September 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

RE: AP - Was Crypto-anonymity greases HUMINT intelligence flows
by Bill Stewart 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

> > > Too bad that the infrastructure to successfully implement AP isn't in > > > place. That $5mil reward for Bin Laden's head could be used by an FBI AP > > > scheme, payable anonymously over the net to enterprising Afghanis. > > > > AP is a silly, unworkable idea. However, $5,000,000 PLUS the Witness > > Relocation program could be a winner. AP was designed to implement several objectives: - Let the customer or customers for the service remain anonymous - Let the service provider get paid without getting caught, which includes remaining anonymous to the customers, where the primary threat is governments tracking the payment. - Let the potential target know the depth of public opinion about his/her actions, encouraging a change of behavior to prevent the bids from becoming sufficiently high. In this case, the Feds didn't feel the need to remain anonymous when they put out their "Bring Me The Head Of Osama bin Laden" contract, nor did the dot-com millionaire who recently bid $10M. And if bin Laden hadn't figured out that the Feds disliked him by the time they fired 75 cruise missiles with his name on them after they accused him of the embassy bombings, sticking his name up on a computer bulletin board system won't change that much. While anonymous digital cash, if it existed, would make payment quieter, that's not the real problem for the stoolie who fingers bin Laden. The traditional "here's the number for a secret Swiss Bank Account" should do fine, or handing over the Magic American Express Card. The problem is that anybody close enough to bin Laden who suddenly started spending lots of cash after the Feds moved in would suddenly be a very obvious candidate for community disapproval; that's one mujahid who's better off leaving a revenge/suicide note followed by CNN reporting that a small explosives-laden Cessna was shot down over the Potomac. >Would you trust the Witness Protection Program with your life? >Whoever opts to collect that $5,000,000 will forever live in fear. Yeah - unlike Salmon Rushdie, there may be fewer people who want him killed, but they'd be much more serious about it. >Assuming only the use of mixmaster remailers for communication, and >assuming an honest FBI, how could one collect a cash reward for tips >satisfy the FBI's reward requirements? Include a public key with the anonymous tip, and have the Feds encrypt the Swiss Bank Account Number with it. Or at least have the money-delivery instructions signed with that key.

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Re: Non-joke: How to win the new war
by CYNTHIA DWYER 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Thanks for having the courage to speak out. --Cyn God's word to us spoken through the prophet Isaiah (41:10) So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.

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Stink Bombs
by POD96214778＠aol.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Can you please tell me what I need to make a stink bomb, the measurements, and how to build it? Pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? Thanx.

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SIG: Slashdot | Preserve Your Rights Online - Act Now
by Jim Choate 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

http://slashdot.org/yro/01/09/16/1647231.shtml -- -- ____________________________________________________________________ Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. George Santyana The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: SYMBOL
by jamesd＠echeque.com 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

-- On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > > As were buildings above 5 stories in ancient Rome. > > Technology moves on. The question is not, "Can 250-story > > buildings be made safe?" The only question is "How can > > they be made safe?" Eugene Leitl > The question is: why should we bother? For the hell of it. Because we can. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG pVmj4hZ9kY3VS3tA+8Deu0M78yRPV4YnoT1/j2oW 4d7YetGNPaO0X7pEXnfo/qE/vpf7XJOpzWpCPzWDb

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Rational Fanatics: Suicide Terrorism Explained (fwd)
by Jei 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, attila! wrote: > Thu, 8pm EDT > > As to be expected, the European left-wing liberal > countries and their leaders are already back-sliding and > urging the U.S. not to massively retaliate --eg: let the > Islamists get away with their terror act. > > Well, we can always count on the French to hope we fall > on our face, and the Germans have neither patriotism nor > spine. > > The time to retaliate was in the first few hours while > everyone was in shock and looking for blood; now > Europe's pansy liberals have gone back to their usual > condescending head-in-the-sand attitudes. > > For France to say the U.S. had it coming, maybe France > should be one of the targets? > > The only way to stop terrorism is to make the people of > the countries who succor and harbor the terrorists > really feel the pain. Blow away a country or two --then > ask "Next?" --after you have everyone's attention. > > THAT is how you stop terrorism, George.... Just as an after thought, but perhaps you would like to perform a suicide attack on the Afghanistan presidential building? I think there's lots of support for suicide attacks made by Americans as a revenge to this one. It would be an equally devastating and proper response to this one, don't you think? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:04:52 -0400 From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt(a)coil.com> To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt(a)coil.com> Subject: Rational Fanatics: Suicide Terrorism Explained

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CNN.com
by Anonymous 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Jim Choate wrote: > http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/gen.america.under.attack/ I notice this bullet point in there: "U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft calls on Congress to amend federal laws so that people convicted of helping terrorists would receive sentences similar to convicted spies." How might this apply to people hosting crypto code on their webservers, or running remailers or mojonation and freenet nodes? Scary.

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European Socialists say U.S. had it coming --it figures
by attila! 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

Thu, 8pm EDT As to be expected, the European left-wing liberal countries and their leaders are already back-sliding and urging the U.S. not to massively retaliate --eg: let the Islamists get away with their terror act. Well, we can always count on the French to hope we fall on our face, and the Germans have neither patriotism nor spine. The time to retaliate was in the first few hours while everyone was in shock and looking for blood; now Europe's pansy liberals have gone back to their usual condescending head-in-the-sand attitudes. For France to say the U.S. had it coming, maybe France should be one of the targets? The only way to stop terrorism is to make the people of the countries who succor and harbor the terrorists really feel the pain. Blow away a country or two --then ask "Next?" --after you have everyone's attention. THAT is how you stop terrorism, George....

