================================================= Expat Worlds Bi-Monthly Digest ================================================= 23 November, 2005 Vol. 7, Issue 19 .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== THE STORY =================== -=Another View on NSA'S Super Computer=- ==== OTHER EZINES ================ ==== EW SPECIAL ================== -=The Millionaire's Favorite Read=- ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... == -=Trivia=- -=News Story=- -=Jokes=- ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============= -=Object Fix Zip=- ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD == -=Table of Content=- ==== THE STORY ================================== ANOTHER VIEW ON NSA'S SUPER COMPUTER GOVERNMENT SPYING ON THE INTERNET -- EMAIL In a new novel, Digital Fortress by Dan Brown, the National Security Agency (NSA) has built a code-breaking supercomputer called TRANSLTR that can crack any cryptographic cipher in a matter of seconds. Ostensibly, the purpose of this computer is to monitor the encrypted communications of terrorist groups, but the designer of this supercomputer recognizes the danger presented to the privacy of ordinary citizens by his creation and invents an unbreakable code called Digital Fortress. He threatens that, if the NSA does not make the existence of TRANSLTR publicly known, he will distribute Digital Fortress on the Internet. Unfortunately, only in novels, EW suspects, do NSA employees have consciences, much less concern for the privacy of Jane Q. Citizen. The question begs us, does NSA have a computer that can crack codes in seconds? For as far as public knowledge is concerned even the world's most powerful supercomputer, the Intel Paragon, would take a bit longer than a few seconds to crack a message by brute force that was encrypted with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, a freely available encryption program that runs on PCs and Macs). However, the NSA does indeed monitor all Internet communication, just as it monitors all telephone, radio, and satellite communication, and, therefore, our collective right to privacy is routinely violated by the Government without our knowledge. There are no secrets anymore! But what is different about the NSA's activity on the Internet has to do with the Internet itself and the public's understanding of it. The Internet is inherently open and insecure, which makes incredibly easy to monitor and intercept communication traffic like e-mail messages, for instance. Furthermore, the majority of the American public is largely unaware of how insecure the Internet really -- it is interesting that, thanks largely to the mainstream media's successful manufacturing of Internet paranoia, technophobic or computer illiterate people are more conscious of this aspect of the Internet than many people who use the Internet regularly. Most people have heard about government agencies tapping phone lines or even steaming open paper mail, but it seems that most people are not aware of the government's routine monitoring of Internet communication traffic, particularly e-mail traffic. This ignorance is dangerous for a society that has become almost wholly dependent on electronic mediums of communication. The NSA's surveillance of Internet communication began at the early stages of the Internet's development when it was still populated only by government employees, university researchers, and government contractors. Many people involved with the early Internet (known then as ARPANet) were aware of this surveillance. In fact, Richard Stallman, an MIT computer scientist who was then involved with the ARPANet (and later would found the Free Software Foundation), added an optional feature to a text editor/e-mail client that he had created called EMACS; the purpose of this feature was to undermine the NSA's surveillance efforts. The optional feature added randomly selected keywords at the end of an e-mail message composed in EMACS; these keywords (i.e. revolution, terrorist, etc.) he believed would trigger interception by the NSA computers and, hopefully, if enough people made use of this feature, clog the NSA's computers with irrelevant e-mail. In former New Zealand intelligence agent Nicky Hager's book Secret Power, one discovers that the NSA's surveillance capabilities are not hindered by political borders. Under the code-name ECHELON, and with the help of the British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian Governments, the NSA has established a global communication surveillance network that is capable of monitoring most of the world's electronic communication. The ECHELON system was created by the NSA as a means to interconnect surveillance systems that had existed in these countries since WWII, and to put these foreign surveillance operations under the control of the NSA. What ECHELON became was an international network of computer systems, each intercepting all fax, telex, e-mail and satellite communications in their region of the world. The intercepted communications are scanned with "dictionary" programs for certain keywords; these dictionaries not only contain