October 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Stupid Congress Tricks: anti-terror bills target cash
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

Declan, The authoritarian streak is wide and deep ain't it? Every time I hear Bush talk about protecting freedom I feel nauseous. Which bill? Is this bill referring to annyone carrying cash within the borders or to people crossing the borders? There are already customs regulations with a $10k threshold. Mike

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WTC photos - broken metal, broken hearts
by Anonymous 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

At 11:34 AM 10/4/01 -0500, you wrote: >Virtually everyone who visits the WTC site reports the same effect: >news media. They just show broken metal. You can get the same thing >at the local junkyard. > not if you ever lived in new york, ate lunch innumerable times in the courtyard below the towers, watched the pink and blue sunrise reflect off them as you took a dawn ferry with your lover, watched the city glisten from a quarter-mile up in the sky, felt your stomach flutter in vertigo at the sheer size of the towers against the clouds standing at the base looking up ... We are in tears looking at the cracked city. You were never there, or you have no soul.

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Re: WTC Photos
by mmotyka＠lsil.com 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

"Dr. Evil" <drevil(a)sidereal.kz> wrote : > > This brings to mind something which would be a very cool project: Have > a digital camera that public key encrypts the photos before storing > them. Obviously the private key would be stored in some other safe > place, so if the camera is stolen, no one can see what the photographs > are. I'm sure Canon will never add this feature, but someday soon > these things may be running Linux and may be hackable. > > Anyway, I can't wait to see the photos. > Most of these things are SOCs based on standard 32-bit CPU's with specialized peripherals for CCD, LCD, pixel processing. Often they're using conventional RTOSes like VxWorks, pSOS, Nucleus. Most of them include some mechanism for updating the application SW in FLASH. That's where you might start disassembly. If the camera of interest is using an SOC that is not proprietary you can probably get data sheets from the Si manufacturer. They're definitely hackable. The BIG PROBLEM as with everything else is how to find the time to do the fun stuff? I think it would be cool to have a high quality CCD front end that could be used as an add-on to an iPAQ. Use a microdrive for storage, store everything in Bayer format(fast), do the post pocessing later or in the background. An iPAQ could handle the control of a front end and you could do whatever you want with the files. Mike

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RE: Nifty secret bank system
by Trei, Peter 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

