December 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

[Remops] A comparison of Frog-Admin, the Script-Kiddie, AnonymousTrolls and other plagues of the privacy community. (fwd)
by Faustine 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Anonymous wrote: > A comparison of Frog-Admin, > the "Script-Kiddie", Anonymous Trolls > and other plagues of the privacy community. > ... all one and the same schizophrenic person? Here's an interesting tool which might make things a little easier...it also ought to be useful for seperating authentic posts from forgeries, as well. N-Gram Analysis Tool v1.5 Download ngram.tar.gz http://leechuck.de/ngram/ngram.html What are N-Grams? N-Gram Analysis is a a method patented by the NSA to compare the semantic of two texts or audio or video data files. The algorithm is pretty simple, all you have to do, is take a sliding window of length N and move it over the text, and remember, how often which text-fragment of length N occured in the text. This implementation of the N-Gram Method is a pretty simple ANSI-C-Program, I wrote to distract me from my end-of-semester exams. It would be nice, if you send me patches, comments or so to rhoehndo(a)imn.htwk-leipzig.de. I will do some more to this code as soon as I finished my exams. *** Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. - --Samuel Adams -----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/AwUBPBUxzPg5Tuca7bfvEQI4tQCgoAEwKmWqzseRlZK585sE8BDvGb0AmwdU QMEdQFCUtE5Kgbkbnwdo2/Qu =xTsT -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: CNN.com on Remailers
by Faustine 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Meyer wrote: >"So far, U.S. and European authorities battling terrorism and cybercrime >have apparently focused their surveillance elsewhere. The FBI and the >National Security Agency, which monitors international telecommunications, >declined to comment on what strategy, if any, they have for dealing with >remailers." >That would have made the article much more interesting.. >What *is* the FBI/etc.'s strategy on dealing with remailers, other than >ignoring them (and hoping that anti-spam/anti-terror legislation will make >them illegal?) I don't know, how about traffic analysis? Exploiting (publicly) undisclosed holes in the remailer software? Exploiting (publicly) undisclosed holes in PGP? That certainly seems like a fruitful place to dump research money. Good old-fashioned deception isn't exactly rocket science, either. How about suckering people into routing traffic through an ever-increasing number of corrupt nodes, either by: 1) running them covertly 2) buying off "trusted pillars of the crypto community" and trading on their reputation capital? A sobering thought. Or how about this one: enticing people interested in developing cryptography into an closed system based in Canada (international, so using full-blown Echelon technology against it isn't a problem) offering "secure" messaging, file storage, sharing and transmission etc. while promising them the moon about being a no-compromise information-haven phuck-the-state all-your-eggs-in-one - -basket crypto system? Oh wait, it's called CryptoHeaven. Nevermind. Not that I'm claiming the first thing about them--it's just that if I were trying to come up with a way to gather information on people interested in developing privacy and cryptography technology, setting up a compromised CryptoHeaven-like system on behalf of the United States Government would be IDEAL. Or at the very least,inserting some bad actors into the system to root up the vulnerabilities couldn't hurt. Not to mention cultivating "trusted insider" informants. At any rate, any company that lays on the "trust us!!" razzamatazz that thick makes me nervous. The fact that you it gives you zero opportunity for compartmentalization ought to be a red flag. Bad OPSEC makes for shitty tradecraft. I just can't say this enough: one of the drawbacks of viewing all feds as donut-chomping incompetents is that it fosters a false sense of complacency. Underestimating your adversary never did anyone a bit of good. Something to think about, anyway. ~Faustine. *** As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression....There is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such a twilight that we must be most aware of change in the air however slight lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. - --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/AwUBPBfQI/g5Tuca7bfvEQIz+gCffs/DSkAHpK/PU2yxx6QcddQSNAoAoOw3 CHApBSii8Tk3bTaeEzr/xdFh =4PZs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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The Dallas Morning News: Texas/Southwest - FBI: Uncorroborated threat received against Texas schools
by Jim Choate 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

