July 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

logo
by fnerd＠smds.com 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

For a logo...how about a fist holding a key? just a thot -fnerd quote me

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Re: Tim's nose (was Re: nose against the grindstone)
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

>My opinion, which stands, is that we have spent an inordinate amount >of time in frivolous discussion about T-shirts. Consider that it is much easier to make quick comments about tee shirts than strategic decisions regarding sound bites for the press. Thus, the opportunity cost of these comments is fairly low and that also explains the volume. That said, here's another addition to the melange: How about a tee shirt that has the source code to RSA or DES on it. Could I wear it while flying out of the U.S.? Curious person: What's that on your tee shirt? Cypherpunk: It's the source code to a program that cannot be exported outside the U.S.A. Banned information. Curious person: How can information be banned? I thought the First Amendment protected that. Cypherpunk: Not for export...It's considered munitions even though this source code is available in books and on computers almost anywhere in the world. Curious person: Looks fairly innocuous to me. Cypherpunk: The French consider it second only to nuclear weapons. Curious person: Now that's what I call a power tee shirt! If the source is too big (how about one long bar code: information-wear (Mondo2000 could feature it as a centerfold)), perhaps the core algorithm could be depicted. Okay, I'll stop having fun now...;^) Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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another journalist's queries
by af391＠freenet.carleton.ca 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

This is Peter Hum, a reporter with a major daily newspaper in Canada, e-mailing all you cypherpunks. Since the talk is flowing about t-shirts and/or journalists, I thought I would renew my request for help and information. For now, I'm researching: 1. encryption issues in Canada 2. privacy in Canada I'd appreciate any e-mail, phone calls or faxes with suggestions on sources, how to proceed, and so on. Confidentiality is assured. I should mention that I'm an English professor by training and not a crypto-specialist. I'm also new to the Net (one month on), but I should add it was the WIRED article, among others, that sparked my interest. Hope to hear from you, Peter Hum The Ottawa Citizen af391(a)Freenet.carleton.ca (613)596-3761 (voice) (613)726-1198 (fax)

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PKP/DSS License request? (fwd)
by fergp＠sytex.com 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

From: djb(a)silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: You want to use DSA? Apply for a personal license from NIST! Date: 27 Jul 93 06:22:03 GMT Organization: IR Lines: 103 NIST plans to give Public Key Partners exclusive rights to the Digital Signature Algorithm. Do you want to guarantee your own rights to this technology? You can! It's free, if you can spare a stamp. Attached is a form letter you can send to NIST to apply for a personal license. Put in your own name, address, country, and the right date; print it out; read through to check it over; sign it; and drop it in the mail. You don't have to get everything right the first time---NIST will contact you if they need more information to make a decision. And, as a bonus, your application will automatically count as an objection to the NIST-PKP deal! I believe that NIST must receive your application by next Friday, the 6th of August, but the due date might be earlier. You might want to check immediately with Michael Rubin at 301-975-2803. If necessary you can fax your letter to him. ---Dan ^L [address] [date] Michael R. Rubin Acting Chief Counsel for Technology Room A-1111 Administration Building National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Dear Mr. Rubin: I hereby apply for a personal license to use the Digital Signature Algorithm. 1. Title of invention: Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). 2. Patent Application Serial Number: 07/738.431. 3. United States Patent Number: To be issued as 5,231,668, I believe. 4. Source of information concerning availability of a license: Various sources, including your Federal Register notice. 5. Name and address of applicant: [name], [address, phone, etc.]. 6. Applicant's representative: not applicable. 7. I am a [country] citizen. 8. Approximate number of persons employed: not applicable. 9. I am not a small business firm. 10. Purpose: I would like a personal license allowing me to implement and use DSA. See #12. 11. Business and commercialization: not applicable; see #10. 12. Plans: I plan to use DSA to attach digital signatures to a variety of electronic documents, primarily for authentication. I plan to use DSA implementations, initially in software but perhaps later in hardware, from a variety of potential future sources. Investments: I may spend many hours programming a DSA implementation. ^L page 2 13. Fields of commercialization: not applicable; see #10. 14. I am not willing to accept a license for less than all fields of use of DSA. 15. I intend to implement and use DSA only in [country]. 16. Type of license: I would like a non-exclusive license which does not require royalty payments. 17. I have never been granted a license to a federally owned invention. 18. Known uses of DSA by industry or government: I have heard that ISC sells a product called dsaSIGN, and that Bellcore has implemented DSA. 19. Other information: I understand that NIST may grant an exclusive DSA license to PKP, and that this license application will be treated as an objection to the PKP license. Please note that PKP has stated its intent to make DSA free for personal use. Therefore, if NIST grants PKP a license and PKP acts according to its stated intent, there is no harm to anyone if I am granted this personal license. However, I do not trust PKP to act according to its stated intent, and I do not want to have to apply for a license from PKP even if it is royalty-free. So I ask that you grant me a license directly. Thank you for your kind attention. Please let me know if you need more information. Sincerely, [name] Paul Ferguson | "Government, even in its best state, Network Integrator | is but a necessary evil; in its worst Centreville, Virginia USA | state, an intolerable one." fergp(a)sytex.com | - Thomas Paine, Common Sense I love my country, but I fear its government.

