November 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

A promoção do Rudolfo ?!
by info＠giganetstore.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

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by CrushMaster＠CrushLink.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

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You've Been Removed!
by Nurse-zine_admin＠allnurses.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

This message is to confirm the removal of your email address: cypherpunks(a)toad.com from the Nurse-zine mailing list. We're sorry to see you go! If you feel you have received this notice in error, please visit the Nurse-zine Subscribe Me mailing list at our website: http://allnurses.com to add yourself automatically, or click on the link below to automatically re-subscribe yourself: http://www.allnurses.com/subpro/subscribe.pl?add=1&list=5&email=cypherpunks… Thank you, Nurse-zine

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Re: Security-by-credential or security-by-inspection
by Nomen Nescio 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

There are so many misconceptions floating around here it's hard to know where to begin. But let's start with two points of agreement. First, airport screening is far from perfect. There is no way to detect all possible threats coming on the airplane. And given the technology and time available, it will always be possible to smuggle aboard knives, explosives and other dangerous devices more than sufficient to risk the lives of everyone on that airplane. Second, no ID based system is perfect, either. People can falsify their ID with varying degrees of expense and difficulty. Moving to biometrics can help but these can be spoofed as well. But to conclude from these points that we should just let everyone walk onto a plane with no more than the cursory inspection that has been used in the past is pure bullshit. Absence of perfection is no argument against a system. Someone once said that "all cryptography is economics." Well, all security is economics as well. Any argument which is based on the fact that loopholes and failures will exist is irrelevant. The point of security is to raise the cost of breaching it. That's all. Understanding and accepting this would raise the level of the dialog considerably. Given this fact, it makes no sense to intentionally blind screeners to relevant data when performing their security analysis. Those guards should have every scrap of information possible available to them. People who have a history of violence, who make threats, who are associates with known terrorists, all represent correspondingly greater risks. An efficient screening system will use this information to determine how carefully each passenger is examined. Resources are finite, and it is highly inefficient to apply exactly the same procedure to each individual. You'll have far more security for the same cost by allocating greater security resources to those individuals who pose the greatest risk based on the data available. They are the ones who need their bags hand-searched. They need the metal detector wand run over their entire bodies. They can empty their pockets and have their shoes removed and inspected. It is not practical to apply this level of scrutiny to every passenger. But by making use of public information, high risk individuals can be subjected to high levels of inspection. This is where the irony was pointed out, of cypherpunks calling for limits on the use of information! A group which prides itself on developing technologies that can keep damaging information alive is suddenly afraid, now that they may be the ones to suffer from their own past words. Tim May himself has called for the nuclear destruction of Washington, DC. He has expressed support for the actions of Tim McMay, sorry, McVeigh. He threatens death to judges, police officers, even reporters who misquote him. He has said that the local police have put him on their watch list as a potentially dangerous individual. Clearly, he would be a prime target for any selective screening effort. And this is entirely appropriate. Certainly many of us here would feel more comfortable riding on a plane with an unstable, violent individual if he had been searched thoroughly, preferably including body cavities. Some have claimed to object only because the government is involved in the search. That's a red herring in this case. Yes, the government is setting security policies, but they are only responding to public demand. Any fully private security system would see the same kinds of checks in order to get the flying public back into the air. No one wants to fly with someone who has a history of calling for the violent overthrow of the U.S. government at a time when planes are being turned into guided missiles. Then there is the absurd fantasy that if unregulated, some airlines would differentiate themselves by offering minimal screening in order to corner the lucrative market composed of all the Tim McVeighs of the world. Only a blind man would think that businesses work this way. In every industry there are a limited number of profitable market niches and companies fight for those. Fringe markets, like people who want to fly with unscreened terrorists, are not served. (Look at all the successful companies selling products to cypherpunks.) There would be no airlines seeking such a market. At a time when passenger levels have dropped precipitously the airlines will do everything they can to assure their passengers that they are safe. That means screening of exactly the type we are discussing. A few other irrelevant points have been made. Given that ID is not perfectly reliable, do we need to tattoo numbers on people's forearms? This is the fallacy of perfection. ID can be combined with a simple thumbprint for biometric identification (already widely used for cashing checks) and you will raise the cost of forgery considerably. Many of the hijackers would have been caught simply by cross-referencing their IDs against existing databases. That's what El Al does and they have an excellent safety record in the most terrorist-infested part of the world. What about Chaum credentials? Well, how would they help? Are you going to show a not-a-terrorist credential? No one is in a position to issue such a thing. And even if you had one, how would you prove it isn't stolen? If ID can be forged then so can any other sort of credential. The Chaum technology is nothing but a pipe dream anyway. It's never been used and never will be, because there is no incentive (see above re unserved markets). Then there is this whole "credential vs capability" debate. This is nothing but an ivory tower abstraction with very little relevance to the practical problems involved in screening real people before they get on an airplane. Here's an arab guy who looks shifty and nervous. They do a biometric face scan and run it through the customs database against known terrorists. Is that a credential? A capability? Neither, it's just good security sense and the use of all information resources available. When confronted with an unpleasant reality, cypherpunks retreat into their imaginary world of abstractions. That doesn't help when planes are falling from the skies. Try to stick with reality for a few minutes at least. Information which is available will be used. Screeners are free to use any and all information that is relevant in assessing risk. If cypherpunks would remove their blinders they would see that this is entirely in keeping with the ideas of Blacknet and information wanting to be free. What, is Blacknet going to refuse to sell to Argenbright? This is how far cypherpunks have come from their free market roots, that somehow they think that information can be kept under wraps just because it doesn't fit their ideology. It's amazing to see a supposedly pro-information group suddenly claiming that their own pasts should be off limits when faced with a life or death situation. Cypherpunks need to take a harder look at themselves and resolve this contradiction.

