without a degree of
organization and activism. Whether the cause is ending the suffering of a
single person, overturning a really bad law, or preserving everyone's right to
privacy, reaching out to like-minded individuals and helping to make it a major
issue is critical. It's gotten us this far and it will continue to be our
strongest weapon.