May 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: PGP, and TANSTAAFL!
by Liam David Gray 04 May '93

04 May '93

[I already sent this to Stanton McCandlish in private e-mail, but I thought it might be of interest to Cypherpunks in general. In it I correct some stupid statements I made in an earlier post. -Liam] ------------- Begin forwarded message -------------- In <9305041614.AA08798(a)hydra.unm.edu>, you write: > No, the "right" is in your right to actually leave work, and go get something > to eat. If you employer demanded a $15 dock in pay to take lunch, or refused > to let you have your break (and in most states I believe there are labor laws > that mandate that employees get a certain length-of-time break for every x > amount of work) that would be a violation of your right to have lunch. For the sake of argument <wink>, Stanton, I wouldn't say a "right to lunch," even as posed this way, should stand. If it's a statutory right, then -- well, then it is just that. But I regard this is coincidence and would hesitate to call it a "natural right," since I should be free to negotiate an employment contract which pays me less ("docks" me, if you wish) if I take time off for lunch, and more (a "bonus?") if I stay on all day. Note that at present I am _not_ free to do so, so that right is being infringed upon, just as our privacy is frequently infringed upon at present. > Like- > wise if someone put a gun to your head and said "thou shalt eat no lunch". Right! This seems to be the main parallel to privacy here. I do agree on that. I accept your objection to my positioning of rights as commodities. Disregarding the fact that I still believe rights are fairly meaningless (they only work if someone recognizes the same rights as you do, so that's all subjective), I do realize what people mean when they talk about rights, and that to talk of them as commodities therefore probably _is_ confusing the issue. What I meant to emphasize (and failed to mention) was that it is still quite possible and natural to defend one's privacy, whether one believes privacy is a "right" under the law or not. Too often, I've seen people use their violated rights as a justification for pointless, indignant whining. I want to advocate a more aggressive, guerrilla-style defense of privacy; to me, it is enough that I _want_ privacy. While rights are inherent, and, agreed, are _not_ commodities, the preservation and enforcement of all rights _costs_ something, and doesn't always involve opponents who are willing to believe that what you are defending is a right. I think we're fundamentally in agreement. I think I was right to have second thoughts over whether my argument over rights was appropriate for the list--probably it was not. But nonetheless, I'm glad we're discussing it. Happy Cypherpunking! Liam PS: I admired your courage in offering and advertising PGP on your BBS, and thought you handled the threat from Jim Bidzos gracefully. Let's hope PGP can become legal soon. Really, I'd like to see a PGP that is legal for both personal _and commerical_ use, internationally, even if it costs money--perhaps especially if it costs money. The reason I tried to establish rights as commodities, Stanton, is that I've read too many Ayn Rand novels :) and believe that trading something in money is a symbol of its value, and of the value of whoever created it, and should be a big ego boost to creative people and to all involved. I really don't like anything free, even something sold in a large bundle. Ever eat too much at an all-you-can-eat restaurant? I think that, in part, life is too much like an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Paying for something for its own merits causes us to get our priorities straight. I like to see people get filthy rich [why filthy?] _selling_ software; the feeling I get when I buy something is similar to the feeling some people get when they give money to charities, I suppose. Everything worth doing is worth doing at a profit. Ever get warm fuzzies when you send something UPS instead of US Parcel Post? :-) In some cases, the profit may not be monetary. But it's profit nonetheless, and that can only be good. --- Public key available by arrangement -- The cat is out of the bag. Too much of a dreamer not to be practical -- Go have your own "valiant defeat." Liam David Gray <lg2g+(a)andrew.cmu.edu> -- Quote me.

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No Subject
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 04 May '93

04 May '93

Hola, I have been offered an opportunity to write on a regular basis for a National Underground Magazine. ZENGER. I am writing to the list to solicit a distilled list of Wiretap Chip Arguments. Ive got the masses of documents and understand the arguments but i am faced with limited space for the article. What does the list think is *vital* to let ZENGER readers know about? Remember this is a "not-necessarily-technical" crowd. (Although they are now realizing the need to include the computer underground Please post responses to the list since I am using a remailer. Ill post the national distribution sites when I receive the complete list.