Heads up folks!!!! http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/ap/stories/AP_STATE_0069.html -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ 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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Steganography, My Ass: The Dangers of Private and Self-Censorship in Wartime
by Matthew Gaylor 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

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phantoms and rhetoric ( was : Re: Steganography, My Ass: The Dangers of Private and Self-Censorship )
by Michael Motyka 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> wrote : >Declan McCullagh writes: >> I always enjoy Jonathan's essays, and this one is no exception. He >> properly points out the disturbing analogy that Attorney General >> Ashcroft seems to make (http://www.politechbot.com/p-02900.html) >> between criticism and treason. > >What Ashcroft actually said, from the URL above, was: > >> We need honest, reasoned debate; not fearmongering. To those who >> pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; >> to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; >> my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists - for they erode >> our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to >> America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage >> people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil. > >The simple fact is that Ashcroft spoke the truth. Such criticisms >do erode national unity and diminish resolve. In fact, most critics >would fully agree with these goals. Unity and resolve on a national >level scare civil libertarians. A unified nation is a rash nation. >Democracies should be thoughtful, their actions carefully considered >and taken only after due deliberation. Having a thousand voices urging >different courses is far safer than a single voice which all obey. > >Some claim that behind the truth of Ashcroft's words is a veiled > threat. >Aiding national enemies is indeed one of the definitions of treason. >Yet in the larger sense such a reading is plainly absurd. No Attorney >General would ever attempt to make the case that criticising government >policy is treasonous and should be forbidden. Hard as it may be for >the present audience, blinded by their ideology, to see the real world >for what it is, any such attempt would be political suicide. > >Given this reality, there is clearly no real threat in Ashcroft's >statement. Instead the critics are intentionally misreading him in >order to accomplish exactly those goals he mentions: to sow disunity >and weaken resolve. It is nothing more than a rhetorical trick. > >Let us hold to the truth. Ashcroft is right in his characterization of >his critics' goals, and his critics are right to try to achieve those >goals. It is misguided to attack Ashcroft by making the false claim >that he views criticism as treason. Instead, critics should attack his >position that national unity and resolve must be preserved. This would >be a substantive debate which would enlighten the American public and >raise awareness of important issues. Unfortunately the critics have >descended into politically motivated mud-slinging and have deprived >Americans of a valuable opportunity. > The recent advances in law enforcement made by a frightened ( for their asses and their careers ) Congress are not phantoms of lost liberty : substantial changes have been made. Ashcroft expresses his opinion that questioning the civil liberties implications of those policy changes is an attempt to "erode our national unity and diminish our resolve" as if it is a truth. He mischaracterizes the goals of his critics so that he can associate them with an extremely unpopular position. The technique being employed by John Ashcroft is to fallaciously polarize the discussion as one of Patriotism vs. Treason, Good vs. Evil with the intent of suppressing the speech of anyone who might be an impediment to his agenda. Ashcroft's approach smacks of the techniques used by the late and not-at-all-great may he rest screaming forever in flames Senator Joseph McCarthy. That is Ashcroft's rhetorical trick. Nomen's trick is to mischaracterize what people object to in what Ashcroft has said. I don't for a minute think that there is, today at least, even a veiled threat that those who openly criticize Bush and Ashcroft are likely to be accused of treason. Nomen has set up an easily torched strawman which he uses to say see, Ashcroft's critics are clearly wrong, so they're probably wrong about the administration. I'm not buying Ashcroft's tricks or Nomen's. I'll stick with the simple interpretation of the motivations and goals of those who question the actions of the Bush administration : some people see those actions of the Bush administration and John Ashcroft as Constitutionally questionable and their goal is to debate the issues and protect, in so far as it is possible given the state of the populace, everyone's liberties from enemies both foreign and domestic. Unity and resolve don't enter into it. Sometimes I think that people feel that because shameful or horrific events in our history happened so very long ago and we seem to have survived them that we must have some type of increasing immunity conferred upon us by the passing of time. I'm afraid that quite the opposite is true, that our immunity diminishes with time leaving us open to reinfection by the ideological descendents of the perpetrators of earlier outrages. Can an Attorney General be censured? Drawn and quartered? Mike http://www.webcorp.com/mccarthy/mccarthypage.htm