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You've Been Added!
by Nurse-zine_admin＠allnurses.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

This message is to confirm the addition of your email address: cypherpunks(a)toad.com to the Nurse-zine mailing list. If you feel you have received this notice in error, please visit the Nurse-zine Subscribe Me mailing list at our website: http://allnurses.com to remove yourself automatically, or click the link below: http://www.allnurses.com/subpro/subscribe.pl?remove=1&list=5&email=cypherpu… Thank you, Nurse-zine

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List still alive?
by cubic-dog 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

Messages came to a screeching halt on the 10th.

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Re: Sedition
by Faustine 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday, November 12, 2001, at 03:27 PM, Faustine wrote: > If questioning your commitment is all it > takes to push your buttons, I'd say that's less than optimal. >>You, thank Baal, have no knowledge of what "pushes my buttons." True, but even the most casual perusal of the archive suggests you've got plenty of them. I bet a person could really learn a lot by spending some quality time with Google, taking careful notes on the differences between posts you ignore, ones you're content to dismiss with frosty condescension, what really seems to bother the hell out of you, ones that should bother the hell out of you but you choose to ignore, etc. etc. It's a wonder someone hasn't pulled a number on you already. Sometimes I wonder about "Agent Farr" though. >You also have almost no list experience here (though this has never stopped >you from lecturing us on things you've read about in books). OR: "damn whippersnapper!" >I write about what I desire to write about. Of course. As long as you aren't getting jerked around, more power to you. >Now that the training camp is over, there is no threat to the security >of the operation. They lack time machines. Why talk about it though? The sheer satisfaction of imagining feds and sheeple crapping their pants in fearful anticipation? Even if nothing happened at all, you have to realize unsympathetic people who aren't in on your peculiar brand of humor are going to take things like this at face value and hold it against you. You risk getting slapped around with the anti-paramilitary training statutes whether you're kidding or not. Odds are you don't care one way or the other, but it seemed unnecessarily reckless, that's all. For your own sake. > I'm sure anyone who bears ill-will to the group is finding this whole > thread quite instructive--undoubtedly the point of the original post in the > first place. Good show. How sickening to think that now you have to worry > about getting anti-paramilitary training statutes dumped on you (on top > of anything else) just because a few people couldn't resist showing up a > stupid troll. >>And which "anti-paramilitary traning statutes" would these be? (gratuitous ad hominem snipped) - From the "Allegiance to the US" section of the handbook on reasons for denying clearance: http://www.dss.mil/training/adr/alleg/allegF.htm Laws Regarding Private Militias Federal law prohibits paramilitary training and the manufacture or transport of weapons with the knowledge or intent that they will be used to create a civil disturbance. (Ref 10) Federal law differs from most state laws prohibiting paramilitary training in that it applies only to the trainers, not the trainees. Under most state laws governing paramilitary training, participation as a trainee is also illegal. Laws are on the books in 41 states to ban either the militias themselves or paramilitary training or both. (Ref 11) The two types of laws operate differently. Anti-paramilitary training laws ban groups whose members know or intend that a civil disorder will result from their activities. Anti-militia laws ban all unauthorized militias, regardless of whether the participants have any specific criminal intent or knowledge. Anti-militia laws generally require evidence that a group of people are associated together in a formal military-type organization. Anti-paramilitary training statutes, by contrast, can be used against groups as small as two or three people. Both types of laws generally exempt organizations like hunting clubs. These laws are seldom enforced, but they are relevant to an adjudicative determination that an individual is engaging in either lawful or unlawful militia activities. The state laws and the legal citations for them are as follows: Alabama. Anti-militia. Ala. Code ' 31-2-125 Arizona. Anti-militia. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. ' 26-123. Arkansas. Anti-paramilitary training. Ark. Code ' 5-71-301 to -303. California. Anti-paramilitary training. Cal. Penal Code ' 11460. Colorado. Anti-paramilitary training. Colo. Rev. Stat. ' 18-9-120. Connecticut. Anti-paramilitary training. Conn. Gen. Stat. ' 53-206b. Florida. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. Fla. Stat. Ann. ch. 870.06, 790.29. Georgia. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. Ga. Code Ann. '' 38-2-277, 16-11-150 to -152. Idaho. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. Idaho Code '' 46-802, 18-8101 to -8105. Iowa. Anti-militia. Iowa Code ' 29A.31 Illinois. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. Ill. Rev. Stat. ch. 1805, para 94-95. Kansas. Anti-militia. Kan. Stat. Ann. ' 48-203. Kentucky. Anti-militia. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. ' 38.440. Louisiana. Anti-paramilitary training. La. Rev. Stat. Ann. ' 117.1. Maine. Anti-militia. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 37-B, ' 342.2. Maryland. Anti-militia. Md. Code Ann. art. 65, ' 35. Massachusetts. Anti-militia. Mass. Gen. L. ch. 33 ' 129-132. Michigan. Anti-paramilitary training. Mich. Comp. Laws ' 750.528a. Minnesota. Anti-militia. Minn. Stat. ' 624.61. Mississippi. Anti-militia. Miss. Code Ann. ' 33-1-31. Missouri. Anti-paramilitary training. Mo. Rev. Stat. ' 574.070. Nebraska. Anti-paramilitary training. Neb. Rev. Stat. ' 28-1480 to -1482. Nevada. Anti-militia. Nev. Rev. Stat. ' 203.080. New Hampshire. Anti-militia. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ' 111:15. New Jersey. Anti-paramilitary training. N.J. Rev. Stat. ' 2C:39-14. New Mexico. Anti-paramilitary training. N.M. Stat. Ann. ' 30-20A-1 to -4. New York. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. N.Y. Mil. Law ' 240. North Carolina. Anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. N.C. Gen. Stat. '' 127A-151, 14-288.20. North Dakota. Anti-militia. N.D. Cent. Code ' 37-01-21. Oklahoma. Anti-paramilitary training. Okla. Stat. Ann. tit. 21, ' 1321.10. Oregon. Anti-paramilitary training. Or. Rev. Stat. ' 166.660. Pennsylvania. Anti-paramilitary training. 18 Pa. Cons. Stat. ' 5515. Rhode Island. anti-militia and anti-paramilitary training. R.I. Gen. Laws '' 30-12-7, 11-55-1 to -3. South Carolina. Anti-paramilitary training. S.C. Code Ann. ' 16-8-10 to -30. Tennessee. Anti-paramilitary training. Tenn. Code Ann. ' 39-17-314. Texas. Anti-militia. Tex. Govt. Code; Ann. ' 431.010. Virginia. Anti-paramilitary training. Va. Code Ann. '' 18.2-433.1 to -433.3. Washington. Anti-militia. Wash. Rev. Code ' 38.40.120. West Virginia. Anti-militia. W.Va. Code ' 15-1F-7. Wyoming. Anti-militia. Wyo. Stat. ' 19-1-106. >And what is done by other memmbers of a list does not establish guilt by >association, except in your fevered mind. Oh, but it's not just my fevered mind in particular. See "Association With Certain Extremist Organizations or Groups" as a reason to deny security clearance in the above handbook. The list might not be a group now, but once you get branded as conducting illegal paramilitary training for whatever reason, joke or not, the sad fact is you certainly will be. >For example, the discussion I contributed to on hacking the air traffic >control system for political purposes makes you guilty of which crime >and in which way? Guilt by association, of course. It's back. > Here's hoping your temper doesn't get the better of you. >>You are ignorant of my mental state of mind. Twit. - --Tim May Nevertheless, it's endlessly fascinating, isn't it, grumpy. ~Faustine. *** The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms. - --William O. Douglas, Associate Justice, US Supreme Court -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPsdk version 1.7.1 (C) 1997-1999 Network Associates, Inc. and its affiliated companies. (Diffie-Helman/DSS-only version) iQA/AwUBO/Cjkfg5Tuca7bfvEQJTwACfdybIDMtjdhgkRrZ2mwMqLruLgSMAn2N6 7QNw8Zt6eYXlCOCRh/VsHb2y =5Aux -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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You've Been Removed!
by Nurse-zine_admin＠allnurses.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