keywords of interest to the intercepting agency, but also keywords that are of interest to the other intelligence agencies around the world involved in the ECHELON network. If the intercepted message contains a matching keyword, it is immediately passed on to the headquarters of the agency concerned. Given this massive technological arsenal, how can citizens protect their privacy on the Internet? There is one method that has proven to be an effective monkey wrench in the Government's efficient surveillance machine, and that is strong encryption. Despite the claims of fiction writers, there is no such thing as an unbreakable code or uncrackable encryption, but what good encryption can ensure is that if someone wants to snoop on your e-mail communications they are going to have to put a good deal of effort into it. Cracking encrypted electronic communications is the labor-intensive equivalent of steaming open envelopes, whereas intercepting and reading unencrypted mail is as easy as reading the back of a postcard. Not surprisingly, the FBI and NSA have asked Congress to outlaw strong encryption. We as citizens should be fighting their efforts every step of the way. In the documentation for PGP, the program's author, Phil Zimmermann, poses the following to users who may be skeptical about the need for publicly available strong encryption programs: "Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, then why don't you always send your paper mail on postcards? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Are you trying to hide something? You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail inside envelopes. Or maybe a paranoid nut. Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their E-mail?" The answer is obvious, of course they do. If you do nothing else if most people used strong encryption then Big Brother would have to be very selective in what he chose to crack do to time constraints. Find some good reading on the subject: * Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network by Nicky Hager (http://caq.com/CAQ/CAQSecretPower.html) * Book - The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency by James Bamford; Viking, ISBN: 0140067485 * The Crypt Newsletter http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/ * Secrecy & Government Bulletin http://www.fas.org/sgp/bulletin/index.html * Book- PGP: Pretty Good Privacy by Simson Garfinkel; O'Reilly & Associates, ISBN:1565920988 ==== OTHER EZINES & BOOKS ======================== ASIAN TIMES ONLINE Asia most trusted source for news, business,commentary and analysis from throughout Asia and our world. (www.atimes.com). ----- SURVIVAL BOOKS Go to and check it out! ----- japan-guide.com Extensive, up to date online guide on Japan living and travel related information. http://www.japan-guide.com/ ==== EW SPECIAL ================================= A TEASER YOU NEED TO READ THE MILLIONAIRE'S FAVORITE READ EDITORS NOTE: This book that we're going to give you some advanced facts on is a book the world's been awaiting, a least those of us that like to live FREE in an unfree world -- one's of us that enjoy personal and financial freedom in our daily lives. It's called Bye-Bye Big Brother , Hard Copy Release date December 2005, From The P.T. Group Reviewed for EXPAT WORLD Newsletter by Peter Trevellian, author of the best seller, Invisible Investor You won't find this book on any best seller lists, but it's hard to find a millionaire or a P.T. Who hasn't already purchased an advance copy of Bye-Bye Big Brother. THE TITLE (BYE BYE BIG BROTHER) isn't bandied around much in the book-publishing world. No literary society has ever discussed any of the dozen or so volumes by the P.T. group. But in the world of bankers, accountants, high net worth investors and anyone with offshore interests, or enjoys and wants to keep his personal and financial privacy in tact, this book is a seminal influence. The idea was planted in 1980 with the landmark, Libertarian book on achieving personal freedom and well protected, hidden wealth -- P.T., or "Perpetual Tourist." Though this title might convey the idea that it's a book about travel, that's wrong. PT was a "how to" for wealthy (or wannbee wealthy) people. It explained "How to" escape from a Big Brother state. How to "enjoy a prosperous life free of taxes, litigation, kidnappers, con-men, bureaucrats, alimony-drones and all the other problems of the oppressed rich. It might have been subtitled: "How to make and hold onto serious wealth while avoiding the unwelcome depredations that wealth attracts." It was also about how to enjoy the wonderful pleasures that only serious money and an international lifestyle can buy. Do such matters concern millionaires? Judging from Global Liberty's advance book sales, they do. The original PT books were advertised as "Special Reports" in the Economist and the International Herald Tribune. One early fan was the most highly paid financial guru and gold speculator in the world (according to the Guinness Book of world records), who wrote the publishers: "I spent my first few years as a tax exile in Monte Carlo, interacting with hard-bodied, high