September 2001 - cypherpunks-legacy

G. Bush Sr., Gephardt on shift in privacy balance
by citizenQ 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

VIA CNN this AM: (somewhat paraphrasing) Bush Sr., speaking to some corporate collection of cronies: "We'll also have to look at this Internet thing you all know so much about, and review our policies..." Gephardt: "We don't have to, we don't want to change the Constitution, but there will need to be a shift in the balance between freedom and security..." The planes have hit the towers but the shit has yet to hit the fan.

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Re: Cypherpunks and terrorism
by M.D. Tate 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

> It's always amazing to see how stupid the responses are to various > messages. There seems to be no limit to the ignorance of the cypherpunks. > > It is well known that this is a motivation for many terrorists. If you > will not believe it from an anonymous message, perhaps you will be > convinced by quotes from the two co-founders of the cypherpunks, both > of whom have said exactly the same thing in messages posted today: > > Tim May wrote in 1996 and reposted today: > > (yada yada yada. snip) > > There are two contrasting forces at the heart of the cypherpunk > philosophy, well exemplified by the two co-founders, and their messages > posted today show the difference well. > > The dark anger of May versus the bright hope of Hughes. Make your choice. > Stuff your false binary choice, I prefer to think for myself. It seems there is no limit to asininity of federal trolls. --- Sigs? We don' need no stinking sigs!

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American Muslims being attacked and harassed
by Matthew Gaylor 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

Unfortunately I've been getting reports from around the US of American Muslims being attacked and harassed. If you want to stay on top of the latest news I recommend that you subscribe to The Muslim Student Association News mailing list (MSANEWS). The list is fairly high volume, but does contain most of the news and perspectives from the Muslim and Islamic communities worldwide. To subscribe, send e-mail to: <listserver(a)lists.acs.ohio-state.edu> with the message body "subscribe MSANEWS Firstname Lastname". MSANEWS Home Page: <http://msanews.mynet.net/> Comments to the Editors: <msanews-ed(a)msanews.mynet.net> Submissions for MSANEWS: <msanews(a)msanews.mynet.net> Problems with subscription: <msaosu(a)postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu> Regards, Matt- ************************************************************************** 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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J. Neil Schulman On I can't take it anymore ....
by Matthew Gaylor 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

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Re: MARTIAL LAW Cypherpunks and terrorism
by Declan McCullagh 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

At 09:57 PM 9/12/01 -0400, !Dr. Joe Baptista wrote: >That's not an answer - thats an interview with little details. If you look at the links from that page, you'll see it's actually an extraordinary lengthy interview that details bin Ladin's "demands." Basic searches will turn up far more information; my point was that information is out there and people should not be expect to be fed it. -Declan

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GRAVY on the attack
by GRAVY 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

