December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

PILATE SAYETH UNTO HIM...
by jamesd＠echeque.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:30 AM 5/24/96 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > Sorry but the very fact that I don't agree with you is proof enough that > there is no absolute 'Truth' as you use it. That is unless you are > attempting to claim absolute omnipotence on the point of determination. Say Jim, did you major in sociology literature: Here is Dave Barry on college and truth: After you've been in college for a year or so, you're supposed to choose a major, which is the subject you intend to memorize and forget the most things about. Here is a very important piece of advice: Be sure to choose a major that does not involve Known Facts and Right Answers. This means you must *not* major in mathematics, physics, biology, or chemistry, because these subjects involve actual facts. If, for example, you major in mathematics, you're going to wander into class one day and the professor will say: "Define the cosine integer of the quadrant of a rhomboid binary axis, and extrapolate your result to five significant vertices." If you don't come up with *exactly* the answer the professor has in mind, you fail. The same is true of chemistry: if you write in your exam book that carbon and hydrogen combine to form oak, your professor will flunk you. He wants you to come up with the same answer he and all the other chemists have agreed on. Scientists are extremely snotty about this. So you should major in subjects like English, philosophy, psychology, and sociology -- subjects in which nobody really understands what anybody else is talking about, and which involve virtually no actual facts. I attended classes in all these subjects, so I'll give you a quick overview of each: read little snippets of just before class. Here is a tip on how to get good grades on your English papers: Never say anything about a book that anybody with any common sense would say. For example, suppose you are studying Moby-Dick. Anybody with any common sense would say that Moby-Dick is a big white whale, since the characters in the book refer to it as a big white whale roughly eleven thousand times. So in *your* paper, *you* say Moby-Dick is actually the Republic of Ireland. Your professor, who is sick to death of reading papers and never liked Moby-Dick anyway, will think you are enormously creative. If you can regularly come up with lunatic interpretations of simple stories, you should major in English. PHILOSOPHY: Basically, this involves sitting in a room and deciding there is no such thing as reality and then going to lunch. You should major in philosophy if you plan to take a lot of drugs. PSYCHOLOGY: This involves talking about rats and dreams. Psychologists are *obsessed* with rats and dreams. I once spent an entire semester training a rat to punch little buttons in a certain sequence, then training my roommate to do the same thing. The rat learned much faster. My roommate is now a doctor. If you like rats or dreams, and above all if you dream about rats, you should major in psychology. SOCIOLOGY: For sheer lack of intelligibility, sociology is far and away the number one subject. I sat through hundreds of hours of sociology courses, and read gobs of sociology writing, and I never once heard or read a coherent statement. This is because sociologists want to be considered scientists, so they spend most of their time translating simple, obvious observations into scientific-sounding code. If you plan to major in sociology, you'll have to learn to do the same thing. For example, suppose you have observed that children cry when they fall down. You should write: "Methodological observation of the sociometrical behavior tendencies of prematurated isolates indicates that a casual relationship exists between groundward tropism and lachrimatory, or 'crying,' behavior forms." If you can keep this up for fifty or sixty pages, you will get a large government grant. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"bruce(a)aracnet.com" "Bruce Baugh" 25-MAY-1996 09:21:06.18 >I don't see that this is necessarily true for information any more than it >is property. Property can be bought, sold, traded, given away, made...but it >can also be stolen. Just as I have a right to complain if you walk off with >my couch without my permission, so if you walk off with data on my blood >chemistry or credit history without my permission. Certainly, if you were coerced into giving up this information, it would be wrongful - including to knowingly retransmit it. But that's only the case for dealing with governments (and, I would include, other coercive groups such as monopolistic and oglipolistic corporations). You do have a choice in dealing with other entities. I make that choice; I minimize my use of a credit card, for instance. I've had months where my bill was $0.00. Now, if the agency in question is required to collect such information because of coercion, then that's wrongful, and that information shouldn't be retransmitted. -Allen

