December 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

FC: DNA tests show federal officials planted fake evidence of lynx(fwd)
by mattd 21 Dec '01

21 Dec '01

>>The previously unreported Forest Service investigation found that the science of the habitat study had been skewed by seven government officials: three Forest Service employees, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials and two employees of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. The officials planted three separate samples of Canadian lynx hair on rubbing posts used to identify existence of the creatures in the two national forests. DNA testing of two of the samples matched that of a lynx living inside an animal preserve. The third DNA sample matched that of an escaped pet lynx being held in a federal office until its owner retrieved it, federal officials said.<< Knights gambit declined,red Queen to centre.In the AP essay jim says that while there can be no "AP Czar",He doesnt envisage AP being used against "lowly forest grunts".Not receiving a response to my requests for dialogue with the evil empire I propose that the lowly forest grunt actually makes more sense to use AP against.The above story Illustrates how power corrupts and how low on the federal food chain that corruption goes.Yet how long can a fascist regime last that cant protect their workers? It would be easier to obtain enough evidence for proof of death,DNA being the gold standard and the predictor could be paid with e-dinars through cut-outs.Alternatively through kudo's or BUMs after the collapse of Govts.Kill the president. On this day,from the daily bleed. 1988 -- Animal rights terrorists fire-bomb Harrod's department store, London, after finding poodle fur collars on some coats. In December 1998 it is revealed that many fur pelts being sold in the US (coats, toys, etc) are actually from cats & dogs falsely labeled. http://www.msnbc.com/news/223630.asp?cp1=1 http://www.animaldefense.com/News/0999.html

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Re: MS DRM OS
by Michael Motyka 21 Dec '01

21 Dec '01

Ralph Wallis <mischief(a)optushome.com.au> wrote : >On Wednesday, 19 Dec 2001 at 00:38, Graham Lally <scribe(a)exmosis.net> wrote: >> Ralph Wallis wrote: >> >> > On Monday, 17 Dec 2001 at 07:58, Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> wrote: >> > >> >>Could someone who knows more than I do explain to me why this MS "IP" is >> >>anything other than making the owner of a PC unable to have root access >> >>to their own hardware/OS? If so it seems to be an idea unworthy of >> >>protection from lawyers and men with guns. >> >> >> > >> > A more correct analogy is with speed limiters on cars. >> >> >> On your own roads. And the car maker tells you where you can go to. And >> which route you have to take. And where you can end up. And then forces >> you to pay for a map. >> >> >> If the patent hasn't been picked up by the courts yet, then why not? >> *If* the SSSCA were to come into effect (and I have heard little about >> it for several months now... biding its time?), then surely all other >> OSes (subject to legal boundaries) would be prevented by the patent from >> implementing the requirements in the bill? >> >> ...and to appease the pedanty, it's hard to have a /more/ correct >> analogy when there was no analogy in the first place. There, got it out >> of my system... > >pedanty isn't a word, and the original poster mentioned "denying root >access", which is an analogy. > I have no idea why speed limiters on cars is even close to being a relevant analogy. I had a more simple and direct analogy in mind - it seems to me that what Microsoft is trying to do is what many of us put up with at work everyday - I use SPARC workstations to which I do not have root access. I run programs that I cannot modify and those programs can use data areas and drivers that I cannot access directly. This is fine at work - the company owns the computers, besides the sysadmins are actually really helpful. Having an external agent build fencees inside my own home is an entirely different matter. One worth a fight to the death. >Your understanding of patent law is flawed. > Since it seems that the possibility to accomplish what Microsoft has patented has existed for years prior to their disclosure isn't their patent a bit weak? Maybe it's more of a formality, a prelude to an OS dictatorship. After all, the 1st says nothing about the government making any laws regarding an establishment of an OS. Time to form a church of the homegrown OS. As of even date I consider Windows in all forms to be spy/subpoena-ware and I don't even trust Redhat anymore. Is it even safe to compile a TCP/IP stack without first obfuscating it? BTW - what is pedanty? Peasantry? Pedantry? I'm voting for 'peasantry' as the proper choice but yes, there was an analogy at the root of the original post. Mike

