December 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: CHAUM CHIMES IN
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: 08 Sep 93 16:30:55 EDT >From: Sandy <72114.1712(a)CompuServe.COM> >Subject: CHAUM CHIMES IN >Message-Id: <930908203054_72114.1712_FHF95-2(a)CompuServe.COM> ..From: > SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort(a)attmail.com [ . . . ] >Of course, the next letter to the editor calls for the adoption >of systems to track every vehicle at all times. The genius who >wrote the letter, thinks it would be a good way to prevent >nuclear, biological or chemical terrorism. Geeeeez. It was signed by Dorothy Denning, right? Actually, they should take that to its full conclusion. We need implants in every individual, broadcasting to the local surveillance agency, giving not only location but also every word spoken in the vicinity. It could also do a chemical analysis of the air in the neighborhood. It should also have a radiation counter. It should also monitor the host body, looking for signs of anger or sexual arousal? How else will we be guaranteed safe from mad bombers, rapists and child molesters? How else will our big budget LE agencies be able to protect us? I know. When it's finally adopted, worldwide, they'll call it the Ellison Plan. :-( - Carl

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Stegno and DAT and digital music...
by Peter Wayner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In this week's Sunday NYT, Hans Fantel, their music guy, writes at length about the new "dithered" CD's and how the guys have improved the sound. He says that the original CD format was limited to 16 bits of sound because of costs. But many audiophiles reacted very negatively to the tinny, metalic quality to the music. For this reason, the companies have developed 20 bit DAT recording tape and then come up with ways to "dither" this into 16 bits. I am curious if anyone knows the details of these algorithms. Also, his point suggests that flipping the least significant bit of 16 bit music may not be imperceptable to some ears. If the classical music starts to sound tinny then there might be something subversive in the least significant bits. -Peter Wayner

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Remail: errors
by HFinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have been out of town for the last week, so I missed some CP mail. It looks like some good things are happening with remailers, though. Kudos to Karl, Sameer, and the others for their work! I have received many messages to my remailer in the last week which came from remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu, which were PGP-encrypted apparently in an effort to get my remailer to send them. They did not work, though, because there was no "Encrypted: PGP" header to trigger the remailer's decryption. This can be arranged by creating the message something like this: ======================================================== :: Request-Remailing-To: hfinney(a)shell.portal.com :: Encrypted: PGP - -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- <rest of message> - -----END PGP MESSAGE------ ======================================================== This would then be sent to remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu. I don't know whether the multiplicity of such erroneous messages is just due to one person stubbornly re-trying, or whether there is an error in one of the new programs for creating chained remailer messages. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.2 iQCVAgUBLJaNuKgTA69YIUw3AQHrNwQAowMEQwuH6YyHoj6T7AqZFLNdTf+eqJ9L LhAatHS94nmC1smkfVNq0dZmigmkvBdMNEPlBZemmxALz+KJw6OSY/ULSBmuVNEq 5rJANh3XimoJWqLISy2lZiuC5Fw2R7UvRadcdM94pncSVvev92Fyf7CqEOOtrGAK PUzRds7BVNo= =FpLa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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more than spread spectrum
by cme＠ellisun.sw.stratus.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There are alternatives to spread spectrum, if we're threatened with loss of freedom to communicate. We could lay our own wires/fibers. We could set up a mesh network of infrared lasers through the air. Last time I looked, there were no laws against shining lights out your window as long as they didn't bother anyone. An infrared laser could hardly bother anyone. We could produce a line of cheap cards to plug into a PC which would do packet routing, using a variety of physical links -- our own wires, lasers, very low range radio, .... Each card would connect to three or more neighbors and become part of the global mesh. Adaptive routing with no global map would suffice for the card and would keep the whole system peer-to-peer with no need for central control and no chance for central tapping. Of course all of these solutions require a high density of users. A college campus might be the right place to start. We could then branch out to cities. I suspect that a place like Chicago or NYC with high rise apartments might be the place to start -- many options for line-of-sight communications. The benefit isn't just for Cypherpunks. It's a free network for the masses -- like the original USENET (with each user donating routing and store/forward) but with unrestricted, low-range, continuously operating physical links. I'll volunteer to do the software for the node card. Does anyone have hardware design/fab to donate to the effort? - Carl

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Bush More Hopeful for Diplomacy With Korea Than Iraq
by Steve Schear 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

[Of course Bush sees diplomacy with North Korea more likely to yield results: they've already got nukes. Any nation that wants respect from the U.S. and to maintain their sovereignty needs to get theirs ASAP. Wouldn't be surprised if Saddam is telling the truth about WoMD. You can bet that if the inspectors doesn't find any smoking gun the international community will quickly lose interest. He has less need to develop them himself if he can purchase them covertly from NK. Probably already has all presents for next Ramadam picked out and paid for ;-) ] Bush More Hopeful for Diplomacy With Korea Than Iraq By DAVID STOUT[] WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 President Bush said today that he was still hopeful that the confrontations with Iraq and North Korea could be resolved through diplomacy rather than war, though he seemed to express deeper concern over Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/international/31CND-PREX.html Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun -- Mao Tse-tung

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Silver coin banks to oppose the Fed?
by GaryJeffers＠aol.com 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