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"llurch(a)networking.stanford.edu" "Rich Graves" 25-MAY-1996 02:09:28.75 >I'm sure you know the law and practice better, but my insurance seems to >have a "preexisting conditions" clause. Knowingly doing the above >constitutes fraud. (Of course lots of people probably get away with it.) And how's the insurance company going to know that something is a preexisting condition when they can't keep records of it? Moreover, partially due to state laws, most preexisting condition exemptions have limits on how long they last; if someone has a 1-year window, and they sign up more than 1 year after when they find out about their having Huntington's, then it will be covered despite their knowing about it. >Moreover, when the insurance company pays out, that ultimately comes out >of premiums. I don't have Huntington's, but I don't mind paying an extra >$X into a risk pool for people with Huntington's because it means I don't >have to submit to genetic screening, either. You don't have to have >something to hide to see it as an invasion of privacy. It's a pool of >consumers establishing preferences, not just individual consumers v. >producers. The meaning of microeconomics changes as it scales. This would be the case if the laws in question didn't exist. If you don't want to get genetic screening - because you have Huntington's or because you don't like genetic screening - it should be perfectly possible for you to make that choice, and pay the higher premiums. But it should also be possible for someone to make the opposite choice; that's what current laws prevent. It is not, at present, consumers establishing preferences - it's the majority dictating its preferences to the minority. >By "fairness" I meant that equal risks should be treated equally. Cost of >disease A = cost of disease B. The detection of predisposition to disease >A is politically feasible, but the same isn't true for disease B. I'd say >you were discriminating against people predisposed to disease A, because >they're paying into the risk pool for B, but B isn't paying into the risk >pool for A. That's an argument against any restrictions on risk. Currently, in most states it is politically feasible to get higher rates for someone addicted to nicotine, even if the person became addicted when they were too young to be responsible for their own actions (generally the case). But in some of those same states, genetic screening is banned. Aren't you being unfair to the smoker? Some people argue for community risk pools, in which everyone in a community gets the same rate. But shouldn't someone who is sicker because of his/her own choices (e.g., chooses to have unprotected sex) pay a higher rate? But such choices are what I'd call even more private than genetics. Whether I've had unprotected sex in the past 5 years is a lot more intrusive a question than whether I have any genetic diseases in my family tree. Quite simply, politically unfeasible means should be removed from the realm of politics. -Allen

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Re: Why does the state still stand:
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"hfinney(a)shell.portal.com" "Hal" 16-MAY-1996 10:21:05.33 >One issue is whether these banking-secrecy countries like Anguilla are >followers of the Berne convention or other international copyright >regulations. Banking secrecy and software piracy don't necessarily go >hand in hand. I hear a lot about copyright violations in China but not >in the Caribbean. So actually it isn't clear that this country is the >right location for a remailer that can post arbitrary material. As I have stated, I am currently working on the second edition of this list. One consideration that I have thought of on using a banking-secrecy country is that it may be possible to set up a local limited-liability corporation there (assuming a remailer requiring an ecash payment), possibly paying into a trust fund with duress provisions. As an example, I might set up an offshore company in Anguilla which was owned by a trust fund; I would be the initial trustee for this trust fund, and Vince Cate might be the backup trustee if I was put under any duress (e.g., legal problems). Since I would have some costs for the initial setup of such an operation, I would deem it perfectly reasonable for the trust fund to owe me some money, which it would then pay me back as interest on this loan. -Allen

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:48 PM 5/25/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >The exception I took to your proposal was that it seemed like a >half-measure to me. From what I understand of it the porposal is that >elected officials who "do wrong" (or violate a particular code of conduct) >should be killed. I would suggest that this is problematic because it >does nothing to solve the ills of the system, simply clears those players >whom a particular set of people do not believe are playing fairly/well. And any successors that take their place, as well. Remember, even a tiny fraction of the population can eject (by forced resignation or worse) an officeholder. The only ones who survive (literally or figuratively) are the ones who don't irritate even a tiny fraction of the public. Those will be the ones who don't do anything, and are not paid by stolen taxes. >I'm not sure I'd accept the claim that millions of offenders (I too find >drug laws stifling, illogical and counter to the liberal ideal) are put in >jail, deprived of their freedom by a particular set of people. Drug laws >are a reflection of the opinions held by many people in this country (and >others), of course we wonder sometimes whether people have really thought >about it or whether the "just say no" jingle was too irresistable, and the >concept of "a war on drugs" another tool to define outsiders against whom >to band against and maintain a cohesive identity. To a great degree, the "public perception" of drugs and drug laws has been a _product_ of the news media, in particular the TV networks and the newspapers, as influenced by the government. Study the matter and you'll find this is true. There is no reason to believe that the community will be as anti-drug as the conventional wisdom says they are. > And the manner in which >Americans (and indeed other peoples) have been whipped into fervour by >the rhetoric that accompanies a war is truly frightening. This "whipping" is quite intentional. It keeps cops, prosecutors, and judges employed. Not to mention politicians. > But I reall >don't think killing