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Re : MS DRM OS
by Michael Motyka 21 Dec '01

21 Dec '01

>On 20 Dec 2001, at 9:20, Michael Motyka wrote: > >> My thought is that it is not novel in any way save that it witholds root access >> from the owner of the machine. >> > >I think it does a little more than that. "Deny the luser owner >root access" is sufficient to explain how the luser is prevented >from copying or modifying the trusted content, but it doesn't >explain how "trusted" apps can access the data. >In essence, deny the luser root access + all programs signed >by microsoft automatically run as root. Neither piece alone >would be innovative enough to be patentable, but maybe the combo >is. > >George > I think the combo is used regularly : e.g. version control logfiles that are not directly accessible to a user but the user can have ci/co access via applications that run with the correct permissions. A user may fuck up a version of the file but may not make things unrecoverable. We could get into a long discussion of the details of data source and sink types ( sockets, disk files, other devices ) but the basic principle is the id/permissions one. I just don't think the concept is particularly novel but I have no doubt it will be implemented and protected viciously. I use the word viciously because that is the only way to make DRM work and there is a great deal of money at stake. Mike

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RE: CNN.com on Remailers
by Blanc 21 Dec '01

21 Dec '01

>From Sunder: "Certainly power does corrupt, but you've got to think that at one point in their lives before they became G men, they had it in mind that they were doing something good and wholesome in working for Uncle Sam, and protecting Americans and the American Way of Life (as defined by the Declaration of Independance, the Bill of Rights, etc.)" ------------------- They may have had noble motivations and ends in mind, but there are problems: Just because they have sworn to obey and protect doesn't mean they read or actually understood the Declaration, the Constitution, or the Bills. Even if they had Goodness For All in mind when they took up their public roles, it doesn't mean that they would know how these ideas look in action, what the right methods are of applying these principles. They may only have a vague idea of the reason for these documents' creation, of the events surrounding them, or of the reasons and cause for the creation of this new nation. These things, and the concepts in these documents, are not well studied in public schools, and when 'G men' and such others take up their jobs, they are not required to study them thoroughly or demonstrate an understanding of their meaning. Furthermore, there are other influences at work in the minds of people which can affect their translation of these documents - influences like religions which motivate & convince individuals to go beyond the politically allowed boundaries in order to try to make people become "good" against their will, or like philosophies which would provide an interpretation of "propriety" that is counter to what is in these founding documents (as in the pursuit personal happiness). When philosophies and religions (not to mention mental limitations like those exhibited by you-know-who) clash with the political philosophy in the Constitution, and especially when none of these things are well examined, but only vaguely held, there is bound to result all sorts of contradictory distortions in the applications of the lofty ideals. You would think it should be a simple thing to leave others alone and make a valid stand against injustice, but the problems of haphazard education, the lack of serious consideration of these ideals, as well as the other elements mentioned, create complexity and inconsistencies, as well as disrespect, which are difficult to overcome even with the guidance from Wise Men of Old. And nothing can replace an active intelligence and educated sensitivity, important ingredients for maintaining reality in the present, even in a "free" world full of program manuals from the past. .. Blanc

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Re: Pay per use remailers and remailer reliability tracking.
by Nomen Nescio 21 Dec '01

