August 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

South Africa plans hardline Internet snooping legislation
by pablo-escobar＠hushmail.com 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

>Protest is growing in South Africa about the country's plan to introduce legislation that closely parallels the UK's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. > >South Africa's Interception and Monitoring Bill aims to "regulate the monitoring of communications" and even advocates banning forms of communications that can't be bugged, which means it goes further than Britain's RIP Act. Protest No! Kill lawmakers Si! Send dem a necktie. Free, secure Web-based email, now OpenPGP compliant - www.hushmail.com

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The Cautionary Ontological Approach To Technology of Gabriel Marcel
by Faustine 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

The Cautionary Ontological Approach To Technology of Gabriel Marcel http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Tech/TechGend.htm ABSTRACT: I present the arguments of Gabriel Marcel which are intended to overcome the potentially negative impact of technology on the human. Marcel is concerned with forgetting or rejecting human nature. His perspective is metaphysical. He is concerned with the attitude of the "mere technician" who is so immersed in technology that the values which promote him as an authentic person with human dignity are discredited, omitted, denied, minimized, overshadowed, or displaced. He reviews the various losses in ontological values which curtail the full realization of the human person in his dignity. The impact of technology leads too often to a loss of the sense of the mystery of being and self, authenticity and integrity, the concrete and the existential, truth and dialogue, freedom and lover, humanity and community, fidelity and creativity, the natural and the transcendent, commitment and virtue, respect of the self and responsiveness to others, and especially of the spiritual and the sacred. Thus, the task of the philosopher is to be a watchman, un veilleur, on the alert for a hopeful resolution of the human predicament.

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Re: The real enemies of the poor
by Faustine 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Faustine wrote: Jim wrote: > In this context I meant "personality" as in demeanor and attitude, not > scholarship and competence. >Opposite sides of the same coin... I suppose "attitude" can be ambiguous, but it's hardly relevant! Being obnoxious, unpleasant, etc. has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you know enough about a subject to be worth listening to. Not to name names, but I've met several brilliant people who literally make me want to run whenever I see them coming--but whom I nevertheless respect to the bottom of my shoes for their sheer brainpower. (And in case you haven't noticed, I'm definitely not a respectful sort in general, so it means something.)Thoroughly looking forward to hearing what a person has to say and actively, intensely disliking them is not contradictory in the slightest... > >Your waste of time is somebodies > >jewel of the Nile (I have these images of Creationist books I've read > >flashing through my mind, very unpleasant). > So do you keep on finding more of the same or have you got on to >something of more value to you? >I keep hoping I'll run across a 'new' creationist theory, but they all >boil down to the same old same old. I don't remember the last time >I finished one of the books . Of course the same can be said about most >books, technical or not. And no, I'm not a creationist of any bent outside >of the pantheist sort (ie Gaia). I'd say that only about 10% of all books >are worth reading. Of those 10%, 90% of their content is wrong (and hence >interesting in the sense of why they are wrong)..which really gets down to >the crux of the matter for me. Not why they got it right, but why they >failed. Good point. I'm an atheist, but I think Aquinas can worth reading. Marcel (the Mystery of Being), Bataille (Inner Experience), Unamuno(Tragic Sense of Life), Kierkegaard (Either/Or), Heidegger (Sein und Zeit) Schopenhauer (complete works!) also come instantly to mind. I usually have no patience for anything mystical, but these authors have been very valuable to me. Several orders of magnitude above the usual religious mush. >Unfortunately most readers focus on what they like, the positive aspect of >the experience, and not the negative. Which from an analytic/comprehension >perspective is a stronger viewpoint (or at least seems so to me). Right--never let anyone do your thinking for you. > >And there's looking for corroborating evidence... :) > Well we all do whether we intend to or not: no matter how much you try > there's no getting out from under your experience. >I disagree, see Newtons comments about hypothesis and playing with stones on a beach. More on this in future posts. > but to avoid re-inventing the wheel. "If I have seen further than > others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants." you know? >That's not what he meant by that. He was saying that what he did was not >in and of itself his creation. He was objecting to credit being given the >'Lion of England' when it wasn't the Lion's due (why in his later life he >began to publish anonymously). Hm, okay. Nevertheless, I think the point remains. >Unfortunately this can't be said of most >people. Most people will take credit for whatever they can and then >advertise it widely. One of the most popular strategies is to 'let them >think it was their idea'. True. But an overwhelmingly large percentage of concepts floating around your head and populating your mental landscape (so to speak) came from somewhere else: if you're creative and original, you make new ones out of the building blocks of the old. But they didn't just pop out of thin air. > Recommending books, on the other hand, has to do with getting people to > share an aspect of your mental context. Like that book I recommended on > MOUT awhile back: it's not that I agree with its conclusions or the > ideology behind it--it's just that it made a powerful impression on the > way I think about some of the issues that are most important to me, and >went a long way toward providing valuable information I didn't already >have. Why wouldn't I be interested in spreading it around. >I'm not saying you shouldn't spread it around. I disagree on your 'mental >context'. I don't suggest that another person should read a book to >understand me per se, but rather to escape the singular view point we all >have. Singular viewpoint?? How so! Talk about different mental contexts... And then, there's always the even less noble-minded egocentric motivation for recommending books: "read as I read, so you may come to think as I do". Discourse as narcissistic propaganda: probably a more common motivation that anyone would like to admit. >For me, the best thing that could happen is that somebody else read >it and comes to a different conclusion. It is the dialog that follows that >gives the book worth. Something greater than the authors intent, or my own >personality happens then. I think most works that are complex and rich inspire that.. like the ones I mentioned above. >The problem is that many equate reading (even a >lot) >with understanding, and in actuality too few people question vigorously >enough to ever really 'understand' anything. Couldn't agree more. >It's not uncommon in our society to hear people say 'He said ...' but they >themselves can't explain it in their own terms and context. They can >regurgitate, they can't cogitate. Dogma and pedantry. It's why 'arguments >from authority are useless' is such a strong tool with respect to >deductive/synthetic analysis. I'm not disagreeing with that at all; I think the real sticking point here gets back to the assumptions which led you to bring up the idea of "singular viewpoint" and the relative meaning(s) of subjective value judgements. I bet a lot would be made clearer to me if you could just back up a little and go into that. ~Faustine.

