Privacy & Cryptography

Purpose:

Class Notes

Current Events

International Views

Class Projects

Class Assignments

Examination Questions

Readings:

• "SLAPPing Down Anonymous Speech", Pass it on... What the Press is Reporting and Why (www.mediaunspun.com), 2002/07/12.
• "Va. Tech faculty voice alarm over seized computer - Professors have expressed the most concern about privacy rights regarding intellectual property and personal e-mails from students", By KEVIN MILLER, THE ROANOKE TIMES, Wednesday, April 10, 2002.
• "Security Considerations for Remote Electronic Voting over the Internet", Avi Rubin, AT&T Labs - Research, rubin@research.att.com.

  This paper discusses the security considerations for remote electronic voting in public elections. In particular, we examine the feasibility of running national federal elections over the Internet. The focus of this paper is on the limitations of the current deployed infrastructure in terms of the security of the hosts and the Internet itself. We conclude that at present, our infrastructure is inadequate for remote Internet voting.

• "Corporate Case in Ohio Raises Questions on Internet Anonymity", By JOHN SCHWARTZ, New York Times, Oct. 2000.

  Should an anonymous e-mail'er be revealed to the recipient by the ISP?

• The Carnivore FOIA Litigation

  On July 11, 2000, the existence of an FBI Internet monitoring system called "Carnivore" was widely reported. Although the public details were sketchy, reports indicated that the Carnivore system is installed at the facilities of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and can monitor all traffic moving through that ISP. The FBI claims that Carnivore "filters" data traffic and delivers to investigators only those "packets" that they are lawfully authorized to obtain. Because the details remain secret, the public is left to trust the FBI's characterization of the system and -- more significantly -- the FBI's compliance with legal requirements.

• Privacy Rights Clearing House
• "Keystroke cops, New software raises troubling questions on worker privacy", By Michael J. McCarthy, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2000/03/07.
• "Windows Nine-to-Five: Smyth v. Pillsbury and the Scope of an Employee's Right of Privacy in Employer Communications" by Rod Dixon, VIRGINIA JOURNAL of LAW and TECHNOLOGY, Vol. 2, Fall 1997. (A good pre-class reading.)
• "Privacy rights are left at home: Work! You're on company camera", by LIZ STEVENS FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, Wednesday, October 06, 1999.
• "Harvard Dean Linked to Pornography", A case of privacy, from Boston Globe, May 19, 1999.
• "Who Owns Information?", a lecture by Ann Wells Branscomb, 1996.
• "A right to privacy?In Virginia, workplace privacy is nonexistent, so employers can probe your e-mail" By RON NIXON, THE ROANOKE TIMES, Thursday, November 05, 1998.
• Virginia Right to Privacy (extract from Code of Virginia, Section 8,01-40)
• Concerns about universities posting student information identified by social security numbers is the subject of a page by Glen Roberts. Virginia Tech is identified as one of the culprits, but the link produces a 404 error!
• AOL recently promulgated as set of eight privacy guidelines that is available both in a legal document and as a simpler set of statements.
• A little further from home but with a collection of links to privacy legislation (primarily British and European Economic Community) is available from the Australian Computer Society.
• See the bibliography for a good collection of additonal materials, including several articles by CS 3604 students.