December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: > Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. (My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a "public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means "published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) Howver, the government cannot step in and "control" a commercially-available product, by even the most liberal interpretations of the commerce clause. "Tim's Pretty Flaky Snakeoil System," for example. I can announce it, sell it, and the government is powerless to "control" it. (Even if it were "public.") If by "public" you mean an NBS or NIST standard, like DES, then I suppose the government can in some sense "control" it. (Even this is iffy, IMO, as I know of no rules saying DES implementations must be approved by NIST or anyone else.) >anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use? If the >government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and >could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered >munitions? Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble >that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments >processing time. Most of the cryptosystems are not under the "control" of the government, even by the standards of your first definition. Period. RSA is not a government-controlled system, though it is both "commercially-available" AND "public" (in that the spec and algorithm are clearly published). And the talk about "personal use" is misleading, IMO. It suggests that government can and should regulate use for "business purposes" but not personal uses. I disagree with this distinction. > Why are we so worried about government regulation? Can't we just >devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly >available? You mean the way public key systems in general and RSA in particular were invented and devised by non-government folks? --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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"privatizing" phones?
by pjn＠nworks.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In> have buttons to "privatize" you conversations. These In> were on no-cord models. Does anyone have any idea Hmmm... To Privatize a cordless phone, one would have to turn it off. P.J. pjn(a)nworks.com ... Save the whales...harpoon a politican! ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR]

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HACKER REPORT
by pjn＠nworks.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In> Just saw part I of a two-part series on "hackers" being broadcast In> by a local San Francisco TV station. Nothing horrible, in my In> opinion. The adroitly sidestepped the hacker/cracker distinction In> by saying the "hacker" has come to mean..." and then gave the In> negative, intrusive definition. <<SNIP>> In> Tomorrow's show should be more interesting (and possibly much In> more sensationalistic). Part II is "The Hacker Underground." In> Oooh, scary! Christ. They are almost taking this chapter-for-chapter out of The Hacker Crackdown... P.J. pjn(a)nworks.com ... Descartes of Borg - "I assimilate, therefore I am." ___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.20 [NR]

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Re: The Four Horsemen Go to the Olympics!
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:22 AM 7/28/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >By the way, the airline solution is not too difficult to visualize: > >1. Eliminate checked baggage, or at least require those with checked >baggage to deposit it enough hours in advance to be inspected and to pay >any surcharges for this inspection. (I try to only have carry-on baggage, >and this seems to be a major trend.) > >2. Let the market decide. Airlines could announce their baggage inspection >policy, and customers could decide on the tradeoffs between increased >inspections and higher costs, and greater confidence in security. > >I think I'll repost my "Soft Targets" piece of a few weeks ago, in the >light of TWA 800 and this morning's bomb in Atlanta. Actually, if I wanted to blow up the Portland airport, all I would do is set up a mortar up on the hills overlooking the airport. The entire airport is pretty visible from those hills. There is no way to completely eliminate terrorism. And since the imposition of order tends to promote the escalation of disorder, I expect it to only get worse... And the only people to "win" will be the control freaks. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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"Soft Targets" as Schelling Points
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The connection should be clear, but in case it is not: many soft targets are Schelling points for terrorist actions. Putting yourself in the mind of a terrorist or militia crazy or whatever, where would you attack? The Olympics, obviously. (And security officials of course see the same Schelling point, hence the unprecedented security measures and presence.) Given that most Olympic events are well-guarded, etc., what's the next target to look at? Crowded public gatherings, where the "message" can still be delivered and where security measures are problematic. There are tens of thousands of such soft targets/Schelling points in an "open society," and it is unreasonable to expect to defend each one of them. (Costly, too.) And if they are so-defended, the attacker moves to other targets. Keep your head down. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. Speaking in Code on the Internet ... [Editorial] The decibel level has been rising in the argument over how much control the federal government should have over the export of encryption technology. The Senate Commerce Committee held hearings Thursday on a proposal dubbed Pro-CODE (Promotion of Commerce On-line in the Digital Era) that would lift current restrictions on exporting encryption software above a certain level of complexity. The move is opposed strongly by law enforcement and national security authorities, who fear the consequences to their tracking of terrorism or crime if uncrackable cryptography becomes the global standard. But encryption software -- which scrambles a person's computer messages so no one can read them without a key -- also is thought by many in the computer industry to be the missing piece that's preventing customers from a full-scale move to the Internet for banking and other confidential transactions, rather than, as now, worrying about the security of their data. They also see it as a market in which the United States maintains a comfortable lead, one that is threatened if domestic encryption makers can't sell their products elsewhere. The makers argue that foreign encryption software will rush in to fill the gap, doing nothing about the uncrackability problem -- indeed, making it worse. The administration in turn is pursuing a wider international agreement to maintain controls on cryptology export by all the industrialized nations and has been putting pressure on its colleagues in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which will rule on the matter in a Paris meeting in September. Administration officials, including FBI chief Louis Freeh, have been pushing for an alternative policy of "voluntary key escrow" -- encryption makers would deposit a key to the code with a neutral third body before exporting the products and could then have access to the codes only by court order, as happens now with wiretapping. Mr. Freeh, testifying at Thursday's hearing in favor of an optional key escrow plan, noted that the point is not to prevent all copies of uncrackable code from going abroad -- that's clearly impossible -- but to prevent such high-level code from becoming the international standard, with architecture and transmission channels all unreadable to world authorities. To software companies and Internet users who have been clamoring for the right to encrypt as securely as possible, Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, encryption. It's far from obvious to anyone that an optional escrow plan really can prevent the growth of inaccessible transmissions by international terrorists or criminals. Encryption, if widely used, could conceivably ease some privacy problems concerning who gets to see personal and financial data on individuals -- though such data usually are vulnerable to being dug out of storage rather than intercepted in transmission. But neither is it clear that the encryption enthusiasts' desire for free development should take precedence over the tracking of terrorism. At the very least, Congress should be exceedingly cautious about getting out ahead of administration concerns on controls that, once lifted, are hardly reversible. -----