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Re: Privacy being free
by Stanton McCandlish 04 May '93

04 May '93

> > Sorry to get on your case yet again, Perry, but I just cannot accept that, > > and I don't think anyone else here can either. > > I accept it. > Freedom and privacy are things that take actual effort to maintain. > Either you pay the cost yourself or you expect others to pay it for you, > but the cost is there. Saying it "should" be free doesn't explain a lot. I think this is another map/territory confusion. The RIGHT and the defense, use, tools for, effect of, etc. of the right are not the same thing. It is like the distinction between philosophy and books about phil. The first is free. The second cost money as does instruction in philosophy, etc. Even the effects of philosophy can be costly. But the concept "philosophy" has no price tag. > I think maybe you mean that you shouldn't accept any intrusion, any > specific imposed cost, without fighting back. I agree. In addition to what I already said, I agree with this absolutely 100%. > I have a certain emotional resonance with "rights" talk, but I've found > that people will argue it forever unless (and even if) you get down to > brass tacks, talking about ideas that can guide individual actions by > individual people in individual situations in a practical way. Most astute. I agree with this also. That was one of the reasons I "put my money where my mouth was" and tried to dist. PGP on my BBS. -- Testes saxi solidi! ********************** Podex opacus gravedinosus est! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void Data Center BBS IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Internet: anton(a)hydra.unm.edu Snail: 8020 Central SE #405, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:)

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Re: PGP, and TANSTAAFL!
by Stanton McCandlish 04 May '93

04 May '93

> A-ha! You've just caused me to "un-lurk," Stanton; thanks for the great > opening. Hmm not sure if that is a good thing or not <wink> > > > Privacy should be free, just > > like freedom should be free, and the right to say what you want should be > > free. This is not to say well made tools for ENSURING these rights should > > be free. > > Here you seem to be confusing the issue. How can you say that privacy > (the right?) should be free, when defending privacy shouldn't be free? > Can someone walk up to you and _give_ you privacy? I always assumed you > had to be willing to go out and get it yourself, by hook or by crook. > Without defense of a right, the right is moot. _With_ defense of a > right, the right is moot: In that case, you already have what you want! No, no that is not quite what I am meaning. What I mean by "<insert fave right here> should be free" is that we should be presumed to have that right, and that it should not be abridged in any way whatsoever, especially not for a fee. As an example, we have a right to bear arms. You should not have to pay a fee for that right. You certainly *should* have to pay for the arms you bear, or make your own. I think YOU are slightly confusing the issue. Rights are not property, but are concepts. I argue that what one should pay for are items of property, as well as services, whether they are tools for excercising a right or not. You don't get things for free. But rights are not really "things" in that sense at all. Imagine if you had to buy an annual Free Speech Registration from the FCC. Without this registra- tion certificate, you may only use words in The Official FCC Dictionary, and may only construct phrases that follow the rules of The Official FCC Style Guide, and may only talk about subjects delimited in The Official FCC Subject Index; any violation of these policies will result in punishment not to exceed $10,000 and/or 10 years in prison. This may seem an absurd example, but one most of us are familiar with if we have read _1984_. And no, no one can walk up and hand you a box full of privacy. Rights are there or not there, conceptually speaking. I don't think that not defending a right makes the right moot, per se, though you may lose it. Thing is you should not have to defend it. Any attempt to extinguish a right is by def- inition a violation of it. Unfortunately, people are only too happy to violate other's rights, so we have to defend them. > I suppose I also have a "right to lunch," too, with the caveat that each > I must "ensure" my right to lunch by tripping down to MacDonald's and > buying it. Why bother with the right? What is free here? The fact > that MacDonald's is open for business? But I'm not even guaranteed that! No, the "right" is in your right to actually leave work, and go get something to eat. If you employer demanded a $15 dock in pay to take lunch, or refused to let you have your break (and in most states I believe there are labor laws that mandate that employees get a certain length-of-time break for every x amount of work) that would be a violation of your right to have lunch. Like- wise if someone put a gun to your head and said "thou shalt eat no lunch". > Are rights a useless construction? *I* don't think so, personally. > > While this is true, I would urge people to keep in mind that while we can > > be expected to pay for tools to help us maintain our rights, no one can > > charge us a fee for those rights themselves. Privacy is free, it is our > > birthright. > > I hope I'm not getting off list topic here on my first post, but the > "privacy is free" meme looks to be potentially damaging for us. How so? > Perhaps > you mean, Stanton, that privacy as a commodity should not be traded for > U.S. dollars, Deutsche Mark, or Mexican Pesos, but for some other > currency? Sweat, perhaps? If you pay in sweat, it isn't free--you > could have paid someone else to sweat for you. Surely this hasn't > boiled down to a question over valid currency for trade in privacy? Nope. I don't think privacy (or any other right) is a commodity. I see the 2 categories as mutually exclusive. When a "right" becomes a commodity, it is no longer a right, but a privilege. > I think the fundamental question here is whether rights are free. > [Whether they "should be" free doesn't mean ANYTHING; what does "should > be" mean?] Look around; you'll see a lot of people "fighting for their > rights" to do X. I don't think you can tell _them_ that "the right to > do X is free." Sure I can. All of us here, or many of us, are fighting for at least one of our rights, namely privacy. I have yet to see someone say that we should BUY our right, or that we are fighting to be allowed to purchase or get a license for that right. Rather we are fighting because some people in the govt with big egos or someother mental problem are trying to destroy that right, to nullify it. FIGHTING for the right may not be free, since again one must purchase tools to do that with, and also "services" (if you can call legal and court fees a service >:). But the right itself has no price tag. > Cheers, TANSTAAFL, and I hope I haven't offended Stanton over a minor point, Nope not at all. Few things offend me, and debate is one of the last things I'd be offended by. > P.S. If anyone knows what rights are, mail me. I'm extremely > interested. Don't perpetuate my possible topical error by sending it to > Cypherpunks, unless you think everyone else will be interested. (Maybe > Extropians would be...) I think they would indeed, and the cypherfolk also. I can think of few groups more concerned with our rights and protecting them. Thanks for the comments, this is a good thing to talk about, to hash out. -- Testes saxi solidi! ********************** Podex opacus gravedinosus est! Stanton McCandlish, SysOp: Noise in the Void Data Center BBS IndraNet: 369:1/1 FidoNet: 1:301/2 Internet: anton(a)hydra.unm.edu Snail: 8020 Central SE #405, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108 USA Data phone: +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400 v32bis, N-8-1) Vox phone: +1-505-247-3402 (bps rate varies, depends on if you woke me up...:)