This message is to confirm the removal of your email address: cypherpunks(a)toad.com from the Nurse-zine mailing list. We're sorry to see you go! If you feel you have received this notice in error, please visit the Nurse-zine Subscribe Me mailing list at our website: http://allnurses.com to add yourself automatically, or click on the link below to automatically re-subscribe yourself: http://www.allnurses.com/subpro/subscribe.pl?add=1&list=5&email=cypherpunks… Thank you, Nurse-zine

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You've Been Added!
by Nurse-zine_admin＠allnurses.com 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

This message is to confirm the addition of your email address: cypherpunks(a)toad.com to the Nurse-zine mailing list. If you feel you have received this notice in error, please visit the Nurse-zine Subscribe Me mailing list at our website: http://allnurses.com to remove yourself automatically, or click the link below: http://www.allnurses.com/subpro/subscribe.pl?remove=1&list=5&email=cypherpu… Thank you, Nurse-zine

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Shrubs Future, from the Past: Rolling Thunder (fwd)
by measl＠mfn.org 13 Nov '01

13 Nov '01

ROLLING THUNDER by Bill Bonner "The bastards have never been bombed like they're going to be bombed this time." Richard M. Nixon Some things just don't work as well as you think they should. Arguing with your wife, for example. Or diet plans. Or hair growth tonic. The rhythm method. Psychotherapy. Momentum investing. Handouts to poor people. Strategic air power. >From the very beginning of aviation, military authorities have had high hopes for the persuasive power of dropping bombs on people. It was assumed that a few tons of high explosives, loosed from a passing airplane, would improve your enemy's behavior. In the first World War, planes were still too callow to allow the weight of serious destruction. But by WWII, planes could get off the ground with enough bombs to really teach someone a lesson...or so it was thought. The Germans thought they could bring about a change of attitude in Britain by sending over the Luftwaffe each night and bombing grocery stores and theatres as well as ammunition dumps. They did change attitudes, but not the way they hoped. Instead of softening up, the Brits turned a hard face...and mobilized for war with greater resolve. When the tide turned in the air, and the god of war floated over to the other side, the British and Americans saw an opportunity for a little attitude adjustment on the continent. They reduced Dresden, Koln, and other German cities to rubble. But a study done after the war showed that even this intense bombing did little to slow the German war machine. Railroads were patched together. Production was shifted from one facility to another. The wheels still turned. Faith in air power remained. Besides, by the 1960s, the analogies of WWII didn't seem to apply - especially to non-industrialized nations with no planes of their own. In the digital mind of U.S. defense secretary McNamara, there was no question about whether or not airpower could do the trick, but what amount of bombing it would take. Robert McNamara made his calculations. He approached the issue as though he were a Fed chief with 650 basis points to work with. How far would he have to go - and at what cost - before the enemy gave up, he wondered? But many people saw the obvious problem. There were few targets in Vietnam against which bombs might be effective. Averill Harriman, returning from a fact- finding mission, warned Kennedy that "we shall replace the French as the colonial force in the area and bleed as the French did." By 1964, Kennedy sensed that the war was a losing proposition. He wanted out...but he also sensed an election coming up. "I can't do it until 1965 - until after I'm re-elected," said the president. It was "no profile in courage," comments Barbara Tuchman in "The March of Folly." Lyndon Johnson also sensed a problem, but believed he could not "lose" Vietnam to the communists. That would be a stain on his presidency, he believed - a stain darker than a Texas tort lawyer's heart. "I am not going to be the first U.S. President to lose a war," he declared. Charles De Gaulle offered his views, if not his help. America was being drawn into the war on the same illusions as the French 10 years before, he said. The military superiority of a modern nation was useless in a backwater like Vietnam, he noted. It was a "a hopeless place to fight..."; a " rotten country" that would likely destroy the U.S. army just as it had the French. Instead of fighting, the only way out was negotiation, he advised. Johnson would have none of it. Undersecretary of State George Ball explained to de Gaulle that "that the U.S. did not believe in negotiating until our position on the battlefield was so strong