November 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Thumbprint, No Rental Car
by Steve Schear 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

No Thumbprint, No Rental Car Dollar Rent A Car is currently making customers give a thumbprint before they give them the keys, another example of biometrics being used for ID purposes. http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,48552,00.html

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Re: Denning's Geo-crypto
by Eugene Leitl 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

On Thu, 22 Nov 2001, Eugene Leitl wrote: > Given that a GPS receiver gets ephemeris data, almanach data and > pseudorandom code from each currently visible sat it has probably to do > with the latter. Consider S/A (which may or may not be switched off now, I > haven't checked): if you've got a secret part of the key you can refine > your position despite deliberate degradation (selective availability) than > the party without the key. Forgot the URL: http://www.csr.utexas.edu/texas_pwv/midterm/gabor/gps.html The PRN is a tapped feedback shift register.

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NetCamo project
by dmolnar 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

http://netcamo.cs.tamu.edu/ "Within the NetCamo ( Network Camouflaging ) project, we study how to prevent traffic analysis in mission-critical QoS-guaranteed networks." Some of the people from this project gave a talk at the USENIX Security works-in-progress session on "a quantitative analysis of anonymous communications." Abstract is at: http://www.usenix.org/events/sec01/mcdaniel_wip.html Anyone else taken a look at these people?

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RE: The Crypto-Financial Paradox
by Ryan Lackey 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

Bob Hettinga wrote: > Quoting "Blanc <blancw(a)cnw.com>": > > But sometimes it seems like it will be a Cold Day in Hell before > > that happens. > > (Ryan, would you make this your next project? > > We'd all appreciate it *ever* so much.) I think I've figured out why ecash hasn't been deployed. 1) "Math is hard! Let's go shopping!" 2) Yet, ecash can be used for shopping. The resulting paradox has rendered ecash a logical impossibility :) > Not to un-swash his buckle, and all that, because he really deserves > massive kudos for what he's done with HavenCo., but Ryan's already > tried that, once before, on Anguilla, if we all remember, and it > wasn't at all pretty (cf. Declan's articles earlier this year about > the E-Gold/Systemics pissing contest). Twice, actually, if you count HINDE. (unclear if 0 for 2 is better than 0 for 1; I actually think so. Better than 0 for 0 regardless.) -- Ryan Lackey [RL7618 RL5931-RIPE] ryan(a)havenco.com CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd. +44 7970 633 277 the free world just milliseconds away http://www.havenco.com/ OpenPGP 4096: B8B8 3D95 F940 9760 C64B DE90 07AD BE07 D2E0 301F

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Nov. 26: Barry Hurewitz, HIIP Seminar on Privacy; Nov. 29: Jerry Hausman, New Directions in Regulation Seminar on Broadband Access
by R. A. Hettinga 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

--- begin forwarded text

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Re: The Crypto Winter
by David Honig 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

At 01:27 AM 11/20/01 +0200, Sampo Syreeni wrote: >On Mon, 19 Nov 2001 georgemw(a)speakeasy.net wrote: > >>It's amazing how many people assert this, even though it's clearly >>wrong. A gold standard does NOT mean that the amount of currency in >>circulation equals the amount of gold in the vaults, it means that the >>currency is exchangeable for gold at a fixed rate. Obviously, there can >>be more gold in the vaults than you need to actually exchange every >>dollar for the correct amount of gold. Less obviously, there can be >>less. > >Of course, the system also exposes the currency to fluctuations in world >wide supply of gold. It's not sane policy to tie one's unit of currency to >any particular good -- think about what it would mean if the chosen good >was unrefined oil, a particular crop or electrical power. One'll get the >picture fairly soon. Yes, but what this thread has ignored is that gold (and other densely precious things) were valued *in and of themselves* and so using them as money was not symbolic. You traded your goat for a goat's worth of gold; if trust evaporated overnight the gold is still worth something. Similarly with barrels of oil. If you discover a lot of it under your topsoil, you get wealth because the substance itself has utility. >It's not really sane to opt for a tie-in to the supply of a particular >currency, either -- that's actually even worse, since the people printing >the bills can cause fluctuations in the exchange rate even easier than >they could if they were just digging up precious metals up from the crust. > >Hence, private, floating currency, which, again, is old news on the list. Clearly stated.

