PRIVACY Forum Archive Document
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PRIVACY Forum Digest Tuesday, 28 December 1999 Volume 08 : Issue 23 (http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.08.23) Moderated by Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com) Vortex Technology, Woodland Hills, CA, U.S.A. http://www.vortex.com ===== PRIVACY FORUM ===== ------------------------------------------------------------------- The PRIVACY Forum is supported in part by the ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Cable & Wireless USA, Cisco Systems, Inc., and Telos Systems. - - - These organizations do not operate or control the PRIVACY Forum in any manner, and their support does not imply agreement on their part with nor responsibility for any materials posted on or related to the PRIVACY Forum. ------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS PRIVACY: 1999 (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) E-mail in Court--A Double-Edged Sword (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Cell Phones to be Tracked for Traffic (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) *** Please include a RELEVANT "Subject:" line on all submissions! *** *** Submissions without them may be ignored! *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest for the discussion and analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal and collective) in the "information age" of the 1990's and beyond. The moderator will choose submissions for inclusion based on their relevance and content. Submissions will not be routinely acknowledged. All submissions should be addressed to "privacy@vortex.com" and must have RELEVANT "Subject:" lines; submissions without appropriate and relevant "Subject:" lines may be ignored. Excessive "signatures" on submissions are subject to editing. Subscriptions are via an automatic list server system; for subscription information, please send a message consisting of the word "help" (quotes not included) in the BODY of a message to: "privacy-request@vortex.com". Mailing list problems should be reported to "list-maint@vortex.com". All messages included in this digest represent the views of their individual authors and all messages submitted must be appropriate to be distributable without limitations. The PRIVACY Forum archive, including all issues of the digest and all related materials, is available via anonymous FTP from site "ftp ftp.vortex.com", in the "/privacy" directory. Use the FTP login "ftp" or "anonymous", and enter your e-mail address as the password. The typical "README" and "INDEX" files are available to guide you through the files available for FTP access. PRIVACY Forum materials may also be obtained automatically via e-mail through the list server system. Please follow the instructions above for getting the list server "help" information, which includes details regarding the "index" and "get" list server commands, which are used to access the PRIVACY Forum archive. All PRIVACY Forum materials are available through the Internet Gopher system via a gopher server on site "gopher.vortex.com/". Access to PRIVACY Forum materials is also available through the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) via the Vortex Technology WWW server at the URL: "http://www.vortex.com"; full keyword searching of all PRIVACY Forum files is available via WWW access. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- VOLUME 08, ISSUE 23 Quote for the day: "Either he's dead or my watch has stopped." -- Dr. Hugo Z. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx) "A Day at the Races" (MGM; 1937) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 27 Dec 99 21:34 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: PRIVACY: 1999 Greetings. So, we reach the end of 1999 and the state of privacy issues is... well, not very good. New problems relating to privacy topics, many of them technology-driven, seem to pop up every day, and the basic legislation necessary to even start laying the groundwork for reasonable solutions has yet to be created, at least in the USA. While the European community has moved much farther in this regard, it's not clear that their precise approach would necessarily transfer well across the pond, or that there aren't significant problems in their own regulatory structure. However, they've at least moved beyond the starting line. Perhaps the only bright spot in the picture is the sense that people in general seem to have finally begun to realize how important privacy issues can be to them personally. Polls are starting to consistently show a greater level of awareness regarding these matters, and this may be translating into some potentially useful legislation down the line. This awareness can certainly be viewed as a modestly encouraging sign, though it's far from being sufficient to really get us onto the path of balance we need to be taking. In any case, we'll all move forward into 2000, and the Y2K hypesters can be depended upon to find something else to try panic us about, after the world doesn't collapse on their predicted schedule. There will be plenty to talk about in the PRIVACY Forum starting at the dawn of next year, and PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility) will be getting into full swing. My best wishes to you all for 2000--the last year of the current millennium, and the final year of the 20th century. Be seeing you! --Lauren-- lauren@vortex.com Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Co-Founder, PFIR: People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 Dec 99 10:01 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: E-mail in Court--A Double-Edged Sword Greetings. We've recently seen a dramatic upswing in the number of criminal and civil cases where e-mail has been used as an important element in the cases--usually against the defendants. In some cases, e-mail is effectively the only evidence--as in cases of threats made (either seriously or as sick jokes) over the Internet. E-mail has also played a dominant role in the ongoing Microsoft antitrust case. Some firms have now established routine e-mail "destruction" policies in reaction to such events. In all cases of e-mail evidence, an obvious issue is the extent to which the material can be authenticated as genuine. Unless the e-mail was cryptographically signed, it of course might be subject to easy alteration and manipulation. This area presents a formidable challenge in the real world. Still, even though the vast majority of e-mail is not cryptographically signed, it still has come to play a major role in the criminal and civil justice systems. But what happens when the authenticity of e-mail is apparently not under dispute, but a defendant is still prevented from using it in his defense? This situation was just explored by a New York State appeals court, in overturning the conviction and 15 year sentence of a Columbia University graduate student, who had so far served 20 months of his sentence for "kidnapping and sexual torture" of a female college student he had met online. While the details of this case will be disquieting to many, the implications for the handling of e-mail seem pretty clear. The defendant claimed that the "S&M" activities that took place had been completely consensual, that the woman had come to his residence freely, and that she had been free to leave at any time. He said that he had e-mail communications with the woman, from both prior to and after the event as evidence. The defendant was however prohibited by the trial court from introducing this e-mail as evidence, due to what the appeals court ruled was an inappropriate application of the state's rape shield law. The appeals court determined that as a result, the case against the defendant was "one-sided and unbalanced" in nature. While the rape shield law is designed to prevent the introduction of materials concerning alleged victims' sexual conduct that are not relevant to a case, the appeals court ruled that the e-mail in this case was indeed relevant and should not have been excluded. Regardless of the specific facts of this case, it's certainly true that e-mail is rapidly becoming accepted as just another form of "physical" evidence or adjunct to testimony. Attempts to treat it differently, when the authenticity of the e-mail messages is not in question, are probably misguided and could have serious ramifications for prosecutors and defendants alike. --Lauren-- lauren@vortex.com Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Co-Founder, PFIR: People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 23 Dec 99 22:39 PST From: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein; PRIVACY Forum Moderator) Subject: Cell Phones to be Tracked for Traffic Greetings. Remember when we first heard about cell phone location tracking? It was originally supposed to only be used for 911 emergency situations, but has rapidly expanded into a range of governmental and commercial applications. Some new generations of cell phones have been proposed to actually include some GPS capabilities to provide the more precise location tracking mandated by the ongoing FCC requirements in some environments. Now comes word of one of the more bizarre applications for cell phone tracking--traffic studies. Officials in Maryland and Virginia plan to use data provided by equipment installed on cellular towers by U.S. Wireless, to track cell phone users along a 15 mile segment of the Capital beltway south of Washington. Their hope is that enough people will be using their phones at any given time, so that the data will provide a cost-effective substitute for the installation of conventional road sensors typically used for traffic monitoring. If the plan works, word is that other municipalities are standing poised to jump on the bandwagon. Officials emphasize that they will only be receiving "anonymous" location data, not conversations... One fun part about this story, as you may already have guessed, is that we're continually being told that it's a bad idea to be talking on a cell phone while driving, and that having a hands-free set doesn't reduce the risk. There have actually been bans passed in some areas against the general use of cell phones while driving. While I am not in favor of such blanket bans (for a variety of reasons), there is a delightful irony in the building of traffic data systems that depend on such cell phone use to operate, which would be rendered completely useless if drivers didn't make or take those calls while at the wheel! It seems almost worthy of Rowan and Martin's old "Fickle Finger of Fate" award. We now return you to beautiful downtown Burbank... --Lauren-- lauren@vortex.com Lauren Weinstein Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com Co-Founder, PFIR: People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy ------------------------------ End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 08.23 ************************
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