April 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

more than spread spectrum
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with loss of freedom to communicate. We could lay our own wires/fibers. We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air. Last time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as long as they didn't bother anyone. An infrared laser could hardly bother anyone. We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers, very low range radio, .... Each card would connect to three or more neighbors and become part of the global mesh. Adaptive routing with no global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central tapping. Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users. A college campus might be the right place to start. We could then branch out to cities. I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight communications. The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks. It's a free network for the masses -- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating physical links. I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card. Does anyone have hardware design/fab to donate to the effort? - Carl

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PRO/AH> Chronic wasting disease: update April 2001
by ProMED-mail 29 Apr '01

29 Apr '01

CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE: UPDATE APRIL 2001 *********************************************** A ProMED-mail post <http://www.promedmail.org> ProMED-mail, a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org> [see also: Chronic wasting disease, captive deer - USA (Nebraska) 20010125.0180 Chronic wasting disease, captive elk - USA (Oklahoma) 20010209.0266 Chronic wasting disease, cervid - USA: human risk? 20010126.0193 Chronic wasting disease, cervids - USA (Colorado) 20010217.0314 Chronic wasting disease, deer to cattle 20010314.0515 Chronic wasting disease, elk: informing hunters 20010118.0141 Chronic wasting disease, wild deer - Canada (SK) 20010409.0697 Chronic wasting disease, wild deer - USA (Nebraska) 20010117.0140] [1] Date: 29 Apr 2001 From: ProMEDmail Source: Western Producer, Canada 15 Feb 2001 [edited] USA -- CWD becoming a threat in the wild ---------------------------------------------------- Chronic wasting disease could devastate Wyoming's wild deer population, a [US] state biologist has told Saskatchewan hunters. Terry Kreeger, the manager of a Wyoming state wildlife research farm, said he not only believes CWD can theoretically pass from farmed deer to wild deer across the fenceline, but that this has probably already occurred in his state. Kreeger spoke at the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation's annual meeting. He qualified his remarks by noting that many important aspects of CWD are still not understood or just barely understood, so few definitive answers about the disease can be given. CWD exists in the wild in southeastern Wyoming, northeastern Colorado and the extreme west of Nebraska. It was first spotted in animals in a Colorado research facility, and then in the Wyoming research farm. Wild cases were only found later, but researchers believe the disease was probably brought into the facilities by infected deer. If for every 5 CWD-infected wild deer or elk another 6 were infected, "in about 35 to 50 years look at what happens to the population -- they crash," he said, describing a chart of projections. Only half the deer population would remain. Wild elk can carry the disease, but appear not to be as susceptible as deer. Less than one percent of elk in the CWD hot zone have been found with the disease. Up to 10 percent of deer in the same area are infected, he said. Kreeger said CWD has probably been carried north by elk and deer wandering from Colorado into Wyoming, but he thinks the first cases discovered in his state were caused by wild deer coming into contact with his CWD-infected facility. "They're all focused around our research facility." Kreeger believes his facility was infected by deer brought in from the infected Colorado facility. (By Ed White, Saskatoon newsroom) ***** [2] Date: 29 Apr 2001 From: ProMEDmail Source: Western Producer, Canada 5 Apr 2001 [edited] Canadian cattle, bison killed as safety measure --------------------------------------------------------- Cattle and bison have been exterminated as part of the chronic wasting disease cleanup. The animals grazed on the same pasture as elk infected with chronic wasting disease. But Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials say there is no evidence those species can contract the elk disease and the extermination is just an act of supreme caution. "There is currently no scientific evidence that chronic wasting disease affects cattle or bison," said CFIA official George Luterbach. "There may be some people who would like to use this in a malaligned (sic) way to suggest that chronic wasting disease is a disease of cattle, or that the other livestock industries have been put at risk here. That clearly is not our intention here," said Luterbach during the Saskatchewan Elk Breeders Association convention. The CFIA has exterminated 259 cattle and 99 bison because they grazed on pastures that had been used by infected elk on a Lloydminster farm. That farm is considered the source of the outbreak in Saskatchewan. The CFIA considers that land so contaminated that it may permanently be banned for elk. The cattle and bison were put down, not because the CFIA thinks there is evidence they could have developed the disease, but because no one has yet proven cattle can't get the disease. "Should evidence come out 5 years from now I'm going to stand here and say that it was a bit of a gamble and it cost a bit of money, but I think we did the right thing," said Luterbach. The cattle, bison and elk industries all supported the slaughter. The CFIA has not yet ruled the CWD outbreak over. As testing expanded, it found one more infected animal. The 400-head herd that the infected animal was part of, as well as 32 animals sold from the herd to 10 other farms, will be exterminated and studied to see if any carry the infection. Luterbach said the outbreak is still limited to animals connected to one herd that became infected in 1989-90. "There's no evidence that we have a multi-source situation." As the traceouts have moved out from the original herd and closer in time to when animals moved, the number of infected animals discovered has plummeted. Luterbach doesn't expect to find more infected elk in so-far uninfected herds. "These animals (now being traced out) one could almost assume will be negative because their exposure was for a relatively short period of time." (By Ed White, Saskatoon newsroom) -- ProMED-mail <promed(a)promedmail.org> ..............................................tg/mhj/jw *##########################################################* ProMED-mail makes every effort to verify the reports that are posted, but the accuracy and completeness of the information, and of any statements or opinions based thereon, are not guaranteed. The reader assumes all risks in using information posted or archived by ProMED-mail. ISID and its associated service providers shall not be held responsible for errors or omissions or held liable for any damages incurred as a result of use or reliance upon posted or archived material. ************************************************************ Visit ProMED-mail's web site at <http://www.promedmail.org>. Send all items for posting to: promed(a)promedmail.org (NOT to an individual moderator). If you do not give your full name and affiliation, it may not be posted. Send commands to subscribe/unsubscribe, get archives, help, etc. to: majordomo(a)promedmail.org. For assistance from a human being send mail to: owner-majordomo(a)promedmail.org. ############################################################ ############################################################ Here is the one that says not to eat the brain or spinal cord of deer/elk:

