It's not often I come across something on topic for both these lists...
-- Ed Craig [EMAIL PROTECTED] Taxi (I need an income) GNU/Linux (I can afford a Free OS) Think this through with me, let me know your mind... Hunter/Garcia ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 00:14:16 -0800 From: Cindy Cohn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ttac02] There's a war on, do you know where your data is? Hi all, With the war declared, it's becoming quite clear that ISPs and other holders and passers of electrons throughout the US (and probably much of the world) are receiving various sorts of subpoenas, court orders and warrants to collect and hold information. about people involved in the peace movement and other progressive organizing, along with anyone with an Arabic sounding name or ties. If this concerns you, or the people you work with, a couple of thoughts: 1) Are you using encryption when you can? Are the people who you work with? Go to www.pgpi.org and download the program and find someone to show you how to use it. It's not that hard and there are plenty of folks on this list and elsewhere who can teach you. If you use Outlook, I've just been told that there is opportunistic encryption built in if you know how to turn it on. I'll send an EFF hat to the first person who sends me an explanation of how to do it that my grandfather could understand. I'll also make sure it gets posted online. If you know how to use PGP, target 3 colleagues who need it and teach them. Then use it with them so that they get well-practiced. And don't forget PGPDisk. No one should cross a border without her hard drive encrypted. We worked hard to free encryption from governmental censorship and control. Please use it. 2) For those of you that administer websites, e-mail systems and similar technologies, what information do you have about your users? Do you need to have it? Does your website gather IP addresses? Does your e-mail system keep log files? Are you keeping them? If so, why and for how long? Double checking the settings on your servers and systems. The techies who write most of those programs set the default to save everything. Do you really need that? Most good sysadmins are packrats by nature; but now is the time to fight that urge to keep every scrap of data "just in case" someone wants it later. That someone could be John Ashcroft. The US has NO data retention requirements. As long as you implement a system of eliminating records as you go and stick to it, there's no liability for you if the feds come to seize your server and there's nothing on it they can use. Let's exercise this freedom NOT to gather information for the government while we still have it. 3) What footprints are you and your colleagues leaving when you travel around the Internet? Think about using anonymizer.com or similar tool for your surfing. It's easy. Anonymizer.com offers a free account to EFF members, but whether you go through us or directly to them or through some other tool. I'm proud of the work the peace movement has done so far and the good use it's made of new technologies to assist in organizing, planning, rallying and support. We've been watching the Ashcroftians closely, however, and it's clear that the war on terrorism and the war on Iraq are being used as excuses to spy on the public and to gather extensive dossiers about us. The peace movement is an obvious target for harassment using this information. Let's not make their job any easier for them. And if you hear from law enforcement about your online activities, please don't hesitate to contact us. Feel free to forward this message to anyone who you think could benefit from it. Take care, Cindy ************************************************ Cindy A. Cohn [EMAIL PROTECTED] Legal Director www.eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation 454 Shotwell Street San Francisco, CA 94110 Tel: (415)436-9333 x 108 Fax: (415) 436-9993 _______________________________________________ Eug-LUG mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.efn.org/cgi-bin/listinfo/eug-lug