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My Magazine Story
by mulivor＠orion.crc.monroecc.edu 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

I'm still writing the story (about anonymous email), and I'm still taking phone calls. All Cypherpunks are welcome to call. Phil Mulivor 716 256-2222 office (24 hrs) 716 271-4052 fax mulivor(a)orion.crc.monroecc.edu

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You want to use DSA? Apply for a personal license from NIST!
by gnu 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

From: djb(a)silverton.berkeley.edu (D. J. Bernstein) Newsgroups: sci.crypt Subject: You want to use DSA? Apply for a personal license from NIST! Date: 27 Jul 93 06:22:03 GMT NIST plans to give Public Key Partners exclusive rights to the Digital Signature Algorithm. Do you want to guarantee your own rights to this technology? You can! It's free, if you can spare a stamp. Attached is a form letter you can send to NIST to apply for a personal license. Put in your own name, address, country, and the right date; print it out; read through to check it over; sign it; and drop it in the mail. You don't have to get everything right the first time---NIST will contact you if they need more information to make a decision. And, as a bonus, your application will automatically count as an objection to the NIST-PKP deal! I believe that NIST must receive your application by next Friday, the 6th of August, but the due date might be earlier. You might want to check immediately with Michael Rubin at 301-975-2803. If necessary you can fax your letter to him. ---Dan [address] [date] Michael R. Rubin Acting Chief Counsel for Technology Room A-1111 Administration Building National Institute of Standards and Technology Gaithersburg, MD 20899 Dear Mr. Rubin: I hereby apply for a personal license to use the Digital Signature Algorithm. 1. Title of invention: Digital Signature Algorithm (DSA). 2. Patent Application Serial Number: 07/738.431. 3. United States Patent Number: To be issued as 5,231,668, I believe. 4. Source of information concerning availability of a license: Various sources, including your Federal Register notice. 5. Name and address of applicant: [name], [address, phone, etc.]. 6. Applicant's representative: not applicable. 7. I am a [country] citizen. 8. Approximate number of persons employed: not applicable. 9. I am not a small business firm. 10. Purpose: I would like a personal license allowing me to implement and use DSA. See #12. 11. Business and commercialization: not applicable; see #10. 12. Plans: I plan to use DSA to attach digital signatures to a variety of electronic documents, primarily for authentication. I plan to use DSA implementations, initially in software but perhaps later in hardware, from a variety of potential future sources. Investments: I may spend many hours programming a DSA implementation. page 2 13. Fields of commercialization: not applicable; see #10. 14. I am not willing to accept a license for less than all fields of use of DSA. 15. I intend to implement and use DSA only in [country]. 16. Type of license: I would like a non-exclusive license which does not require royalty payments. 17. I have never been granted a license to a federally owned invention. 18. Known uses of DSA by industry or government: I have heard that ISC sells a product called dsaSIGN, and that Bellcore has implemented DSA. 19. Other information: I understand that NIST may grant an exclusive DSA license to PKP, and that this license application will be treated as an objection to the PKP license. Please note that PKP has stated its intent to make DSA free for personal use. Therefore, if NIST grants PKP a license and PKP acts according to its stated intent, there is no harm to anyone if I am granted this personal license. However, I do not trust PKP to act according to its stated intent, and I do not want to have to apply for a license from PKP even if it is royalty-free. So I ask that you grant me a license directly. Thank you for your kind attention. Please let me know if you need more information. Sincerely, [name]

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Re: Tee-shirt
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

Here is my vote for a tee shirt below. People are always asking my what "/nev/dull" means on one of my T shirts, so I'd like it to be understandable to more people (and my C++ tee shirt with Bjarne Stroustrup on the front with a screw going through his head is understood by almost *no one*...) >From: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu> On the front: >- Big Brother is watching YOU (picture of those pointing Uncle Sam >pictures, dressed like a spy) On the back: Random dot stereogram with the combined image that says "Cypherpunk" or "Crypto" and under it, a plain text message: "Eternal Vigilance for your Privacy". Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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T-Shirts
by vince＠dsi.unimi.it 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

