November 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: On 60" tonight
by George＠Orwellian.Org 28 Nov '00

28 Nov '00

My on-screen guide said "FISA", tvguide.com says, "Mike Wallace looks at one couple's claim that they were set up by the FBI and wrongly convicted of espionage."

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CDR: Cato study on biochemterror
by Declan McCullagh 28 Nov '00

28 Nov '00

----- Forwarded message from Patricia Mohr <pmohr(a)cato.org> -----

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CDR: another J Bell report not _Wired_
by anonymous＠openpgp.net 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

http://apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/11/21/cyberstalk1121_01.html Bitter Man Accused of Stalking Federal Agents Sought to Turn Tables on Investigators, Authorities Charge Nov. 21, 2000 By Joe Beaird TACOMA, Wash. (APBnews.com) -- A convicted felon with a decade-long antagonism against the federal government has been arrested for stalking two Treasury Department agents. James D. Bell of Vancouver is being held at a federal detention center near the SeaTac International Airport as he awaits a bail hearing Wednesday. Bell is the author of an Internet manifesto called Assassination Politics, which proposes a way for people to anonymously claim cash rewards for correctly "predicting" the deaths of government employees and officeholders. The current charges against Bell allege that he made interstate trips attempting to track down agents Jeff Gordon and Mike McNall, who work for the Treasury Departments inspector general for tax administration. Bell allegedly pursued these agents, who had investigated him in previous cases, "with the intent to injure or harass" them, according to the 17-page criminal complaint filed with the U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington at Tacoma. Prior record Gordon led a team of agents who searched Bells house and arrested him in 1997 on similar stalking charges. He has also testified against Bell -- a Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemistry graduate -- on several occasions. McNall was involved in another 1996 case in which Bell was convicted of "corrupt interference" with internal revenue laws. "It had to do with Mr. Bells belief that the agents were illegally harassing him, and his response was to begin an investigation of them," said Bells court-appointed defense lawyer Robert M. Leen. Leen was appointed after Bell complained in Internet-published letters that the federal public defenders office was acting in collusion with federal prosecutors. "Given Mr. Bells history of stalking and aggressively pursuing people when he feels that someone has wronged him, the public defenders office thought it would be best if someone outside the office represented him," Leen told APBnews.com. Allegedly gathered names of workers According to the criminal complaint against him, Bell has been using online databases, voter registration data and motor vehicle records to collect the names and home addresses of dozens of government employees working for the IRS, FBI, Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, as well as members of local police agencies. He also has bragged of using his chemistry knowledge to manufacture the toxic nerve gas sarin, the complaint alleges. In 1997, he pleaded guilty to contaminating an IRS office with noxious chemicals, collecting the names of IRS employees, attempting to obstruct the enforcement of internal revenue laws, and using false Social Security numbers to hide his assets, according to the criminal complaint against him. Bell apparently believes that federal officials will be less apt to investigate him if he collects personal information about them. In Internet newsgroup postings he allegedly wrote: "It is very likely that these people will be far more pliable and less abusive in the future if they are well-known." After having tracked down what he thought was Gordons home address and personal information, but which was in fact data about another Jeff Gordon who has a son, Joshua, Bell allegedly posted the following Internet message: "So say goodnight to Joshua, Mr. Anonymous. Tell him its not his fault that his father is a thug." Playing with chemicals Bells vendetta against the government apparently took root in 1989 when he was arrested for the possession of unregistered chemicals at his home, said Milo Wadlin, Bells brother-in-law. "He picked up this one chemical that has almost no uses except to manufacture methamphetamines," Wadlin told APBnews.com. "It wasnt illegal to have it, but they busted his place and it was all over the papers that he had a meth lab. ... He became bitter at that point." Though not illegal to possess, the chemical had to be registered, and Bell failed to do so. He was sentenced to probation, which he apparently violated, according to court records. Bell had always been a prankster, Wadlin said, and used to delight in filling aerosol cans with marijuana odor and spraying them at police gatherings. But after his arrest for unregistered chemicals, the tone changed, he said.

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CDR: Re: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...
by Lynn.Wheeler＠firstdata.com 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

problem is that consumer don't normally know that they want to check on a particular merchant's CRL entry until they realize that they want to go to that merchant site. in general, the consumer's aren't going to want keep a local (usenet) database of all CRL entries (however they are distributed) ... so it is more likely the ISP would have to keep all the entries ... pushed into a database ... and let the consumer do an online database lookup of the CRL entries (effectively the local ISP is keeping cached copy of all entries ... and uses usenet as the distribution infrastructure). sometimes, usenet can take several hrs to a day to propogate ... so the person may still want to do an online transaction against the agency that issued a certificate In which case, the local ISP would be considered a "stand-in" ... maintaining a negative file ... and returning positive answers if there isn't a match in the negative file for the online transaction ... in which case the consumer may still want to do another online transactions against the master file (located somewhere in the internet). Given that online transactions are being performed ... then it may even be more straightforward to use domain name infrastructure to manage distribution and management of cached entries. It has a somewhat better online transaction semantics than usenet (already). However, since this is turning into online transaction infrastructure ... it is then possible to eliminate both the certificates and CRLs totally and just use the straight-foward domain name infrastructure. back again to certificates typically being superfulous and redundant in an online infrastructure. "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold(a)world.std.com> on 11/27/2000 07:53:35 AM Please respond to "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold(a)world.std.com>

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CDR: german copyright fascism CD tax
by anonymous＠openpgp.net 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