a few Presidents or Joint Chiefs of Staff or Prime >Ministers will solve this (or anything). Please understand: While the term "assassination" is usually used to refer to killings of high-level people, I'm using a broader definition to refer to ANY target, including middle and lower-level people. My solution is far more thorough than you've implied. Anyone who exercises force for the state is subject to "recall." Even people who just take a government paycheck are at least nominally at risk. > It seems as if you were trying >to say that AP is acceptable because similar methods are employed by the >state all the time. I will not defend the coercive actions of the state, >but I do not believe they give one the right to coerce others, especially >if they are removed from the actual act. How "removed" do they have to be to be innocent, in your opinion? >:Then you need to learn to be more consistent. While you may, indeed, be a >:pacifist, most of the rest of us see nothing wrong with the concept of >:self-defense. You may argue as to what's really self-defense and what >:isn't, but the reality is that government engages in violence and the >:threat of violence regularly. Are you, by your statements, implicitly >:tolerating violence by government that you wouldn't tolerate from >:individuals? It is easy to fall into such a trap. > >But self-defense is not conductive either. To bring a rather fascinating >example into this, in the 70s a group of students occupied a variety of >buildings at NYU in protest against the Cambodian war. They set a bomb >in our computing center that was defused just before it blew. But if it >had detonated it would have destroyed a rather large computer (used for >pure mathematical problems that the Dept. of Defense wished to >incorporate into its Nuclear program) Nuclear bomb design. Done with funds stolen from taxpayers. Done to protect the leadership of this country, not the public. > and a number of people standing >outside the building. The rationale used was that this was >"self-defense", the people of the world were banding together to protect >each other from the actions of the state. In practice, it probably WAS "self-defense." However, it may not have been a particularly selective example of self-defense. The system I describe is, in fact, vastly more effective than this at getting rid of the bad guys, and far more selective than a planted bomb. > While I sympathize with the >feelings that led the activists to take such measures, I have no respect >for their methods or the reasoning they employed to extend the argument >for self-defense into a situation that had nothing to do with >self-defense. That's why I think my system will be far better. >No, I do not wish to condone the coercive actions of the state (and >certainly not any violent ones), and certainly we all take exception to >one or another act of the government machine. Incidentally, I do not >believe the state has the right to take life in the quest for justice >(aka the death penalty). A war against a foreign threat can be justified >on grounds of self-defense. Notice, however, that the US government fails to use a cleaner method to defeat its opponents (killing the leaders) and in its place puts the lives of thousands of solders at risk. Isn't this illogical, unless you realize that if WE can do that to those foreign leaders, THEY can do the same to OUR leaders? Isn't this more than a bit self-serving on the part of our leaders? And isn't it immoral for George Bush, for instance, to choose a solution that results in the deaths of tens of thousands of comparatively innocent Iraqis, both during and after the Gulf war, rather than bumping off Saddam Hussein? Think about it. Exactly why does he do the former, rather than the latter? >:Why? Isn't it possible that it is not possible to reform a system because >:embedded within it is a fundamental flaw which makes real freedom >:impossible? The current system is heirarchically structured, and results in >:situations where millions die in the place of the very few. I'd say that's >:a serious, systemic flaw that needs fixing. > >- From what I've gathered of AP, it attempts no radical reformation of "the >system", simply adds another set of costs for individuals within the govt. >to take into account. "Another set of costs"? Yikes! Read the essay, governments as we know them can't possibly survive post-AP. >I don't think you're proposing a "true democracy" >or absolute anarchy (without all the conotations of disorder, simply >no-government), but rather a vigilante clause, I may have misunderstood >you though. It may be looked at as an example of vigilante action, but it will be ANONYMOUS vigilantes. > A minimalist state is generally considered desireable as it >provides a framework within which individuals can engage in mutually >beneficial interactions with each other. That's conventional wisdom. Historically, anarchy is considered unstable. Freud though so, but he was wrong. Read part 9. > Our present structures do not >"work" very well (though they have their redeeming factors when compared >to other alternatives) and I'd say we need a greater degree of respect for >personal liberty and individualism than is manifest in our institutions >today, but these changes take place on a level very different from that of >govt. the state is almost powerless when it comes to these metamorphoses >in opinion. Well, I disagree. Until recently, public opinion was almost entirely manufactured. It was a joint project of the government and the news media. > They take place through tradition and the spread of ideas not >through legislation. The alternative I would suggest is an appreciation >for the minimalist state (with the observation that there are some things >the state does do very well, and which are desireable) and the liberty of >the individual. Similarly a respect for life is in order, too often we >think we're absolutely right and believe we should use "any means >necessary" (no reflection on the misunderstood philosophy of Malcolm X) Is there any significant likelihood that the people in power today will relinquish power absent a system such as AP? I'm not optimistic about that. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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holographic remailing & the scientologists