that our enemies would make concessions." This presumed, of course, that the war would go in their favor. Alas, it did not. "Reports from Saigon told of progressive crumbling, riots, corruption, anti-American sentiment, neutralist movement by the Buddhists," writes Tuchman. "I feel," declared one American official in Saigon, "as though I were on the deck of the Titanic." The Johnson Administration decided to raise the stakes. On March 2nd of 1964, a campaign of bombing named "Rolling Thunder" began. And "by April it was apparent that Rolling Thunder was having no visible effect on the enemy's will to fight," Tuchman writes. "Bombing of the supply trails in Laos had not prevented infiltration; Viet Cong raids showed no signs of faltering." Like another President 36 years later, Johnson decided to bribe as well as bully. More than $1 billion in aid was offered if only North Vietnam would accept U.S. peace terms. But having taken to the air, America found nowhere to set down. Attitudes in North Vietnam hardened under the bombing. Hanoi announced that it would not negotiate until the bombing was stopped. The U.S. said it would not stop bombing until the Viet Cong stopped fighting. Still, people were as optimistic as investors in a bull market. McNamara, toting up his bombs and trying to quantify war, saw nothing but good coming out of it. It was the kind of war America had to learn to fight, he said, "a limited war...the kind of war we'll likely be facing for the next fifty years." And so it was! The thunder continued to roll. And McNamara continued adding up his figures. A CIA study revealed that each $1 of damage caused to the enemy cost the U.S. $9.60. (Probably a bargain compared to the rate of return on bombing in Afghanistan.) By the end of 1967, the Pentagon had dropped over 1.5 million tons of bombs - already more than the U.S. had used in Europe in all of WWII - and the bombing had scarcely begun. McNamara was growing uneasy. He didn't like the numbers. Asked to determine how much damage would have to be inflicted upon Ho Chi Minh's forces to bring him to stop the war, the CIA came up with an alarming answer: There was no level of bombing or naval action that would be "so intolerable that the war had to be stopped." McNamara was a fool. But he was a smart fool. Soon, he had moved on...he resigned from the Pentagon and took his talent for doing dumb things brilliantly to the World Bank. His replacement, Clark Clifford, quickly came to the same conclusion. He saw that "the course we were pursuing was not only endless but hopeless." Johnson, realizing that he had been trapped, withdrew from the race for another term. Vietnam had ruined him. But the bombing continued. Richard Nixon took up the illusion - that increasing the pressure on Ho Chi Minh...with more bombs...would cause the old man to give up. He intensified the bombing attacks and expanded them into Cambodia. Each bomb dropped may be a losing proposition, perhaps he reasoned, but we can make it up on volume! The French continued to offer the same opinion. It was a "hopeless enterprise," said Jean Sainteny to Henry Kissinger. That opinion had spread far and wide. The New York Times labeled Nixon's campaign in Cambodia a "Military Hallucination." In a rare occurrence, the Times was right. Widening the war was an act of folly, opines Barbara Tuchman, "designed to bring down trouble upon the perpetrator...the kind of folly to which governments seem irresistibly drawn as if pulled by a mischievous fate to make the gods laugh." Nixon knew the war was a hopeless cause. He just wanted to bring the North Vietnamese to the bargaining table in order to win a "peace with honor." How could he do it? He stepped up the bombing with his "Christmas bombing" campaign - the heaviest of the entire war. Did Hanoi finally give up? No, Hanoi persevered. Nixon and Kissinger gave up, signing the Geneva Peace Accords on the 27th of January 1973. The U.S. stock market hit a high on almost that very day...and then fell for the next 21 months, losing half its value. As a percentage of GDP, stocks registered a high of about 90% of GDP in 1968. They did not reach that level again until nearly 30 years later. Your editor, Bill Bonner P.S. Writing about the folly of others gives no immunity from foolishness - neither in your editor, nor in Barbara Tuchman. Your editor's foolishness is on display regularly, his wife assures him. Tuchman's can be found in the second paragraph of the first page of her book. Wondering why people do obviously stupid things she becomes delusional: "Why does American business insist on 'growth' when it is demonstrably using up the three basics of life on our planet - land, water and unpolluted air?" Using up the planet's land and water? She almost makes McNamara and Johnson look sensible.

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