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RE: Gotti, evidence, case law, remailer practices, civil cases, civilit
by Sandy Sandfort 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

Paul E. Robichaux wrote: > ...the fact remains that some > contributors to this list produce > more valuable material than others. > Uni, Tim, Peter Trei, JYA, Sandy, > and a number of other old-school > c'punks have been making this list > worth reading since 1993 or so... Thanks. It's a real honor to make your short list. > Having said that, I took about a > three-year hiatus from the list. > When I came back, Choate was still > choating, Tim & Sandy were still > sniping at each other, and Uni was > still funny. /Plus ca change, plus c'est la Mjme chose/ S a n d y

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Hello list
by tom st denis 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

Is the discussion of cryptanalysis ok on this list? Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/

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Re: Spoliation cites
by Anonymous 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

Anonymous (nobody(a)remailer.privacy.at) typed: > However, you (black unicorn / unicorn(a)schloss.li / whatever) have made a variety of remarks which > could be seen, not too unreasonably, as being just a little bit > condescending. a kinder, gentler, black unicorn? fuck that. i have been on this list some six years. with some very rare exceptions unicorn's posts have been basically spot on every time i have seen them. and unless you are totally humor braindead they manage to combine good info with laugh out loud commentary. if it is at someones expense it is only so in a classy way. and they were pretty certain to be asking for it out loud anyway. wise up. it is the same 8 people constantly trying to derail the best content in this place with nothing but bullshit smoke and mirrors. it is the same 8 people constantly providing quality content in this place that they can actually back up with facts. we are lucky to have unicorn, broiles, farr, may, etc here. its assholes like jim choate that drive out only decent contributers and flood the list with 20+ useless url posts a day. ever wonder why people like eric hughes and john gilmore never seem to post much anymore? black gelding? i want that about as much as i want mister rogers defending me against a charge on one of these issues. here are some alphabet blocks. why dont you go turn barney back on now so the adults can get back to business.

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03 Aug '01

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New (?) tric(k) for Internet Partitioning
by Mats O. Bergstrom 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

This Swedish entity believes it has found the solution (patented) to the long standing problem of effortless micropayments for web content. The solution is - skip micropayments! - but let the ISP´s pay tax to the content providers, the amount calculated from the size of the ISP's customer base, regardless of which sites the particular ISP customers actually visit. So you need a World Association of Approved Content Providers (WAACP) to share the tax profits. The tric(k) seems to be a method of technically denying access to sites in the WADCP domain to users who's ISP is not paying the taxes. One big problem is that providers of Not PC Content naturally will be barred from the WADCP. Even if it won't help the MS Masses it would be a gift if their system were crackable. //mob http://www.tric.com/

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RE: Forced disclosures, document seizures, Right and Wrong.
by Trei, Peter 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

> Black Unicorn[SMTP:unicorn@schloss.li] wrote > > From: "Nomen Nescio" <nobody(a)dizum.com> > > > Black Unicorn wrote: > > > A legal education is the ultimate dose of practical cynicism. It > > > quickly becomes apparent not that the law isn't perfect, but that it > > > is often pretty damn screwed up. American jurisprudence is about > > > _fairness of process_, not justice, or right, or wrong. > > > > Come now, surely justice, right, and wrong are lurking in there > > somewhere? > > Frustratingly, not in my experience. Sure, the good guy (whoever you > define > that to be) wins occasionally, but, as one supreme court justice put it, > while > declining to free a clearly innocent convicted murderer because there was > no > material error at trial: "The Constitution doesn't guarantee a correct > verdict, the Constitution guarantees due process." > [...] This sounds an awful lot like an institutional version of the Nuremburg Defence" <klink>"Ve vere only followink orders" </klink> If a Supreme knows that the system is f*cked up enough that he can't free an innocent man, there are two things he should do: 1. Call the President and request a pardon. 2. Call Congress and get the process changed so this doesn't happen again. There is no 'due process' if the system knowingly jails innocents. If they don't do this, they can't call themselves a 'Justice'. Heck - I'd consider the title 'human being' also in dispute. Peter Trei

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RE: Gotti, evidence, case law, remailer practices, civil cases, c ivilit
by Trei, Peter 03 Aug '01

03 Aug '01

> Paul E. Robichaux[SMTP:paul@robichaux.net] wrote > > Some animals really *are* more equal than others. Whether Uni has this > sense > or not[1], the fact remains that some contributors to this list produce > more > valuable material than others. Uni, Tim, Peter Trei, JYA, Sandy, and a > number > of other old-school c'punks have been making this list worth reading since > 1993 or so. Not every contribution is of equal value. > Let me echo Sandy - thank you! Peter Trei > Having said that, I took about a three-year hiatus from the list. When I > came > back, Choate was still choating, Tim & Sandy were still sniping at each > other, and Uni was still funny. Nice to be back at home. > > [1] He apparently doesn't, but would be entitled to have it if he wished.

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