November 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: "quitting havenco", not quite!
by Ryan Lackey 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

> Ryan and the other HavenCo folks deserve *massive* kudos for this. > (now, when is the HavenCo remailer going online? :-) The remailer has been up since 16 September 2001, and was announced to this list among others. http://remailer.havenco.com/ Next thing coming is "mail.havenco.com" with: * [SSL] IMAP/POP3/HTTP/SMTP with domain hosting for customers (point your domain MX at us, we'll resell mail accounts using your domain name and give you a percentage) * PGP Keyserver (this is not my favorite software..) * PGP auto-keysigner which does "proof of control of email address" ID signing; KDC for HAVENCO.COM, maybe x509 stuff. Would be good for gale keys as well. * Local mail archives (SSL, same URL as mail.havenco.com to provide cover traffic), googleified. * Ideally some linkage to instant messaging as well -- SMS to email or email to SMS gatewaying, various IMs, whatever. I have this for myself, but it's hard to figure out how to scale. * Mailing list creation and management * Some decent linking to remailer network; store/forward messaging over remailers, links to reply-block style remailers. Ease of use is more important for most people, so an anonymously-purchased imap mailbox is probably good enough in most cases. Probably start just by keeping remailer.havenco.com and mail.havenco.com on the same subnet with postfix-tls between the two. * *maybe* links to some kind of weblog/blog system (I'd actually like to write an RFC on how to share "friends" functionality" between these systems; it's a semi-complex database issue to do efficiently.) although this is pretty far from mail. * also, continue adding mirrors of various software Independently of havenco (well, using a purchased box): * Someone is setting up a file-storage thing with web interface on Sealand; might be designed to avoid public-content-hosting, just private, not sure. Followed by: (I have them for myself now, not commercial-grade yet) * Anonymizing proxy on Sealand, cover general traffic as well as havenco-destination traffic. Free and no ads to havenco-destination sites; free and ads and rate-limiting to elsewhere, or subscription. * VPN services to Sealand (PPP over SSH, some other tools) Followed by: (unlikely to even break-even) * Sourceforge-type offshore software development system (basic, will roll out features over time). Will charge for resources, but then people can sponsor individual projects, and I'll sponsor ones which are either technically or socially interesting. cvs, a build and test farm, www and ftp, links to the mail system, trouble ticketing, maybe some links to make it easy to develop and deploy code from the same interface (if it's a simple "web service" or something like that) The main projects which would benefit are "underground" things like dvd players with decss built in (Ogle), or various p2p projects, or general circumvention technology, or maybe crypto. Sourceforge does what it does quite well, so for general-purpose code, it's probably the best place to host. I hope to have something as good as sourceforge by summer 2002. The mail stuff is mostly done and just in testing, and working out support/payment issues, so it should be ready in December. -- Ryan Lackey ryan(a)havenco.com CTO and Co-founder, HavenCo Ltd. 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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Re: Pricing Mojo, Integrating PGP, TAZ, and D.C. Cypherpunks
by dmolnar 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

