November 2000 - cypherpunks-legacy

psst! wanna buy some anonymity, meester?
by Somebody 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

In which a skeptical eye is cast on various privacy enhanced web shopping tools. Here's one gem from the article: "Anonymity works in the favor of fraudsters," -- VP at Visa. http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?template=tech_a&slug… --- 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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psst! wanna buy some anonymity, meester?
by Somebody 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

In which a skeptical eye is cast on various privacy enhanced web shopping tools. Here's one gem from the article: "Anonymity works in the favor of fraudsters," -- VP at Visa. http://www.startribune.com/viewers/qview/cgi/qview.cgi?template=tech_a&slug… --- 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: While we're talking about income mobility... (was Re: ip: NCPA Policy Digest 11-2-00)
by R. A. Hettinga 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

At 10:52 AM -0600 on 11/2/00, National Center for Policy Analysis wrote: > UP AND DOWN THE INCOME LADDER > > Politicians addicted to class warfare rhetoric use the term "the > rich" as though it were some permanent economic class. But more > moderate analysts point out that individuals move up and down > the income ladder with startling frequency. > > Are those individuals with higher incomes right after graduation > from high school or college still on the top rung 10 or 20 years > later? Anyone who has attended a school reunion knows that the > end results are often surprising. > > o A Social Security-based study has documented that more > than 70 percent of male workers move significant > distances up or down the income ladder in a span of only > 15 years. > > o Earnings histories tracked by Social Security show that > less than 50 percent of the people on the top or bottom > rung in any year are still on the same rung 10 to 15 > years later. > > o On the bottom rung, the "stagnation rate" is only 35 > percent. > > o Another study, using the National Longitudinal Survey of > Youth, has revealed that 60 percent of the young people > who start out working for minimum wages no longer work > for such low wages two years later -- and only 15 percent > have minimum-wage jobs three years later. > > Some observers point out that many academics fail to appreciate > the dynamics of economic mobility because they work in rigidly > hierarchical university systems where promotion must be granted > by one's seniors. > > The evidence is overwhelming, however, that such immobility is > the exception, not the rule. > > Source: Bradley Schiller (American University School of Public > Affairs), "Who Are the Rich?" Washington Times, November 2, > 2000. > > For text > http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000112193044.htm > > For more on Income Mobility > http://www.ncpa.org/pd/economy/econ7.html -- ----------------- 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: ACLU Charges Political Censorship, Challenges CA's Shutdown of Votexchange.com (fwd)
by !Dr. Joe Baptista 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 11:36:53 -0800 From: Simon Higgs <simon(a)HIGGS.COM> To: DOMAIN-POLICY(a)LISTS.NETSOL.COM Subject: ACLU Charges Political Censorship, Challenges CA's Shutdown of Votexchange.com ACLU Press Release: 11-02-00 -- ACLU Charges Political Censorship, Challenges CA's Shutdown of Votexchange.com ACLU Charges Political Censorship, Challenges CA's Shutdown of Votexchange.com Thursday, November 2, 2000 LOS ANGELES The ACLU affiliates of Southern California and San Diego announced today that they will seek a temporary restraining order against California Secretary of State Bill Jones, who threatened criminal prosecution against a voter discussion and strategizing web site called Voteswap 2000. As a result of a letter Jones sent to Voteswap, that web site and two others, including the ACLU client votexchange2000.com, decided to shut down this week rather than run the risk of being prosecuted. The ACLU is also filing the lawsuit on behalf of a prospective voter. The National Voting Rights Project joins the ACLU as co-counsel in the case. "Votexchange2000 and other similar web sites have a clear political message," said Peter Eliasberg, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, "and that qualifies them for the highest level of protection under the First Amendment, whether or not Secretary Jones approves of their message or aim." "Jones's interpretation of this statute is so far-reaching," he added, "that it could encompass a vast array of voting-related behavior and speech which we all recognize as perfectly legitimate, even if we don't practice them ourselves." The vote discussion and matching sites sprang up as early as October 1, and several were launched recently in response to an on-line opinion piece advocating that voters get together on-line and strategize about how to accomplish their shared aims. Scores of thousands of potential voters have visited the sites since they were launched. Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones cracked down on the innovative discussion of voting strategies, claiming that sites which host and facilitate such discussions violate California's Election Code � 18521, which prohibits offering payment or any other "valuable consideration" to people so that they will or will not vote. ACLU attorneys say the law is not applicable, or, if construed to be applicable, that it is not, in that case, Constitutionally sound. "Discussing and agreeing to a co-operative voting strategy is absolutely distinct from offering or receiving payment for a vote," said Eliasberg. "This is not equivalent to handing someone a five-dollar bill -- it is an obviously unenforceable and unverifiable personal pledge to vote in a certain way." "Jones's interpretation of this law could conceivably qualify any kind of speech as an inducement," he added. "If I promise to commend a person for voting in a way I approve of, is that offering an inducement?" Eliasberg offered the following examples of voting-related behavior and speech that Jones's interpretation of the law would make criminal: Two spouses discuss their vote, realize they disagree on every important issue, and agree that, since they're cancelling one another out, neither will vote. Two friendly legislators who disagree with one another's positions arrange not to vote on two separate occasions, when one, then the other, is absent, thus cancelling out the effect of their absences on the final decisions made. ; A politician such as Governor George Bush or Vice President Al Gore offers a monetary inducement in the form of a tax cut to a voter. A politician, during tough economic times, promises "a chicken in every pot" if voters cast their vote for him. A political columnist urges voters to do exactly what the web sites in question urge them to do. "Bill Jones seems to be afraid of the Internet and the powers of expression and association that it gives to people," said Eliasberg. "That power of combining immediate association and direct speech is the reason people have sought to regulate the Internet more strictly than other media. I don't believe that Jones would have made the same threats if the same content had been expressed in a more traditional medium such as a newspaper column or a call-in radio show." "Jones and other government officials and agencies need to take notice," said Eliasberg. "The ACLU will not allow the Internet to become the First Amendment punching bag, to become the one medium in which we allow the government to act out its habitual suspicion of public free speech and free association." Best Regards, Simon -- I hope you're taking good notes, because history will be reported differently.