Fire is what brought the towers down. An engineer friend explained that after a fire burns for awhile, the steel holding up the structure softens. When it fails, the part above falls with impact on the part below, which causes progressive collapse of the building, or pancaking, as one floor crunches onto the next onto the next. Once one floor goes there is no stopping it. The World Trade Center was likely designed to last 1-2 hours in a major fire, long enough for most people to evacuate. The tower that fell first lasted 57 minutes, in a fire driven by 100,000 pounds of jet fuel. No one anticipated that part when the building was designed, and there is no way to build a building to withstand such an event. The TV newscasters who keep asking what could have been done to make the buildings more resistant should go home. An astonishing thing is the way the towers collapsed straight down. As horrifying as that was, imagine how much more damage and loss of life there would have been would have been if they had tipped over like falling trees, landing on surrounding buildings for a quarter mile. A building demolition expert interviewed on NPR said that what made the disciplined collapse possible was the external skeleton, the girders that lined the edges of the towers. These girders contained the collapse. The expert considered this an extraordinary achievement by the architect. The World Trade Center was designed by the late Minoru Yamasaki, at the firm of Skilling, Ward, Magnusson and Barkshire, in Seattle. You have to think it's good he didn't live to see this. The rest of his firm is said to be shock, as are the employees of Boeing, whose engineers are acutely aware of the destructive energy contained in a 767 going three hundred miles an hour and full of fuel. A few random notes: This attack seems different from Pearl Harbor in the same way that the Vietnam War seemed different to fight than previous wars, which is that the enemy did not stand up and "fight like a man," but rather was hidden, hard to find, and devious, as well as surprising. The British felt the same way about the American "irregulars" in the revolutionary war. They felt we weren't fighting fairly or properly. In all three cases, one side deliberately ignored the "code of war" of the time to powerful effect. In this way the definition of war changes. It just changed again, whether we like it or not. Whatever we do to retaliate risks an escalation of terrorist-style attacks on American citizens. We will not get to watch our distant military on newsreels and TV like the old days. One of the things that makes this scary is that we have found a bomb, and it is everywhere. Every plane is a terrific bomb for a pilot who is willing to die. This attack has been called cowardly. That's silly. It was no more cowardly than flying a stealth fighter loaded with smart bombs into Iraq, when by the same definition the uncowardly thing would have been to ride in on a camel with a broadsword. The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was headed for Washington but the plan was foiled by the passengers who had heard what the planes did in New York. Bravo. Instead of banning knives, perhaps we should issue one to every passenger on all commercial flights. This attack was a huge failure of American military intelligence. This attack points up the value of an unworkable and insanely expensive missile defense system. For those of you who are sleepy, that value would be zero. Bush said that we were attacked because we believe in freedom. This is not why we were attacked. There is much about the execution of our foreign policy that rarely makes it into US news reports. If you have lived abroad for more than a few months, you have seen this. If not, it is educational to talk to someone who has. At the same time, nearly all Arabs and other Muslims abhor terrorism. The Arab-Americans I know are as dismayed and horrified as we are. Our airport security has always been a joke. My dad's crutches were consistently handed around the inspection points by the nice people working there. All I could think was how much explosive or how many knives and zip guns I could have packed into each crutch, while they were busy making business travelers go through their briefcases. It is hard to fight people who believe they will achieve martyrdom and go to heaven following a suicide attack for their cause. It is an impossible stretch for us to understand how our enemy thinks when it is that different from how we think. It is difficult to protect yourself from someone who does not value his life on this earth. Of course fight them we shall. No one gets to do what they did. We need to start by repealing some laws, like the one that says we can't use intelligence agents to infiltrate groups with human rights violations (which wizard thought up that one?), and the one that says we can't assassinate heads of state. We must not try to bring anyone to trial. We must be as surgical as possible, to minimize the loss of innocent life that would would be both a new tragedy and a fuel for escalation. I support Bush's plan to treat harboring states and helpers as indistinguishable from the terrorists themselves. Above all, we must not rush. There is no advantage or need to hurry. We must take our time, learn everything we need to learn, make no mistake. And then it will be time to execute. I regret that that will not be the end of it. jb -- It ain't so much the things you don't know that get you in trouble. It's the things you know that just ain't so. -- Artimus Ward, 1834-1867 Put another way: You can always spot a well informed man - his views are the same as yours. -- Ilka Chase -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- The GRAVY letter, edited by James Bradley. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- To SUBSCRIBE to the GRAVY Letter, or to UNSUBSCRIBE, send mailto:jbradley@earthlink.net with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT LINE. You will be subscribed at the address you are writing from. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- DISCLAIMER: GRAVY does not promise to be or not be any particular way. GRAVY postings are not verified. GRAVY is intended only as entertainment. You should never use GRAVY as basis for any judgement or decision without thoroughly investigating the relevant facts yourself. Opinions expressed in GRAVY may not even be those of the author, much less GRAVY management. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- GRAVY SUBSCRIPTIONS are free. One day GRAVY may go commercial, and subscriptions may change from free to cheap. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- CONTRIBUTIONS are welcome. Send to jbradley(a)earthlink.net. If we use your contribution we will credit you unless you request otherwise. If we don't use it, don't be discouraged, keep 'em coming. PLEASE DO NOT SEND COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL UNNATTRIBUTED. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- FORWARDING by any non-automatic electronic means is authorized and encouraged with this footer intact. Other rights are reserved, to the extent that we own them. If someone is forwarding GRAVY to you and you like it, why not subscribe? -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- This footer is proof that text is deliverable to everyone right now. ************************************************************************** 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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GRAVY on the attack
by GRAVY 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