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RE: why market to Joe Sixpack?,
by mattd 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

"efforts are better spent developing the technologies and markets in such a way that maybe Joe Sixpack will someday follow. " Tim wrote. Technologies like quantum computing could be to late/impossible/to expensive.Markets seem more promising even in freeloaders heaven,the web,plenty will pay for games.Theres a take off of the IMF/WTOvs demonstrators battles so why not a cypherpunks vs the evil feds game on X-box or gameboy?Some of the more exciting and futuristic applications of cryptoanarchy could be on the higher levels.The base game simply being how much you can get away with before being frogmarched off to 'happy fun court'. Ive got a funny feeling that P-P hordes are about to descend on crypto like locusts,anyone else?

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99
by road 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

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memo
by Leona Wing 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

Status Alert: .BIZ is NOW LIVE The new .BIZ domain extension was officially launched today, and new registrations are already on a record-setting pace. Several sites have just made .BIZ available to the general public which means that ordinary internet users can register this exciting new domain without the cumbersome paperwork. One such popular site is: http://www.InfoGrab.com Brief History Back in November, 2000, ICANN, the regulatory agency which oversees the Internet's Domain Name System, approved seven new domain extensions to meet growing demand from the consumer and business sectors. Since the new extensions were first announced last year, experts have widely expected .BIZ to become the most popular of the new extensions and to eventually supercede .COM. The .BIZ registry will be managed by upstart NeuLevel, in direct competition with the former monopoly of Network Solutions. .BIZ represents the first new generic domain name to be introduced since .COM was first launched in 1984. In the ten year span between 1984 and 1994, less than one million .COM domains were registered in total. Today, the registration total for .BIZ will have already exceeded one million. How times have changed... The Benefits: .BIZ aims to be the quintessential domain choice for all businesses on the Internet. Short for .BUSINESS, the .BIZ domain directly addresses the growing need for new generic domain names to eventually replace .COM as the Internet most widely used domain name. The benefits to go .BIZ are clear: * abundant availability of easy to remember and practical domain names * technically recognized across the Internet's DNS * short and catchy extension * affordable registration fees and simplified registration procedures "Establishing a .biz domain name also will help companies cut through the .com clutter. More than 28 million .com names have already been registered. Since the .com domain covers so many sites serving so many different purposes, it's impossible to know whether a particular .com address represents a bona-fide business. In contrast, .biz means business, period." Chicago Tribune, August 22, 2001 To register a new .BIZ extension, you will simply need to check the availability of your domain name at: http://www.InfoGrab.com and then register it using the easy 3 step process which takes less than 5 minutes. *************************************************************************** This firm opposes the continued sending of unsolicited email and does not intend to send email to anyone who does not wish to receive their special mailings. As a result, they have retained the services of Auto Email Removal, an independent 3rd party, to administer their list management and removal services (http://www.autoemailremoval.com/cgi-bin/remove.pl?email=cypherpunks@ssz.com) This is not unsolicited email. If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please click this link and your removal request will be honored. The removal administrator can then preclude your email address from future mailings. http://www.autoemailremoval.com/cgi-bin/remove.pl?email=cypherpunks@ssz.com Auto Email Removal Company. Ref# 011105 ***************************************************************************

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Mail Delivery Problem
by Mail Delivery Subsystem 22 Nov '01

22 Nov '01

Sorry cypherpunks(a)toad.com. Your mail to funkymonkey323 could not be delivered because funkymonkey323 is not accepting mail with attachments or embedded images

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