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Date: Fri, 9 May 2003 01:42:20 -0400
From: Monty Solomon 
Subject: Microsoft admits Passport was vulnerable

Muhammed Faisal Rauf Danka, a computer researcher in Pakistan discovered
how to breach Microsoft Corp.'s security procedures for its popular Internet
Passport service, designed to protect customers visiting some retail Web
sites, sending e-mails and in some cases making credit-card purchases.

Microsoft acknowledged the flaw affected all its 200 million Passport
accounts but said it fixed the problem early Thursday, after details were
published on the Internet.  Product Manager Adam Sohn said the company was
unaware of hackers actually hijacking anyone's Passport account, but several
experts said they successfully tested the procedure overnight.

In theory, Microsoft could face a staggering fine by U.S. regulators of up
to $2.2 trillion.  Under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission last
year over lapsed Passport security, Microsoft pledged to take reasonable
safeguards to protect personal consumer information during the next two
decades or risk fines up to $11,000 per violation.

The FTC said it was investigating this latest lapse.  The agency's assistant
director for financial practices, Jessica Rich, said Thursday that each
vulnerable account could constitute a separate violation _ raising the
maximum fine that could be assessed against Microsoft to $2.2 trillion.  ...
[Source: Ted Bridis, Associated Press, 8 May 2003]
  http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030508/D7QTDPQ03.html
  http://finance.lycos.com/home/news/story.asp?story=34127595



Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 20:52:33 -0700
From: Monty Solomon 
Subject: Making it harder for prying eyes

A bill in the California state legislature would protect the anonymity of
Internet users by requiring Internet service providers to send customers
copies of subpoenas seeking to learn their identities.  If passed,
California's Internet Communications Protection Act would become the second
state law requiring that consumers be alerted when an ISP is issued a
subpoena to find out an anonymous Internet user's true identity. Virginia
passed a similar statute last year.

The debate over anonymous online speech has heated to a boil in recent
years, with companies and individuals increasingly seeking to have ISPs and
Web publishers subpoenaed to learn the names of online critics and people
suspected of copyright violations. Yahoo alone expects to receive 600 civil
subpoenas this year -- a 50 percent jump from 2002.

Such requests seek a variety of personal information about Internet users,
including full names, Social Security numbers, home addresses and pseudonyms
they've used online.

The California legislation would require ISPs to send copies of civil
subpoenas to their customers by registered mail within 14 days of receiving
them. If the customer decides to fight the request, he or she would have 30
days to serve both the ISP and the issuing party with written copies of the
objection.

ISPs that fail to comply with the act could be sued by their customers.

Source: Article by Julia Scheeres, New California law regarding anonymous
customer information, 5 May 2003; wired.com

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,58720,00.html

--

Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 06:54:25 -0700
From: Matt Jaffe 
Subject: Re: Friendly Fire (Vorbrueggen, Risks-22.71)

Perhaps I can shed some additional light on the points Mr. Vorbrueggen
makes.  This subject was touched on quite a while ago in RISKS-08.74, but I
think more emphasis was placed there on the problems with the modes and
codes than on this discussion of altitude.  Although related, the issues
are different enough to perhaps warrant some additional discussion here.

The first point to clarify here is that at the time of the Vincennes shoot
down, Aegis almost certainly did not display vertical rate or vertical
acceleration data to its operators.  (The original HMI design as of the
EDM-3C PDR in the mid 1970's did not provide that data; of that I am
certain.)  It displayed computed altitude only (not rate).  We debated that
issue (adding a vertical rate [but not acceleration] indicator to some of
the operational displays) quite heatedly during the design phase for the
original Aegis human-machine interface.  It was no casual oversight that it
was omitted.  The reason for the omission was essentially as Mr. Vorbrüggen
notes: "These values, derived as they [would have to have been] from
noisy measurements, [would have been] notoriously unreliable."

