September 1993 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: NY tax on info services (whatever that means)
by baumbach＠atmel.com 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

I have been studying the US constitution lately, and an excerpt from Article 1 Section 10 seems appropriate: No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection Laws; and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the Unites States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Control of the Congress. In liberty, Peter Baumbach

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NY tax on info services (whatever that means)
by Jason Zions 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

>I was sloppy in stating the test for a Commerce Clause problem with this >law. Hopefully this is a bit more accurate: > - First ask, Does this law affect interstate commerce? How and > to what extent? > - Then ask, Does the law burden interstate commerce in any way? > - Next, Does the law have a discrete benefit to State (ie NY State) > interests? > - Finally, does the benefit to NY interest outweigh the burden on > interstate commerce? Is the state interest more significant? If you read the text of the tax change, you'll find that it subjects no new services to taxation, it merely changes the tax rate they pay. This particular law does not increase the burden on any businesses other than how much tax they must collect; they already had to collect some, now they have to collect more. The specific tasks they had to perform stay the same, just some numbers get larger. You'd have to find and attack the original tax code changes that imposed taxes of any sort on comm-based info services. Good luck; probably NY just imposed a tax on all commerce where at least one party had nexus in NY, which swallowed up comm-based info services along with everyone else. Jason

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Re: Digital Cash Experiment
by George A. Gleason 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

60-cents per minute...? Is that the going rate on debit phone cards? Do you know any place I can call to find out more about these...? -gg

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Re: Crypto Greetings from Russia
by mbriceno＠aol.com 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

> We proposed to make the common standard for Russia and USA. This > proposition was supported by the Information Technologies Department > of the Russia State Committee of Standards. We've sent this proposal > to the presidential team of the US President Mr. W. Clinton in Jan > 1993. What an opportunity! We Cypherpunks should establish a link with LAN Crypto asap. ---Marc

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New Online Organization
by L. Detweiler 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

===cut=here=== From: elrose(a)path.net (Lance Rose) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 22:37:24 PDT Subject: New BBS Trade Group Formed NOMA National Online Media Association Contacts: Phill Liggett LIGGETT(a)delphi.com (203)233-3163 Lance Rose elrose(a)echonyc.com (201)509-1700 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE A new trade association, the National Online Media Association (NOMA), was formed at ONE BBSCON '93 in Colorado Springs on August 27th, 1993. NOMA comprises BBS operators, Internet service providers, and other online media and services. NOMA's mission is to act for the BBS and online service industry on matters of national importance by creating an industry presence in Washington, D.C. and other means; assist its members at the state and local levels; educate the public on the unique social, business and legal roles of BBS's and other online services; establish appropriate industry standards and guidelines; promote business development in the industry; and maintain and provide access to resources and industry information for use by the public and the industry. An 11 person Organizing Committee was elected to develop a proposal for NOMA's charter, bylaws, membership requirements, structure, and form of leadership. The proposal is to be completed and distributed within the BBS and online services industry by November 30th, 1993. Discussion areas are being set up immediately for those interested in participating in NOMA's early development. An Internet mailing list is available to all those interested at natbbs(a)echonyc.com (subscribe to natbbs-request(a)echonyc.com) A conference area is also being made available on the Delphi national information service. The members of NOMA's Organizing Committee are: Phill Liggett - Chairperson LIGGETT(a)delphi.com Joe Balshone BALSHONE(a)delphi.com Celeste Clark BBS #: (805)520-2300 Pat Clawson 76357.3572(a)compuserve.com P. Victor Grambsch - Secretary PVICTOR(a)delphi.com Tony McClenny BBS#: (703)648-1841 Robert Pataki PUGDOG(a)delphi.com W. Mark Richmond BBS#: (209)685-8487 Steve Sprague steve.sprague(a)uboa.org Jim Taylor jim.taylor(a)F5.N310.Z1.FIDONET.ORG Bill Wilt wilt(a)aol.com In addition, three advisors agreed to assist NOMA's Organizing Committee: Mike Godwin, Esq. mnemonic(a)eff.org David Johnson, Esq. djohns06(a)reach.com Lance Rose, Esq. elrose(a)echonyc.com For further information, please contact Phill Liggett, (203)233- 3163 or Lance Rose, Esq., (201)509-1700 Mailing Address: NOMA c/o Phill Liggett Solutions, Inc. 89 Seymour Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06119 ------- End of Forwarded Message

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Crypto Greetings from Russia
by John Perry Barlow 03 Sep '93