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Re: Olympic bombing
by Wayne H. Allen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 17:41 96.07.27 +0200, Mike van der Merwe wrote: >I can just see the FBI screaming "we need weaker encryption to combat >terrosism on US soil" with nasty effects -- it seems all to many people, >lawmakers included, will be only to happy to sacrifice their privacy that >the FBI can better combat these terrorist acts (which could *of course* >could been prevented had only the FBI been able to read their encrypted >mail...) > >Somehow I got the feeling watching CNN that the FBI was given a shitload >of ammo. Call me cynical but the Reichstag fire comes to mind... The phrase "Get a life" comes to mind. Wayne H.Allen whallen(a)capitalnet.com Pgp key at www.capitalnet.com/~whallen

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Is Colossus out of date?
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

You may recall recent comments by Attorney General Janet Reno where she notes that exportable encryption cannot be broken in reasonable time by modern supercomputers. With that as background, you may find the following paragraph interesting. It is from the Financial Times article on Colossus. http://jya.com/coloss.txt > [Tony] Sale describes [Colossus] as a large electronic valve > programmable logic calculator. "No lay person would argue > that it is not a computer," he says. Furthermore, because > it wasted no time retrieving a stored program it was almost > as fast as a high-speed modern computer whose nominal > work-rate is 1,000 times quicker. A simulation of Colossus > which Sale ran on a top-of-the-range Pentium PC took twice > as long as the real thing. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com

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Re: Schelling Points, Rights, and Game Theory--Part II
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:31 AM 7/25/96 EST, jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: > Basically, in this view of rights and raising of children it would seem that a > relativistic pragmatism prevails. Personally, I think that the two choices are > either this relative pragmatism or an absolute morality. The fact that someone is doing something that is morally wrong, does not automatically give us the right to go and rectify it at gunpoint. Not all wrongs are crimes, only those wrongs for which is just to engage in violent retribution. > Some implications of Tim's view is that all our rights are basically a > transitory agreement between individuals. Tim may or may not believe this, but that is not a consequence of his views. The schelling point theory of rights is substantially equivalent in practice to "We hold these truths to be self evident." --------------------------------------------------------------------- | We have the right to defend ourselves | http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ and our property, because of the kind | of animals that we are. True law | James A. Donald derives from this right, not from the | arbitrary power of the state. | jamesd(a)echeque.com

