August 2002 - cypherpunks-legacy

You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

Life in plastic, it's fantastic,legal fight to protect parody and commentary on the pop culture that shapes our society. Marketers can't be allowed to pre-empt the marketplace of ideas. http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16699 Mattel Vs Aqua,parties advised to "chill."Here come de judge! Drop out,Tune out,Turn off...the new leary,GWB. Bush to Welfare Recipients: Drop Out of School. Lost in the flood of big news stories--Iraq, the financial scandal, Israel and Palestine, fast track--was a little gem from George W. on the subject of welfare reform. Speaking in Charleston, South Carolina, on July 29, Bush castigated Senate Democrats for trying to take some of the nastier edges off of his welfare bill. "Under the way they're kind of writing it right now, out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years--there's a five-year work requirement--on welfare, going to college," Bush said to applause. "Now, that's not my view of helping people become independent. And it's certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control."

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Keyser Soze in Hungary
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

http://www.ce-review.org/ebookstore/kosztolanyi1.html "Legalised corruption in the Communist days pervaded even the middle and lower echelons of our society in the form of wage calculations based on the expectation that practitioners of certain professions would be able to top up their scanty earnings through tips. This was true of everyone from taxi drivers, through petrol pump operators to doctors (though the tips there have a grander sounding name, paraszolvencia or hálapénz, translating literally as "gratitude money"). Under Kádár, a political position was a means of lining one's pockets, of living the good life. Party lackeys were an elite, a caste unto themselves and had many traits in common with today's mafia in the way they went about their business of bleeding the state dry in creating a conspiratorial, secretive world where everyone who counts knows everyone else." "Never in the brief history of post-Communist democracy has the work of a parliamentary committee attracted such a great deal of attention or triggered such an outcry. Part of the fascination with Hungary's Oil Committee lies not just with the general human preoccupation with the seamier side of existence, the larger than life characters we have become so accustomed to from the pages of countless detective novelsand with a series of unexplained deaths, mafia retaliation hits and bombings, the oil scandals have all the essential ingredients of any paperback thriller..."

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Nepal,Aceh and Columbia collateral damage in War on Terra.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

http://www.fas.org/asmp/library/asm/asm48.html Just as the heavy handed Cold war led to incredible mass murder,torture,corruption and repression so goes the latest war on a tactic,this time,not even an ideology. The provision on "classified activities" is especially troubling because it permits "projects not otherwise authorized by law," in other words, covert actions. This latest round of military aid has made one thing clear: the U.S. military has found a new excuse to extend its reach around the globe, arming regimes that had previously been blacklisted for human rights abuses, weapons proliferation, or brutal conflict.

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Re: On the outright laughability of internet "democracy"
by A.Melon 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

On Sun, 11 Aug 2002 13:22:15 -0400, you wrote: > > At 4:35 PM +0200 on 8/11/02, Anonymous wrote: > > > > Next, the "internet" boogeyman. > > Nope. Just the clueless "only knows one austrian remailer" boogeyman. Watch > me make him go away: > > <*Plonk!*> Based on your inability or unwillingness to address the issues identified specifically, that is pretty good course of action on your part. I would think you might be interested in going deeper, as "Blind signatures for untraceable payments" is directly applicable to both digital settlement and digital voting. See http://www.acm.org/crossroads/xrds2-4/voting.html for an interesting little article of introduction about the topic. And there are many others more current and deep. Those issues, remaining unaddressed by you, include: "The "sold vote" boogeyman". You need to submit evidence that "anonymous" "internet" voting is more likely to be fraudulent than paper, voter-present by mail voting. You have submitted none, and the "cryptography" word is insufficient to scare me off. The "bogus digital voter registration" boogeyman. You may also wish to show how digital voter registration cards would be more likely to be bogus than "Motor Voter, no-id required" registration cards. Good luck. The "crypto" boogeyman. I challenge you to show that current, published crypto voting protocols cannot accomplish the following: 1. one digital sig, one vote, the first one, and the others are discarded 2. no dig signature, no vote 3. no dig voter registration, no dig sig 4. anonymity, i.e., no connectibility between the voter's choice and his identity. 5. auditability, i.e., connection between each voting "lever throw" and a dig sig for the current vote. Next, the "internet" boogeyman. It's just a pipe/wire/whatever. Bits. Don't be afraid. If the bits are properly signed, no problem and whether "internet" bits or voter-machine-punched-paper-tape-bits is irrelevant." They are not strengthened or weakened by the mail server applied to their transmission, by the way. Cheers!