03 Sep '93

Jerry, I don't know if you saw this on its way through the office, but unless you have some objection, I'm going to invite this organization to join the Digital Privacy Working Group. There might be a lot of leverage gained from working the standards processes in the two countries against/with each other. I'm also interested in hearing if anyone in cypherpunks has heard of these folks or their product. FAX TRANSMISSION Date: 23 August, 1993 To: John P. Barlow Electronic Frontier Foundation Washington, DC, USA From: Anatoly N. Lebedev President LAN Cypto Moscow, Russia Phone/Fax: 095-936-7256 Subject: Digittal privacy working group Dear Mr. Barlow, I enjoyed your brilliant paper "Decrypting the Puzzle Palace" (Comm. ACM, vol.35, No.7, July 1992) very much. The situation with "the Russian NSA" or Federal Agency of the Government Communications and Information (FAGHI) is mostly the same as you describe there. So that I am in accord with the most parts of the paper. The company "LAN Crypto" is interested in becoming part of the digital privacy working group. "LAN Crypto" is the first Russian independent private company, which specializes in the development of information security systems and electronic documents transfer (electronic funds transfer, electronic checks, contracts, etc.) by means of cryptology. We have installed our software and the cryptological technology in more than 100 state and commercial banks in Russia, Belorussia and Kazakhstan. Our digital signature (we call it NOTARY) was recognized in April 1992 by the Suprime Arbitre Court of Russia. The first solution on electronic contract with our digital signature and conflict between the sides was made by the Moscow Arbitre Court 28 July 1993. NOTARY is a package of programs for electronic (digital) signing of PC files, revealing the identity of the author and assuring the integrity of such files. NOTARY employs advanced method of digital signing. The method is based upon the complex Discrete Logarithm Problem. NOTARY takes 0.2 sec for signing and 0.8 sec for checking the signature by AT-286/16MHz (secret key 512 bits). Now the works on national standard of digital signature in Russia also began. We work in this way actively with the other private companies and state organisations. We proposed to make the common standard for Russia and USA. This proposition was supported by the Information Technologies Department of the Russia State Committee of Standards. We've sent this proposal to the presidential team of the US President Mr. W. Clinton in Jan 1993. So I would be very glad to get from you any fresh information on DSS, because the last version we have gotten from our american partners was of Nov. 1992. We as a private company also propose some other packages of programs: VESTA (for encryption), which provides processing speed of 10 KBytes/sec on AT-286 (16MHz), ATHENA (for public-key generation), which takes less than 3 seconds for two users to generate a common secret key of 512 bits (using an AT-286 operating at 16MHz) (6.5 seconds for common key of 1024 bits), DIANA for strong and flexible access regulaton to files of databases. DIANA prevents an unauthorized access to information, contained in server or working station of LAN. It is based on encrypting of files and dynamic decrypting of them while working. All information between the server and the working station goes in an encrypted form. User of the working station uses a compact TSR-program. The key distribution system of DIANA does not have analoges in the world. To get more information on our programs you may connect with "LAN Crypto": 117630, Academician Chelomey St. 10-43, Moscow, Russia, phone/fax 095-936-7254 E-mail: lan(a)crypto.msk.su or with our representatives in the USA: Severtson and Associates 1901 Prytania, Suite 17 New Orleans, LA 70130 Phone 504/524-2256 or Dmitry Orlov San Francisco, CA 408/988-3832 E-mail: dimon(a)mcafee.com Regards, Anatoly N. Lebedev President LAN Crypto

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Who generates AOCE keys?
by greg＠ideath.goldenbear.com 02 Sep '93

02 Sep '93

Scott Collins (collins(a)newton.apple.com) writes: (re AOCE, and who generates users' key pairs) >What I gathered from actually using this software is that you personally >generate a key pair, on your own machine, and then transparently send your >public key to RSADSI. Some time later, you receive a certificate (with an >expiration date) that allows your 'signer' to function. RSADSI does not >make, or even see, your private key. and Mitch Ratcliffe (godsdog(a)netcom.com) writes, in E-mail: (posted with permission) >While Apple will not cop to this, it is my understanding that users will >get certified keys from RSA. I have Very Good Sources on this. They can >generate a key for use on their network, but as part of the vision of the >paperless, collaborative economy, Apple believes you'll want publically- >certified keys. Well, Apple has failed to guess what I'll want. :) Perhaps the similarity of these two ideas (RSA generates keys & certificates, versus RSA gets public key & generates certificate) has generated confusion internally at Apple; I dunno. -- Greg Broiles greg(a)goldenbear.com Golden Bear Computer Consulting +1 503 342 7982 Box 12005 Eugene OR 97440 BBS: +1 503 687 7764

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Two new remailers
by Sameer Parekh 02 Sep '93