maintenance girls. It was good while it lasted. But PT gave me the guidance and common sense to vastly improve upon that pleasant rut. Now BYE BYE BIG BROTHER the newest book in the same vein, explains how the whole world should be one big pleasure dome and tax haven. Readers learn how (by following the updated PT Program) to become or remain very rich, attract adoring, faithful partners. Why not enjoy pleasures and privileges forbidden to ordinary mortals? Bye Bye Big Brother & predecessor books were highly recommended in blogs and newsletters for the wealthy. The authors of BYE BYE BIG BROTHER still offer exclusively to their readers, one-on-one personal guidance. There are international get togethers and online chats for adherents of the PT Philosophy. With "Bye-Bye" selling to smart cookies all over the world, the publishers seem to have found a niche, providing inspiration, hope, partners and role models for thousands of harassed yet not entirely satisfied rich guys and a few entrepreneurial women as well. It was revealed that a decade ago, as of the 1990s, there had been sales of over 100,000 copies of each of the relatively expensive PT related books." With at least five titles in this league, gross sales apparently passed 100 million dollars long ago. Although exact sales figures are not available to the public (these books are not sold via bookstores), this could mean that an unknown, almost invisible publishing house -- with books by an anonymous author -- is by far the world's most profitable book-publisher in the world. Wow! There must be something in these books worth knowing! NOW THAT WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, We're going to hold you on edge for about a week longer when everyone on our Expat World Digest email list will get a special edition EWD telling you the full story of this book and how you can get your copy through Expat World. Stand by, it's worth the week's wait. Editor, the EWD ==== HUMOR, TRIVIA, NEWS AND MORE... ================ NEWS STORIES Police welcome drinkers to the "Lock 'Em Inn" LONDON (Reuters) - Drunks are being offered a weekend break with a difference by police in eastern England -- "convenient accommodation with lots of bars" at the "Lock'Em Inn." A spoof brochure is being distributed by Ipswich police in an effort to remind revelers of the effects of drinking too much during the first festive season under Britain's new open-all-hours drinking laws. Police have produced more than 30,000 leaflets proclaiming the dubious attractions of the "Lock'em Inn," an establishment "conveniently located within easy reach of Ipswich pubs, clubs and criminal courts." "Built in the 1960s, the atmosphere is truly unique," the leaflet says of the local police station. The accommodation is "minimalist chic with economy in mind." A picture of a microwave meal promises: "Warm food lovingly reheated in seconds." Minimum stays are available of between four to six hours, but the leaflet suggests "Why not make it a long weekend? Get arrested on a Saturday and stay with us until court Monday." New licensing laws come into effect across England and Wales Thursday, which will allow pubs and bars to open for longer. Senior judges and police have warned the new rules could make the country's already serious drinking problems worse. --- Pardoned turkeys on Disneyland trip IT was a dream come true for Marshmallow and Yam, two lucky turkeys from Henning, Minnesota. President George W. Bush overnight spared them from being served for Thanksgiving dinner and, to top it off, sent the pair on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disneyland. "I know that Marshmallow and Yam are going to feel pretty good strutting around sunny California remembering the cold days of Minnesota," said Mr Bush, who was flanked at the annual turkey pardoning ceremony by vice president Dick Cheney. "The granting of the turkey pardon is not a responsibility that I take lightly," Mr Bush said. Mr Bush said the turkeys were named after "a nationwide election" on the White House website. "In the end, the voters made the choice, and it was a close election. You might say it was neck and neck," Mr Bush said. Marshmallow was designated the national Thanksgiving turkey at the ceremony. Mr Cheney was seen grinning in the background as the turkey's handler wrestled the feisty 16.8kg bird to the table. The alternate national bird, Yam, was honoured in absentia. "He's in a pickup truck hanging out by the South Lawn," Mr Bush said. Thanksgiving Day is November 24. For the past 15 years, turkeys lucky enough to be pardoned by the president were sent to Frying Pan Park in Virginia. But Marshmallow and Yam will instead travel to sunny southern California and retire in style at Disneyland in Anaheim. They will serve as honorary grand marshals at the park's Thanksgiving Day Parade. "Marshmallow and Yam were a little sceptical about going to a place called Frying Pan Park," Mr Bush said. "I don't blame them." --- Sex exhibition under close police watch SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore opened its first sex exhibition on Friday with police saying