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Bush Gave The Taliban $43 Million
by Matthew Gaylor 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

US CA: Column: Bush's Faustian Deal With The Taliban Pubdate: Tue, 22 May 2001 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times Contact: letters(a)latimes.com Website: http://www.latimes.com/ Author: Robert Scheer Note: Robert Scheer Is a Syndicated Columnist. BUSH'S FAUSTIAN DEAL WITH THE TALIBAN Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the U.S. the main sponsor of the Taliban and rewards that "rogue regime" for declaring that opium growing is against the will of God. So, too, by the Taliban's estimation, are most human activities, but it's the ban on drugs that catches this administration's attention. Never mind that Osama bin Laden still operates the leading anti-American terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa in 1998. Sadly, the Bush administration is cozying up to the Taliban regime at a time when the United Nations, at U.S. insistence, imposes sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government will not turn over Bin Laden. The war on drugs has become our own fanatics' obsession and easily trumps all other concerns. How else could we come to reward the Taliban, who has subjected the female half of the Afghan population to a continual reign of terror in a country once considered enlightened in its treatment of women. At no point in modern history have women and girls been more systematically abused than in Afghanistan where, in the name of madness masquerading as Islam, the government in Kabul obliterates their fundamental human rights. Women may not appear in public without being covered from head to toe with the oppressive shroud called the burkha , and they may not leave the house without being accompanied by a male family member. They've not been permitted to attend school or be treated by male doctors, yet women have been banned from practicing medicine or any profession for that matter. The lot of males is better if they blindly accept the laws of an extreme religious theocracy that prescribes strict rules governing all behavior, from a ban on shaving to what crops may be grown. It is this last power that has captured the enthusiasm of the Bush White House. The Taliban fanatics, economically and diplomatically isolated, are at the breaking point, and so, in return for a pittance of legitimacy and cash from the Bush administration, they have been willing to appear to reverse themselves on the growing of opium. That a totalitarian country can effectively crack down on its farmers is not surprising. But it is grotesque for a U.S. official, James P. Callahan, director of the State Department's Asian anti-drug program, to describe the Taliban's special methods in the language of representative democracy: "The Taliban used a system of consensus-building," Callahan said after a visit with the Taliban, adding that the Taliban justified the ban on drugs "in very religious terms." Of course, Callahan also reported, those who didn't obey the theocratic edict would be sent to prison. In a country where those who break minor rules are simply beaten on the spot by religious police and others are stoned to death, it's understandable that the government's "religious" argument might be compelling. Even if it means, as Callahan concedes, that most of the farmers who grew the poppies will now confront starvation. That's because the Afghan economy has been ruined by the religious extremism of the Taliban, making the attraction of opium as a previously tolerated quick cash crop overwhelming. For that reason, the opium ban will not last unless the U.S. is willing to pour far larger amounts of money into underwriting the Afghan economy. As the Drug Enforcement Administration's Steven Casteel admitted, "The bad side of the ban is that it's bringing their country--or certain regions of their country--to economic ruin." Nor did he hold out much hope for Afghan farmers growing other crops such as wheat, which require a vast infrastructure to supply water and fertilizer that no longer exists in that devastated country. There's little doubt that the Taliban will turn once again to the easily taxed cash crop of opium in order to stay in power. The Taliban may suddenly be the dream regime of our own war drug war zealots, but in the end this alliance will prove a costly failure. Our long sad history of signing up dictators in the war on drugs demonstrates the futility of building a foreign policy on a domestic obsession. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________________________________________________ Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. --- ************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt(a)coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/ **************************************************************************

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Re: SYMBOL
by Tim May 16 Sep '01

16 Sep '01

On Sunday, September 16, 2001, at 09:00 AM, Eugene Leitl wrote: > On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > >> As were buildings above 5 stories in ancient Rome. Technology moves >> on. The question is not, "Can 250-story buildings be made safe?" The >> only question is "How can they be made safe?" > > The question is: why should we bother? Tall buildings have intrinsically > bad volume to crossection ratio, by definition. Both the static and the > infrastructure is vulnerable, so the efforts would be far better spent > by > decentralizing the society. Monkeys want to see monkeys, fine. We have > video projectors and AR avatars for that, and last time I looked most of > the fiber was idle. > * Let the builders pay _all_ costs for a structure; taxpayers should not "bail out" either the insurance industry or the builders (or the airlines, on a different note) * If companies and their workers wish to spend 20 minutes riding the series of elevators to the upper floors, cool. (I expect many won't: I saw many people saying they hated working in the WTC...I expect this sentiment will be magnified 100-fold. Some in the Empire State Building were saying on CNN that they want to get out of that building as soon as they can.) * Let the builders/owners also _insure_ their buildings fully for any damage. Had the WTC towers _tipped_ instead of pancaking, the quarter mile swath of destruction would likely have taken down a dozen other buildings. Any construction of a building tall enough to knock over other buildings needs insurance for this. * I think the notion of a "symbol" is silly. John Young called it "vainglory." I have called it Heights of Hubris. I suppose Ayn Rand would call for a national pride effort (as she supported the use of 100,000 slave lives to put an American flag on the moon). * National symbols are not usually good things. Why would libertarians or transnationalists support such things? The best response to terrorism, mayhem, and statism (many states support Osama) is not to foolish rebuilt in the name of "symbolism." Rather, it's to use knowledge wisely. Specifically, to harden and decentralize markets. * Using any coerced funding (taxes, bailouts, subsidies) to rebuld a gaudy and dangerous bauble, one that employees don't even feel comfortable working in, is not rational. In any case, let the insurers and builders do it if they want. But they'd better not use any money taken by force from others. And they'd better have insurance. And they'd better be prepared for a lukewarm response from tenants. And of course they become the Number One repeat target. Wonderful idea.

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