02 Sep '93

Here are the keys for the two new remailers I have set up, sameer(a)netcom.com, and cs60a-qu(a)cory.eecs.berkeley.edu. Because I'm still working on the installation script, they will probably disappear for short periods of time, but they're semi-permanent now. (I haven't tested the netcom.com one yet, I just ran my script. I'm hoping that it works!) Here are the keys: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.2 mQCNAiyGXXoAAAEEAMDtjyzGpLKugc49+Na4GZcUZ1Q1jyZYeofTdNwlTIbs4bGY OaeFCXaQluD4ANsLn9muMVae+q+3gZsIq14klQLO6Xe55pZ0Efx5shfFU24S9+xA RUrDfMMqD5TtaoBXH9aQBV9mVo0h5Pxu6ng9B0A+GPJg/ygdVqW95EIJnjMRAAUT sAEAtCVTYW1lZXIncyBSZW1haWxlciA8c2FtZWVyQG5ldGNvbS5jb20+sAEAmQCN AiyE6CgAAAEEALqDVb9/znhvoG0jMgFv1ezJWNKyC5XbXnO6DvbucHvqFsLHSYuQ txtrKVsuk2yGturMVWFAmnH8xCmpf0wUWIVzydNQbg4IB6/FzJ/ZdwXWmvvUJi2R 6IKJB0PGDhiWpRwfHrLthcuzXwxK0buWGW6BAFAcLV0ipEwhnnhSVnRJAAURtDNT YW1lZXIncyBSZW1haWxlciA8Y3M2MGEtcXVAY29yeS5FRUNTLkJlcmtlbGV5LkVE VT4= =eqRW -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Anon IRC (Anonymous vs. Private)
by Panzer Boy 02 Sep '93

02 Sep '93

I have been running an Anonymous IRC server for a short time now. This allows a real time conversation, as opposed to the monologue provided via netnews or mail. Currently, when a user logs in, the internal (and external) representation of the user is: NICKNAME!user(a)anon.host Users have the ability to change their Nickname, and all other people have to identify people is by their Nickname. People who have used IRC for awhile have told me that this would promote anarchy on the channels, because it makes it impossible to ban/ignore certain people from conversations. So my fix is going to be running users Hostname through a one-way hash function. So references to users will be: NICKNAME!user@HASH(Real-Hostname) The question is, what kind of hash do it use? My first idea was to use a hash function that has many collisions, a simple "summing" of the ascii characters. This would make sure that people would have certain ID's, and ban/ignore would work. This would also make it harder to be sure you had the correct host if you were going to try to brute force out a users hostname. A couple other people have suggested using a hash function that is much more complex. So that no collisions will occur, and all users will have unique "ID's" associated with their Nickname. If collisions occur, it is ok. Just the possibility for banning/ignoring people you don't intend goes up. Any suggestions on this one? I was also thinking of allowing users to come on the system as NICK!user(a)anon.host and then switch between that, and their NICK!user@HASH(Real-Host). This would allow people to be both completely anonymous or, if they wanted, have and identity attached to themselves. This way people could ban/ignore anyone at "anon.host" if they didn't want to deal with "anonymous" people. To connect to my server, load up an IRC client, and change your server to "drown.slip.andrew.cmu.edu". In standard clients, "/server drown.slip.andrew.cmu.edu", is how to do this. For more information about irc, ftp to CSA.BU.EDU. -Matt panzer(a)drown.slip.andrew.cmu.edu

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Digital Cash Experiment
by Duncan Frissell 02 Sep '93

02 Sep '93

To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Boy, you give people free money and they don't even use it. Last Saturday, I posted the codes from a $5 Western Union phone card. That is good for 8.3333 minutes of domestic long distance service. Some people told me that they made calls on the card (and one generous soul even sent me the codes from another $5 card in encrypted E-mail). The 8 minutes in calls weren't, however, used up until today when I killed the last minute myself. You can't even give money away. Have all of you been to your local Western Union money transfer agent and bought your phone cards for convenient anonymous (when made from payphones) LD calls. Today's NYT also featured a story about the similar Sprint phone cards (everyone and their uncle is issuing them these days). Sprint cut a deal with Hallmark whereby you will be able to buy $6 greeting cards with a 10 minute Sprint phone card inside so your recipient can call you back. This makes the calls 60 cents/minute which is the going rate for domestic LD calls on these cards. And, yes this is a cypherpunks topic because it represents an anonymous telecommunications account (of sorts). Duncan Frissell The Economist has been tracking the price of a market basket of commodities since it was founded in the 1840s. In the summer of 1991, the (inflation adjusted) price of those commodities fell to the lowest level ever observed. I guess we aren't running out of things. --- WinQwk 2.0b#0

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