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IP: That article about Britain


From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 09:31:14 -0500



From: Russell Nelson <nelson () crynwr com>
Date: Fri, 26 Nov 1999 09:09:19 -0500 (EST)
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: That article about Britain


The article you just posted came from a LinuxToday posting by Richard
Stallman.  http://linuxtoday.com/stories/12846.html .  His copyright
permissions include verbatim reproduction of the entire article.  The
remainder of the article follows.


    If you live in Britain, what can you do?

       1.Take political action now. Tell all the political parties
       that this issue is of great concern to you, and invite each to
       be the one you will vote for to prevent such laws. Look at
       www.stand.org.uk for further advice.

       2.Write to your MP, the e-Minister Patricia Hewitt
       (e.minister () dti gov uk), the Home Secretary, and the
       newspapers, stating your firm opposition to these measures.

       3.Talk with your Internet Service Provider's management about
       the importance of this issue.

       4.Start using encrypted mail, using the GNU Privacy Guard or
       another suitable encryption program, and use it as widely as
       possible and with as many people as possible. The more people
       are using encryption, the harder it will be for governments to
       stamp it out. The GNU Privacy Guard is Free Software (you are
       free to redistribute and change it), and is available on
       www.gnupg.org.

       5.Once you have read an encrypted message, if you don't need to
       save it, get rid of it. Don't just delete the file; copy
       several other files of junk into the file, one by one, so that
       the old bits cannot be recovered. (The GNU Privacy Guard will
       soon provide a convenient command for doing this.)

       6.If you need to save an encrypted message, use steganography
       to hide it inside one or more image files, so that it is
       impossible for anyone to be sure that encrypted data is
       present. You can use steganography for transmitting messages as
       well.

       7.Anyone, even you, could be a target of this law. Don't assume
       that you are safe just because you are "not a criminal"; almost
       everyone breaks some laws, but even if you do not, you could
       still be suspected. Your friends and correspondents are likely
       to be next after you.

    So arrange innocent-sounding "code phrases" with them now, things
    like "Agnes has a bad cold" (but don't use this one!), as a way
    you can inform them that you were interrogated by the secret
    police, without giving the police a way to detect that you did so.

    You never know what might lead the secret police to your
    door. Take the necessary precautions now, because the only thing
    worse than fearing the knock on the door is being oblivious to the
    danger.

    Copyright 1999 Richard Stallman

    Verbatim copying and redistribution of this entire article is
    permitted in any medium provided this notice is preserved.

          Richard Stallman is the founder of the Free Software
          Foundation, the author of the GNU General Public License
          (GPL), and the original developer of such notable software
          as gcc and Emacs.

--
-russ nelson <sig () russnelson com>  http://russnelson.com
Crynwr sells support for free software  | PGPok | Government schools are so
521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 315 268 1925 voice | bad that any rank amateur
Potsdam, NY 13676-3213  | +1 315 268 9201 FAX   | can outdo them. Homeschool!


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