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Nomen nescio,my ass.
by mattd 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

>>. No Attorney General would ever attempt to make the case that criticising government policy is treasonous and should be forbidden. Nomen again,sheesh. Read my lips.KILL THE PRESIDENT. Now lets turn to assflufs absolute support of the "right to life". Except,the odd lethal injection. HELLO! >>. critics should attack his position that national unity and resolve must be preserved. OK.Ill attack his position.Ill pay 100 us $ toward the asscroft to arlington sleigh ride.FUCK that walking 'naked lunch' typewriter.He is way over his head and theres blood in the water,ask declan.You really are a numbnuts nomen. Tim should tear your soul apart.

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Re: [Remops] And when he returns in February? (fwd)
by A. Melon 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

On Wed, 12 Dec 2001, Eugene Leitl wrote: > More drama unfolds. > > -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> > ______________________________________________________________ > ICBMTO: N48 04'14.8'' E11 36'41.2'' http://www.leitl.org > 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3 > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- [...] Why are you propagating this nonsense? You're turning into the new Choate, the new Hettinga, the new troll zoo-keeper. People interested in remailers are already on those lists, and I guarantee you that they aren't interested in that drama. It isn't anything new. If you've been around more than a few weeks on alt.security.anon-server, you know about it. The only "unfolding" is that it has finally bleed over onto the remops list -- and now, thanks to you, the cypherpunks list. Ninny.

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Last Minute Holiday Shopping
by Jim McGone 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

e Seine Trawler e-Mail Marketing / Translation P.O Box 2773, New Smyrna Beach FL 32170-2773 - fish(a)ucnsb.net RE: Last minute Holiday Shopping Two weeks till Christmas. Time for last minute impulse buys. If you had the buyers could you handle the traffic? e-Seine Trawler works with major Marketing and Manufacturing companys in the U.S. and China, suppling e-mail addresses from professional lists all over the Web. Any Category. Any Professional Group. Any Business type. Any language. ¬Oªº¡M§ÚÌ¬ÆŠÜ°µµØ€H¡C Yep, we even do Chinese. Could you sell to Taiwan, Hong Kong or Mainland China? These are not AOL spam from 1995. Tell us who buys your Holiday product. We'll get you the e-mails. TODAY! Base price: .04 cents per (e-mail txt format that will work in any Windows application) You own them. We mail: add .01 cent (includes your attachment in HTML mode) Or we can design. Bulk mail: add .01 cent (minimum 10,000 - NO Limit. Offshore ISP. IT WORKS. Thats it. Our top of the line program is .06 cents. A stamp cost .34. e-mail Marketilng works. It's effective. It's fast. And it's FREE. Questions? Drop us an e-mail. Thank you for your time. Prosperous Holidays, Jim e-Seine Trawler fish(a)ucnsb.net Last Minute Holiday Special: 2,306 CPA's or 2,019 Travel Agents - $60. (pulled 12/09/

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Re: FW: FreeSWAN Release 1.93 ships!
by Steve Mynott 13 Dec '01

13 Dec '01

"Lucky Green" <shamrock(a)cypherpunks.to> writes: > FreeS/WAN occupies a position very rarely found in efficient markets, > such as open source software. While the position is rarely encountered, > it can nonetheless exist: I believe that FreeS/WAN is a natural > monopoly. My impression from the show of hand at the HAL2001 FreeS/WAN session was that OpenBSD's IPSEC was being used rather more than FreeS/WAN. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott steve(a)tightrope.demon.co.uk don't anthropomorphize computers; they don't like it.

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Attention Homeowners: Don't Refinance Yet !!!
by ECA 12 Dec '01

12 Dec '01

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