January 2003 - 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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Re: Passenger rail is for adventurers and bums
by Tim May 01 Feb '03

01 Feb '03

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 07:58 AM, Harmon Seaver wrote: > I'd love to see more and better train service in the US. Great way > to > travel, work, read, watch the scenery. I don't mind at all taking a > few days, > and, unless it's a real emergency, I'm very sure at this point I'll > never fly a > commercial airline again. By the way, if this has anything to do with the security hassles of air travel (someone, maybe you, mentioned it as well a day or so ago), don't count on this difference lasting for long. Already there are calls to use "positive identification" for all train travelers. "Amtrak also requires that each person buying a ticket has photo identification. "Passengers traveling between Boston and Washington DC can no longer purchase their tickets on board the train." <http://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=6D384AE3-F23C- 4E18-BACD-12A5E4A2F563> Expect more such moves. Expect much tighter security if and when a train is seized in the U.S. or Europe the way peace-loving Indians have been seizing trains and killing the occupants in peaceful India. (Securing entry points to trains will be even more difficult than with airplanes, for the obvious reasons. Ditto for securing transfer of weapons onto trains--in large amounts of baggage, through open windows, when people step off trains at many intermediate "whistle stops," etc.) The police state will extend to trains. Count on it. I don't know if this is your reason for expecting not to fly commercially again, but for anyone who thinks trains will somehow be exempted from the national security police state, think again. --Tim May

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Life Sentence for Medical Marijuana?
by Eric Cordian 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77234,00.html The Feebs are crowing over their latest victory, having just obtained a conviction against a medical marijuana grower for the city of Oakland. The individual was of course prohibited from any mention at his trial of medical marijuana, that he was growing the stuff legally under a 1996 state law, or any other mitigating factors. "There is no such thing as medical marijuana," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. "We're Americans first, Californians second." Actually, I think that should be "Assholes First." -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Sovereignty issues and Palladium/TCPA
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

It looks like Palladium (or whatever it's called this week) is of concern not just to individuals but to governments as well (the following text forwarded from elsewhere): -- Snip -- Governments would want to explore the implications of the use and retention of government-held information and use of software for government business. More particularly, governments are likely to want to explore the issues related to potential foreign control/influence over domestic governmental use/access to domestic government held data. In other words, what are the practical and policy implications for a government if a party external to the government may have the potential power to turn off our access to its own information and that of its citizens. -- Snip -- Unlike China, not everyone can address this problem by building their own systems from the silicon on up. Peter. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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Re: Attack Is a Matter of Vulnerability
by Mike Rosing 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Steve Schear wrote: > http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/khan4.html Thanks, that was a fun read. Won't change anything, but I liked it. Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike

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Re: punk and free markets
by Tim May 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

On Friday, January 31, 2003, at 09:05 AM, Michael Motyka wrote: > Jim Choate wrote : > >>> This list, at least in the Fraunhoffer region, does on some level >>> emanate a >>> Punk attitude, and tolerating the presence of a crypto-fascist or >>> two is >>> something of a consequence. But I'm sick of seeing the Tim May cops >>> come out >>> every time someone suggests a different political notion. >> >> 'Tim May cops'? Not a very punk attitude you have there. You give Tim >> way! >> too much credit. >> > I don't see much apart from anarchy and capitalism - the system is in > place and running > WOT ( Wide Open Throttle ). Tim just doesn't like some of the players. Silliness. The name "cypherpunks" was a pun on "cyberpunks," a pun suggested by Jude Milhon, a woman writer for "Mondo 2000" at the time. Being that there is no body which "decides" what our group is called, or even that it _is_ a group, saying that someone's pun on top of someone else's pun means some political ideology attached to degenerates like Sid Vicious, the Dead Kennedy's, etc., is pure silliness. Whether even "cyberpunks" had anything substantive to do with the so-called punk music scene is debatable, but cypherpunks certainly did not. The political ideology of all musical "punks" I have met is decidedly leftist, and not in the way libertarians often like. Rather, the leftists of British socialism, of American Democrat statists, and of Trotskyites in general. It was a pun on a pun, so to speak. Had someone come up with a funnier pun, something better than officious names like "Crypto Rights," that's probably what the loose association of folks would have been called. But no one did, so Jude's name stuck. That Jim Choate is carrying the banner for leftie punkism is not at all surprising. --Tim May "Ben Franklin warned us that those who would trade liberty for a little bit of temporary security deserve neither. This is the path we are now racing down, with American flags fluttering."-- Tim May, on events following 9/11/2001

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CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 (This Phone Is Tapped)
by R. A. Hettinga 31 Jan '03

31 Jan '03

<http://www.buyolympia.com/crimethinc/sid=316686336/misc.html> CrimethInc. Cyberian Market CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 /miscellany/ 1 pack is $5.50 2-4/$4.50 each 5-10/$4 each One pack of 25 postcard-stickers (4 stickers to each card. so one pack = 100 stickers) CrimethInc. Agent Subversion Kit 72a.v2 (This Phone Is Tapped) The first in what will be a continuing series, this tidy little unit contains everything one needs to get one's subversive-action groove on-gloss sticker front with four stickers, and a printed back with application instructions, among other things. Made to be deployed on payphones across the world, the stickers fit precisely on the back handle of the telephone receiver. Order a pack to put a hundred stickers up yourself, reveling in petty vandalism that will educate and motivate others, or take the cards and give them away at shows, protests, or english class for others to have the experience. Each card is a little thought-bomb waiting to bet set off by whoever holds it in their hands-and the collateral damage is everyone who sees the sticker on the phone. Click on the picture to the left for a larger view, or download these PDFs [ front &back ] and print them yourself. [We know these prices might seem expensive and possibly even excessive-in fact, we cringed when typing them-but we assure you that we are charging almost exactly cost for these.] One single card-sticker is automatically included for free in every paid order. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)wasabisystems.com

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