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Yale Censors Student Paper Over Bush Daughter Flap
by declan＠well.com 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

******* http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/20/1711257 Yale Censors Student Paper Over Bush Flap by cicero on Friday April 20, @12:06PM If you didn't know any better, you might think that Yale University cared about free expression for its students and campus newspapers. Just look at its breathtakingly sincere official policy on how important free speech is to the health and diversity of the campus community: http://www.yale.edu/ycpo/undregs/pages/II.html ...a free interchange of ideas is necessary... the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom... we commit ourselves to the idea that the results of free expression are to the general benefit in the long run, however unpleasant they may appear at the time... Because few other institutions in our society have the same central function, few assign such high priority to freedom of expression... What a sham! As soon as a student newspaper published something that controversial about one of President Bush's daughters, Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg called the editors into her office and gave them a severe dressing-down about how some kinds of speech is less worthy than others. The article in question had appeared in Rumpus, and quoted friends of Yale student Barbara Bush saying that the Secret Service wasn't doing a particularly splendid job of protecting the president's daughter. "On April 12, nearly a week after the issue had appeared in dining halls and newsstands around campus, Trachtenberg called Rumpus Editor in Chief Jared Leboff '03, Managing Editor Matt Johnson '03 and the article's author, Nathaniel Pincus-Roth '04, into her office. Following that meeting, Rumpus removed the current issue from the tabloid's Web site," the Yale Daily News reported on Friday. The Rumpus website, www.yale.edu/rumpus, now says: "Issue is Currently Unavailable." We know that Secret Service agents have an unfortunate habit of intimidating everyone from 58-year old women upset over anti-gay politicos to people who photograph agents picking their noses to gaming companies, so it's not a stretch to say they didn't like how they were portrayed in the Rumpus piece and complained to Trachtenberg. The truth, though, is that censoring the article from the paper's website won't accomplish much. It had been published a week prior, so anyone on campus who wanted to read it probably did. A better -- and far more distressing -- explanation is that Trachtenberg and Yale wanted to curry favor with the newly-inaugurated president and his administration. No word yet on when Yale will rewrite its "free speech" policy to bring it into line with reality. (PS: Yale has a habit of blocking non-university visitors from reading its policies, so its free speech policy will be mirrored here: http://www.cluebot.com/docs/yale.speech.042001.html) ******* http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=15559 Published Friday, April 20, 2001 Rumpus scolded for Bush story Yale tells tabloid to yank Secret Service story from its Web site BY CHARLOTTE DEWAR YDN Staff Reporter Rumpus is no stranger to controversy, but a recent article the campus tabloid ran on the first daughter is giving it national exposure and trouble with the Yale administration. A story that ran in Rumpus' April edition about alleged mishaps in the Secret Service's protection of Barbara Bush '04, the daughter of President George W. Bush '68, landed the tabloid's editors in hot water with Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg, who charged Rumpus staffers with exploiting Bush's presence on campus. At least two national publications, The Washington Post and tabloid The Star, have also taken an interest in Rumpus' report on Barbara Bush's security detail. The cover of Rumpus' April edition screamed "O Daughter, Where Art Thou," and included a story on Barbara Bush's Secret Service attache at Yale. On April 12, nearly a week after the issue had appeared in dining halls and newsstands around campus, Trachtenberg called Rumpus Editor in Chief Jared Leboff '03, Managing Editor Matt Johnson '03 and the article's author, Nathaniel Pincus-Roth '04, into her office. Following that meeting, Rumpus removed the current issue from the tabloid's Web site. [...] The original Rumpus story claimed that on at least two occasions, the Secret Service officers assigned to Bush have inadvertently lost contact with her. Sometime last month, Rumpus reported, Bush and friends were driving to New York City when the agents following them got stuck at a toll booth for lack of the "E-ZPass," which electronically deducts tolls as cars drive through. [...] Trachtenberg was critical of the story's accuracy and appropriateness, and called it "the most irresponsible kind of press that could possibly happen." [...] ****