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PGP
by HARUP16＠delphi.com 04 May '93

04 May '93

> I've yet to see many people who "need" PGP who cannot pay for > I'm wrong, but that's how I see it. In any case, while we may > doubts about the patentability of mathematical algorithms, tha > the world works. Certain property rights are reasonable. Argui > RSADSI has no rights to a patent on public key methods is a di > matter than arguing that someone's need and inability to pay i > taking software. I think what Matt was trying to get at is that privacy should be free The day that I feel the need to have to pay $100 to ensure that my business is nobody's business but my own is the day I leave this country for a nice outlet free desert island. I know that it was wrong to steal the RSA code for a shareware alternative, but you gotta understand the stakes here: Breaking a patend, or keeping the government from snooping on each and everyone of us. Sure, RSA is great, and they should get payed for their time programming, yap, yap, yap. But when Salk found a vacine for Polio, did he have a little fit and say "no! you are all going to die because I am a greedy little bastard", no, he made the vacine a sort of share-ware. I know there is a great deal of difference between death and software, but just tell that to to the people involved with Inslaw(hope you are all familiar with Promis software).

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800 number -- Clipper poll
by Mike Godwin 04 May '93

04 May '93

Article 17194 (12 more + 1 Marked to return) in comp.org.eff.talk: From: JHIUOT&)(a)p918.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org (JHIUOT&)) Subject: Clipper poll Date: Wed, 28 Apr 93 12:00:09 PDT Organization: FidoNet node 1:109/70.918 - No Montgomery Co Ba, Rockville MD Lines: 14 Communications Week magazine has a weekly telephone response poll. This week's question is: Do you agree with the Clinton administration's Public Encryption Management dire ctive for communications equipment? Yes: 800-242-CWKY No: 800-242-CWKN -- uucp: uunet!m2xenix!puddle!109!70.918!JHIUOT&) Internet: JHIUOT&)(a)p918.f70.n109.z1.fidonet.org

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Re: A LEGAL way---maybe!
by Peter Honeyman 04 May '93

04 May '93

perhaps you missed my note last week, where i cited: %T patents and the progress of science: exclusive rights and experimental use %A rebecca s. eisenberg %J university of chicago law review %V 56 %N 3 %D summer 1989 %P 1017-1086 follow the footnotes. here's a quote to entice you: If basic research cannot be insulated from the patent system entirely, it might still be possible to reconcile a system of exclusive patent rights in prior discoveries with the interest of the scientific community in allowing subsequent researchers to enjoy free access to such discoveries by exempting the use of patented inventions in research from infringement liability. While the United States patent statute does not provide for such an exemption, the courts have long recognized, at least in principle, that a purely "experimental use" of a patented invention, with no commercial purpose, should be exempt from infringement liability. over and over, she reiterates that patent courts have consistently recognized the experimental use defense. peter

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Shamir papers in postscript
by fnerd＠smds.com 04 May '93

