November 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: News: House votes life sentences for hackers (fwd)
by Jim Choate 15 Nov '02

15 Nov '02

You only need to send it to the list, I'll get it ;) I don't really like getting private email from total strangers. For obvious reasons. -- ____________________________________________________________________ We don't see things as they are, ravage(a)ssz.com we see them as we are. www.ssz.com jchoate(a)open-forge.org Anais Nin www.open-forge.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- On Fri, 15 Nov 2002, Tyler Durden wrote: > Holy Shit! > > Does that mean that some 18-year-old script kiddie could get LIFE? > > If this wasn't such an immense pile of stupidity, I'd get angry over the > obvious invasions of privacy, etc... > > Having worked in many a company, I KNOW how most management systems work. > Let's say there's something as simple as a DoS attack that could take down > Company A. Programmer Joe Shmo recognizes this and tells his boss, who wants > to cover his own ass and tells HIS boss about the problem. This boss will > then think about the issue for 3 seconds, and reply "well, hackers get life > in prison now so no one will ever try it". Meanwhile, guys who don't care > about getting life (Osama's posse, who probably won't even live in the US > for this) will say: "Shit these guys are stupid! We just found a way to take > down the whole US economy with 20 lines of code!" > > Send script kiddies away for life? How about sending the CTOs of publically > traded companies away for life if something as simple as a DoS attack robs > little old ladies of their retirement $? > > > > > > > > > >From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)einstein.ssz.com> > >To: <cypherpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com> > >CC: <hell(a)einstein.ssz.com>, <austin-cpunks(a)einstein.ssz.com> > >Subject: News: House votes life sentences for hackers (fwd) > >Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 07:31:38 -0600 (CST) > > > >http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105-965750.html > > > > > > -- > > ____________________________________________________________________ > > > > We don't see things as they are, ravage(a)ssz.com > > we see them as we are. www.ssz.com > > jchoate(a)open-forge.org > > Anais Nin www.open-forge.org > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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Re: Poker
by Nomen Nescio 15 Nov '02

15 Nov '02

James Donald writes: > In principle it should be possible to create poker playing > software where the server cannot cheat, but it is not obvious > to me how this can be done. > > Does anyone know of a cheat proof algorithm? Sure, there are any number of poker algoerithms which prevent the server from cheating. See the many literature references on Mental Poker. One recent protocol is Kurosawa et al, IEICE Transactions on Fundamentals, Vol E00-A, No. 1, January 1997. It is available from citeseer. The problem is that although you can stop the server from cheating, you can't stop players from colluding outside the scope of the game protocols. Two players could communicate by phone, revealing their cards to each other and influencing the betting. This kind of cheating can't be prevented, and it can be significant in an n-player poker game.

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Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto
by Mike Rosing 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Sam Ritchie wrote: > That's the whole deal with the bible, and its various internal > contradictions. If anything can be proven true in the bible, then there's no > room for faith anymore, which nullifies religious "beliefs"; and if anything > can be proven false, then there's no god, and religion is crushed under the > heel of reason. Hurrah, Enlightenment! > ~SAM Don't bet on it. I was in a discussion group a week or so ago and one lady who is super devout (of some christian sect, I'm not really sure which one) claimed that she was always "testing her faith" every day. It really shook me up because I have faith in testing. Religion and reason are not in the same universe! My favorite response on the subject of god is "I have no need of that hypothisis". I forget who it's attributed to, but I think it was from the late 1800's. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike

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Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto
by Tyler Durden 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