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CDR: Vint Cerf, ISOC Dictator and the CIA/NSC Man on the ICANN Board, Says Security Crucial to Internet's Future (fwd)
by !Dr. Joe Baptista 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

COMPUTERGRAM INTERNATIONAL: NOVEMBER 03 2000 + Vint Cerf Says Security Crucial to Internet's Future Vinton Cerf, one of the few men who can claim to be credited with being the "father of the internet", yesterday warned that security needs to tighten up in most areas if the internet is to fully achieve its potential. Cerf, WorldCom Inc's senior vice president of internet architecture and technology, made his plea for tighter security at the Compsec2000 International conference in London, UK yesterday. Cerf, who is perhaps best known as the co-designer of the web's TCP/IP protocols, outlined numerous areas where security could be improved. He named cryptographic technology, network security, host security and internet-enabled appliances among the main candidates where improvements are needed. First on Cerf's hit list is the problem of cryptography. Cerf pointed to the need for a universally adopted non-proprietary standard. While the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has now accepted the Rijndael algorithm of Belgian researchers Vincent Rijmen and Joan Daemen as its sole candidate for standardization, the search for alternative standards in both Japan and Europe threatens the possibility of a unified approach, he said. Cerf also criticized the slow rate of adoption of public key infrastructure (PKI) in the public and cross enterprise arenas, and argued strongly for the separation of identification and authentication. Identity, he said, should just be a means of declaring oneself for validation. Registering should not itself confer authority. That should be left to individual entities based on their own database rather than centralizing all knowledge of individuals. Cerf said there is a also a need for multiple public and private keys to avoid people using others' public keys as identifiers. He also argued that global verification standards may need to relinquished in favor of using different methods for individuals, enterprises and governments. In terms of network security, Cerf said the internet protocol security (IPSec) standard is well specified, giving hosts the chance to defend themselves, but there is still a need to adopt a common key distribution process and firewalls that defend against internal threats. He also said there is a need for end-to-end encryption in VPNs in order to prevent any danger from packet leaks into other networks. Host security is also critical, especially in a world of increasingly distributed systems. Cerf said internal firewalls within operating systems may be needed to overcome their inherent security weaknesses. He also advocated mutual and continuous authentication between devices to prevent hijacking of IP addresses and active monitoring, for instance for virus detection and trojan horse signatures. Within the distributed world, internet-enabled appliances, such as the much-hyped internet refrigerator, are likely to form the next target for hackers, he said. As such, he said that authentication is needed for secure device control from the net to stop, say, the kid next door reprogramming your house while you are away. The profusion of such devices, enabled by putting IP into hardware, will also quickly put a strain on IP address space, he said. .............................................................. Michael Sondow ================================================================= INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF INDEPENDENT INTERNET USERS http://www.iciiu.org (ICIIU) iciiu(a)iciiu.org Tel(718)846-7482 Fax(603)754-8927 =================================================================

