November 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

CDR: Save 15% plus FREE SHIPPING
by shop.From-us 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

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CDR: Re: Authenticate the "adult field", go to jail...
by R. A. Hettinga 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

At 10:16 AM -0800 on 11/29/00, obvious(a)beta.freedom.net wrote: > Are you kidding? These people just did the credit card verifications. > They'd be in just as much trouble if they provided bearer credential > services. I don't think you understand how bearer credentials would work. With blinded bearer credentials, prosecutors wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on, since the authenticator is only validating the *existence*, or not, of a blinded age credential. With bearer credentials, authenticated in exchange, of course, for cash :-), the authenticator of those credentials has no idea *who* is asking for that proof of age. There's no direct sales contact with any particular content vendor. Validation of age would probably be done in somekind of graded auction market, anyway. >> Thomas Reedy, 37, and his wife, Janice Reedy, 32, of Fort Worth, are >> accused in an 87-count indictment of providing access to several child-porn >> Internet sites by verifying subscribers' credit cards and assigning them >> passwords. >> >> The Reedys maintain that they did not know that some of the pornographic >> sites they provided access to contained illegal child pornography. > > In fact if anything this kind of prosecution is an argument *against* > getting into the ecash/ecredential business, especially if it is focused > on porn as some have proposed. All you need is for someone to use it > to sell or authorize access to kiddie porn, and you're going to jail. It would be interesting to see this tested in court. There is sizeable legal precedent for the issuers of bearer cash, say a nation-state, not being held liable for purchases using that cash. The same could be said for issuers of bearer credentials. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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CDR: Re: Authenticate the "adult field", go to jail...
by obvious＠beta.freedom.net 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

The point is, RAH claimed that selling adult verification services using bearer credentials would be safe because, get this, the porn merchants would pay the verification service using anonymous ecash! First, there is no ecash and so this isn't a reasonable first step towards getting bearer credentials established and in use. Second, the supposed safety and blindness to the evilness of the business partners is solely due to the ecash. The verification service could use simple credit card numbers and passwords exactly as is done today, and still get all the benefits of deniability with regard to knowledge of the evil wares being sold. It is the ecash which provides the blindness on that side. Blinding the customers doesn't help at all in that regard. So RAH was doubly wrong to imply that bearer credentials would have helped out in this case where an age verification service is being prosecuted because one of their clients is selling kiddy porn. And if you can think outside the cypherpunk box for a minute, maybe this will shed a little light on why the MTB didn't get into bed with pornographers. If RAH thinks he can con people into building a business on this model he better think again. Obvious. ________________________________________________________________________ Total Internet Privacy -- get your Freedom Nym at http://www.freedom.net

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CDR: Survey meters.
by Anis Ahmed Sheikh 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

Dear Sir, We request to draw your kind attention that we are one of the feading importers of Pakistan.We belive in planed and organised sale promotion through trained field staffs,preferably where we have sole agencies. Our business is of scientific & laboratory equipments,electric & electronic measuring equipments,agriculture equipments, NUCLEAR INSTRUMENTS and educational instruments . We are great intrested to enhanse business deal with your esteemed firm if we could get encouragement and coopration from your side. At present we are deeply intrested in SURVEY METERS , as we have received a tender enquiry from government department{NIAB FAISALABAD} whose last date is 14-12-2000 , the specification are given bellow:- i. Survey Meters, G.M.Sintilation detector, Threshold: 30MV +/- 10mV Meter dial: 0-2mT/hr and multiplier[X01,X1, X10,X100] (OR EQUIVALENT ANY MODELS) We know that you are one of few biggest manufacturers of the world,so that your are requested to plese inform us the prices on FAX or E.Mail and despatch us original brochures/litratures/leaflets of all type of above cited items by POST MAIL for our customers and endusers. We also request you to please despatch us your latest general catalogue comprehensive leaflets of all of your products those are under your export programme with latest pricelist and discount schedule, after rceving the litratures we can be able to creat the demand of your products through out Pakistan. Thanking and hoping to receive your earliest reply in this regards with best wishes. Best Regards. Anis Ahmad Sheikh(M.Sc Physics) Managing Director. Mailing/Postal address:- G.R.A. TRADING COMPANY, 13-ABKARI ROAD (ANARKALI) LAHORE-54000 PAKISTAN. PH; +92-42-7321688/7240189 FAX: +92-42 724 8358 E.MAIL gra(a)lhr.paknet.com.pk.