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

it seems that anonymous remailing has split into two basic areas, each with distinct requirements and demands and problems: 1. private mail, sent to another email address 2. posts to Usenet or other forums such as mailing lists. now, interestingly, apparently most of the extremely heavy political backlash has come against (2), causing Hal Finney for example to advocate or suggest that remailers not be designed for posting but be limited to emailing to individual users somehow. (he didn't mention how mailing lists would be handled, but one might screen out email addresses that are "known mailing list addresses" or something like that) regarding (2), with scientology, I was trying to imagine how one could accomplish the same feature of distributing information anonymously in a "public place", but without giving the scientologists the ability to track a particular origination of the email, even remailers. Chaum's DC net idea is a useful approach. here I'd like to suggest another. some time ago someone had the amusing idea of cutting up the PGP binary code, UUencoded, and putting all the zillions of pieces in peoples signatures. each person would send mail to the signature server to pick up one of the 1/n pieces, and they would put it in their messages. frankly, I think this was a great idea that we could explore some more. in a sense, it stores data "holographically" over all kinds of different people's messages. imagine a system in which the scientology documents are stored in people's signatures, and someone writes software to go and recombine the documents based on finding signatures "out there". this could be applied to one newsgroup by having remailers post only tiny pieces of the material, but with enough on the newsgroup at any time to recombine them all with the software, but far too many pieces for the scientologists to attack all the remailers they are sent through. (people could post them through their regular email addresses). furthermore anyone posting a piece has a sort of minor plausible deniability. ("I just copied the signature from so-and-so as a protest, I have no idea what it refers to") == this all suggests to me the following idea. suppose that some document has been created that someone wants censored. how could net citizens protest this censorship? one scheme would be for everyone to put a tiny piece of the document in their signatures. if you get enough people to do this, it may actually be the case that at any one time, just because of the randomness of all the pieces available, the news server has enough messages archived for a program to scan the message directories and reconstruct the documents from all the pieces that are found. these "pieces" could even be stored solely in the netnews header fields. another idea involves the concept behind "spread spectrum". in this system, little pieces of data are spit out in different places, or channels, and the source and the reciever are scanning the exact same channel at the same time based on exact synchronization. I guess an analogy to usenet would be tiny pieces of data showing up in seemingly random newsgroups, but which are followed or "caught" exactly by the "reconstruction software". some interesting ideas related to steganography that some people might like to play with. == for a model of the scientology problem, it appears that what we have is a set of email addresses (S) and a public forum that essentially reaches some large subset of these people (S2). a person wishes to send out a secret document to S2, but he can't do so by posting to the forum, because then the censors "see" him and shut him down. but what he *can* do is send lots of pieces to a group of people in S, and each of these people individually posts their piece. (the censors have no control over mail sent between individuals, only that posted collectively). possibly, then, there is no single target of "who posted the material" for the censors to clamp down on, and the information eventually can be reconstructed by all S2. == key ways what I am proposing is different than some of the other "cut up the anonymous messages and recombine" proposals out there: 1. the recombination is not done by a remailer. it is done by anyone who can run software on the newsserver (i.e. reading the directories). the scientologists or "censors" cannot tell who is doing this. 2. the messages are not completely comprised of the data to be sent. the data could be stored in headers or the signatures of otherwise "legitimate" messages. note that the same scheme could be applied to web pages. you could store a document "holographically" in which pieces are obtained at all kinds of different URLs. it would be laughable for the censors to try to get court orders against individual pieces. and furthermore, the entire document is not stored anywhere "out there" in particular but recombined by anyone. the scientologists don't know who. note that I am giving the scientologists a lot more credit for their enmity than they deserve. they have mostly lost their war already in many ways, and they aren't a very serious threat to cyberspace in general, imho. they have shown an amazingly unabated aggression & zeal against remailer operators, however, something that could possibly be derailed with a little ingenuity.