I'd say STOP to all this discussing about t-shirts. Isn't this mailing list supposed to be related to privacy and crypto topics? Regards, David --- Forwarded mail from peter honeyman <honey(a)hone.citi.umich.edu> >From owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Tue Jul 27 16:02 MET 1993 Received: from relay2.UU.NET by ghost.dsi.unimi.it with SMTP id AA23715 (5.65+/IDA-1.3.5 for vince); Tue, 27 Jul 93 16:02:53 +0200 Received: from toad.com by relay2.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA14094; Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:59:21 -0400 Received: by toad.com id AA21713; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:47:36 PDT Received: by toad.com id AA21705; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:46:40 PDT Return-Path: <honey(a)hone.citi.umich.edu> Received: from citi.umich.edu ([141.211.128.16]) by toad.com id AA21701; Tue, 27 Jul 93 06:46:34 PDT Message-Id: <9307271346.AA21701(a)toad.com> Received: from hone.citi.umich.edu by citi.umich.edu with SMTP; Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:45:58 -0400 From: peter honeyman <honey(a)hone.citi.umich.edu> To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue, 27 Jul 93 09:45:53 EDT Subject: Re: T-Shirts X-Location: Lake Michigan, Harbor Springs In-Reply-To: Paul Goggin's message of Mon, 26 Jul 93 17:57:54 -0400. <9307262159.AA24713(a)toad.com> personally, i'd like to have a cypherpunks-embroidered pillbox hat. peter --- End of forwarded message from peter honeyman <honey(a)hone.citi.umich.edu> -- David Vincenzetti, system administrator && security consultant DSI, Department of Computer Science, | email: vince(a)ghost.dsi.unimi.it via Comelico 39, 20135 Milan, ITALY | phone: ++39 2 55006 391 **Public Key Available by Finger** | fax: ++39 2 55006 392

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Tim's nose (was Re: nose against the grindstone)
by paul＠poboy.b17c.ingr.com 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

> Paul Robichaux believes we are being "dissolute" in discussing t-shirts and > such when our noses should instead be against the grindstone (talking to > journalists? huh?): > [ my original message deleted ] Perhaps I didn't express myself clearly. In fact, it's evident :) My opinion, which stands, is that we have spent an inordinate amount of time in frivolous discussion about T-shirts. My personal opinion is that you build esprit de corps by common effort and common achievement, not by how you dress (although my primary experience with that sort of team spirit comes from my time in the Marines, where everyone wears the same kind of T-shirt :) > Mostly these points boil down to the plaintive cry of "How can you have fun > when others aren't?" That is, how can Cypherpunks pursue frivolous issues, > at times, when we should be in our sled dog harnesses, pulling a heavy > load? I'm not saying that we shouldn't be having fun- but the ongoing discussion about dress preferences (T-shirt vs. polo vs. cap and so on) and styles doesn't seem to have an end in either sense (that of termination or that of purpose.) Many of our illustrious contributors have talked with high-powered journalists in the past, and I applaud that effort. Considering the target market of Phil's article- other professional journalists- I think spending time to answer his questions is worthwhile. To me, it's more important to educate reporters in (for example) Huntsville and Peoria to our cause than to spread the word to trendy, likely-to-be-sympathetic-to-our-cause folks who read _Wired_, _Village Voice_, and _Whole Earth Review._ > Other List members are also making contacts (Paul Ferguson?), and Lance > Dettweiler has posted the call for discussion with journalist Philip > Mulivor on the alt.whistleblower list. (Lance speculates, correctly I > think, that Mulivor has no Net access. If true, I question that Mulivor is > such a high-priority journalistic target anyway. Maybe he is. But I'm sure > enough folks will talk to him. The talk of mail programs and t-shirts is > not likely to affect this.) Well, Lance missed the boat here; I have had an ongoing exchange with Phil via his e-mail account (mulivor(a)crc.monroecc.edu) which last I heard counted as net access... > Anyway, the danger is perhaps of journalistic _overexposure_, not > underexposure. Perhaps people should blast me for wasting precious hours > talking to Kelly, Levy, Dibbell, and others, when I could've *more* > profitably spent the time studying "perl" and hence pulled the Cypherpunks > sled a few more miles toward our distant goals. (I'm being facetious, of > course, as I don't particularly _want_ to learn perl and become another > Unix jock.) I'm tempted to say something flip here about "when the average Joe understands crypto issues like he understands the beer tax, then we can quit." I don't think that's true, but overexposure _in the media as a whole_ is not a problem we have right now. Not everyone reads the _NYT_ and the other pubs mentioned above, and not everyone listens to NPR. (Ask Crunch about the audience he's trying to reach at raves!) > As the one who brought up the "Cypherpunks t-shirt" issue, I see nothing > wrong with spending some time tossing ideas around on this. Most ^^^^ Agreed. I humbly suggest that we've spent our allotted time and could move on to something more productive. > The wonderful thing about distributed, decentralized systems like ours is > that folks can work on what interests them. Right on, brother. -- Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG | "An interesting mistake... I wish I knew what perobich(a)ingr.com | led you to make it." Intergraph Federal Systems | "I make a lot of them. It's how I learn." (but not their opinion) | - A. Jablokov, _A Deeper Sea_