21 Dec '01

Len Sassaman writes: > I've been thinking about how to create pay-per-use remailers for some > time. The reasons for needing a remailer payment system are obvious: aside > from handling spamming and flooding, it would encourage more people to run > remailers. If a remailer operator can expect to make money off of a > remailer, or at least recoup his losses, he's more likely to do so. > (Discussion of how liability changes when money is involved is for a > different time.) > > "Digital cash" in the traditional sense isn't necessary for a pay-per-use > remailer system. Like MojoNation, I am going to refer to the digital cash > coins as something that has no monetary value in the traditional sense. This contradicts your previous point. If the coins have no monetary value, that is, they can't be spent for anything useful, then it will not be possible to meet your objectives of allowing a remailer operator to make money off his remailer or at least recoup his losses. You can give someone all the Monopoly money in the world and it won't encourage them to go into the business. And the real sticking point is if these remailer tokens are not based on cash, how do the remailer users get them? If they just send in a request and are given them for free, then there is little point to the whole exercise. You could charge hashcash for them as was proposed earlier, but then you might just as well use hashcash directly in the remailer chain. If the tokens are non-free, that will raise the costs of running pingers and cover traffic. Of the 5000 messages a large remailer handles per day, surely the majority will fall into this category. Making people pay for remailers will drive down usage levels (by standard economics) and make the remailers less secure. Digital cash tokens must be checked in real time with the bank for validity. Otherwise you have a double spending problem. (Hashcash avoids this by embedding the payee in the token.) That will increase the complexity of the remailer, the amount of traffic it must support, and give more information to eavesdroppers. Clearly it is mandatory to use fully blinded cash/tokens for this application. For some situations blinding is not all that important, but for remailer chains it is absolutely essential. Otherwise the bank would be able to trace messages through the remailer network. Hence you will run into the complicated patent situation which will exist at least through 2005. > If the remailer client were to keep track of which tokens were paid to > which remailer, the user could determine where in a chain message delivery > failed, or if the message exited the last hop (not exactly the same as if > it was delivered, but close. The last remailer could cheat, or the > recipient's mail server could fail. There's ways to improve this, though.) The same thing could be achieved by putting a nonce into each message packet which the remailers would publish. The user knows the chain of nonces he used and can determine whether his message made it through the remailer. Something like this was suggested by John Gilmore several years ago. The bottom line is that while the idea is seductive, ultimately it doesn't make sense. Charging for remailers would make them harder to use (adding the overhead of figuring out how to get tokens and possibly paying for them), less secure (opening new lines of information for an attacker), and less anonymous (since fewer people would use the network). There are other, equally good methods for increasing remailer reliability. Since people appear to be adequately motivated to run remailers even without profits, there is no need to move to a system which would add cash tokens with all of their attendant disadvantages.

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Re: Speech May Not Be Free, but It's Refundable
by Sunder 20 Dec '01

20 Dec '01

On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Jim Choate wrote: > On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Sunder wrote: > > > Ok, then I propose to surround your property from any vantage point on > > public land, and setup gigantic speakers from which I would recite very > > loud speeches in your direction at 3:00am. > > No public land in the area that isn't managed by the city, you'll need to > get permission from the public to use it. We also have a amplified music > ordinance so you'd have to shutdown between midnite and 6am anyway. But it's free speech, not music, regardless of amplification, so how does the ordinance apply? > > As I would be on public land and excercising my freedom of speech, you > > couldn't do anything as that would be censorship. > > Not at all, you're still annoying the community at large. But in your world, there's nothing anyone can do to stop me, because if they were to do so, they'd violate my freedom of speech. If the constitution applies to all Americans, then only a Russian or other non-American could tell me to shut the fuck up. Acording to your statement two sentences down from this one, you can't do shit to stop me as you're an American and the Constitution applies to all Americans. > > Or are you ready to submit that "Congress shall make no law ... freedom of > > expression" only applies to Congress? > > No, the Constitution applies to all Americans. But the 1st ammendment doesn't say "No American shall make no laws limiting the freedom of the press, etc." It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Hence the distinction. There in lies your error and lack of understanding. And this is why on private property the property owner decides what is and isn't allowed. This is why on public property that belongs to a specific state or city Congress has nothing to do with it, and the owner may decide on the rules of the house: "Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So now by muttering something about city ordinances about amplified music and certain hours, you've just admited that entities other than Congress may pass laws, and that Freedom of speech can be limited by any other entity, including: the states, cities, and individuals. And therefore your message below is completely wrong. Congratulations, you've just proven yourself wrong:

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Who Am I Anyway?
by Duncan Frissell 20 Dec '01

20 Dec '01

Frissell's Believe it or Not: WWII was won by soldiers, sailors, and marines who fought, died, flew bombers, commanded armies, commanded fleets, and possessed and used nuclear weapons without ever having provided the US government with any proof of their identity. DCF ---- If Womyn and Victims of Color think that it is tough to make it in an advanced capitalist society, they should have tried doing it the way Dead White European Males had to do it -- building an advanced capitalist society out of ancient tyrannies from the ground up stone by stone.

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Test
by Jim Choate 20 Dec '01

20 Dec '01

1, 2, 3 -- ____________________________________________________________________ Day by day the Penguins are making me lose my mind. Bumper Sticker The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Fw: Israeli compromise of U.S. telecommunications?
by Elyn Wollensky 20 Dec '01

20 Dec '01

fwd from cryptography list: some interesting points on CALEA - elyn ----- Original Message ----- From: Ronald L. Rivest Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 10:41 AM Subject: Israeli compromise of U.S. telecommunications? > > I found the following four-part report by Carl Cameron rather shocking: > > Part 1: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40684,00.html > Part 2: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40747,00.html > Part 3: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40824,00.html > Part 4: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40981,00.html > > Why should we be freely giving to Israeli corporations > information (call records, CALEA information) that requires > court orders to obtain in this country? Such information > is obviously sensitive, and the well-motivated efforts to > strengthen and protect our national infrastructure should > reasonably include mandating that such information not be > routinely handled by any foreign entities... > > A more recent story indicates that the compromise was > probably severe; criminals were escaping detection > because of the compromise: > http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/12/18/224826.shtml > > This vindicates concerns many of us have expressed > over the years about creating single points of failure > in wiretapping systems (e.g. the vulnerability of key > escrow, etc.). Of course, in this case the vulnerability > was intentionally created, it seems, by giving critical > capabilities to foreign entities... > > Ronald L. Rivest

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Re: Pay per use remailers and remailer reliability tracking.
by Meyer Wolfsheim 20 Dec '01

20 Dec '01

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Len Sassaman wrote: > The user would purchase remailer tokens (digital cash) from a token vendor > (the bank). This is an exchange similar to car wash tokens or > TicketMaster[tm], where the seller receives "real cash" and the buyer > receives a tangible promise of a future service. The tokens could be > purchased online using PayPal, credit cards, etc. (Yes, this means the > number of paying remailer customers must be large enough to constitute a > crowd.) The importance of having a large number of remailer users is made even greater by this system. While it might be easy for a TLA to monitor all network traffic and compile a list of all remailer users, having a bank make that list for them in an easily subpoena-able form saves them some work. > If the remailer client were to keep track of which tokens were paid to > which remailer, the user could determine where in a chain message delivery > failed, or if the message exited the last hop (not exactly the same as if > it was delivered, but close. The last remailer could cheat, or the > recipient's mail server could fail. There's ways to improve this, though.) > > After the remailer redeems the token with the token vendor, the token > vendor publishes the token. No one but the user and the remailer know > which message a given token was linked to, so information leakage is > minimized. The user can query the token vendor for the most recent token > redemptions, and will be able to determine where his message either is > currently waiting in the chain, or where it died. Not to say that you should not implement hashcash in remailers, but is it really necessary that these two features be linked? Thinking about this further, could you not implement the tracking system using random client-generated tokens that the user generated, the remailer published, and were meaningless to anyone else? One problem with this sort of system that springs to mind immediately is the need for user assurance that the tracking tokens are not being used as a covert channel. -MW-

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