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Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:21 PM 7/27/96 GMT, John Young wrote: > The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. [Snip] > Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet > out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, > encryption. Why does it sounds like Mr. Freeh and his friends are drinking out of a different bottle than the rest of us? The genie is out of the bottle and has been for a while. The tools are there for those who care to use them. Maybe it is a diffrenet genie that he is trying to portray... Maybe it is the acceptance and relyance on crypto that has not quite escaped into the general populace. If someone tried to portray all automobie drivers as dangerous maniacs and cars as only useful for making getaways, he would be laughed out of the room. If someone tried to claim that phones are a haven for drug dealers, and thus must be licenced, they would get a harsh reaction from the public. Freeh is fighting a war against the public having a positive view of Crypto. By smearing crypto users as "criminals and terrorists", he is using his office to influence the opinions of "law abiding citizens" to be anti-crypto. I beleive that there is alot that can be done to influence the public to be pro-crypto. With the proper memes, you can reveal the flaws in the anti-privacy forces arguments. Here are a few in no particular order... Teaching computer users how to use PGP. Offer to give instruction in use of PGP amongst general PC and Mac users groups. Whenever possible associate the wiretapping requests of the FBI with the opening of mail. Remind people of the abuses in the past. Ask them of if they can remember any good coming from these program. Ask them if they mind *you* looking through their mail and what makes the Government any better or worse. Local stations will usually have a "public forum discussion" program on varioussubjects. get on it. Usually the program is rigged in one direction por another, but you can get in a good meme or two that will stick in the heads of the people watching. (And it can be alot of fun!) Offer to sponsor a crypto archive and discussion area on a local BBS. Keep it current. Get others interested. Spread the tools and teach people how to use them. Build web sites that are pro-crypto. Where possible, get them working under SSL. Are there any SSL crypto sites out there? I know of only one, and it is not advertised. (Or up to date.) Work fast lest the darkness overcome us all... Be creative. The control freaks and authoritarians lack that creativity. Lets use it to our advantage. --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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BCI_sys
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

7-27-96. WaPo: A report on the Army's Battlefield Combat Identification System (BCIS), designed by TRW, which identifies friendly targets through triple-checked microwave pulses, encrypted signals that change frequencies 43 times a second to resist jamming or detection by the enemy. (The roasting of friendlies depicted in "Courage Under Fire" is cited as firing increased public interest.) ----- http://jya.com/bcisys.txt (14 kb) BCI_sys

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:19 PM 7/27/96, David Sternlight wrote: >Here's another: > >Twenty beautiful women are to pass before you, one by one (or 20 handsome >men). You see only one at a time. You cannot speak to them. After seeing >any one, you must pick her or reject her. If you reject her, you cannot >change your mind. If you pick her the exercise terminates. > >What is the optimal strategy for insuring you get the most beautiful woman >possible under the circumstances? Look at the first 1/e of them, or about the first 36.8% of them. In this case, the first 7 of them. Then pick the first one after this group which is better than any of the first group. While there is some chance that one will get to #20 and find that none of #8-20 were better than #1-7, this strategy is the best compromise between "committing too early" and "waiting too long." --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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cypherpunks vs hackers
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How can we differentiate cypherpunks to hackers? What are their attitudes, psychological thinking, main objective?

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RE: Schelling Points, Rights, and Game Theory--Part II
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: James A. Donald > Some implications of Tim's view is that all our rights are basically a > transitory agreement between individuals. Tim may or may not believe this, but that is not a consequence of his views. The schelling point theory of rights is substantially equivalent in practice to "We hold these truths to be self evident." ............................................................................. Oh. I thought it was "we hold these truths to be too uneconomical for us to deal with". On a side note, I was thinking some time ago about situations in far off places in Europe where some people are mistreating others in the most horrendous ways (like Bosnia where the males are being beaten, the females are being raped). The news services report to us what is happening and so we know all about it, and we may feel the greatest sympathy for them, but yet be unable to render assistance - sufficient assistance - to be of any real help, from lacking the resources necessary to do what would be required. So here is an example where one would be moved, not to impose one's view of what is right or wrong, but to provide relief to those suffering, based on one's sense of injustice, yet likewise calculate that it would not be feasible to take action, reasoning that the cost would be excessive; too burdensome. .. Blanc