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Re: Nose against the grindstone
by tcmay＠netcom.com 27 Jul '93

27 Jul '93

Paul Robichaux believes we are being "dissolute" in discussing t-shirts and such when our noses should instead be against the grindstone (talking to journalists? huh?): >I assume everyone saw the message from Philip Mulivor here asking for our >input on the issues related to anonymity and newsgathering. As of >Friday afternoon, I was the only one to respond. > >I can't help but think that we are being dissolute in discussing >T-shirts, coffee mugs, et al when a *REAL* *LIVE* *JOURNALIST* came to >the list asking for information and got almost zero response. > >If we're looking at shirts which will raise people's awareness and >provoke questions, that's great. Many of the slogans and designs, >though, will be indecipherable to anyone who's not _already_ a >cypherpunk. If these shirts are just a membership badge, like a DoD # >in *.motorcycles, then IMNSHO we're wasting our time. Not to sound snippy or flamish, but such calls for us to "get back to work" smack of the argument that goes like this: "How can people be doing X when there's still Y in the world?" - "How can people watch television when some people don't even have radios?" - "How can people own pets when people in Bangladesh are starving?" - "How can anyone own a computer workstation when some people lack even a PC?" - "How can Cypherpunks discuss t-shirts be discussed when journalists want answers?" And so on. Mostly these points boil down to the plaintive cry of "How can you have fun when others aren't?" That is, how can Cypherpunks pursue frivolous issues, at times, when we should be in our sled dog harnesses, pulling a heavy load? Well, man does not live by bread alone! All work and no play make Cypherpunks have a dull day. Ironically, many of us have already talked _a lot_ to journalists. For example, I spent about 5 hours each, on average, with Kevin Kelly ("Wired" editor, which helped with his "Crypto Rebels" cover story by Steven Levy, and his outstanding article on the "Technologies of Disconnection" in "Whole Earth Review"), with Steven Levy (for the aforementioned "Wired" article), and with Julian Dibbell of the "Village Voice" (for a forthcoming article--on the cover, I hear). Plus, phone conversations (a radio interview with Dave Mandl) and chats with some of them at "Cypherpunks" meetings. The same is true of Eric Hughes ("Newsweek" coverage, Richard Hart's t.v. program, the same articles as above, etc.), John Gilmore (contacts too numerous to mention!!!), John Draper, and others. Further, we have several journalists/article writers *here on this list*! Sandy Sandfort, Peter Wayner, Jude Milhon, Dave Mandl, are just some of them. (And Kevin Kelly, Julian Dibbell, Steven Levy, have been List subscribers at times in the past, and maybe still are.) Other List members are also making contacts (Paul Ferguson?), and Lance Dettweiler has posted the call for discussion with journalist Philip Mulivor on the alt.whistleblower list. (Lance speculates, correctly I think, that Mulivor has no Net access. If true, I question that Mulivor is such a high-priority journalistic target anyway. Maybe he is. But I'm sure enough folks will talk to him. The talk of mail programs and t-shirts is not likely to affect this.) Anyway, the danger is perhaps of journalistic _overexposure_, not underexposure. Perhaps people should blast me for wasting precious hours talking to Kelly, Levy, Dibbell, and others, when I could've *more* profitably spent the time studying "perl" and hence pulled the Cypherpunks sled a few more miles toward our distant goals. (I'm being facetious, of course, as I don't particularly _want_ to learn perl and become another Unix jock.) As the one who brought up the "Cypherpunks t-shirt" issue, I see nothing wrong with spending some time tossing ideas around on this. Most conferences (like "Hackers," "Crypto," etc.) produce some sort of t-shirt or hat or whatnot, and nobody seems all that perturbed that they are becoming "dissolute." (And some of these t-shirts were on display on the "Wired" cover, ironically.) Such things can produce an enthusiasm, an esprit d'corps, which keeps folks active and keeps them feeling part of something. I'm not saying I'll learn perl just because I have a Cypherpunks t-shirt, but I don't see the harm in spending some time thinking about it and perhaps even getting them made. Same with bumper stickers, fliers, and the like. The wonderful thing about distributed, decentralized systems like ours is that folks can work on what interests them. For some, it'll be whistleblowing. For others, new mail programs. And some will learn perl, some will try to crack PGP, and some will design logos for t-shirts. Some will even talk to journalists. In fact, some of us already _have_. I appreciated Paul's comments, even though I disagreed with them. Cheers! -Tim May -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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