August 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: The Privacy/Untraceability Sweet Spot
by mean-green＠hushmail.com 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

At 10:46 AM 8/26/2001 -0700, Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> wrote: >On Sunday, August 26, 2001, at 09:13 AM, mean-green(a)hushmail.com wrote: >> Right on target. There is one aspect to this loss of nerve not >> mentioned: the correlation between those with the means and interest to >>pursue these avenues and those with merely the interest. > >There are a couple of points to make on this issue: > >First, the "correlation of interests" situation is a well-solved problem. Those with the financial means (and maybe some political/technical interest) set up a company and hire those with the technical abilities and interest. The company may be self-funded by the founders, or outside investors may be sought. > >However, this is not so easy to do when it comes to these technologies. ZKS did it and raised, we hear, something like $60 million. Quite a warchest for untraceability tools. ZKS has been much-discussed here. > >There are some major obstacles with such a public company: > >1. Patents and IP in general. Doing digital cash without using Chaum's blinding patent may be tough. (Some of the "agnostic" approaches discussed here may work, technically, but will probably still be litigated. A public company is a public target. The current owners of the Chaum patent, a Canadian company IIRC, will not look dispassionately on other companies doing an end-run.) > >2. A public company or traceable group of developers will become targets. The attacks could be just simple legal ones, but could range up to RICO and beyond. "Pedophile-grade untraceability" is powerful stuff. How long before Mojo faces lawsuits analogous to what Napster faced? Very unlikely unless it raises to challenge the current crop of Napster replacements. > >(Napster is a good example of this. Utter traceability, of both music traders and the company itself. Those who downloaded or uploaded music got nastygrams and threats of civil action, and the company itself was sued and now faces extinction. It may be that anyone developing such tools should just give up on the idea of becoming a dot com tycoon and instead release products untraceably...perhaps benefitting in other ways.) > >> One of this list's members shopped here and elsewhere a few years back >> for participation in building a DBC-based payment and value system. He >> had assembled a team with the banking experience, needing the >> technology implementors. None were willing to put their talents to the >> test. They all nodded regarding the need for such a facility but none <> would expend any efforts. > >If you are talking about Bob Hettinga, there are many things one could say about his schemes and plans. Actually, I was referring to Steve Schear. He worked at Citicorp for some time and attracted a number of former mid and senior VISA people, one help found Sonnet Financial an online foreign exchange service, to work for First eCache. >I'm more impressed with what another person is actually doing: Orlin Grabbe. Do some Web searches. Orlin has good banking credentials himself (Wharton, coined the term "regulatory arbitrage"), good libertarian credentials (a powerful newsletter for many years), some technical abilities (writes code), has been willing to move to places like Costa Rica, and, most importantly, he UNDERSTANDS the "sweet spot" argument. Steve has also argued these points. >Bob H., in my opinion, got too fixated on coining new acronyms and in flitting around to various lists and focussed in on the wrong end of the cost/benefit continuum. He kept claiming the DBC or E$bux or whatever would be cheaper to use than real money. >Anyway, it is not easy to create a public company, a public nexus of attack, and then deploy systems which target that high-value sweet spot. The real bankers and the regulators won't allow such things into the official banking system. (Why do people think the banking system will embrace "digital bearer bonds" having untraceability features when true bearer bonds were eliminated years ago?) I believe First eCache intended to be compliant with know your customer regs, depending upon independent market makers and money changers to provide the necessary indirection for unlinkability. If so it would difficult for the banking system to easily exclude them. In the same down.way the regulators have had a very difficult time bringing the Black Market Peso Exchange down. Free, secure Web-based email, now OpenPGP compliant - www.hushmail.com

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Thinking About the Crypto Unthinkable
by Tim May 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