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CDR: re: Imagine
by auto105391＠hushmail.com 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

I guess you realize this is satire, but lets be accurate! 1. W won't actually be declared the winner until January 6th. Until then, he is therefore self-declared. 2. That's democracy as in "the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privilege," and having some say in how the republic is governed. The Electoral College was in part created to safeguard the powers of the smaller colonies. If America hadn't already been parceled up into colonies, it is doubtful that they would have come up with the Electoral College. 3. The "fact" that votes were not counted previously (when there was a clear winner) is not germain (what do the damn Germans have to do with this?) to the question of who in this case received the most votes. The number of ballots needed to say this is disputed is a small fraction of those 1% of ballots that a machine could not read. These are ballots that a republican "mob" are attempting to reject from the count. So basically, you're saying that people who most likely vote republican but can't follow instructions should be counted, but people who most likely vote democrat but can't follow instructions should not? 4. One would think that the appropriate credentials for designing a ballot would be human factors training, not party affiliation. It was probably crystal clear to them what the ballot said. I'm sure math teachers can read each others tests, but that doesn't really address whether the test is fair for the students. Again, past results which were not scrutinized hardly constitute a valid argument as to the effectiveness of the ballot. Remembering which hole you punched is not related to how you decided which hole to punch. 5. Is it not true that minorities turned out in record numbers and most of them voted democrat? If all else fails, call them a commie! Do the words "ad hominem" come to mind? 6. Are you saying the state police are commies? 7. Again the original statement is true. The margin of victory was less than the margin of error. And yet someone declared themself the winner. Any hand recounts performed (and some were not performed, others stopped) were in full view of republican operatives. 8. Again the original statement is true. Of course the result of two machine counts jibe, it would be really scary if it didn't. If you're going declare a winner based on the machine count, and the machine count has an error rate greater than the difference, it is a tie. A more accurate count requires a more accurate machine (i.e. a human). If you can document a case of tampering, I suggest you take it to the appropriate authorities. 9. Which part is false? 10. Again which part is false? You simply changed the subject. I'm sure Newt or Delay are very interested in bridging the gulf with Clinton! This Nixon thing amuses me. Nixon arguably lost the popular vote, was behind in electoral votes, and disputing Illinois would have brought him that much closer to winning. In this case, Bush lost the popular (not as arguably) vote, and without Florida is losing in electoral votes. Who should have conceded? Ashcroft conceded for political reasons, not for the country. While it is probably important to some people in Missouri, most of the country doesn't know who Missouri's senators are. He would have been contesting a grieving widow and the memory of a the Govenor. >From one misguided minion to another

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[e-gold-list] ecash news
by Jeff Fitzmyers 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

Business 2.0: Citigroup to Push Ecash into Primetime. Citigroup and America Online certainly know about consumers. They are, after all, the world's leading financial institution and the top online service provider. Now the two bet that by joining forces, they can bring electronic-payment services into the mainstream... By 2005, market-research firm Ovum predicts, e-payment transactions will exceed $2.2 trillion... c2it will be free to users for the first three months, after which it will cost $2 for each person-to-person transaction. http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2000/11/28/23068 SJ Mercury: Jumping on bandwagon of eBay criticism. There's reason to believe -- maybe not now, but soon -- that eBay's $170 million acquisition of Billpoint, its online bill-payment service, may need to be re-examined. In the worst case, some people are predicting that eBay may even consider selling it.... A month ago, PayPal began imposing charges on sellers of 1.9 percent plus a 35-cent transaction fee, not unreasonable in the credit card world. And in a case of one company zigging while the other zags, Billpoint has suspended its ordinary 2.5 percent seller charge for Visa users over the holidays in an effort to gain market. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/front/docs/sh112700.htm From: http://www.tomalak.org/todayslinks/newsletter.html --- <Snippage> --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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[e-gold-list] ecash news
by Jeff Fitzmyers 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

Business 2.0: Citigroup to Push Ecash into Primetime. Citigroup and America Online certainly know about consumers. They are, after all, the world's leading financial institution and the top online service provider. Now the two bet that by joining forces, they can bring electronic-payment services into the mainstream... By 2005, market-research firm Ovum predicts, e-payment transactions will exceed $2.2 trillion... c2it will be free to users for the first three months, after which it will cost $2 for each person-to-person transaction. http://www.business2.com/content/channels/ebusiness/2000/11/28/23068 SJ Mercury: Jumping on bandwagon of eBay criticism. There's reason to believe -- maybe not now, but soon -- that eBay's $170 million acquisition of Billpoint, its online bill-payment service, may need to be re-examined. In the worst case, some people are predicting that eBay may even consider selling it.... A month ago, PayPal began imposing charges on sellers of 1.9 percent plus a 35-cent transaction fee, not unreasonable in the credit card world. And in a case of one company zigging while the other zags, Billpoint has suspended its ordinary 2.5 percent seller charge for Visa users over the holidays in an effort to gain market. http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/front/docs/sh112700.htm From: http://www.tomalak.org/todayslinks/newsletter.html --- <Snippage> --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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CDR: bell does usenet
by Anonymous Remailer 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

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CDR: Re: Vinge
by brflgnk＠cotse.com 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

Quoting Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net>: > Considering that the new edition of "True Names" is just about to > appear, > and has a bunch of related essays in it, I certainly wouldn't have paid > $25 > for the pb. Any idea when? Amazon's had me on backorder for 15 months.

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CDR: Re: Lost password
by Bill Stewart 29 Nov '00

29 Nov '00

At 10:07 AM 11/28/00 -0800, Console Cowboy wrote: >Has anyone though about setting this list to only accept mail from it's >members? That would seem to solve quite a few of these issues (issues >meaning lots of spam, like 2-5 messages a day of spam from this address.) Newbie, eh? We probably haven't discussed this for a month or so. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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