Since the "rawer" (not by any means raw) initial altitude
estimates were intrinsically noisy, a timely display of vertical rate would
thus be intrinsically unstable ("It's climbing; no, its descending;
no, now it's climbing again; no, now it's descending ... .") and a
more stable estimate requiring extensive filtering/damping would be too
sluggish of response to be tactically useful.  ("Oh, Captain, you'll
undoubtedly be pleased to know that the missile that hit us 30 seconds ago
was dropped from an aircraft that we now know was descending, not level,
when it launched.")

With regard to Mr. Vorbrüggen's comment about error bars: In those
prehistoric days, neither the main PPI nor the auxiliary data readout CRT
had graphics, color coding, or font variation capabilities. (I think we
were on the old AN/UYA-4/OJ-194 series at the beginning).  Had we decided
(as, after extensive debate, we did not) to provide a vertical rate
display, we surely then would have considered generalizing from the old
Naval Tactical Data System 2-dimensional track quality indicator (that I
believe we retained in 2-D form) to provide a quality indicator for
vertical domain data; but there would have been little utility in so doing:
At the ranges where the difficult tactical decisions got made, the altitude
data (and hence even more so any derived vertical rate estimate) would
always have been of the same unvaryingly poor quality.  Using scarce
tactical display real estate to display such essentially constant
information ("low quality vertical rate") would not seem good HMI
design.

Overall, after many years, I think the conclusions that I stated i
RISKS-08.74 still stand (the interested reader is referred to the RISKS
archives): Although the expression is overused these days, the fog of war
is very real and there will always be intrinsic limitations on our ability
to design systems (including their organizational and procedural aspects)
to aid in penetrating it.  To put such systems into play in ambiguous
environments is to risk catastrophe. But *that* of course, is a political
decision, not a technical, organizational, or operational one.

http://backoff.pr.erau.edu/jaffem

--

Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 13:03:56 +0200
From: "Peter B. Ladkin" 
Subject: Re: Patriots and Friendly Fire

Friendly Fire incidents during armed hostilities have been discussed in
Risks-22.65 (Paul, PGN), -22.66 (Tyson), -22.67 (Eachus, Russ, Youngman),
-22.68 (Ladkin, van Meter, Guaspari), -22.69 (Ladkin, Goodall), much of it
concerning the statistics and the interpretation thereof.

There were in total three friendly fire incidents in the 2003 Iraq War that
we know about in which Patriot surface-to-air (SAM) missile systems are
implicated. A UK Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 was shot down by a Patriot on
23 March [1]. On 24 March, a Patriot radar "locked on" to a USAF
F-16CJ. The F-16 destroyed the Patriot battery with an anti-radiation
(HARM) missile [1]. In a third incident, in which a US Navy F/A-18C was
shot down by a SAM, US Central Command confirmed that a Patriot is
suspected [2].

The US Department of Defence's technology chief say that there is a
requirement to look at new technology to help prevent friendly fire
incidents [3].

Concerning the varying statistics on friendly fire and their
interpretation, Col. (ret.) Scott Snook, in his book referenced in my
Risks-22.68 note, remarks that 24% (35 out of 148) of all U.S. combat
fatalities in the first Gulf War were caused by friendly fire ([4], p11).
The 24% figure was repeated by William Safire in his Language column in the
International Herald Tribune of 5 May, 2003 [5]. This precision contrasts
with the undefined 5% figure of the US Army FM 100-14 which I mentioned in
my Risks-22.69 note.

Safire mentions that "In Gulf War II, the rate of [friendly fire]
battle deaths dropped to 8 per cent ...." [5]

There are a number of different phrases used for combat damage caused by
one's own side. Safire found a first use of "friendly fire" in an
NYT article on April 3, 1944. He mentions that the term
"fratricide", seemingly preferred by the military nowadays,
"emerged in the press in the '80s." He notes that there has not
yet been a sororicide [5]. It has been called "amicicide"
(semantically a more appropriate phrase) by C.R. Shrader in the title of a
1982 book [6]. Flight International has used the phrase "blue on
blue" [2,3]. In war games, Safire explains, "friendly"
forces are known as "blues", and "enemy" forces as
"reds".