On Sunday, August 26, 2001, at 07:15 PM, Faustine wrote: > Tim wrote: > On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 02:46 PM, Faustine wrote: > >> ...But the ones I really admire are the mathematician-analysts, the >> hard- > science analysts: they tend not to hog the limelight like some of their > more voluble counterparts, but their influence is still enormous. > >> I'd be interesting in hearing whom you think are good examples. > > Herman Kahn, Thomas Schelling, John Nash. You already mentioned von > Neumann, he was the first to come to mind. Yes, we talk about these guys here. I read "On Thermonuclear War" in the 60s (well, I skimmed most of the "escalation ladder" details). Schelling points figure heavily into many of our analyses, and Nash equilbria are just that... (BTW, there's at least one good book describing Nash's swerve into insanity and his road back.) This said, I wouldn't advise _anyone_ to study "policy" (or its earlier incarnations, "Operations Research." "Systems Analysis," or the utterly execrable "General Systems," a la Bertanlanffy). Guys like Kahn and Schelling and Nash were mathematicians who happened to be in on the founding of a hot field in the 50s: game theory. Von Neumann and Morgenstern actually founded it, but the heyday was when RAND, Hudson, etc. were doing studies of nuclear war, disarmament, games of chicken, and so on. This has all been pretty much explored now, and these think tanks are pale imitations of their former selves. Certainly they contribute very little to "policy" of the sort of interest to us. (There may be applications...as we have talked about for many years. See the archives, searching on "game theory." However, this will come from someone versed in various kinds of game theory approaches who turns his gaze to crypto games. Likely to come from a mathematically-inclined person, unlikely to come from a sociology/poli sci/policy grad student.) If there are Herman Kahns out there, thinking about the crypto unthinkable, they are probably us. Not to put too fine a point on it. > Given that most all the people on your list and mine are precisely what > the > author was driving at, I think the "Super Analyst" approach is certainly > worth aspiring to. And as far as I've been able to tell, policy analysis > PhD programs offer the most flexible way to pursue a multidisciplinary, > scientific approach while striking a good balance between the > theoretical > and the practical. Well, good luck. I disagree. I can't see someone coming out of a Ph.D. program in "super analysis" being magically endowed with the skills to influence policy. An obvious point that perhaps needs to be emphasized: all of those scientist-policy wonks we have discussed were first and foremost brilliant scientists. Their discoveries gave them cachet, not a major in "general analysis." Do the math, so to speak. --Tim May

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Brian K. West's defense lawyer replies to U.S. Attorney
by Declan McCullagh 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

This is hysterical and worth a read. Talk about a fiery defense counsel! --Declan ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> -----

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Re: Lawyers, Guns, and Money
by Faustine 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Tim wrote: On Saturday, August 25, 2001, at 02:46 PM, Faustine wrote: > ...But the ones I really admire are the mathematician-analysts, the hard- science analysts: they tend not to hog the limelight like some of their more voluble counterparts, but their influence is still enormous. >I'd be interesting in hearing whom you think are good examples. Herman Kahn, Thomas Schelling, John Nash. You already mentioned von Neumann, he was the first to come to mind. >But the typical "mathematician-analyst" coming out of a typical grad >program, even a high-reputation grad program, is not going to have >"enormous influence." A vanishingly small fraction will, in fact. Unfortunately, you're probably right. But in an earlier post I brought up an essay entitled 'Intelligence and the Information Revolution' which advocates the creation of analysis programs that suprass old barriers of department and specialty to create what the author termed 'Super Analysts'. If I can find a .pdf copy, I'll post a link, it really is interesting. Given that most all the people on your list and mine are precisely what the author was driving at, I think the "Super Analyst" approach is certainly worth aspiring to. And as far as I've been able to tell, policy analysis PhD programs offer the most flexible way to pursue a multidisciplinary, scientific approach while striking a good balance between the theoretical and the practical. How well this kind of approach will fit in with the contemporary institutional climate remains to be seen, but on an individual level, you have precious little to lose. (yeah, I know: just "time" and "money". I think the potential payoffs make it worth the risk, YMMV.) >Look, while you condemn all the anonymous and pseudonymous posts here, >we know zero about who you are, where you are, what you do, except that >you're probably some kind of intern who surfs the Net while your >employer for the summer is paying you do some kind of study. Anyone who read my posts carefully probably remembers I already said I'm an assistant research analyst and PhD student. Believe whatever you want; I've said plenty. And in a real sense, it doesn't matter: if my posts are weak, any appeal to credentialism isn't going to make them any stronger. >Do you think you are preparing to have "enormous influence" on policy? I'm preparing to try. >Do you think the superdupercomputer you say you want to assemble out of >old machines will help you in some magical way in this goal? Of course not, it's a tool like any other. You seem to be trying to extract some kind of entertaining kookery from me that just isn't there. >I know a couple of ex-CIA "mathematician-analysts" who were deemed tops >in their classes. One is now headed out to the Bay Area to do something >more useful. Another I've lost track of. Neither seems to have had >"enormous influence" on policy. You can have an enormous influence on policy without producing a "single great work" or "grand project" everyone can point to as being influential. I'm hoping that doing work in policy analysis will help put me in a position to make as much of a difference as I can. I'm not fooling myself as to the likelihood of actually succeeding at any of the things I have in mind, but where's the sense in giving up before you ever get started. > It's kind of interesting to see how the field evolved and grew out of > the strictly military/operations research stuff in the 50s into what it is now. It's still evolving, which is part of what makes it so exciting. I don't think what I'm doing is any easier than law school, quite the contrary! > Maybe it's better to say it *can* be easier than law school--and often > is--but doesn't have to be if you're in the right place and have some > purpose behind your choices. > And I hope I didn't sound too down on studying law. I took a graduate > class in constitutional law myself and spent a semester learning to write > briefs, getting acquainted with West's Law Finder, etc. just because it's >so important. I'd definitely recommend that much to anyone. >>The children shall lead us... I think you misspelled "whippersnappers". ~Faustine.