> Sandfort[SMTP:sandfort@mindspring.com] wrote: > > > C'punks, > > I ran into a western version of "hawala" about 15 years ago. It was a > "blocked currency" service offered by a financial group. Here's how it > worked: > This type of thing is old - The Knights Templar set up a system by which a pilgrim could deposit money in his home country, and get a letter of credit which would enable him or her to draw on that at Templar preceptories across Europe and into the Holy Land (12th century). I wouldnt be suprised if there were Roman or earlier versions as well. > If you live in a currency-blocked country (South African was one, I think > it > still might be) you couldn't legally move more than a certain amount out > money out of the country. To get around this, you would be asked to tear > a > small denomination piece of paper money (e.g., a 1 rand note) in half. > You > would keep one half and the financial group would get the other half. > Both > halves of the bill would have the same serial number, of course. > > Later, you would get a call telling you where to take the cash you wished > to > move out of the country. At the appointed time and place an agent of the > financial group would meet you. To prove he was the right guy, he would > present the group's half of the bill. You would give him the money and > the > next day an equivalent amount would be on deposit in an account in your > name > in whatever country (and currency) you specified. The fee for this was > usually just the normal money changer's exchange rate. Of course, the > original cash never left South Africa, just as the cash in the hawala > system > never leaves the countries in question either. > The split-bill technique has old roots. http://www.slais.ubc.ca/news/slaisconference/miller.html "By the thirteenth century in England, private dealers, accountants and businessmen were using a royal financial system of the twelfth century to commit their business transactions to a physical medium. Their motivation was only to monitor and keep track of the multitude of transactions with clients in order to protect their self-interest. Thirteenth-century English businessmen used tally sticks to record a proof of payment for goods purchased or to show the liability of one party to make payments to another. Tally sticks were made of hazel wood and the transactions taking place would be recorded and reflected by notches carved into the tally with a knife. The names of the parties involved in the transaction were recorded with ink beside the notches, usually in Hebrew, Latin or French. Tallies have also been found to have seals attached to them, which were most likely used to authenticate the record. The size and shape of the notches, and therefore the terms of the transaction, would be mutually agreed upon by both parties, at which time the tally would be split down the middle. The two halves could then be brought together, like two pieces of a puzzle, to attest to the actual occurrence of the transaction and to protect against forgery (10). The tally stick is a bipartite record whereby both parties have a portion of the record to keep for their own interest and for evidence should they need to prove an obligation or right. Medieval chirographs are also characterized by their bipartite nature. Chirographs recorded agreements and transactions of many things including the exchanges of goods and services for financial consideration. The terms of the contract are written out twice (once on either side of the parchment) and one large title is then written across the top of the parchment spanning both instances of the contract. The parchment was then split down the middle, so each party could retain a record of the contract. Like the tally stick, the two pieces of parchment could be brought together and if the title at the top of the parchment lined up correctly, the contract was deemed authentic." ---------- [These tallysticks piled up in government archives, and were kept long after no one could read them (the dead media problem isn't new, either). In 1834 it was decided to dispose of them by burning, but the fire got out of control and burned down the Palace of Westminster] More recently, in (I think) Philadelphia, people were able to claim rewards for anonymous tips by sending in a torn sheet of paper along with the tip. They could later pick up the cash from a designated bank by producing the other half, and showing that the two matched. No ids where required. > One more aside. For a brief period when New Zealand was heavily > socialist, > the government wanted to stop people from traveling (and spending money) > abroad. Instead of banning travel, which would have caused a shit storm > of > controversy, thy just limited the amount of cash that could be taken out > of > the country to something like a few hundred bucks. Of course, resourceful > Kiwis just used their credit cards... > Britain did this in the late 60's, with a 50 pound limit. It was widely evaded. Graham Greene features it in 'Travels with my aunt" (which I reccomend highly). > S a n d y

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WTC Photos
by John Young 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

We're now tranferring the 72 WTC photos to Cryptome at full resolution, each about 1 MB. Due to the size we would appreciate a few mirrors being set up before we announce to ease the load on our new finicky server. If anyone can handle a collection of about 76MB, send me a message and I will provide a URL for the package when it is ready -- probably in an hour or two. Then the mirrors will be listed with the intro when announced. Brace for a long download of the set unless you got a T1. The intro explains how the crime scene was snapped. The photographer is not named, thank you for not fingering to whoever might be probing. Guiliani is very vindictive about leaks of info about his secret project.