On Sun, 18 Nov 2001, Tim May wrote: > Any system involving units of Mojo, or understanding of auction models, > etc. is hampered. And any system that has only a tiny fraction of what > Napster had at its peak is hit with the "So what?" factor. And the Fax > Effect kicks in--few users, not as many options, stagnation. Mojo Nation doesn't have to "sell" directly to consumers. In fact, as you point out, it's not realistic to expect consumers to manage their own pricing. On the other hand, this might be an opportunity for people to build services on top of Mojo Nation. Such a "middle" service could provide a consumer with a turnkey, flat fee, no hassle service, while using Mojo Nation to obtain the most efficient prics possible for resources. The difference between the flat fee and the "most efficient" price provided by Mojo becomes the profit for the middle service. I don't even know if this works in theory, however. Presumably I could set up a model to investigate the relationship between "best possible" Mojo prices and the characteristics of the network - things like how many users, how much trading, liqudity, which pricing algorithms people use, and so on. Then we could ask questions like "how many people need to be offering which kinds of services before a service built on top of Mojo can be profitable?" The ideal situation would be one in which the middle service can undercut "traditional" providers -- and still make money. Except that doesn't look like it's going to happen in the real world. You've mentioned the fact that not enough people are running Mojo clients ("thin market"/"illiquid"). It's not clear what it would take to get more people in the Mojo marketplace; even if the theory works out beyond my wildest dreams and I could somehow "prove" that Mojo will make everyone money **if only ten million people sign up tomorrow**, I suspect no one would pay attention. There are other problems as well. For one thing, who are the "traditional providers" in the previous paragraph against whom a Mojo service would compete? in markets for which resources? In the case of disk space, it seems to be the people who make and sell hard drives; both entrenched and selling physical goods which any middle service would be hard pressed to emulate perfectly. Plus, as one of the anonymous posters noted, the disk market is quite non-volatile (maybe "boring" is the right word) with a pronounced trend downward; what is the incentive to use a Mojo-based service there if the customer can just wait a week and then buy a bigger HD? So are there markets for which a "middle service" could work? I apologize for going on at length about this, but if you want Mojo to correspond at all to real money instead of being a DoS protection feature, I don't see many other ways than "middle services" to make it work on a wide scale. Then again, I may just be lacking imagination. Does anyone happen to know of real-world current examples like this, in which some aggregator buys and sells a commodity on an exchange, then turns around and offers it at a flat rate to end users? > (Hint: Faustine, especially, should read "TAZ." And "True Names." And > "Ender's Game." And the archives. And the Cyphernomicon. Get beyond the > fog of the mundane and see where the degrees of freedom of the Web will > take us.) Have you seen the SemioText(e) anthology? "TAZ" is in it, along with stuff from J.G. Ballard, the Church of the Subgenius, stories vaguely inspired by gnosticism, and other usual suspects. Reading it reminded me of reading Douglas Rushkoff's _Cyberia_ for the first time -- another book which gives new meaning to your "see where the degrees of freedom of the Web will take us." Heady stuff, all of it, and now seems to be out of fashion, but that's a tangent... -David Molnar

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Production Mini-plants in mobile containers. Co-investment Program
by The Financial News 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

The Financial News, November 2001 Production Mini-plants in mobile containers. Co-investment Program "...Science Network will supply to countries and developing regions the technology and the necessary support for the production in series of Mini-plants in mobile containers (40-foot). The Mini-plant system is designed in such a way that all the production machinery is fixed on the platform of the container, with all wiring, piping, and installation parts; that is to say, they are fully equipped... and the mini-plant is ready for production." More than 700 portable production systems: Bakeries, Steel Nails, Welding Electrodes, Tire Retreading, Reinforcement Bar Bending for Construction Framework, Sheeting for Roofing, Ceilings and Façades, Plated Drums, Aluminum Buckets, Injected Polypropylene Housewares, Pressed Melamine Items (Glasses, Cups, Plates, Mugs, etc.), Mufflers, Construction Electrically Welded Mesh, Plastic Bags and Packaging, Mobile units of medical assistance, Sanitary Material, Hypodermic Syringes, Hemostatic Clamps, etc. Science Network has started a process of Co-investment for the installation of small Assembly plants to manufacture in series the Mini-plants of portable production on the site, region or country where they may be required. One of the most relevant features is the fact that these plants will be connected to the World Trade System (WTS) with access to more than 50 million raw materials, products and services and automatic transactions for world trade. Because of financial reasons, involving cost and social impact, the right thing to do is to set up assembly plants in the same countries and regions, using local resources (labor, some equipment, etc.) For more information: <A HREF="mailto:reports@the-financial-news.org">Mini-plants in mobile containers</A> By Steven P. Leibacher, The Financial News, Editor ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you received this in error or would like to be removed from our list, please return us indicating: remove or un-subscribe in 'subject' field, Thanks. <A HREF="mailto:newsletters@the-financial-news.org"> Editor</A> © 2001 The Financial News. All rights reserved.

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RE: "quitting havenco", not quite!
by Trei, Peter 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

> Ryan Lackey[SMTP:ryan@havenco.com] wrote [...] > 1) HavenCo is now making sufficient money and is stable enough to be > "boring". This is a *good* thing. Over the past year we've completed > most of the remaining engineering, and some of our other staff are > taking over more and more of the operations, first and second level > support, and administration. Nothing really breaks anymore; it's easy > to add new switches and routers without changing the underlying > architecture; it's all operations. [...] > Ryan Lackey ryan(a)havenco.com > Ryan and the other HavenCo folks deserve *massive* kudos for this. (now, when is the HavenCo remailer going online? :-) Peter Trei

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ecoin.net: anonymous payments today?
by Anonymous 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