Fire is what brought the towers down. An engineer friend explained that after a fire burns for awhile, the steel holding up the structure softens. When it fails, the part above falls with impact on the part below, which causes progressive collapse of the building, or pancaking, as one floor crunches onto the next onto the next. Once one floor goes there is no stopping it. The World Trade Center was likely designed to last 1-2 hours in a major fire, long enough for most people to evacuate. The tower that fell first lasted 57 minutes, in a fire driven by 100,000 pounds of jet fuel. No one anticipated that part when the building was designed, and there is no way to build a building to withstand such an event. The TV newscasters who keep asking what could have been done to make the buildings more resistant should go home. An astonishing thing is the way the towers collapsed straight down. As horrifying as that was, imagine how much more damage and loss of life there would have been would have been if they had tipped over like falling trees, landing on surrounding buildings for a quarter mile. A building demolition expert interviewed on NPR said that what made the disciplined collapse possible was the external skeleton, the girders that lined the edges of the towers. These girders contained the collapse. The expert considered this an extraordinary achievement by the architect. The World Trade Center was designed by the late Minoru Yamasaki, at the firm of Skilling, Ward, Magnusson and Barkshire, in Seattle. You have to think it's good he didn't live to see this. The rest of his firm is said to be shock, as are the employees of Boeing, whose engineers are acutely aware of the destructive energy contained in a 767 going three hundred miles an hour and full of fuel. A few random notes: This attack seems different from Pearl Harbor in the same way that the Vietnam War seemed different to fight than previous wars, which is that the enemy did not stand up and "fight like a man," but rather was hidden, hard to find, and devious, as well as surprising. The British felt the same way about the American "irregulars" in the revolutionary war. They felt we weren't fighting fairly or properly. In all three cases, one side deliberately ignored the "code of war" of the time to powerful effect. In this way the definition of war changes. It just changed again, whether we like it or not. Whatever we do to retaliate risks an escalation of terrorist-style attacks on American citizens. We will not get to watch our distant military on newsreels and TV like the old days. One of the things that makes this scary is that we have found a bomb, and it is everywhere. Every plane is a terrific bomb for a pilot who is willing to die. This attack has been called cowardly. That's silly. It was no more cowardly than flying a stealth fighter loaded with smart bombs into Iraq, when by the same definition the uncowardly thing would have been to ride in on a camel with a broadsword. The plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was headed for Washington but the plan was foiled by the passengers who had heard what the planes did in New York. Bravo. Instead of banning knives, perhaps we should issue one to every passenger on all commercial flights. This attack was a huge failure of American military intelligence. This attack points up the value of an unworkable and insanely expensive missile defense system. For those of you who are sleepy, that value would be zero. Bush said that we were attacked because we believe in freedom. This is not why we were attacked. There is much about the execution of our foreign policy that rarely makes it into US news reports. If you have lived abroad for more than a few months, you have seen this. If not, it is educational to talk to someone who has. At the same time, nearly all Arabs and other Muslims abhor terrorism. The Arab-Americans I know are as dismayed and horrified as we are. Our airport security has always been a joke. My dad's crutches were consistently handed around the inspection points by the nice people working there. All I could think was how much explosive or how many knives and zip guns I could have packed into each crutch, while they were busy making business travelers go through their briefcases. It is hard to fight people who believe they will achieve martyrdom and go to heaven following a suicide attack for their cause. It is an impossible stretch for us to understand how our enemy thinks when it is that different from how we think. It is difficult to protect yourself from someone who does not value his life on this earth. Of course fight them we shall. No one gets to do what they did. We need to start by repealing some laws, like the one that says we can't use intelligence agents to infiltrate groups with human rights violations (which wizard thought up that one?), and the one that says we can't assassinate heads of state. We must not try to bring anyone to trial. We must be as surgical as possible, to minimize the loss of innocent life that would would be both a new tragedy and a fuel for escalation. I support Bush's plan to treat harboring states and helpers as indistinguishable from the terrorists themselves. Above all, we must not rush. There is no advantage or need to hurry. We must take our time, learn everything we need to learn, make no mistake. And then it will be time to execute. I regret that that will not be the end of it. jb -- It ain't so much the things you don't know that get you in trouble. It's the things you know that just ain't so. -- Artimus Ward, 1834-1867 Put another way: You can always spot a well informed man - his views are the same as yours. -- Ilka Chase -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- The GRAVY letter, edited by James Bradley. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- To SUBSCRIBE to the GRAVY Letter, or to UNSUBSCRIBE, send mailto:jbradley@earthlink.net with SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE in the SUBJECT LINE. You will be subscribed at the address you are writing from. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- DISCLAIMER: GRAVY does not promise to be or not be any particular way. GRAVY postings are not verified. GRAVY is intended only as entertainment. You should never use GRAVY as basis for any judgement or decision without thoroughly investigating the relevant facts yourself. Opinions expressed in GRAVY may not even be those of the author, much less GRAVY management. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- GRAVY SUBSCRIPTIONS are free. One day GRAVY may go commercial, and subscriptions may change from free to cheap. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- CONTRIBUTIONS are welcome. Send to jbradley(a)earthlink.net. If we use your contribution we will credit you unless you request otherwise. If we don't use it, don't be discouraged, keep 'em coming. PLEASE DO NOT SEND COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL UNNATTRIBUTED. -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- FORWARDING by any non-automatic electronic means is authorized and encouraged with this footer intact. Other rights are reserved, to the extent that we own them. If someone is forwarding GRAVY to you and you like it, why not subscribe? -*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*-- This footer is proof that text is deliverable to everyone right now. ************************************************************************** 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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Priceless (tm)
by Dynamite Bob 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