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Re: How-to be a sheep article on the WSJ
by Peter Capelli 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Okay, here's a synopsis; He starts with the premise that after Sept. 11 'everything changed', and that safety needs now will start to trump all personal liberties. He goes on to describe before and after scenes from different parts of society: Before: We cared about medical records privacy After: Today, security 'needs' trump all privacy 'rights' Before: Americans demanded better, faster, cheaper air service After: 'No one complains, even silently, about exposing dirty underwear in a public place' (direct quote referring to hand checks of luggage at airports) Before: Face scanning technology is a frightening invasion of our privacy After: These technologies are 'comforting' today Before: NAFTA is good for the economy, and open trade leads the way to economic prosperity After: Fortifying the border with Canada is an utmost priority Before: Privatization of airport security makes economic and business sense After: Trust in central government is unquestioned and total. Federalizing airport security is a requirement. Here's his closing paragraph: - ------------------- The lasting impact of Sept. 11 is likely to be greatest on Americans in their late teens and early 20s, "the people who are still young enough to have their values being formed," Mr. Bulin suggests. For them, Sept. 11 will likely prove as important in shaping attitudes and behavior as the traumatic Kennedy assassination and the divisive Vietnam War were for an earlier generation. And it is truly impossible to predict just how that will show itself in the decades ahead. - ------------------- Hopefully he's right; but not in the way that he intended. It was a chilling article on how to roll over and reliquish liberties and rights fought and died for over hundreds of years, all in the name of safety. It was almost a treatise to crawl back into the womb of your 'mother', and leave all the nasty work to the government, who'll take care of you. It's hard to believe that the authors feelings are different from those expressed in the article, but as it was on the front page of the WSJ and not the editorial page, perhaps he was just reporting on what he was seeing in the US and not personalizing it. It's hard to live in a world with freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility. It's much easier to just relinquish control to a higher power and accept what fate comes to you. But that's not the spirit that made this country great, and it's not the attitude that will pull the US out of this jamb. - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei(a)rsasecurity.com> To: "'Peter Capelli'" <pcapelli(a)nsec.net> Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 11:21 AM Subject: RE: How-to be a sheep article on the WSJ > For those of us who aren't signed up, can you > give a summary? > > Peter Trei > > > > ---------- > > From: Peter Capelli[SMTP:pcapelli@nsec.net] > > > > > > Subscription required; i couldnt find it on their free > > opinionjournal site, where it should have been. At first I > > thought > > it was satire, but after reading it twice realized it wasn't. > > > > http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002146366879715800.htm > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.2 iQA/AwUBO7yIcWt0HGKCkmO2EQL5JgCgymf3J8nU2OkuC81oMCV8xlxM79EAoJ1z KvKxcjNPnqEWhSNr8sHsM4dS =8L5L -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Peer to Peer Newscasting: Morpheus
by Optimizzin Al-gorithm 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

\begin{cynical} This could just be Morpheus folks (ie Music City Inc) trying to document "legit" "public-good" filesharing uses so as to deter RIAA, MPAA types. \end{cynical} >From Morpheus startup screen: Listed below are examples of content created by Morpheus Users relating to current important stories and events. Just click below and search for images/audio/video news. Important news is being captured by users each day, and it is never made available to the public. Now you can do your part to make sure the news will always be available to members of the Morpheus Users Network. Imagine the power of a news organization with 20 million reporters around the world. BE THE MEDIA!

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Re: Nifty secret bank system
by Steve Schear 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

At 06:30 PM 10/3/2001 +0100, CDR Anonymizer wrote: >http://archives.nytimes.com/2001/10/03/international/03LAUN.html > >lo-tech, trust-based, stable and fully functional since antiquity. I like >it :-) You'll notice the cost of money transfers using this private system are well below international bank wires. If governments want to reduce/eliminate this "illicit" competition they should fully underwrite the cost of international wires below a certain threshold (say $10,000). steve

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How-to be a sheep article on the WSJ
by Peter Capelli 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Subscription required; i couldnt find it on their free opinionjournal site, where it should have been. At first I thought it was satire, but after reading it twice realized it wasn't. http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB1002146366879715800.htm Pete Capelli pcapelli(a)nsec.net http://www.capelli.org PGP Key ID:0x829263B6 "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.2 iQA/AwUBO7x8u2t0HGKCkmO2EQJMrgCdG/JZqM65Fad+SWcmB2vWmSPuGEcAnAnQ Q0ghV2akNl/kp75iaEn4M5PV =7uvc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Nasal Discharge & Reporting (commercial benign interrogation)
by Khoder bin Hakkin 04 Oct '01

04 Oct '01

How to be a sensitive journalist (US style) Crying If the interviewee cries, this is not necessarily a bad or harmful thing. Carry paper tissues at all times, and offer them as a caring gesture. One reason people feel self-conscious about crying is nasal discharge, and offering them a paper tissue can help. A friendly touch on the arm is also often good. http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/04/nmed…

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