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nCognito is Dead..
by Ben Holiday 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well I have been given my notice to terminate the remailers running at this account. Make a note to remove ncognito from your type2.list, and those running pingers, please remove nCognito as soon as its convenient. Below i've quoted verbatim the request to shutdown that I received. PLEASE note that there is no mention of FBI, NSA, or Co$. :) The request is the result of some errors that mix generated while I was makeing changes, that resulted in the administration at gate.net noticing the remailer. Frankly, I cant blame them given the current legal climate. Although I would have liked to continute operating the remailers, I must admit that I'll sleep better at night now that its gone. BTW: Does anyone know of a few ISP's that accept cash and dont require verification of your identity? :) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From gli(a)gate.net Sat May 25 15:51:35 1996 Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 15:45:19 -0400 (EDT) From: gli(a)gate.net To: Ben Holiday <ncognito(a)gate.net> Subject: Re: Problems with your mail mix program Please note that CyberGate does not support remailer program so please stop running it on gate.net immediately. Repeated violation will cause your login privilege compromised. Your cooperation will be appreciated. Gary Li Systems Administrator CyberGate, Inc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:39 AM 5/25/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >I think an insight your analysis may benefit by is that certain >institutions/societal norms create incetives for "corrupt politicians". >Hayek argues against the "benevolent dictator" concept because he says no >gentle person would ever aspire to be a dictator. The system itself calls >for people who are ruthless to take the reins. A similar argument can be >made for the various functions of a modenr democracy (like the US). It is >rarely that we hear of a considerate IRS auditor, or a principled >politician. The structures themselves call for and promote those who (in >that an individual is more successful if they) are corrupt, power-hungry, >unprincipled and ruthless. Which means that attempting to clean up the system by half-measures is doomed to failure, wouldn't you say? >As for Assasination Politics, I can understand such proposals in jest. Ironically, I originally proposed it to myself in jest. However, I quickly realized that there was far more to it than a joke. I went through most of the objections that were later commonly raised against it, and then concluded that those objections were invalid. I also noted that most people recognized the flaws in those objections after they were explained to them. It has the prospect of enormously changing society. Too many pieces fell into place, like a jigsaw puzzle. This system is NOT an accident; it is fundamental. Admittedly, it is still a bit scary, because of the depth of its changes, but that does not make it wrong! > I too say things to appear controversial. AP was not publicized "to appear controversial." I think it's "controversial" simply because it is so different from the current system, and those in power in that system (and their sympathizers) realize how serious and enormous such a change would be. > As a serious political structure, however, it is reprehensible. Unfortunately, that's not a particularly specific claim. "reprehensible"? I'd call the current system reprehensible. Why should the government be able to put over a million people in prison, most for victimless drug crimes? Why should the government be able to start a war and send millions of people against their will, and thousands to die (as in Vietnam)? Why should their be repeated mass killings (Armenia, Russia, Germany, China, Uganda, Cambodia, Rwanda, etc)? If you could show that the current system had somehow been fixed to prevent these kinds of incident, you might have a point, but you cannot. Your claim is also biased: Everything you think about the term, "political," is based on the kind of systems you know and have known. For you, and most of us, politics is just about defined as that system by which a small number of people manipulate a larger number, ostensibly guided by the wishes of the larger number. > Murder cannot be condoned (as a pacifist, >the argument that politicians create wars and must be killed for that >reason does not hold much water for me) Then you need to learn to be more consistent. While you may, indeed, be a pacifist, most of the rest of us see nothing wrong with the concept of self-defense. You may argue as to what's really self-defense and what isn't, but the reality is that government engages in violence and the threat of violence regularly. Are you, by your statements, implicitly tolerating violence by government that you wouldn't tolerate from individuals? It is easy to fall into such a trap. >and the proponents of such systems >would do well to look more closely at the systemic ills rather than individuals. Why? Isn't it possible that it is not possible to reform a system because embedded within it is a fundamental flaw which makes real freedom impossible? The current system is heirarchically structured, and results in situations where millions die in the place of the very few. I'd say that's a serious, systemic flaw that needs fixing. > The argument that AP is an institutional dis-incentive for >"bad" representatives that offsets other incentives is problematic since I >do not believe the methods are just. I invite you to provide an alternative solution. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Where is PGP?