Two dozen boxcutters $20 18 airplane tickets, one way $3500 Jet airplane schooling for four $40,000 Imploding the Bill of Rights, turning US into Israel: Priceless There are some things money can't buy, for everything else there's MasterCard (tm)

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where do we go from here (and where should we have gone)
by attila! 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

The time for a massive one-shot 'retaliation' has passed --it should have been done within the hour. I had hoped when Bush went to Orfit AFB (US missile command, sometimes referred to as 'nuke city') we might see a proper response --we did not. As members of the Church we are required to forgive our "trespassers"; I have no problem with forgiving them as they are obviously misguided, but that does not change the need and responsibility to protect our families and therefore punish not only the direct participants but also their leaders and any nations who harbor them. In so much as the terrorists are outside the reasonable laws of man, extraordinary measures are warranted. I consider 'war, in and of itself, a war crime', but that does not diminish the occasional requirement to maintain the rule of law, but war should only be entertained if you are determined to strike a decisive (and hopefully permanent) victory. To the victors go the privilege to write history; to the losers go the war crime trials. Terrorists are a special case. Bin Laden is following the playbook of the old Chinese master, Sun Tzu: kill one man and you terrify 10,000. Terrorists can only be eliminated by turning the people against them with pain and suffering --eg: 18 million Iraqis all do not wish to be martyrs when the chips are down. If we had taken out Iraq and Afghanistan, we should have smiled and said: "Next?" Geostrategy Direct detailed the Israeli assessment of Bin Laden's and Hussein's dirty hands. Today's Federalist article was the strongest (and most rational) I have seen --their bottom line is part of what I demanded yesterday: Afghanistan becomes molten silicon. What do we do now? Probably slide down the slope of the talking heads as the Left criticizes Bush's lack of decisive leadership (and U.S. intelligence failure) and permits the UN to convene to condemn the terrorism, but even more strongly condemn U.S. foreign policy for creating the world problems which brought forth the terrorist response --in other words, the U.S. must pay off the radical Islamists. Jefferson made the correct statement in history vis a vis the Barbary pirates: '...not one penny in tribute' --even the Brits had been paying tribute. A task force, led by the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides) and the Marine Corps, leveled Tripoli. They did not ask for their surrender: they eliminated them. Summary justice. George blew his window of opportunity --he had a chance to go down in history as a decisive leader in crisis, rather than just a president who presided over the worst single casualty ever suffered by America, here or abroad; the diminution of our military status; the abrogation of our leadership in the free world; and the potential destruction of our economic base if the financial markets collapse when the stock markets reopen on Monday. But even more pernicious, few Americans will trust the government to protect them or represent them in the world. Sorry, George, I thought you were more of a man.

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The WTC was designed by the late Minoru Yamasaki
by Matthew Gaylor 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

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