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CNN.com - Judge rules LAPD can be sued for racketeering - April 20, 2001
by Jim Choate 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

Let's hope the FBI, BATF, and IRS are next... http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/04/20/lapd.corruption.ap/index.html?s=7 The people bringing a case against the people, only in America. -- Adapt, Adopt, Improvise! - Anonymous Venimus, Vidimus, Delevimus - 1st Linux Motto, Anonymous Tivoli Certification Group, OSCT James Choate jchoate(a)tivoli.com Senior Engineer 512-436-1062

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ICC's problem with the Internet
by Greg Broiles 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

According to the article at <http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010412/wr/tech_fraud_dc_1.html>, the International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Bureau and Cybercrime Unit - which apparently "polices all financial and intellectual property rights breaches on the Internet" - has identified "the problem with the Internet", specifically - "The problem with the Net is that it is not secure because Internet service providers don't run identity checks on their clients . . . [i]t is very easy to set up an email account and web page on an ISP offering free web space and no checks are done on the people setting them up." That's funny. I was just thinking that the problem with the Internet is that it gives every control freak with a tinfoil badge and an AOL account the idea that they ought to "police" people and things they've never seen or heard of. -- Greg Broiles gbroiles(a)well.com "Organized crime is the price we pay for organization." -- Raymond Chandler

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siege up north
by Blank Frank 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

QUEBEC Police sealed off the heart of old Quebec City on Thursday, creating a heavily guarded security zone to keep protesters and possible violence away from a summit of 34 leaders, including President Bush. Forklifts hoisted concrete blocks topped with wire mesh into busy intersections, and hundreds of police in bulletproof vests stood guard at spots along the 2.3-mile fence encircling meeting sites of the Summit of the Americas. More than 6,000 police officers will patrol the security zone Friday through Sunday to guard against incursion by the expected 10,000 or more protesters. Quebec City residents and demonstrators from around the world watched as the final pieces were dropped into place. Police are letting through only residents with special passes and delegates, journalists and workers accredited for the meeting. Protesters have dubbed the barrier the "Wall of Shame'' and liken to it to the Berlin Wall as a symbol of oppression and division. Thousands of anti-globalization activists have come to this picturesque 17th-century city, and organizers fear the kind of violence that derailed trade talks in Seattle in December 1999. But the first march of the week was peaceful. About 150 people marched Thursday outside the Quebec provincial agriculture ministry and presented a list of concerns about genetically modified food. A minister accepted the document. The protesters represent a diverse range of activists organized labor, human rights organizations, environmental groups and other who say the talks on creating a free-trade zone should be in public instead of a locked-in conference center. "The fence is a symbol of the destruction of our rights,'' said Clara Fogal, a director of the Defense of Canadian Liberty Committee, a human rights group. Her group and others supported a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the wall. A judge agreed Wednesday that the wall restricts personal rights, but said it was justified because of the security risks. Police cite concerns of Seattle-like violence to defend the fence, which surrounds several acres of landmarks like the Chateau Frontenac hotel that dominates the old city skyline and the provincial Parliament building. Seven men have been arrested on charges of planning violence at the summit, and police seized military smoke grenades and small explosives. The closest protesters can get to the convention center where the summit is being held is 100 yards across a cemetery, on Rue Saint-Jean. Along the streets, shop windows were covered with plywood or metal screens Thursday in anticipation of unrest. "The whole situation is deplorable. I'm going to keep my kids inside the whole time. I may even leave town,'' said Patricia Hamel, owner of the Collection Lazuli gift shop. To stay open on Friday and Saturday, she said, she would need to hire security guards, and the protests would probably scare away most customers anyway. Local activists have made the wall a kind of bulletin board for anti-free-trade and anti-U.S. sentiments. Among the slogans spraypainted throughout the city are "Bush Go Home,'' "Berlin'' in reference to the wall that divided East and West Germany for decades, and "Viva Cuba'' in support of the only hemispheric country barred from the summit for its lack of democratic elections. Plastic flowers and colorful balloons are attached elsewhere. Protests also are planned far from Quebec City, with marches or blockades threatened in other Canadian and U.S. cities and in Tijuana, Mexico, near the border with California. Cyberprotests also could occur. The Electrohippie Collective says it is targeting Web sites connected with the summit for protest activity most likely a flood of e-mail that would hamper operation of the sites.