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Nations Horoscope.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

Remember Nancies astrologer? During the(balkan) war years the programme "Milja's Horoscope" was amongst the most popular programmes on Serbia's third channel, which normally offered light entertainment. Milja, a somewhat dishevelled actress, pronounced herself to be an astrologer, telling the nation's fortune. When the international community announced harsher measures against Miloevic's regime, she informed her viewers that a "cosmic boomerang" would strike back at the enemies of Serbia. http://www.ce-review.org/ebookstore/reljic1.html

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The RANT corporation
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

CATO sure has some flakes but a la rouchian in the RAND! Quelle fromage! ""I would be hesitant to give too much credit to this recent briefing. It is very significant that the president, secretary of state and defense secretary have stated that this person's individual 'musings' did not reflect US policy. It is also important to point out that the Rand Corporation has also stated that this person's opinion did not represent their thinking". Ambassador to Saudi Arabia,Jordan.http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=17658 "Investors should also feel secure in the president's firm statements that top executives of companies that violate the law will be prosecuted, tried and if convicted could go to jail." Like his pappy threatened to throw all those silverado type shysters inside,"read my lips!" "On 9/11 we will remember the solidarity of the Saudi people..." No smart assed comment.I am having some sort of seizure...

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Diracs Sea.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/8/10/22052/7953 Honigs 'ether'...>>The standard model is totally unable to explain mass without the higgs boson.Theres a hitch finding this 'god' particle according to new scientist,dec 8.01.Im unclear as to the difference between "ether" (honig) and a 'higgs field'(NS article) << >>Quantum mechanics based on heisenbergs uncertainty principal is under attack.The two slit experiment has another explanation that even revives 'ether' According to electrical engineering professor,bill honig. The theory feynman was sure no one quite understood and einstein mistrusted may be about to be superceded with potential to crack crypto's,holy grail,Quantum encryption.<< (Before IdQuantique caught up with the pentagon.) >>Quantum mechanics is 75 years young and the cornerstone of the modern scientific world view.But it has its dissidents. Bill honig's an internationally recognized inventor,journal editor and long time academic at curtin university.A skeptical inquirer whose doubts about the orthodoxy are caused by logic. His rebellion took shape as a teen prodigy at a brooklyn high school,asking too many questions about quantum mechanics.He went into electrical engineering and rose high in military research.Then in mid-career,while working on nuclear weapons he had a change of heart.Looking in an atlas for a new home that might be safe and peaceful and passing over iceland he settled on perth.WA.au. Believing we can and must describe the fundamental particles of matter as they really are there and not blurs of probability is carrying on einsteins fight.In this old/new picture of the subatomic world,the basic particles are spinning,electromagnetically charged droplets;as they change speed they cast off expanding "photexes"that are compared with smoke rings,rippling outward.Space is an ether made up of two oppositely charged fluids. END extract.more at... http://www.physicsessays.com/ Honig has picked up and carried forward work by paul dirac.<< Archive mining,"You call this archeology!"

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Diffie,Ellison,Dell will be held accountable.I PROMIS you.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

The rush to the security pork is only eclipsed by the ratfuckers attempts on penguins http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=18687260 Sun casts long shadow before major Linux gathering REUTERS [ SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2002 3:20:34 AM ] SAN FRANCISCO: Is there a wolf in penguin's clothing? That is the theme of a spirited discussion among supporters of the Linux operating system, a freely available piece of basic software with a penguin mascot. The wolf potentially lurking just outside the door, some Linux-boosters say, is Sun Microsystems Inc., the high-end computer maker, which is expected to unveil its first general-purpose, low-end Linux machine, and its own version of Linux, on the eve of a major convention for the cooperatively developed software. Linux, which will be debated and celebrated at the Linuxworld exposition in San Francisco Aug. 13-15, must prove itself in the rarefied world of running crucial corporate applications, like huge databases, analysts said. Linux is a new version of Unix, the mainstay corporate operating system, though it does not yet have the reliability and power of older Unix systems, analysts say. "Linux and Unix combined are competing with Microsoft," whose Windows program is graduating from personal computers to powerful servers and which offers its own, mostly-Microsoft view of the world, dubbed .Net," said Pierre Fricke, an analyst at research firm D.H. Browne. Sun also remains one of Microsoft Corp.'s biggest rivals, and its latest move has been blasted in advance by competitors. "They are trying to control something which inherently isn't designed for that sort of control point,"