04 May '93

I have the postscript versions of the papers of the two Adi Shamir talks I summarized last week. Shamir gives permission to distribute them freely. If anyone's interested, please mail to me, and depending on how many ask for them, I'll either mail directly or post to the list. -fnerd Titles: ``On The Generation of Multivariate Polynomials Which Are Hard To Factor'' and ``Cryptographic Applications of Birational Permutations'' by Adi Shamir Weizmann Institute FIRST ABSTRACT: In this talk we consider the difficulty of factoring multivariate polynomials F(x,y,z,...) modulo n. We consider in particular the case in which F is the product of two randomly chosen polynomials P and Q with algebraically specified coefficients, and n is the product of two randomly chosen primes p and q. The main result of this talk is that (with one trivial exception), the problem of factoring F is at least as hard as the factorization of n whenever P and Q are chosen from the same sample space, regardless of what may be known about its form. SECOND ABSTRACT: Many public key cryptographic schemes (such as cubic RSA) are based on low degree polynomials whose inverses are high degree polynomials. These functions are very easy to compute, but time consuming to invert even by their legitimate users. To make such schemes more efficient, we consider in this talk the class of birational permutations f over k-tuples of numbers, in which both f and f^-1 are low degree multivariate rational functions. We develop new families of birational permutations, and describe how to use them in new cryptographic schemes which are faster than the known schemes. --

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FWD: Hearings by Congressman Markey
by John (FuzzFace/Fast-Eddie) McMahon 03 May '93

03 May '93

Date: 03 May 1993 09:12:58 -0400 (EDT) From: carl(a)malamud.com (Carl Malamud) Subject: Hearings by Congressman Markey To: announce(a)malamud.com Org: Internet Talk Radio Channel: Internet Town Hall Program: Special Program Release: May 2, 1993 (Hearings were on April 29, 1993) Content: Hearings by House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance Chairman Edward Markey held oversight hearings on April 29 on the rights and responsibilities of individuals and organizations in cyberspace. A high tech presentation highlighting issues such as encryption, electronic invasions of privacy, fraud, civil liberties and computer crime, preceded a panel discussion. For the demonstration, a world-class team of four engineers from Sun and the San Diego Supercomputer Center brought in an HDTV, an ATM switch, an ISDN switch, a Russian satellite dish, a XEROX Liveboard, a BARCO projector with special video equipment, four Sparcstation 10s, a few Sparcstation 2s, and miscellaneous other equipment. The purpose of the demonstration was to show that while our current public policy makes distinctions based on industry, those distinctions have no meaning in the underlying technology. A television is a computer and a computer is a television; a computer is a telephone and vice versa. To demonstrate the latter point, Gage and his associates showed how a new AT&T cellular phone could be changed by any 13-year old into a scanner. The demonstration also showed how DES code could be pulled off anonymous FTP systems in Finland, yet US industry was unable to export this technology. The panel consisted of Raymond Kammer, Acting Director of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), who provided testimony on technology standard setting issues including the government-endorsed "Clipper Chip" encryption technology; Mr. Bruce Sterling, noted science fiction writer on cyberspace and also author of the non-fiction book, "The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier," which discusses computer crime and civil liberties; Mr. John Lucich, State Investigator with the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice. Mr. Lucich combats computer and electronic fraud crimes by electronically infiltrating the underground computer bulletin boards of the "hacker" and "phone phreak" community; and Mr. Joel Reidenberg, Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School, who has studied how personal privacy is affected by telecommunications and computer technologies and the various privacy protections afforded citizens of different countries. We would like to apologize in advance for the very poor audio quality of this tape. The hearing room was quite antiquated, and was full of ungrounded electricity, lots and lots of electronic equipment, wireless mikes, and PA systems turned up way too loud. We hope the content makes the mind happier than the ears. Support for this program was provided by O'Reilly & Associates and by Sun Microsystems. ITH Program Files: 050293_spec_01_HALL.au (Testimony of John Gage) 050293_spec_02_HALL.au (Testimony of Panel) ITH Readme File: 050293_spec_HALL.readme (This File) For information on Internet Talk Radio, write to info(a)radio.com. More information on Internet Town Hall will be available shortly. For a current, partial listing of sites, write to sites(a)radio.com.

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Need permission... or info...
by crunch＠netcom.com 03 May '93

03 May '93

Greetings, On the EFF Conference on the WELL, some people over there who are NOT in the cypherpunks list want to get the question list we generated at the last meeting. John G. posted it but no revisions were done. Is someone going to be adding more stuff to the list, and is it OK for me to cross post thje list into the EFF Conference on the WELL?? Thanx JD

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