EFFector, Vol. 13, No. 7; Sep. 8, 2000

EFFector Vol. 13, No. 7 Sep. 8, 2000 editor@eff.org

A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424

IN THE 155th ISSUE OF EFFECTOR (now with over 25,000 subscribers!):

EFF is relocating as of Oct. 1, 2000 to new office space. We remain on the cusp of the Mission and Potrero Districts in San Francisco. The office is retrofitted warehouse space that will allow our staff to nearly double in size, and which will be more convenient to visitors, as it will be ground-floor and have a waiting and reception area.

Construction is being handled in-house by our indomitable asst. webmaster Henry "Owlswan" Schwan, who is incidentally a licensed contractor. Progress on the cleanup and buildout can be followed by interested members here:
http://www.eff.org/Misc/Graphics/pics/eff/newhome.html

Our phone numbers should remain the same, and our site should be up continuously during the transition. (VA Linux has generously donated us a secondary server; during the move, the new box will transparently become eff.org temporarily, while the original server is switched off and moved). Site visitors should experience no difficulties during the transition.

We will have a forwarding order in place, but for best results send any postal mail to the Shotwell Street address starting Sep. 23, 2000. FedEx and other 1st- or 2nd-day delivery packages should be sent to the old address until Sep. 30.

The move is happening both because we desperately need more space, and because our current lease is up, and the price, should we renew it, would be much higher. In our new location we are actually paying considerably less per square foot that we would if we were to stay in our current building (which has no room for expansion anyway). LAN cabling will also be handled in-house. Members can rest assured that their donations are not being unduly consumed by moving-related overhead.

Media Advisory

Whit Diffie and Dave Del Torto Speak of the RSA Algorithm's Past and Future

WHO: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Whit Diffie, Dave Del Torto and music by NSA
WHAT: "BayFF" Meeting on RSA Patent Expiration
WHEN: Monday September 11th, 2000 at 7:30PM
WHERE: Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, Burlingame CA,
+1 650 347 1234

See DIRECTIONS below.

In honor of its 10th Anniversary of defending civil liberties online, EFF presents a series of monthly meetings to address important issues where technology and policy collide. These meetings, entitled "BayFF," kicked off on July 10th and will continue throughout the year. The upcoming BayFF features famed cryptographer Whitfield Diffie and MEconomy's Master of Secrets, Dave Del Torto. They will help us celebrate the RSA patent's expiration on September 20th, 2000. How will these changes effect the public at large? What are the benefits? Are there any drawbacks?

Whitfield Diffie, who holds the position of Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, is best known for his 1975 discovery of the concept of public key cryptography, for which he was awarded a Doctorate in Technical Sciences (Honoris Causa) by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1992. Diffie received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965.

For a dozen years prior to assuming his present position in 1991, Diffie was Manager of Secure Systems Research for Northern Telecom, functioning as the center of expertise in advanced security technologies throughout the corporation. Since 1993, Diffie has worked largely in public policy, in the area of cryptography.

Dave Del Torto's career in Internet privacy and security started in the late 1980s at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was one of the original "Cypherpunks." He joined Pretty Good Privacy Inc. (PGP) as a founding employee in 1996, and in 1997 was part of the four-man team that published the entire PGP source code in 13 paper volumes, which resulted in the first legal international PGP freeware (exports of 128-bit crypto have since been greatly deregulated).

He currently serves as the Executive Director of the CryptoRights Foundation (a human rights security organization) and is the Chief Security Officer of MEconomy, Inc., a privacy infomediary company based in San Francisco.

You can subscribe to receive future BayFF annoucements. To subscribe, email majordomo@eff.org and put this in the text (not the subject line): subscribe bayff.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org) is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free expression, privacy, and openness in the information society. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most-linked-to Web sites in the world.

DIRECTIONS

Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport
1333 Bayshore Highway
Burlingame, CA 94010
(650) 347-1234

Contact:

e-gold is a free-to-users web-based online payment system, in which gold and other precious metals are "banked" and exchanged in lieu of dollars or other government-issued currency. When you "spend" us some gold or palladium, EFF's e-gold account is credited with that amount of commodity metal, which we can then easily exchange for only a very small transaction fee and turn back into dollars to pay for legal cases and other work.

PayPal is a free-to-users online payment system through which one can effectively e-mail someone else money, in a secure fashion. It is very easy to use, and works either through credit cards or bank withdrawals on the back end (or via "stored" money in PayPal; e.g. if you sold something on an online auction house and were payed via PayPal, you could donate some of those funds to EFF without any interaction between PayPal and your bank account or credit card, since the money is already in the PayPal system). In essence it is basically a virtual bank account and alternative electronic funds transfer system. Currently it only supports US users, but this is going to change very soon according to their press releases.

PayPal's privacy policy is better than most, and they do not appear to have any designs on spamming their users or selling their information to anyone else. e-gold's privacy policy seems to match ours exactly, other than e-gold may send you mailings about your account and their services unless you opt out, which is easy to do. Even so, EFF does not officially endorse PayPal or e-gold over other online transaction services. We support e-gold and PayPal transactions on our site because an increasing number of members have requested them. We plan to add additional membership/donation transactions options in the future.

If you would like to use e-gold but do not already have an account with them, you can sign up at this URL:
https://www.e-gold.com/e-gold.asp?cid=102948
By doing so, rather than by signing up through the e-gold front page, you can effectively add a small amount to your donation, free (e-gold, has a rather complicated-in-the-details but automatic referrer bonus program).

If you would like to use PayPal but do not already have an account with them, you can sign up at this URL:
https://secure.paypal.x.com/affil/pal=accounting%40eff.org
By doing so, rather than by signing up through the PayPal front page, you can effectively add $5 to your donation, free (PayPal, for the time being, is giving $5 "referral bonuses" automatically; you don't have to add the $5 your total manually).

If you are planning to make a large donation, you may wish to send a check, as PayPal and any credit card-based system incur 2-5% fees to EFF, effectively reducing the amount of your member donation to us. (e-gold doesn't.)

Thank you for your support! Without it, our work on the DVD cases, stopping Internet censorship legislation, and protecting online privacy could not continue!

Administrivia

The Electronic Frontier Foundation
1550 Bryant St., Suite 725
San Francisco CA 94103-4832 USA
+1 415 436 9333 (voice)
+1 415 436 9993 (fax) http://www.eff.org

Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Communications Director/Webmaster (editor@eff.org)

Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements & articles may be reproduced individually at will.

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IN THE 155th ISSUE OF EFFECTOR (now with over 25,000 subscribers!):

New EFF Offices & Address as of Oct. 2000

Sep. 11 "BayFF" Meeting Celebrates RSA Patent Expiration

Media Advisory

Whit Diffie and Dave Del Torto Speak of the RSA Algorithm's Past and Future

DIRECTIONS

Contact:

EFF Now Accepts e-gold & PayPal Transactions for Memberships

Administrivia