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Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk
by Faustine 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

Excellent list, but one small bone to pick: >And there are a dozen other books. The Well-Read Cypherpunk should >know something about free market economics (not the Samuelson >technical stuff taught in introductory econ classes in college), Why not? Why should becoming familiar with Hayek, Mises, Popper etc. preclude 'learning the language' of mainstream economics? For instance, how are you going to be able to understand Hayek's essay 'Economics and Knowledge' if the idea of traditional equilibrium analysis is over your head? Do yourselves a favor and read the Krugman/Obstfeld book 'International Economics: Theory and Policy'. You won't always agree with it, but it's worth the time. Who knows, you might even find that some of these issues are a hell of a lot more complex than you thought they were. I sure did. I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that too many people are content to regurgitate dumbed-down bumpersticker platitudes about libertarian ideas without any real understanding to back themselves up. (I'm certainly not referring to you here Tim, but I think you know what I'm talking about.) Anyway, why should there be any distinction between a well-read cypherpunk and a well-read person in general? Everyone has to start somewhere, but jeez, broaden your horizons a little. In a sense, it all comes down to a personal choice: are you content to sit around on the sidelines with your friends throwing the verbal equivalent of cherry bombs, basking in the cozy glow of cliquish moral superiority--or are you going to make the effort to get the education that allows you to speak to knowledgeable people in a way they can respect and understand, getting your foot in the door towards making a real impact, from the inside out? 'There are men who struggle for a day and they are good. There are others who struggle for a year, and they are better. There are those who struggle many years, and they are better still. But there are those who struggle all their lives. These are the indispensable ones.' -- Brecht Something to think about. ~Faustine. **** 'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).

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RE: Making the Agora Vanish
by James A. Donald 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

-- At 10:16 AM 4/17/2001 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote: > Agreed, to a degree. But it isn't very difficult to outlaw crypto, and to > effectively control its use for online anonymity A number of countries, notably the Soviet Union, have outlawed crypto without much apparent effect. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 2N0WOfom61NwBEFtGEKg6GSk8eVEn5xFHZ6PdEgQ 49+xxoHmcmoLqXn0BECQQUU7NqlfL27gzWqh9sLQ9 ----------------------------------------------------- We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald

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None
by Daniel 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

Can you send me a trojan Horse Tex AOL ore something Daniel Sweden ------------------------------------------------- - - - gratis email på http://www.halmstad.com - - gratis www-sida på http://www.halmstad.com - - - -------------------------------------------------

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Re: Making the Agora Vanish
by Declan McCullagh 20 Apr '01

20 Apr '01

At 11:58 AM 4/20/01 +0300, Sampo Syreeni wrote: >Bandwidth? Available software? Widely deployed, common protocols? There's plenty of software already, some even decent. As for the rest, well, I'm not saying it's going to happen tomorrow -- it would be a gradual response based on the perceived threat of the law we're talking about taking effect and having teeth. -Declan

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