by Michael Johnson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- WHERE TO GET THE PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY PROGRAM (PGP) FAQ Revised 24 May 1996 Disclaimer -- I haven't recently verified all of the information in this file, and much of it is probably out of date. For questions not covered here, please read the documentation that comes with PGP, get one of the books mentioned below, or search for other relevant FAQ documents at rtfm.mit.edu and on the alt.security.pgp news group. A NOTE FROM THE FAQ MAINTAINERS Peter Herngaard <pethern(a)datashopper.dk> is taking over the maintenance of this FAQ until further notice. Some of you sent me (Mike Johnson) corrections and suggestions for this FAQ, and I stored them away on my hard disk to edit from. Then, Windows 95 got indigestion (induced by a sound card) and destroyed all of the data in that partition. If you suggested changes and they aren't in this FAQ, please send them to Peter Herngaard <pethern(a)datashopper.dk>. WHAT IS THE LATEST VERSION OF PGP? Viacrypt PGP (commercial version): 2.7.1 (4.0 is due out Real Soon Now) MIT & Philip Zimmermann (freeware, USA-legal): 2.6.2 Staale Schumacher's International variant: 2.6.3i for non-USA (2.6.3ai source code only); 2.6.3 for USA WHERE CAN I GET VIACRYPT PGP? Just call 800-536-2664 and have your credit card handy. WHERE IS PGP ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB? U.S. only availability: PGP: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp-form.html PGPfone: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone International availability: PGP and PGPfone: http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/ WHERE CAN I FTP PGP IN NORTH AMERICA? If you are in the USA or Canada, you can get PGP by following the instructions in any of: ftp://net-dist.mit.edu/pub/PGP/README ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README.MPJ ftp://miyako.dorm.duke.edu/pub/GETTING_ACCESS ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/pgp/ ftp://ftp.gibbon.com/pub/pgp/README.PGP ftp://ftp.wimsey.bc.ca/pub/crypto/software/README WHERE IS PGP ON COMPUSERVE? GO NCSAFORUM. Follow the instructions there to gain access to Library 12: Export Controlled. AOL Go to the AOL software library and search "PGP" or ftp from ftp://ftp.csua.berkeley.edu/pub/cypherpunks/pgp or another site listed above. It is possible to get PGP from ftp sites with hidden directories with the following trick: (1) View the README file with the hidden directory name in it, then quickly (2) Start a new ftp connection, specifiying the hidden directory name with the ftp site's address, like ftp.csn.net/mpj/I_will_not_export/crypto_xxxxxxx (where the xxxxxxx is replaced with the current character string). WHAT BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEMS CARRY PGP? MANY BBS carry PGP. The following carry recent versions of PGP and allow free downloads of PGP. US 303-343-4053 Hacker's Haven, Denver, CO 303-772-1062 Colorado Catacombs BBS, Longmont CO 8 data bits, 1 stop, no parity, up to 28,800 bps. Use ANSI terminal emulation. For free access: log in with your own name, answer the questions. 314-896-9309 The KATN BBS 317-887-9568 Computer Virus Research Center (CVRC) BBS, Indianapolis, IN Login First Name: PGP Last Name: USER Password: PGP 501-791-0124, 501-791-0125 The Ferret BBS, North Little Rock, AR Login name: PGP USER Password: PGP 506-457=0483 Data Intelligence Group Corporation BBS 508-668-4441 Emerald City, Walpole, MA 601-582-5748 CyberGold BBS 612-690-5556, !CyBERteCH SeCURitY BBS! Minneapolis MN 914-667-4567 Exec-Net, New York, NY 915-587-7888, Self-Governor Information Resource, El Paso, Texas GERMANY +49-781-38807 MAUS BBS, Offenburg - angeschlossen an das MausNet +49-521-68000 BIONIC-BBS Login: PGP WHERE CAN I FTP PGP CLOSE TO ME? IT ftp://ftp.dsi.unimi.it/pub/security/crypt/PGP FI ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/pgp/ NL ftp://ftp.nl.net/pub/crypto/pgp ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/surfnet/net-security/encryption/pgp NO ftp://menja.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/ NZ ftp://ftphost.vuw.ac.nz SE ftp://leif.thep.lu.se TW ftp://nctuccca.edu.tw/PC/wuarchive/pgp/ UK ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp HOW CAN I GET PGP BY EMAIL? If you have access to email, but not to ftp, send a message saying "help" to ftpmail(a)decwrl.dec.com or mailserv(a)nic.funet.fi WHERE CAN I GET MORE PGP INFORMATION? http://www.csn.net/~mpj http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/warlord/pgp-faq.html http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Issues/Crypto/ITAR_export/cryptusa_paper.ps.gz ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-pgp-pgpformat-00.txt ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-pem-mime-08.txt