"Indeed, I've heard the same. One could argue that for someone to believe in something (religion) so intensely as to shun all moral explanation against this hypothesis and to persist in those beliefs without any proof is akin to schizophrenia." Well, I'm sure this is not an issue that Cypherpunks is going to want to spend a ton of time on, but let's be clear here. There's "belief", and then there's "faith". With belief,the believer refuses to acknowledge and accpet facts that disagree with their (narrow) worldview. I can't help but put the "Creationists" in this category. (Even a cursory look at their "science" makes it clear that there's TONS of information they ignored or explain away with absurd notions.) Faith is a different matter. With faith, the faithful see the "facts" (as they are commonly understood) and still find a way to believe in something unseen. Belief contradicts reason, faith operates in parallel. I would argue that great scientists operated with a decent amount of the latter, and Galileo is a good example. At the time, the geocentric theory was still able to predict most celestial events better than a heliocentric one. But Galileo had a deeper intuitive sense that something was "wrong" with that geocentric theory, and its clumsy and mind-boggling complexity. Likewise, every now and then one encounters religious people who recognize the "unreasonabilty" of what they believe. (Indeed, it's not easy to believe in a God that allows, for instance, the Holocaust to occur). I find these people very different from the "believer" category, and would place folks like Michelangelo, Kepler, Newton, Maxwell, Kierkegaard, Galileo, St John of the Cross (a Spanish mystic tortured by the inquisition) and many others in this category. As for being akin to Schizophrenia, I'd point out that Schizophrenia is not a "mental" disorder per se, but a genetically triggered even that causes a measurable, physical degradation in the brain (a Schizophrenic's brain can be identified in autopsies). >From: Sam Ritchie <kayakwcc(a)comcast.net> >To: Andri Isidoro Fernandes Esteves <Aife(a)netvisao.pt>, Mike Rosing ><eresrch(a)eskimo.com> >CC: Cypherpunks <cypherpunks(a)lne.com> >Subject: Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto >Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 19:41:40 -0500 > > > From: Andri Isidoro Fernandes Esteves <Aife(a)netvisao.pt> > > Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 14:31:41 +0000 > > To: Mike Rosing <eresrch(a)eskimo.com> > > Cc: cypherpunks(a)lne.com > > Subject: Re: The End of the Golden Age of Crypto > > > > On Thursday 14 November 2002 03:50, you wrote: > >> On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Sam Ritchie wrote: > >>> That's the whole deal with the bible, and its various internal > >>> contradictions. If anything can be proven true in the bible, then >there's > >>> no room for faith anymore, which nullifies religious "beliefs"; and if > >>> anything can be proven false, then there's no god, and religion is > >>> crushed under the heel of reason. Hurrah, Enlightenment! > >>> ~SAM > >> > >> Don't bet on it. I was in a discussion group a week or so ago and one > >> lady who is super devout (of some christian sect, I'm not really sure > >> which one) claimed that she was always "testing her faith" every day. > >> It really shook me up because I have faith in testing. Religion and > >> reason are not in the same universe! > >> > >> My favorite response on the subject of god is "I have no need of that > >> hypothisis". I forget who it's attributed to, but I think it was from >the > >> late 1800's. > >> > >> Patience, persistence, truth, > >> Dr. mike > > > > The religious person is always battling against reality wich with a >minimum > > of inteligence from the observer always bring doubts on the truth of his > > faith. > > > > It's a state of mind wich can only be compared with mental ilness... > > (I've read that there are even some neurological similarities between >the > > faithful and the mentaly ill) > > >Indeed, I've heard the same. One could argue that for someone to believe in >something (religion) so intensely as to shun all moral explanation against >this hypothesis and to persist in those beliefs without any proof is akin >to >schizophrenia. But that's a whole new kettle of fish. >~SAM > > The author of that statement: "I have no need of that hipotheses" was > > Laplace, french mathematician on answering Napoleon's question in why is >book > > on newtonian mechanics didn't call for god. > > > > Andri Esteves _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus

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RE: Where's Osama? (Re: OPPOSE THE WAR! We are going to ruin Iraq to get the oil. Who's next)
by Adam Stenseth 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

Interesting points. Now, the corollary questions: How -much- worse? Long, drug out, lots-of-body-bags-coming-home and nasty political scandal worse, or Vietnam-style lots-of-dead-american-conscripts worse? -adam On Thu, 14 Nov 2002, Andrew John Lopata wrote: > Short answer: yes. > > Long answer: > I'm no expert, but a friend of mine in the military suggested that invading > Iraq now would be a lot different than the Gulf War. He said that urban > combat, which will be necessary to depose Hussein, is the most difficult and > dangerous type of combat there is. The Gulf War was fought on a flat plane > with no obstructions or terrain differences (the desert) where superior fire > power has a great advantage. Other reasons to think that invading Iraq this > time will be much more difficult and likely cause many more U.S. causalities > include: > 1. The troops the U.S. fought against in the Gulf War were mainly recent > conscripts with little training or motivation. Taking Baghdad will require > fighting veteran republican guard troops. > 2. There is no clear objective to this invasion of Iraq besides deposing > Hussein. Ignoring the long-term consequences of this invasion (which is the > usual practice), the short-term prospects aren't good. There is no readily > available alternate government to install in Hussein's place. The resulting > destabilization in the region will likely result in a U.S. military presense > in the country for a much longer time than in the Gulf War. > > -Andy