References

[1] Accidents Take Their Toll, Flight International, 1-7 April 2003, p6.

[2] Flight International, Patriot under fire for second error, 8-14 April 2003, p10.

[3] Flight International, Science could prevent friendly fire, 15-21 April 2003, p8.

[4] Scott A. Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black
Hawks over Northern Iraq, Princeton University Press, 2000. Details at
http://pup.princeton.edu/titles/6847.html

[5] William Safire, Of severe/acute: Is the acronym SARS redundant?
International Herald Tribune, 05 May 2003, available from
http://www.iht.com/ihtsearch.php?id=95223&owner=(NYT)&date=20030505130338

[6] C. R. Shrader, Amicicide: The Problem of Friendly Fire in Modern War,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
Press, 1982.

Peter B. Ladkin, University of Bielefeld, Germany http://www.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de



Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 00:37:11 +0000 (GMT)
From: Don Lindsay 
Subject: Re: Pilots fail exams (RISKS-22.71)

> The pilots couldn't pass the psychological and physical tests to be
> allowed to carry a firearm --- but flying huge planes full of people is
> OK.  Oh, this makes so much sense! The risks should be obvious.

Indeed, it does make sense. It would be risky so assume that one skill set
implies another.

The two domains (commercial piloting and inflight weapons use) do have some
things in common. Both require the ability to learn procedure, and both
require efficient action under stress. But they differ significantly.
Piloting involves relatively few interpersonal skills, whereas the use of
weapons requires judgments of motive and threat, discrimination of
perpetrators from hostages, and the like. Also, piloting can be done safely
by a bigot, but you don't give police powers to someone who feels that
everyone in a particular ethnic group is better off dead. Some people are
so nervous about weapons that their hand shakes, and they can't hit the
broad side of a barn door. And so on.

I'm pleased that domain-specific testing was applied.

  [Also commented on by Bill Hopkins.  PGN]

--

Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 09:03:48 -0500
From: "Vince Mulhollon" 
Subject: Re: Pilots fail exams (RISKS-22.71)

The belief that carrying a gun and flying an airplane are the same is a
false analogy.  That makes irrelevant the implication that failures of the
gun program are bad pilots.

I can think of several examples which would disqualify a pilot carrying a
gun, but not flying a plane.

As for failing the background check, a income tax cheater could be a felon,
and felons can't carry.  But, an income tax cheat could be an excellent,
safe pilot.

As for failing psychological tests, what about a conscientious objector? 
If a pilot learns during training, that they cannot take a human life,
there is no point in giving them a weapon.  A pilot whom is unwilling to
kill is probably an otherwise safe pilot.

As for physical test failures, the impact load of a pistol is more intense
than any other physical task required to fly an airplane.  If someone has
experienced stress fractures in their arm or wrist in the past, it would be
dumb to give them a .45, as after they shoot the hijacker, they'd likely
break their arm again, and then be unable to fly the plane.  Or, as an
chronic issue, good marksmanship requires regular training, and someone
with tendonitis or carpal tunnel should probably not aggravate those
problems by regular firearms practice, although the low impact task of
flying may be perfectly safe.

Finally as for marksmanship training, the ability to get a bullseye has no
relation to piloting ability.

--

Date: Mon, 5 May 2003 08:27:57 -0700
From: "Toby Gottfried" 
Subject: Re: Pilots fail exams (RISKS-22.71)

 "Officials said the four rejections showed that the government was serious
 about providing guns only to pilots who were psychologically and physically
 fit to carry firearms in flight and defend their planes against attackers."

Can we presume, then, that these four would not be allowed to fly as
co-pilots with another pilot who had passed the tests and was armed ?

---