Storm Brewing Over Forged Bob Rae Posting?

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Anybody taken note of the ruckus about a forged posting from Bob Rae (the
premier of the Canadian province of Ontario)? Seems like some joker posted
a fake message from Rae through Hal's remailer at portal.

Now all the lame press (and some even LAMER USENET readers) are screaming foul.
I bet there will be renewed interest in the cypherpunk remailer's in the next
few days :>

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> Now all the lame press (and some even LAMER USENET readers) are screaming
 > foul. I bet there will be renewed interest in the cypherpunk remailer's in
 > the next few days :>

I suppose this means we need strong laws against "message laundering."  

-- 
     Mike Duvos         $    PGP 2.6 Public Key available     $
     mpd@netcom.com     $    via Finger.                      $

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In article <199412112031.MAA21646@netcom12.netcom.com>,
mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos) wrote:
> > Now all the lame press (and some even LAMER USENET readers) are screaming
> > foul. I bet there will be renewed interest in the cypherpunk remailer's in
> > the next few days :>
>
>I suppose this means we need strong laws against "message laundering."  

Hey, don't kid yourself! I have read comments to the extent that anon remailers
like the cypherpunks system should be BANNED! Seriously....another good reason
for putting more in Europe if possible.

Here's an idea. Someone mentioned trying to set up an anon remailer on the
North American Freenets, but it seemed there were software compatibility
problems.

Well, if we could solve the problem, assuming the Freenets in Europe use the
same software, we could set a few up in Europe ourselves from this side of the
pond. You could telnet into a Euro-Freenet (although some like Helsinki had
restrictions on members being citizens of the country) establish an account
and then e-mail the software to your account overseas.

Would this be practical? Sounds like it would be worth a shot. But again, I
guess it comes down to the software compatibility problem.

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In article <JFuwkOwscsY5075yn@io.org>, you wrote:

> Here's an idea. Someone mentioned trying to set up an anon remailer on the
> North American Freenets, but it seemed there were software compatibility
> problems.

I'm the one guilty of that, the thread was under "Guerrilla Remailers." I
wonder if it is possible to call procmail on these systems via the
.forward file. If it is, why couldn't we write a procmail .procmailrc file
to sanitize the headers? Drop three files in place and the remailer is up
and running. Anyone have a freenet account to find out if this is possible?

Please note this tagline, it seems quite apropos lately.
==============================================================================

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.
                         - Edward R. Murrow

==============================================================================
skaplin@skypoint.com                   | "...vidi vici veni" - Overheard
                                       | outside a Roman brothel.
PGP encrypted mail is accepted and     |
preferred.                             | Change is the only constant in the
                                       | Universe..."Four quarters, please."
E-mail key@four11.com for PGP Key or   |
Finger skaplin@mirage.skypoint.com     | Smile!! Big brother is watching.
==============================================================================

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In article <llEzkKjqRyB8075yn@skypoint.com>,
skaplin@skypoint.com (Samuel Kaplin) wrote:
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>
>In article <JFuwkOwscsY5075yn@io.org>, you wrote:
>
>> Here's an idea. Someone mentioned trying to set up an anon remailer on the
>> North American Freenets, but it seemed there were software compatibility
>> problems.
>
>I'm the one guilty of that, the thread was under "Guerrilla Remailers." I
>wonder if it is possible to call procmail on these systems via the
>.forward file. If it is, why couldn't we write a procmail .procmailrc file
>to sanitize the headers? Drop three files in place and the remailer is up
>and running. Anyone have a freenet account to find out if this is possible?

Well I have an account on the Cleveland Freenet. Fire me over the necessary
files with the instructions and we'll see pretty quickly whether its doable
or not.

I guess we'll also find out real fast (if it works) how long the freenet
authorities will let it keep running...

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Mark Terka wrote:

> Anybody taken note of the ruckus about a forged posting from Bob Rae (the
> premier of the Canadian province of Ontario)? Seems like some joker posted
> a fake message from Rae through Hal's remailer at portal.
> 
> Now all the lame press (and some even LAMER USENET readers) are screaming foul.
> I bet there will be renewed interest in the cypherpunk remailer's in the next
> few days :>

Thanks for mentioning this, but I had some trouble finding it in the
*.canada.* newsgroups. I found it in "ont.general" after seeing
mention of the controversy in "alt.anonymous."

The newspaper article cites comments from a manager at Portal,
denyning responsibility, so we _may_ be seeing some repercussions. (I
have no idea if Hal has been contacted...perhaps he can comment here.)

In other news, seen in the various anon server groups, there's a
raging debate about some remailers censoring^H^H^H^Hscreening for
content, and not passing on (plaintext, obviously) messages they
dislike, or think are offensive, or insulting/supportive of
Scientology, etc. (I haven't read the Scientology debate yet, but
apparently a remailer named "Homer" is involved, one way or another.)

Once again, and not for the last time, it is critical that
*remailer-hosting sites* be placed at arms-length from *specific
instances of remailer accounts*. To put it more simply, a site like
c2.org could offer _dozens_ of remailer accounts.

(The site owner is not supposed to look at mail, according to the
ECPA...in my non-lawyerly view, this provides valuable protection for
the site owner. Not for the remailer account owners, but, then, they
are presumably acquired through pseudonyms, aren't they?)