HP to pay antipiracy fee for CD burners FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) Computer giant Hewlett-Packard has become the first company to be snagged by a German law requiring firms to pay fees for making CD burners that are being used to illegally lift the latest hits off the World Wide Web. The case sets the stage for other European countries to possibly adopt similar rules to stem an epidemic that cost the music industry an estimated $5 billion last year. But analysts blasted the agreement reached Thursday as another example of Germanys notorious thatch of regulations. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crh737.htm

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CDR: RE: On 60" tonight
by Trei, Peter 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

60" Sixty seconds? Is that a real quickie version of 60' (Sixty minutes? Notation counts (watch This Is Spinal Tap for another amusing example of this type of goof-up). Peter Trei > ---------- > From: George@orwellian.org[SMTP:George@orwellian.org] > Reply To: George(a)orwellian.org > Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2000 6:32 PM > To: cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net > Subject: On 60" tonight > > My on-screen guide said "FISA", tvguide.com says, > "Mike Wallace looks at one couple's claim that > they were set up by the FBI and wrongly convicted of espionage." >

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CDR: Re: Jim Bell arrested documents online
by Anonymous 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

>Anyway, the distinction between business and politics is less clear than >you make out - or seems less clear to many people in countries outside >America. In most places the government is in the pockets of the people >with the money - and in most places presidents and governors are quick This is a part of official mythology that very few americans escape. I also noticed seemingly intelligent people bending their brains to explain how something that business does is less evil than the same thing done by government. Apparently because businesses do not use guns. They are missing the fact that majority of people never encounter/use guns in their life, and that the principal way of behavioural control is propaganda/ideology. Most of the people in the industrial world are directly and tightly controlled by corporations, not governments. I have seen people that fear their bosses/corporate policies/landlords/ creditors more than they ever feared government - simply because they never had to deal with government on adverse terms. Their lives are not shaped by governments - business does that. That is the reality. But corporations did a great job of propping up the government as the target for frustration, and it shows. Long time ago I read a story about the guy whose job was to be fired: a company would screw up something, and the guy was hired, presented to be the company exec, and then humiliated and fired in front of the customer. Sounds familiar ?

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CDR: ICANN new TLDs
by Tom Vogt 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

the best article on this shame/scam I've found so far: http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/4347/1.html contrary to most of the other stuff, this one doesn't concentrate on how ridiculous .museum is, but rather on the actual proceedings and on how ICANN came up with whatever they came up with.

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None
by cyrus amirmomtahan 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

please email re: email remote interception

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CDR: Re: Public Key Infrastructure: An Artifact...
by Lynn.Wheeler＠firstdata.com 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Basically cetificates are an implementation of R/O partial replicated distributed data that were intended to address availability of information in a predominately offline environment. In the SSL server certificates, distribution of CRLs tend to create a problem for consumers because they aren't likely to want to see 99.99999999999999999999% of the CRLs distributed and/or they aren't online at the time the CRLs are distributed (and/or if done via email would create a horrible spam issue ... every possible consumer in the world receiving email CRLs from every possile SSL server certificate issuing CA). The other solution is to go online and do real-time checks ... but doing real-time checks invalidates basic design decision trade-offs associated with choosing a R/O partial replicated distributed data implementation in the first place. A number of other efforts have looked at the trade-offs associated with large distributed data implementations and have made various different implementation decisions based on different criteria & requirements. Some of the partially replicated data implementations have gone to the trouble if 1) truely offline, R/O replicated data that has low change frequency, and possible adverse effects of dealing with stale data is non-existent or 2) support R/W partial replicated distributed data with various dictionary implemenations keeping track of the "current" R/W owner. However, in the case of both having R/O replicated distributed data and also requiring online access ... creates a situation where the R/O replicated distributed data implementation is redundant and superfulous (except in some scenerios where the packet of R/O replicated distributed data is significantly larger than the transaction to check on its staleness ... aka multi-megabyte documents might be an example). It isn't that you can't have perfect R/O replicated distributed data implementation if there is also concurrent real-time access to the original data ... but that usually invalidates the design decisions trade-offs that justified having a R/O replicated distributed data implemenation in the first place. The degree of redundancy and superfulous becomes more significant as outlined in the SSL server certificate case ... where 1) in large part SSL server certificates are justified to address integrity weaknesses in the domain name infrastructure, 2) SSL server certificate issuing agencies are dependent on the domain name infrastructure as the authoritative source associated with proofing information for issuing an SSL server certificate, 3) correcting integrity weaknesses in the domain name infrastructure (needed by the SSL server certrificate issuing agencies) by registering public keys with domains names, 4) said registered public keys can both a) eliminate integrity weaknesses justifying SSL server certificates and b) be distributed as part of domain name server real time request to the client ... which then can be used in a much more efficient SSL protocol implemenation. A possibly better phrase is that in a large number of cases revokation isn't practical w/o real-time access to the original data ... but real-time access to the original data obsoletes the need for revokation (by obsoleting the necessity for R/O partial data replication which might require revokation). The issue in many scenerios isn't that revokation can't work ... it can work if you have real time access to the original data ... which obsoletes the requirement for R/O partial data replication which in turn obsoletes the requirement for revoking R/O partial data replication. The ideal solution for revokation is somehting of a catch-22 ... the ideal solution for revokation also removes the requirement for revokation (somewhat analogous to the catch-22 for solving the problem that SSL server certificate issuing agencies have with domain name server infrastructure integrity issues ... the solution is also the seed for obsoleting the need for issuing SSL server certificates). Mark Scherling <mscherling(a)xcert.com> on 11/23/2000 09:24:51 AM

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