My Fellow Cypherpunks, <A HREF="http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/guillory/guillory3.html">http://www.strike-the-root.com/columns/guillory/guillory3.html</A>Yours Truly, Gary Jeffers BEAT STATE!!!! to see how the world runs see: <A HREF="www.WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM">www.WHATREALLYHAPPENED.COM</A> and <A HREF="http://www.skolnicksreport.com/">http://www.skolnicksreport.com/</A> to see how our evil money system really works see: <A HREF="www.fame.org">www.fame.org</A>

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Re: Recommended: "Catch Me If You Can," a film
by Tim May 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

On Tuesday, December 31, 2002, at 02:23 PM, Michael Cardenas wrote: > On Tue, Dec 31, 2002 at 01:22:49PM -0800, Tim May wrote: > ... >> >> (The next time a CP meeting/party is at my house, someone remind me >> and >> I'll put it on. Along with "A Beautiful Mind," also of interest to >> us.) >> >> " The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the >> blood of patriots & tyrants. "--Thomas Jefferson, 1787 >> >> > > I actually found a beautiful mind to be a disappointment. I was hoping > for a movie more about math and crypto, but it turned out to be a > movie about schizophrenia. Did you not find the same thing? It was what it was about. A movie about math and crypto would be watched by only a small audience. "The Enigma" was also about things other than crypto. --Tim May "Dogs can't conceive of a group of cats without an alpha cat." --David Honig, on the Cypherpunks list, 2001-11

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Re: Quantum Probability and Decision Theory
by Michael Cardenas 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

On Tue, Dec 24, 2002 at 09:57:58AM -0800, Tim May wrote: > First, I sent this in error to the CP list...it was intended for > another list. (My mailer has command completion and I am so used to > typing "cy" in the To: box and having it expand to > "cypherpunks(a)lne.com" that I sent it to CP by accident. As to why type > list addresses rather than "Reply to All," this is to get the list in > the To: and not the Cc: and not have misc. other lists or persons > getting copied--as in this reply, where TD is initially in the To: and > CP is in the Cc:, in OS X Mail.) > And what list would that be? I'd like to take a look at it. ... > > On Tuesday, December 24, 2002, at 08:25 AM, Tyler Durden wrote: > > > >>> Yes. I strongly suspect that "minds" are quantum mechanical. > > > >Penrose also believes this, and has actually identified > >Aharanov-Bohm-like structures in certain simple organisms used to > >probe their immediate environment. > > Max Tegmark fairly conclusively demonstrated that decoherence occurs > far too rapidly in proteins and other biological structures for QM to > be an actor. As for Stuart Hameroff's nanotubules idea, I've been a > skeptic of this ever since meeting him at the A-LIFE Conference in 1987. > Last summer I read "the physics of consciousness". It was a pretty disappointing attempt to explain consciousness with QM, mixed with lots of emotional and relgious hand waving, nice background info though. Anyway, this is exactly why I want to do computational neuroscience. I also think that the turing machine is a sorely classical model, and that the brain is definitely not a turning machine, but something else, far more powerful. As for making a neuron, look into the research of henry abarbanel. I was in his lab the other day, and his students have actually made simple neurons that can be wired into the brain of a lobster to simulate removed neurons, creating the proper oscillation to generate the signals which allow the lobster to digest things. He mostly does research into the nonlines dynamic properties of neurons. I'm hoping to work in his lab next year. michael -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer people.debian.org/~mbc | encrypted email preferred Listening to: Lamb - Cotton Wool "Sit Rest Work. Alone with yourself, Never weary. On the edge of the forest Live joyfully, Without desire." - The Buddha [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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Re: Dossiers and Customer Courtesy Cards
by Kevin Elliott 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

At 12:03 -0800 on 12/31/02, Tim May wrote: >Yes. So? > >Notice that exactly the same type of coupon is printed out with a >cash or non >courtesy card purchase. It's a purely local >calculation. In programming terms, >a purely local variable >situation. No. Obviously the coupon was closely linked with my buying pattern, and in at least one case I received one of these "buy several" coupons without having purchased that product that particular trip (though I'd purchased it the the past). >In my normal insulting way I would say "Duh" here. But I am >attempting to be >more polite, so I will say "Am I missing >something in your analysis?" My oh my. Getting an early start on your new years resolution? <G> -- ___________________________ Kevin Elliott <mailto:kelliott@mac.com> ICQ#23758827 AIM ID: teargo ___________________________

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biological systems and cryptography
by Michael Cardenas 31 Dec '02

31 Dec '02

How do you all see the future use of biologically based systems affecting cryptography in general? By biologically based systems I mean machine learning, genetic algorithms, chips that learn (like Carver Mead's work), neural networks, vecor support machines, associative memory, etc. It seems to me that computer science based on writing longer and longer streams of instructions is coming to an end, as it cannot possibly scale. We now have supercomputers that can execute 35 trillion instructions per second, but if someone has to write all of those instuctions, what good are they? Also, it seems that the brain has immensely powerful visual processing power, without having millions of lines of code written to do so. I only ask this because I'm deciding whether to study computational neuroscience or cryptography in grad school. -- michael cardenas | lead software engineer, lindows.com hyperpoem.net | GNU/Linux software developer people.debian.org/~mbc | encrypted email preferred Listening to: David Bowie - Wild Is The Wind "He who knows himself knows his Lord." - Sufi saying [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]

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