In yet another piece of news, Netcom has apparently been
hacked/attacked rather badly. The "netcom.general" discussion group
(local to Netcom) is filled with garbage posts, forged posts,
cancelled articles, etc. Messages about "root" being forged appeared,
then disappeared. Netcom is quiet on this, but has been running
"crack" on all of their machines for the last several days--apparently
to (somehow?) help to find security flaws....I have no idea why
running crack to find weak passwords of users is such a high priority.
Maybe the apparent attack is related, maybe not.

News has basically stopped flowing into Netcom, and mail is still
somewhat squirrelly. 

Phil Karn asked me if the "Internet Liberation Front" was/is my doing.
Nope. (The ILF--not to be confused with the "Information Liberation
Front," which I may or may not know something about--was apparently
claiming to have cracked some other online service providers. I don't
know if the current situation at Netcom is related to this.)

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
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subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay

Ironically, I did not know about this brouhaha until reading about it
here today.  A few days ago I got this email:

	Subject: Premier Bob
	To: hfinney@jobe.shell.portal.com
	Date: Fri, 9 Dec 94 8:10:36 EST
	 
	Congrulations! Your forgery made the Globe and Mail today.

This meant nothing to me so I ignored it.  But on reading the article
this appears to be a major incident, involving heated accusations and
walkouts on the floor of the Ontario legislature.  The Portal system,
the internet service provider I use, has apparently taken some heat but
they have not contacted me.

A thread in can.politics titled "The Bob Rae Forgery Caper" includes a
copy of the original message.  Here are some excerpts from the Globe and
Mail article, which was widely cross-posted.

>TORONTO - Progressive Conservative Leader Michael Harris caused an
>uproar in the Ontario Legislature yesterday by presenting a prank
>letter circulating on the Internet computer system that is
>purported to have been written by Premier Bob Rae.
>  The computer message has Mr. Rae making tasteless references to
>Ontario's Attorney-General Marion Boyd and commenting on the trial
>of Karla Homolka, who was convicted in the slayings of two Ontario
>schoolgirls.
>  A copy of the letter obtained by The Globe and Mail warns that
>"this message is NOT from the person listed in the from line. It is
>from an automated software remailing service" in California. This
>message was on the letter from the time the company received it and
>passed it on to the computer bulletin board where Internet users
>can read it, said Gwen Rachlin, director of operations for Portal
>Communications of Cupertino, Calif., through which the message was
>posted.
>[...]
>  Ms. Rachlin said the company received a call from police about
>the letter yesterday afternoon. But she said the company had
>already had "some incidents" with the source of the message. She
>added that she was ready to co-operate with the police.
>  The source of the message was an account that provides a service
>that allows people anonymous access to the Internet, she said.
>  Mr. Sherman said it is very easy to post a false message on a
>bulletin board and to make it appear that it came from a computer
>different from the one that sent it.
>  By going through a California bulletin board, "obviously someone
>has gone way out of their way to send that in," Mr. Sherman
>added.
>  Even so, the message can be traced, said Rick Broadhead, co-
>author of The Canadian Internet Handbook. "If they [the sender]
>have gone through a service, it is going to take some more work to
>trace it," Mr. Broadhead said. But looking at the log records of
>the computer service, police can follow the message back to the
>originating computer.

I do not have any logs of this message.  However, my remailer does not
insert any delays so it is conceivable that sendmail logs could give
some insight into message flow through the remailer.  I don't know what
obligation I would be under to cooperate with any investigation.  The
message itself had some pointed political satire but did not look to me
to violate any US laws.  There is not much I can do to help, anyway.
The article indicated that the legislature has now gone into recess for
the year so hopefully this will all be old news by the time they
reconvene.

One thing I do notice on reading the discussion in can.politics is the
fact that despite the disclaimers in the message headers, some people
took this as a forgery attempt on my part.  I wonder if it might be
necessary to insert disclaimers into the body of the message as
anon.penet.fi does, at least for messages to known mail-to-news
gateways.

There was also a misperception that my remailer was an official effort
endorsed by Portal (again, despite the disclaimers).  Note that it was
they who were contacted, not me (yet).  This might suggest that it will
not be possible to cleanly separate the remailer operators and service
providers when problems like this arise.  Both may end up being hassled
(time will tell whether I am).

It should be interesting to see what happens.

Hal

Hal writes
> One thing I do notice on reading the discussion in can.politics is the
> fact that despite the disclaimers in the message headers, some people
> took this as a forgery attempt on my part.  I wonder if it might be
> necessary to insert disclaimers into the body of the message as
> anon.penet.fi does, at least for messages to known mail-to-news
> gateways.

Relax:  The world has an unlimited supply of idiots, and 
nobody takes them seriously.

If you have ever posted satires, you will observe that no
matter how blatant the satire, and how many clues you put
in that it is a satire, you will always get indignant
replies that take you seriously.

-- 
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our
property, because of the kind of animals that we        James A. Donald
are.  True law derives from this right, not from
the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.            jamesd@netcom.com

Wouldn't this be a case to make for digital signatures?
TRY to forge my 4K key.  PLEASE!!

Nathan