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CDR: psst! wanna buy some anonymity, meester?
by R. A. Hettinga 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

--- begin forwarded text

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None
by Bill Twort 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

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CDR: Soft Money for Green Medea Benjamin
by Bill Stewart 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

The SF Bay Guardian, 11/1/00, pg.23, has a big ad for Green senatorial candidate Medea Benjamin, paid for by "Philip H. Wilkie and the Green Party of California" "Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee". Friends, this is _soft_money_, right here in San Francisco, and it's a good example of the kind of thing many campaign finance "reform" proposals would ban - and why the First Amendment is a better campaign finance law that the ones we're using today. I highly respect Medea - she's strong, principled, and has guts. She's done a lot of election monitoring around the world. She needs to learn some reality about economics, and why economic rights are critical parts of human rights, but that's the usual Green problem. :-) I happened to catch the news the other night, where the bipartisan debate between Dianne Feinstein (boo, hiss!) and Republican Tom Campbell (who opposes the Drug War) got upstaged by Medea's protests outside KRON (or whichever TV-monopoly station it was). It was a class act, particularly when she and Campbell hugged each other after both talking to the crowd. Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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CDR: Zero Knowledge changes business model (press release)
by Declan McCullagh 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

>From: kcory(a)redwhistle.com >To: declan(a)well.com >Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 06:55:11 -0800 >Subject: Zero-Knowledge Introduces Managed Privacy Services for Businesses > > > >Hi Declan, >Today, Zero-Knowledge Systems is introducing its Managed Privacy >Services (MPS) offering to solve the privacy challenges >that businesses face in today's privacy-conscious business >environment. > >Privacy is good business. Companies in every industry are >realizing they must institute the proper privacy policies, >practices and infrastructures in order to succeed in >today's digital economy. Zero-Knowledge Managed Privacy >Services provides the tools and strategies that enable >business to establish private customer relationships and >earn consumer trust while ensuring legislative compliance >and mitigating risk. > >As companies have become aware of the privacy risks and >legislative hurdles facing them, many have turned to Zero- >Knowledge for advice and solutions, and the MPS offering is >the natural response to companies' needs for comprehensive >privacy solutions. > >I've included the press release about MPS below. If you >have any questions about Zero-Knowledge's Managed Privacy >Services offering or would like to set up a conversation >with Zero-Knowledge President Austin Hill, please give me a >call at 503-552-3749. > >Best regards, >Kristy Cory >503-552-3749 > >ZERO-KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS INTRODUCES MANAGED PRIVACY SERVICES >TO SOLVE THE PRIVACY CHALLENGES OF BUSINESSES > > >Montreal -- October 31, 2000 -- Zero-Knowledge(R) Systems, >the leading developer of privacy solutions, today >introduced its new Managed Privacy Services(TM) offering to >solve the privacy challenges of businesses and enable >enterprise to thrive in a privacy-conscious climate. >Delivering a unique combination of technology, policy and >strategy expertise, Zero-Knowledge Managed Privacy Services >(MPS) enables clients to turn privacy into a competitive >advantage by leveraging rich data resources while building >stronger and more profitable relationships with customers, >employees and partners. MPS is based on responsible and >ethical information management in accordance with relevant >legislation and industry standards. > >"Privacy is good business -- and Zero-Knowledge Systems is >the company that can deliver continued privacy value to >companies that want to succeed in today's digital economy," >said Austin Hill, president of Zero-Knowledge >Systems. "Through expert professional services and >technological solutions, Zero-Knowledge Systems works with >companies to leverage and develop the rich data resources >they need, while ensuring that their customers' personal >information will not be abused, misused or sold without >their permission." > >Employing a broad toolkit of privacy-enhancing technologies >that control and protect data, MPS brings privacy-based >services to a variety of markets for the first time. These >include: financial services, health care, wireless, >marketing, CRM and hosted solutions (ASPs). > >The Managed Privacy Services Process >Zero-Knowledge MPS fuses sophisticated infrastructure >design, advanced cryptographic systems and world-class >privacy expertise to deliver strong privacy integration to >a wide variety of business processes and system designs. >Following a period of assessment and design, MPS culminates >in the deployment of a tailored privacy layer that >integrates seamlessly with the client's