Back in 1999, Steve Lihn posted to cypherpunks and some other mailing lists about his new online payment system, ecoin.net. He intended to work towards a blind coin system based on David Wagner's alternative to Chaum blinding, as implemented by Ben Laurie in the lucre library. Surprisingly, he is still in business. Some recent press releases: 8/15/01 eCoin OutExchange service is released. You can transfer fund to/from PayPal and e-Gold. Login and check it out. 7/25/01 Anonymous Cash Certificate is released. MMDH is finally in commercial use. Login and check it out. 6/30/01 PayPal Payment Interface is supported. Now you can transfer fund from your credit card by PayPal. 6/25/01 Managed Access Solution is released. Use eCoin to pay your subscription! 1/16/01 eCoin.net announces that e-Gold payment interface is formally supported. You will be able to purchase eCoins through your e-Gold account! Sounds like it might be worth it just for the transfer to/from PayPal. Also could be an alternative way to fund your e-Gold account anonymously. With the blinding it could be a real anonymous payment system. Credit card to PayPal, PayPal to eCoin, transfer eCoin anonymously, then from eCoin back to PayPal. Anyone want to try a transfer experimentally?

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A new exchange launches: Yachts & boats for sale or charter, holidays afloat and more....
by The team ＠ yacht-search.net 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

If you have any interest in yachting, boats, sailing or holidays afloat... Visit >> www.yacht-search.net << the new international boat & yacht charter & sales system - FREE OF CHARGE FOR ALL USERS... Free advertising or enquires using $1.5 Million USD (£1M) of technology! > CREATING NEW MARKETS WITH SEARCH & MATCH SOFTWARE FROM SEARCH PLC < (>>Brokers / owners / charterers<<) (We have been given your email address as someone who may be interested in the boating business; This email is a "one off" but if you have no interest in yachts or shipping and would like to be 100% sure that you will never receive an email from us again please simply mail unsubscribe(a)ship-search.com and type "remove" in the subject line - we apologize for bothering you.)

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Your McAfee.com Account
by subscriptions＠mcafee.com 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

Dear joe cypherpunk, Your McAfee.com account information has been updated. There is no action needed on your part. This message is simply a reminder and a notification to ensure the security of your account. If you did not make a change to your account or you believe that the security of your account may have been breached, please click here to verify your account information: -> http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/membership/update_profile_form.asp?OEMID= Sincerely, McAfee.com Membership Services

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RE: Liberating the Phillipine Islands
by Trei, Peter 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

> Tim May[SMTP:tcmay@got.net] wrote: > > > Marc de Piolenc > > Philippines > > > > And help the narco-nuko-islamo-terrorists in the PI? > > I just watched U.S. Defense Secretary and the latest PI chick president > talking about the Phillipines on tract to be the next major center of > Islamic unrest. > > "We are prepared to bomb Manila in order to root out terrorism," he > might as well have said. > > The U.S. seems to be settling into a comfortable pattern: rolling > application of overwhelming high tech power, with the cruise missiles, > bombs, and materiel paid for by taxpayers who enjoy the light show on > the evening news. > > --Tim May, Occupied America > One of the positive points of having young kids is that you get to watch cartoons without embarassment. This post instantly brought to mind the show 'Pinky and the Brain', with Bush and Cheney respectively filling the title roles. Pinky: "What are we gong to do tonight, Brain?" Brain: "Same thing we do every night, you numbskull..." [wait for it] "Try to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" ---------- Peter Trei

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RE: The bookburning begins...
by Trei, Peter 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

My favorite sentence from the referenced article is: :"We have to get away from the ethos that knowledge is good, knowledge should be publicly available, that information will liberate us," said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan." > F. Marc de Piolenc[SMTP:piolenc@mozcom.com] writes: > > In another life, I sell technical documents, so I monitor bookseller > lists. This could interest cypherpunks. > > Presumably, the reports to be destroyed include everything to do with > crypto. > > If I had the money, I would zip over to the States, visit my favorite > depository library (where the librarians know me and are certain to be > as disgusted by this as I am) and offer to relieve them of anything that > can no longer appear on their shelves. Fill a container with "waste > paper and microfilm" and send it over here. > > Dream on, Marc... > > Marc de Piolenc > Philippines > > Message: 23 > Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2001 08:21:10 -0600 (CST) > From: Jonathan Grobe <grobe(a)netins.net> > To: insider(a)lists.bookfinder.com > Subject: [BI] Goverment asking libraries to destroy government reports > > Not only is the government removing much material from its websites it > is > also asking depository libraries (which are sent government reports > free) to remove and destroy many government reports--because of > the recent terrorist incidents. > > Any comments? Any bookdealers destroying books which they think might be > useful to terrorists? > > http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-111801inform.story > > Jonathan Grobe > >

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Bills pilling up?
by FunnyMoney 20 Nov '01

20 Nov '01

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