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Re: which remailer to install? (fwd)
by Eugene Leitl 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Question: is this thing reliable? ftp://ftp.zedz.net/pub/crypto/remailer/mixmaster/Mix.3.0.beta/mix-2.9b23.ta… MD5 at my end is ca4e402bff488b909380793914769220 TIA.

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Jim Bell sentenced to 10 years in prison
by Declan McCullagh 27 Aug '01

27 Aug '01

Two consecutive (not concurrent) sentences, sez the judge yesterday. Jim made a statement to the court. Judge agreed with prosecutors' maximum penalties (otherwise sentences would have been concurrent). See Wired News, probably on Monday, for details. -Declan

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Gnutella scanning instead of service providers.
by Gary Jeffers 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

My fellow Cypherpunks, Ray Dillinger believes that scanning would assist oppressors as much as regular users. Joseph Ashwood agrees with this and further thinks that the Internet overhead of a scanner would be a serious problem. I still think that scanners would be effective. Here's why: Gnutella still exists, Napster doesn't! Security does not have to be bulletproof in all cases. Gnutella is a harder target than was Napster. There may be other reasons why Gnutella is alive and Napster is dead. I would think the ability to pin blame on the target might be another reason. A scan enabled Gnutella would be a much harder target than a central service provided Gnutella. The scan enabled version would be much harder to shut down due to various kinds of expenses - legal, administ- rative, politics, etc.. Not impossible to shut down - just harder, slower, and with various expenses we would like the oppressors to pick up :-) Also, with lack of centralization, it would be much harder to pin legal blame on the servers(users). - Much harder, slower, and politically expensive. This is generally a sort of economics problem for oppressors. As far as Joseph Ashwood's claim that the Internet overhead would be too much. Is his point exaggerated? Would it be possible to write low overhead scanners? I do not have the "skill set" to say. Maybe he is right, maybe not. Anybody got something definitive to say on this? Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers BEAT STATE!!! _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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summer reading
by Batman Svejk 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

Any recommendations for good (late) summer reading? Svejk ------------------------------------------------------------ .

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Information You Requested from Microsoft.com
by 1support＠microsoft.com 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

NOTE: PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND DIRECTLY TO THIS E-MAIL. THIS E-MAIL IS NOT MONITORED. Welcome to Microsoft Online ID secure Internet environment! Below is your membership information. Please keep this confirmation mail as a record of your password. Consider this information confidential and treat accordingly. Your Microsoft Online ID Password is: cypherpunks A Microsoft Online ID provides access to various Microsoft secured programs. Please check the Frequently Asked Questions and/or Help page of the program you are accessing for questions. Sincerely, Microsoft Online ID Administrator

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which remailer to install?
by Eugene Leitl 26 Aug '01

26 Aug '01

Any recommendations for a worthwhile packages I can run on the local 128/768 (loaded) line? Pointers to tarballs preferrable. -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204/">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBMTO : N48 10'07'' E011 33'53'' http://www.lrz.de/~ui22204 57F9CFD3: ED90 0433 EB74 E4A9 537F CFF5 86E7 629B 57F9 CFD3

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