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Assassination Politics: Coming soon?
by Keith Ray 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

It's been a number of years since Jim Bell wrote his infamous "Assassination Politics" essay. If someone were to try to implement the system today and not share Jim Bell's fate, they would need absolute anonymity and security. The technical requirements for implementing the system are: 1. Anonymous and secure communication between the organization and the contributors and guessors. 2. Anonymous payment system. 3. Anonymous public presense of the organization to solicit contributions and display bounties to potential assassins. At the time AP was written, only the first requirement could have been met using the mixmaster remailer network. The last two requirements were not yet available. However, two new systems, DMT and Freenet, could be used to meet the anonymous payment and anonymous public presense requirements. If someone did want to implement AP, would DMT/Yodel, Freenet, and Mixmaster be good enough to keep the TLA's from shutting the system down? -- Keith Ray <keith(a)nullify.org> -- OpenPGP Key: 0x79269A12

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Norton AntiVirus detected and quarantined a virus in a message yo u sent.
by NAVMSE-CFSNET＠cfsnh.org 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

Recipient of the infected attachment: Strange, Kat\Inbox Subject of the message: ACCESSKEY One or more attachments were quarantined. Attachment MEULA.bat was Quarantined for the following reasons: Virus W32.Klez.H@mm was found.

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by 企业上网空间域名 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

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Where's Osama? (Re: OPPOSE THE WAR! We are going to ruin Iraq to get the oil. Who's next)
by Sunder 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

On Wed, 13 Nov 2002, Tyler Durden wrote: > Anyone guess where's Waldo (Osama) now? My guess he's on the end of a bungee > being kicked into Iraq right now! (The other end of the bungee is in a US > chopper!) Osama is wherever Bush wants him to be. Once we're done with Iraq (assuming that we'd win that Vietnam**2 war - Ha!), Osama will magically produce yet another audio or video tape from North Korea or whatever nation Bush wants to make his next bitch. At this point, we do have the technology to alter both video and audio, and to build fake clips at will. I don't believe that the latest audio bite has been forged by us, but rather that the technology exists. Likely Osama is either dead or has had cosmetic surgery enough for him to live the rest of his days in the French riviera, and what sound bites and videos we have seen and will see are pre-recorded ones. While I'm opposed to us going to war since I believe that between Afghanistan and Iraq, we're opening ourselves up for a far worse beating than Vientam in the long term, I'm far more opposed to the outright lies being presented as reasons for doing so, and the sheer bald faced freedom and privacy grabs that this is an excuse for. Even if we pull a victory like we did in Japan and both democratise and capitalize Afghanistan and Iraq, in the long term, they'll become economic competition. If we "do" Afghanistan again, like we did them after Russia fell and abadon them without further support, it'll turn out the same as it did, like Somalia and other failed abandoned overthrown states. In the end, that will produce far more terrorists than we have seen to date, more of our freedoms will be taken away unil an equilibrium of rights will exist between the USA and dictatorships like Iraq. Luckily there's only two more years before the next election...

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Re: OPPOSE THE WAR! We are going to ruin Iraq to get the oil. Who's ne
by Ken Hirsch 14 Nov '02

14 Nov '02

Harmon Seaver wrote: > I don't see that Saddam is any less moral than Dubbya and Asscruft. What can you possibly mean by saying this? You lose all credibility for real criticism when you utter such inanities. It's like comparing a shoplifter with Jeffrey Dahmer. Either you're ignorant of what Saddam is about or you have no sense of proportion. Or maybe I'm just not paying attention. Was I not watching the news the night when Bush, after seizing power, marched onto the floors of Congress in front of cameras and had 21 top officials hauled off for summary execution, as Saddam did in 1979? (btw, the U.S. had nothing to do with Saddam taking power) Did I miss it when Bush had Colin Powell's brother tortured to death, like Saddam did with his foreign minister's son? http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,801613,00.html I must have missed the revelation of the prison where Bush is holding children hostage, like Saddam's prison which was too horrible for Scott Ritter to talk about. (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,351165,00.html) I must have missed the testimony about Bush crippling and maiming children with torture. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/from_our_own_correspondent/2058253.stm or http://tinyurl.com/2p21) I must have missed the thousands of political prisoners executed. I must have missed it when Bush invaded Canada AND Mexico. I think my radio was broken the day Bush gassed Berkeley. Get a clue! Check out Amnesty International's annual report on Iraq. http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/mde14.htm or ANY OTHER YEAR!

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