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RE: [NOISE IS NOISE] Re: Rand and smoking Re: Flaws of Thinkers (Jefferson, Rand, Nietzsche, Voltaire, etc.) [NOISE E. D.]
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Bill Stewart You fail to understand the precisely reasoned Aristotelian syllogistic logic of Ms. Rand's position (you heretic!): 1) Smoking is a result of fire. 2) Fire is cool. 3) Therefore, smoking is cool. Q.E.D. 4) Logic is cool, and non-logic is non-cool 5) We're cool 6) Therefore, light up that cigarette or be excommunicated! Q.E.D. ..................................................................... I don't remember reading anything about Ayn Rand insisting that her followers smoke, although I've read many of the Objectivist newsletters which were published for some time and read Barbara Branden's biography of her (I must have missed those parts). I do remember somewhat her description of what smoking meant to her and know that it was a very important symbol in her life. If her followers saw fit to emulate her on account of a mere symbol to the detriment of their health, and if this was at Rand's insistence, then I would say that they were demonstrating the principle which Rand also illustrated in her books, that being "the sanction of the victim". Ironic, huh. Sometimes you can identify the things that are far enough away to see, but not the ones that are too close to notice. .. Blanc

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NEW: E-LEX - electronic lexicons
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For all you dictionary attackers out there... ;-) Cheers, Bob --- begin forwarded text Date: Sat, 27 Jul 1996 22:17:03 -0500 Reply-To: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke(a)babel.ling.nwu.edu> Sender: NEW-LIST - New List Announcements <NEW-LIST(a)LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU> From: "Sean M. Burke" <sburke(a)babel.ling.nwu.edu> Subject: NEW: E-LEX - electronic lexicons To: Multiple recipients of list NEW-LIST <NEW-LIST(a)LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU> E-LEX on listproc(a)listserv.acns.nwu.edu E-LEX is a new email list for the discussion of the design of dictionaries with electronic interfaces. Topics may include: * the possibilities of hypertext/hypermedia for the electronic interface * adaptation of machine-readable dictionaries to user-friendly human-usable form * issues in conversion and adaptation of paper dictionaries to electronic form The list's new homepage is at http://www.ling.nwu.edu/~sburke/e-lex/ To subscribe to E-LEX, send a message to listproc(a)listserv.acns.nwu.edu containing this line in the message body: subscribe E-LEX Your Name Owner: Sean M. Burke sburke(a)babel.ling.nwu.edu ------- Use this information at your own risk. For more information and disclaimer send E-mail to LISTSERV(a)LISTSERV.NODAK.EDU with the command INFO NEW-LIST in the body. --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "'Bart Bucks' are not legal tender." -- Punishment, 100 times on a chalkboard, for Bart Simpson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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Re: Why <jf_avon@citenet.net> was blocked.
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Umm.. when telling other ppl that they do not know how to read, it might >be usefull to use sentances with a subject AND a predicate. I know that >this is something they taught you _way_ back in second grade, but you >should still remember it. > > --Deviant I'm not even going to comment on the twentieth word here. Nope. Not gonna'. Can't make me. No way. vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net http://ww2.sd.cybernex.net/~vagab0nd/index.html Visit web page for public key.

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Re: cypherpunks vs hackers
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:36 PM 7/27/96, Jerome Tan wrote: >How can we differentiate cypherpunks to hackers? What are their attitudes, >psychological thinking, main objective? I would differentiate cypherpunks to hackers this way: dC/dH Not sure what the result is, but the slope is the key. --Tim Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:48 PM 7/27/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Timothy C. May wrote: >> While there is some chance that one will get to #20 and find that none of >> #8-20 were better than #1-7, this strategy is the best compromise between >> "committing too early" and "waiting too long." > >This "some chance" is 1/e (for a very large number of women), obviously. > >There is 1/e chance that the best woman will be in the first 1/e >fraction of women. > >Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly the goal >function is. > > - Igor. "Come again?" [quickly ducking...] Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Erle Greer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: > >> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop > >While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my personally-written cryptosystem. >(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in secret and not offered for govt approval. >Howver, the government cannot step in and "control" a >commercially-available product, by even the most liberal interpretations of >the commerce clause. "Tim's Pretty Flaky Snakeoil System," for example. I >can announce it, sell it, and the government is powerless to "control" it. >(Even if it were "public.") > >If by "public" you mean an NBS or NIST standard, like DES, then I suppose >the government can in some sense "control" it. (Even this is iffy, IMO, as >I know of no rules saying DES implementations must be approved by NIST or >anyone else.) > >>anyone from designing their own cryptosystem for personal use? If the >>government intercepted a transmission from this private cryptosystem, and >>could not decrypt it, would they assume that it must be considered >>munitions? Similarly, anyone could send uniformly-formatted random garble >>that could also be considered munitions, or at least waste the governments >>processing time. > >Most of the cryptosystems are not under the "control" of the government, >even by the standards of your first definition. Period. RSA is not a >government-controlled system, though it is both "commercially-available" >AND "public" (in that the spec and algorithm are clearly published). > >And the talk about "personal use" is misleading, IMO. It suggests that >government can and should regulate use for "business purposes" but not >personal uses. I disagree with this distinction. Absolutely not! Let me clarify that I feel that the govt should have no part in crypto regulation, be it commercial, public, private, business, etc. >> Why are we so worried about government regulation? Can't we just >>devise our own cryptosystems and just don't sell them or make them publicly >>available? > >You mean the way public key systems in general and RSA in particular were >invented and devised by non-government folks? After some responses and some thought, I have seen the error in my thinking. Having a secret, proprietary cryptosystem would loose the public-key benefit. It would be fine, I believe, for point-to-point communications though.