they will also attend to make sure organizers and exhibitors comply with the city-state's strict laws. Police and the Singapore's media watchdog have reminded event organizers of rules restricting the display of adult toys such as vibrators and warned them not to promote homosexuality. "Organizers must not promote objectionable sexual behaviors or lifestyle, such as sado-masochism, bestiality, homosexuality, paedophilia and promiscuity," police spokesman Victor Keong said. Titled Sexpo 2005, the three-day event will feature erotic dance competitions, an array of sex toys and sex-friendly furniture, as well as a series of seminars on sexual health. Keong said police will visit the exhibition site to ensure that the rules are not breached. Under Singapore laws, it is an offence to "sell, distribute, exhibit, import or export an obscene object." Those violating the law can be punished with a jail term of up to six months, or a fine, or both. The law does not define obscene objects. Although a few sex shops have sprung up in Singapore in recent years, Sexpo Organizers said they would err on the side of caution and exhibitors have been given a set of guidelines on the exhibit of adult material. Sexpo director Kenny Goh said the display of obscene items, such as oversized vibrators, an inflatable sex doll and penis rings, have been banned. Goh said it took about two months to get police approval to stage the event. Access to Singapore's Expo center will be strictly monitored and only those aged 21 or above will be allowed entry. The wealthy Southeast Asian city-state, which has consistently ranked at the bottom in a global survey of sexually active nations, is struggling to reverse its falling birth rate, one of the world's lowest. In an attempt to shake off its staid image and woo tourists, the authorities are also gradually relaxing censorship laws that ban "Playboy" magazine and clip racy scenes from movies. --- Oxymoron: controlled chaos ----- The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes ----- (written high upon the wall) If you can piss above this line, the Hillsboro Fire Department want's you. ----- A guy burned two ears... so they were asking him at the hospital how it happened. He said, "I was ironing my clothing and the phone rang... so instead of the phone I picked up the iron and burned my ear..." "But how the heck did you burn the other ear?" The doctor asked. "How do you think I called you people?" ----- While out one morning in the park, a jogger found a brand new tennis ball. Seeing no one around that it might belong to, he slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. Later, on his way home, he stopped at the pedestrian crossing, waiting for the lights to change. A girl standing next to him eyed the large bulge in his shorts. "What's that?" she asked, her eyes gleaming with lust. "Tennis ball," came the breathless reply. "Oh," said the girl sympathetically, "that must be painful. I had tennis elbow once." ==== THE RESOURCE TIP ============================ Object Fix Zip Object FIX ZIP is the program for repairing ZIP archive files reconstruct the specified Zip file and try to create a new Zip archive recovering files from Zip file where possible. Software designed for repairing and fixing of corrupt or damaged ZIP archive files which are not completely downloaded or partially damaged. Download it at . ==== INSIDE THE CURRENT EXPAT WORLD =============== EXPAT WORLD NEWSLETTER (VOL.17 ISSUE 09) Table of Content: - OWN A PIECE OF THE MOON - BITS & PIECES - DID THEY MISS THE MARK BY THE YEAR 2000 - HE WASN'T WRONG - FART FACT - WHAT A GAS - DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST - POPCORN FACT - DID YOU KNOW? - EXPAT WORLD'S WORLD OF TRAVEL - EXPAT WORLD'S PRIVACY WORLD - WIRETAP THE KIDS SAYS US BIG BROTHER - ALL US PASSPORTS TO BE RFID CHIPPED - LETTER FROM UN-AMERICA - PARTRIOT ACT DEVELOPING DECIDELY UN-AMERICAN TILT - GET YOUR MONEY OUT OF THE COUNTRY BEFORE YOUR COUNTRY GETS THE MONEY OUT OF YOU - ARE YOU READY TO GET THE GOVERNMENT OFF YOUR BACK- AND OUT OF YOUR POCKET- ONCE AND FOR ALL? - PANAMA IS HOT - A WORLD CLASS RETIREMENT HAVEN THAT'S RIPE FOR PROFITABLE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT - THE OFFSHORE WORLD - PANAMA INCORPORATION - THERE ARE NO SECRETS ANYMORE - THE READING OF YOUR EMAILS - INTERNATIONAL SNIPS AND CLIPS - FORGING AN IDENTITY - AS THE BBC SEES SINGAPORE - CRAPPER RAPPER - DO YOU BELONG TO A GLOBAL COMPANY? - THERE ARE BLONDES AND THEN THERE ARE BLONDE OZZIES - THE TOP 10 INVENTIONS BY AUSTRALIA'S MOST INTELLIGENT BLONDES - THE OZ YOU MISSING SO MUCH Each week the EXPAT WORLD DIGEST gives you just a smattering of what you can find in the EXPAT WORLD newsletter that we produce once a month. Why not get the whole story and subscribe now to our electronic version for just US $30 per year. Go to our website: www.expatworld.net to sign up. ********************************************************************* EXPAT WORLD - the newsletter of international living URL - http://www.expatworld.net Email - office@expatworld.net ---------- End of Expat World Digest --------------------------------