existing enterprise >applications. > >* ASSESS AND ADVISE -- Managed Privacy Services begins with >a thorough assessment of each client's data storage and >usage patterns, as well as their business objectives. From >this assessment, recommendations are made regarding areas >where data can be better utilized through the addition of a >strong privacy layer, and areas of potential privacy risk >are identified. > >* DESIGN AND IMPLEMENT -- The assessment stage provides the >framework for all aspects of the infrastructure design, and >determines which Zero-Knowledge privacy technologies are >best suited to the client's needs. The result is a solution >that not only secures and protects the client's data, but >also allows for a wider array of data-driven activities. >Professional systems integration ensures that all the >client's business requirements are met, and guarantees the >final design will result in the most robust and flexible >system possible. > >* VERIFY AND MANAGE -- Zero-Knowledge is able to manage all >elements of the privacy infrastructure, allowing clients to >focus on their core competencies, and providing third-party >credibility to a client's privacy initiatives. Independent >audits ensure that the system deployed is in compliance >with stated policies, and that all controls are functioning >as per the design specifications. > >Zero-Knowledge is committed to deploying systems that are >transparent and accountable. In keeping with this policy, >MPS will incorporate third party verification and split >encryption key structures, as well as provide consumers >with access to white papers, independent auditors' reports >or other materials that assure a company is doing what it >claims. With MPS Zero-Knowledge strengthens its commitment >to building responsible systems that empower consumers to >control the disclosure and use of their personal >information, while still enabling businesses to thrive in a >data and relationship-driven marketplace. > >Zero-Knowledge Systems Leads Privacy Education >Zero-Knowledge Systems is also presenting the "Privacy by >Design: The Future of Privacy Compliance and Business" >conference sponsored by Royal Bank Financial Group, IBM, >Merrill Lynch, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Incorporating >the privacy expertise of leading business, technology and >privacy figures, Privacy by Design will advise attendees on >how to develop, execute and market a successful privacy >strategy that will avoid regulatory breaches and >differentiate their business in the marketplace with a >demonstrable commitment to privacy. The conference will be >held at Le Chateau Montebello, Quebec from November 19 to >21, 2000. For more information on Privacy by Design, >including a detailed agenda, visit the conference Web site: >http://www.zeroknowledge.com/privacybydesign.html > >About Zero-Knowledge Systems, Inc. >Founded in 1997, Zero-Knowledge Systems >(http://www.zeroknowledge.com) is laying the digital >infrastructure for privacy-enabled communications and >commerce between individuals, companies, governments and >organizations. Zero-Knowledge creates products and services >that enable privacy through advanced mathematics, >cryptography and source code: the only reliable way to >ensure privacy. > >In December 1999, Zero-Knowledge launched Freedom(R), the >only privacy system that empowers Internet users to surf >the Web, send email, chat and post to newsgroups in total >privacy without having to trust third parties with their >personal information. Freedom can be downloaded at >http://www.freedom.net and Freedom source code is available >at http://opensource.zeroknowledge.com. In October 2000, >Zero-Knowledge launched its Managed Privacy Services(TM) >offering to provide expert consultation and privacy- >enhancing solutions that enable businesses to comply with >privacy legislation, maximize customer relationships and >build consumer trust without violating privacy. More >information about MPS can be found at >http://www.zeroknowledge.com/business. > >Journalists can visit the Zero-Knowledge pressroom at >http://www.zeroknowledge.com/media. > > (Freedom, Zero-Knowledge and Managed Privacy Services are >registered trademarks of Zero-Knowledge Systems, Inc. All >other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.) > >For more information >Dov Smith >Director of Public Relations >514.350.7553 >dov(a)zeroknowledge.com > >Kristy Cory >Red Whistle Communications >503.552.3749 >kcory(a)redwhistle.com > > > > > >

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CDR: RE: Nader
by Trei, Peter 03 Nov '00

03 Nov '00

[much snippage] > ---------- > From: James A, Donald[SMTP:jamesd@echeque.com] > > The book "the millionaire next door" does provides plausible evidence that > > in their origins, millionaires are close to being a cross section of > America. > > The Forbes 400, listing the 400 most wealthy Americans, is on the newstands right now. While I don't have it at hand right now, the self-made men significantly outnumber those who inherited all or part of their wealth. The cut-off point this year is $725M. The list can be browsed at http://www.forbes.com/400richest/ , but doesn't include the self made vs inherited data (which is in the dead tree edition). Peter

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