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Re: WaPo on Crypto-Genie Terrorism
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 27 Jul 96 at 19:21, John Young wrote: > The Washington Post, July 27, 1996, p. A22. > Speaking in Code on the Internet ... [Editorial] Some bothersome things about this editorial... [..] > security of their data. They also see it as a market in > which the United States maintains a comfortable lead, one > that is threatened if domestic encryption makers can't sell > their products elsewhere. The makers argue that foreign > encryption software will rush in to fill the gap, doing > nothing about the uncrackability problem -- indeed, making > it worse. The administration in turn is pursuing a wider IMO, the US does not have a comfortable lead. It's already falling behind considering some of the stronger crypto programs available (at least as freeware) are made outside the US. Many of the stronger algorithms were invented outside of the US (IDEA for instance). [..] > with wiretapping. Mr. Freeh, testifying at Thursday's hearing in > favor of an optional key escrow plan, noted that the point is not > to prevent all copies of uncrackable code from going abroad -- that's > clearly impossible -- but to prevent such high-level code > from becoming the international standard, with architecture > and transmission channels all unreadable to world > authorities. To software companies and Internet users who So why should criminals bother with using standards if they are readable by authorities? > have been clamoring for the right to encrypt as securely as > possible, Mr. Freeh and others argue, "the genie is not yet > out of the bottle" on "robust," meaning uncrackable, > encryption. Are they going to magically erase all copies of strong software that is already currently available? (Side note: the Pacifica news report on Friday notes that while Freeh gave his testimony, over 100 copies of PGP were downloaded from MIT's site.) [..] > Encryption, if widely used, could conceivably ease some > privacy problems concerning who gets to see personal and > financial data on individuals -- though such data usually > are vulnerable to being dug out of storage rather than > intercepted in transmission. But neither is it clear that And evidence cannot be encrypted. You cannot encrypt an airplane full of cocaine or an unusually expensive car baught by money from drugs, espionage, etc. Nor can you encrypt bomb-making materials, nor conversations in a room (from your mouth to a telephone receiver). Nor will encryption do anything about informants inside the communications loop. etc. etc.... > the encryption enthusiasts' desire for free development > should take precedence over the tracking of terrorism. At It's not clear that terrorism can be tracked, even if it's unencrypted. The OK and WTC bombings were apparently not encrypted, and there's some allegations that the authorities had advanced warnings of the latter. > the very least, Congress should be exceedingly cautious > about getting out ahead of administration concerns on > controls that, once lifted, are hardly reversible. The controls haven't done much to prevent free software from being exported. They only control commercial sales of software (and hardware). Particularly absent in the WaPo-ed is that many do not trust the authorities (in the US and elsewhere)--particularly the FBI, which has a long history of extra-legal surveillance. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:36 AM 7/28/96, Erle Greer wrote: >At 11:25 AM 7/28/96 -0700, you wrote: >>At 7:24 PM 7/27/96, Erle Greer wrote: >> >>> Theoretically, the government should only be have the resources to >>>control commercially-available, public encryption systems. Who is to stop >> >>While I'm not exactly sure what you mean by a "commercially-available, >>public encryption system," I think your point is incorrect. > >I didn't mean that I think that the govt should be allowed to control. I >meant that govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public >systems. They, of course, would have no say in the specs of my >personally-written cryptosystem. Your clarification does not improve things. The notion that the "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public systems" is wrong. (There may be a very few situations involving product safety, fraud, etc....many of us disagree with even these interventions, of course.) Think of it this way: "govt would only be able to regulate commercial and/or public word processors." The government has no authority to "regulate" word processors, commercial or otherwise. >>(My confusion is that a commercially-available system is not necessarily a >>"public" system, if by public one means public domain. If one means >>"published specifications," still not the case. Confusing.) > >Sorry about the confusion. Although I may have used the two terms loosely, >I was trying to contrast commercial and public against something written in >secret and not offered for govt approval. The United States government does not receive software submissions "for govt approval." I really think you need to look into what the role of the U.S. government actually is, with regard to programs. (It is always important to remember that there are no laws whatsover about the types of software individuals or businesses may use, save for some specific laws about such things as racial discrimination, sexual harassment, taxes, etc. But no laws about crypto, word processors, etc. And the government has no "Sofware Approval Office.") I guess we will have to agree that we are unable to find a common basis for communication. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:54 AM 7/28/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > > Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly > > the goal function is. > >Me too. > >This is an interesting problem, vaguely reminescent of the pie >judging contests commonly used as examples of non-parametric >statistics. Given two pies, (or two women), a judge can >subjectively order them by tastiness, (or beauty), but there is >no concept of an continuous metric in which the ratings of >particular items are embedded. You're both reading far too much into this problem. David S. specified "beauty," the personal judgment of the chooser. No deep philosophical meaning. Perhaps an equivalent formulation will make this clearer: One is passing through a town with 20 gas stations, with gas at various prices. The stipulation is that one cannot turn around. Once a gas station has been passed, there's no turning back. So, what is the best strategy for finding the lowest gas price (or shortest lines, or cleanest appearance, or brightest sign, or whatever one wants to analyze). Or even by the most beautiful girl standing in front, to return us to the original statement. So, you see, the problem is well-defined, with an elegant solution. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Public vs. Private Munitions
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:24 PM 7/27/96 -0500, Erle Greer <vagab0nd(a)sd.cybernex.net> wrote: > Theoretically, the government should only be have > the resources to control commercially-available, public > encryption systems. [...] > Why are we so worried about government regulation? > Can't we just devise our own cryptosystems and just don't > sell them or make them publicly available? Theoretically, the First Amendment says you can say or write anything you want. In practice, the Supremes have said it means far less than that; during some of their worst years they approved convicting people for speaking against the draft because it interfered with the US ability to conduct a war it hadn't yet gotten into, and they've generally held that commercial speech doesn't rate the same protection as political speech. Feh! Theoretically, on the other hand, the US Government has the power to regulate interstate commerce. (A bad idea, in my opinion, though taking that power away from the states was clearly good.) In practice, the Supremes have let the Congress get away with all sorts of abuses, like banning a farmer from growing grain on his own land and feeding it to his own hogs, and banning citizens from growing or manufacturing their own drugs because it's difficult to tell whether a given bunch of drugs was really grown in the state it's in or bought from out of state. Various government officials have taken the position that giving a university class on encryption is restricted by ITAR; Dan Bernstein's lawsuit against them is off to a very good start. This isn't even distributing products - this is discussing math. It's potentially illegal for me to even write the evil equations in this mail message, since it's going to foreigners. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # Dispel Authority!

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Re: Twenty Beautiful Women
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 20:54 7/27/96, Mike Duvos wrote: >ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > > Also, I would appreciate if someone specified what exactly > > the goal function is. > >Me too. For clarification, the problem is often stated in textbooks similar like this: You ask someone to write one number each on ten pieces of paper without you being able to see the numbers. The person may use any number from 1 to 10^99, but may not use a number twice. The person turns over the ten papers. You goal is to determine the paper with the highest number [rules apply as described in the original post] The general solution is to flip over 1/e papers and choose the paper that has a higher number on it than any of the 1/e papers turned over at first. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. Defeat the Demopublican Unity Party. Vote no on Clinton/Dole in November. Vote Harry Browne for President.

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