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Old Yeller.
by Matthew X 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/18964.html "...Clustering technology is designed to help companies leverage the power of interconnected computers by letting them serve as a single processing unit. The technology promises more powerful applications that provide a scalable, low-cost alternative to high-end, centralized servers, such as those sold by IBM. "The key is the clusters, because high-end computing is the focus of our company," said Staats. "Linux is the ideal operating system for the clustering environment." Growing Interest With major players like Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) looking at clustering technologies, Terra Soft is positioned for growth, especially because the Xserve has been well-received in the technical community. Staats said after three years of making Linux available for Apple computers, things are finally beginning to fall into place for Terra Soft. "There are now a large number of third-party solutions and products and vendors and service providers and clients that are jumping on the Yellow Dog [Linux] boat," said Staats. All About Science Terra Soft recently shipped version 2.3 of Yellow Dog Linux. The newest version offers the KDE desktop, which provides features like graphical user interface "translucency." Oh and "Now and then, for no good reason, life will haul off and knock a man flat," the father consoles his son. The 1957 Disney movie OLD YELLER is like that. For most of the film, it is a light hearted slice of life with scenes reminiscent of the old Disney nature documentaries. Toward the end, the movie takes a sharp turn, transforming it into a tragedy. For bill Gates I hope.

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Seth on TCPA at Defcon/Usenix
by AARG!Anonymous 11 Aug '02

11 Aug '02

Seth Schoen of the EFF has a good blog entry about Palladium and TCPA at http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-08-09.html. He attended Lucky's presentation at DEF CON and also sat on the TCPA/Palladium panel at the USENIX Security Symposium. Seth has a very balanced perspective on these issues compared to most people in the community. It makes me proud to be an EFF supporter (in fact I happen to be wearing my EFF T-shirt right now). His description of how the Document Revocation List could work is interesting as well. Basically you would have to connect to a server every time you wanted to read a document, in order to download a key to unlock it. Then if "someone" decided that the document needed to un-exist, they would arrange for the server no longer to download that key, and the document would effectively be deleted, everywhere. I think this clearly would not be a feature that most people would accept as an enforced property of their word processor. You'd be unable to read things unless you were online, for one thing. And any document you were relying on might be yanked away from you with no warning. Such a system would be so crippled that if Microsoft really did this for Word, sales of "vi" would go through the roof. It reminds me of an even better way for a word processor company to make money: just scramble all your documents, then demand ONE MILLION DOLLARS for the keys to decrypt them. The money must be sent to a numbered Swiss account, and the software checks with a server to find out when the money has arrived. Some of the proposals for what companies will do with Palladium seem about as plausible as this one. Seth draws an analogy with Acrobat, where the paying customers are actually the publishers, the reader being given away for free. So Adobe does have incentives to put in a lot of DRM features that let authors control publication and distribution. But he doesn't follow his reasoning to its logical conclusion when dealing with Microsoft Word. That program is sold to end users - people who create their own documents for the use of themselves and their associates. The paying customers of Microsoft Word are exactly the ones who would be screwed over royally by Seth's scheme. So if we "follow the money" as Seth in effect recommends, it becomes even more obvious that Microsoft would never force Word users to be burdened with a DRL feature. And furthermore, Seth's scheme doesn't rely on TCPA/Palladium. At the risk of aiding the fearmongers, I will explain that TCPA technology actually allows for a much easier implementation, just as it does in so many other areas. There is no need for the server to download a key; it only has to download an updated DRL, and the Word client software could be trusted to delete anything that was revoked. But the point is, Seth's scheme would work just as well today, without TCPA existing. As I quoted Ross Anderson saying earlier with regard to "serial number revocation lists", these features don't need TCPA technology. So while I have some quibbles with Seth's analysis, on the whole it is the most balanced that I have seen from someone who has no connection with the designers (other than my own writing, of course). A personal gripe is that he referred to Lucky's "critics", plural, when I feel all alone out here. I guess I'll have to start using the royal "we". But he redeemed himself by taking mild exception to Lucky's slide show, which is a lot farther than anyone else has been willing to go in public. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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