http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/mitp/recent-books/comp/pgp-source.html http://web.cnam.fr/Network/Crypto/(c'est en francais) http://web.cnam.fr/Network/Crypto/survey.html(en anglais) http://www2.hawaii.edu/~phinely/MacPGP-and-AppleScript-FAQ.html http://www.pgp.net/pgp http://www.sydney.sterling.com:8080/~ggr/pgpmoose.html http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/ http://inet.uni-c.dk/~pethern/privacy.html WHAT ARE SOME GOOD PGP BOOKS? Protect Your Privacy: A Guide for PGP Users by William Stallings Prentice Hall PTR ISBN 0-13-185596-4 US $19.95 PGP: Pretty Good Privacy by Simson Garfinkel O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. ISBN 1-56592-098-8 US $24.95 E-Mail Security: How to Keep Your Electronic Mail Private "Covers PGP/PEM" by Bruce Schneier Wiley Publishing The Computer Privacy Handbook: A Practical Guide to E-Mail Encryption, Data Protection, and PGP PRivacy Software by André Bacard Peachpit Press ISBN 1-56609-171-3 US $24.95 800-283-9444 or 510-548-4393 THE OFFICIAL PGP USER'S GUIDE by Philip R. Zimmerman MIT Press April 1995 - 216 pp. - paper - US $14.95 - ISBN 0-262-74017-6 ZIMPP Standard PGP documentation neatly typeset and bound. PGP SOURCE CODE AND INTERNALS by Philip R. Zimmerman April 1995 - 804 pp. - US $55.00 - 0-262-24039-4 ZIMPH How to Use PGP, 61 pages, (Pub #121) from the Superior Broadcasting Company, Box 1533-N, Oil City, PA 16301, phone: (814) 678-8801 (about US $10-$13). IS PGP LEGAL? Pretty Good Privacy is legal if you follow these rules: Don't export PGP from the USA except to Canada, or from Canada except to the USA, without a license. If you are in the USA, use either Viacrypt PGP (licensed for commercial use) or MIT PGP using RSAREF (limited to personal, noncommercial use). Outside of the USA, where RSA is not patented, you may prefer to use a version of PGP (2.6.3i) that doesn't use RSAREF to avoid the restrictions of that license. If you are in a country where the IDEA cipher patent holds in software (including the USA, Canada, and some countries in Europe), make sure you are licensed to use the IDEA cipher commercially before using PGP commercially. (No separate license is required to use the freeware PGP for personal, noncommercial use). For direct IDEA licensing, contact Ascom Systec: Erhard Widmer, Ascom Systec AG, Dep't. CMVV Phone +41 64 56 59 83 Peter Hartmann, Ascom Systec AG, Dep't. CMN Phone +41 64 56 59 45 Fax: +41 64 56 59 90 e-mail: IDEA(a)ascom.ch Mail address: Gewerbepark, CH-5506 Maegenwil (Switzerland) Viacrypt has an exclusive marketing agreement for commercial distribution of Philip Zimmermann's copyrighted code. (Selling shareware/freeware disks or connect time is OK). This restriction does not apply to PGP 3.0, since it is a complete rewrite by Colin Plumb. If you modify PGP (other than porting it to another platform, fixing a bug, or adapting it to another compiler), don't call it PGP (TM) or Pretty Good Privacy (TM) without Philip Zimmermann's permission. IMPORTANT: Please note that there is an official distribution site for MIT PGP and another for the International version: WorldWideWeb references: U.S/Canada non-commercial use: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp-form.html Norway/International non-commercial use: http://www.ifi.uio.no/pgp/ U.S. commercial use: http://www.viacrypt.com WHAT IS PHILIP ZIMMERMANN'S LEGAL STATUS? Philip Zimmermann was under investigation for alleged violation of export regulations, with a grand jury hearing evidence for about 28 months, ending 11 January 1996. The Federal Government chose not to comment on why it decided to not prosecute, nor is it likely to. The Commerce Secretary stated that he would seek relaxed export controls for cryptographic products, since studies show that U. S. industry is being harmed by current regulations. Philip endured some serious threats to his livelihood and freedom, as well as some very real legal expenses, for the sake of your right to electronic privacy. The battle is won, but the war is not over. The regulations that caused him so much grief and which continue to dampen cryptographic development, harm U. S. industry, and do violence to the U. S. National Security by eroding the First Ammendment of the U. S. Constitution and encouraging migration of cryptographic industry outside of the U. S. A. are still on the books. If you are a U. S. Citizen, please write to your U. S. Senators, Congressional Representative, President, and Vice President pleading for a more sane and fair cryptographic policy. WHERE CAN I GET WINDOWS & DOS SHELLS FOR PGP? http://www.dayton.net/~cwgeib ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/security/apgp22b.zip http://alpha.netaccess.on.ca/~spowell/crypto/pwf31.zip ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/dc/dcosenza/pgpw40.zip ftp://ftp.firstnet.net/pub/windows/winpgp/pgpw40.zip http://www.eskimo.com/~joelm(Private Idaho) ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/~joelm http://www.xs4all.nl/~paulwag/security.htm http://www.LCS.com/winpgp.html http://netaccess.on.ca/~rbarclay/index.html http://netaccess.on.ca/~rbarclay/pgp.html ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/crypt/gcppgp10.zip ftp://ftp.leo.org/pub/comp/os/os2/crypt/pmpgp.zip http://iquest.com/~aegisrcs WHAT OTHER FILE ENCRYPTION (DOS, MAC) TOOLS ARE THERE? PGP can do conventional encryption only of a file (-c) option, but you might want to investigate some of the other alternatives if you do this a lot. Alternatives include Quicrypt and Atbash2 for DOS, DLOCK for DOS & UNIX, Curve Encrypt (for the Mac), HPACK (many platforms), and a few others. Quicrypt is interesting in that it comes in two flavors: shareware exportable and registered secure. Atbash2 is interesting in that it generates ciphertext that can be read over the telephone or sent by Morse code. DLOCK is a no-frills strong encryption program with complete source code. Curve Encrypt has certain user-friendliness advantages. HPACK is an archiver (like ZIP or ARC), but with strong encryption. A couple of starting points for your search are: U.S. only availability: ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/qcrypt11.zip ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README ftp://ftp.miyako.dorm.duke.edu/pub/GETTING_ACCESS International availability: ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/pub/virus/crypt/file/ ftp://ftp.dsi.unimi.it/pub/crypt/code/ HOW DO I SECURELY DELETE FILES (DOS)? If you have the Norton Utilities, Norton WipeInfo is pretty good. I use DELETE.EXE in del110.zip, which is really good at deleting existing files, but doesn't wipe "unused" space. US ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/public/del120.zip NL ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/security/del120.zip UK ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/ibmpc/security/realdeal.zip WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THE PASS PHRASE IN MY WINDOWS SWAP FILE? The nature of Windows is that it can swap any memory to disk at any time, meaning that all kinds of interesting things could end up in your swap file. ftp://ftp.firstnet.net/pub/windows/winpgp/wswipe.zip WHERE DO I GET PGPfone(tm)? PGPfone is in beta test for Macintosh and Windows'9 users. The MIT has shut down their ftp distribution of PGPfone <tm> for Macintosh and Windows'95, so within the U.S/Canada you must obtain PGPfone <tm> using a WorldWideWeb browser. U.S. only availability: http://web.mit.edu/network/pgpfone International availability: DK ftp://ftp.datashopper.dk/pub/users/pethern/pgp/ NL ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/voice/ NO ftp://menja.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/mac/ ftp://menja.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/windows/ WHERE DO I GET NAUTILUS? Bill Dorsey, Pat Mullarky, and Paul Rubin have come out with a program called Nautilus that enables you to engage in secure voice conversations between people with multimedia PCs and modems capable of at least 7200 bps (but 14.4 kbps is better). See: U.S. only availability: ftp://ripem.msu.edu/pub/crypt/GETTING_ACCESS ftp://ripem.msu.edu/pub/crypt/other/nautilus-phone-0.9.2-source.tar.gz ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README ftp://miyako.dorm.duke.edu/pub/GETTING_ACCESS International availability: ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/misc ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/voice/ The official Nautilus homepage is at: http://www.lila.com/nautilus/ HOW DO I ENCRYPT MY DISK ON-THE-FLY? Secure File System (SFS) is a DOS device driver that encrypts an entire partition on the fly using SHA in feedback mode. Secure Drive also encrypts an entire DOS partition, using IDEA, which is patented. Secure Device is a DOS device driver that encrypts a virtual, file-hosted volume with IDEA. Cryptographic File System (CFS) is a Unix device driver that uses DES. CryptDisk is a ShareWare package for Macintosh that uses strong IDEA encryption like PGP. U.S. only availability: ftp://ftp.csn.net/mpj/README ftp://miyako.dorm.duke.edu/mpj/crypto/disk/ International availability: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut01/sfs.html ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/pub/virus/crypt/disk/ ftp://ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/surfnet/net-security/encryption/disk/ ftp://ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/misc/ ftp://menja.ifi.uio.no/pub/pgp/mac/ ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay/pub/disk/ WHERE IS PGP'S COMPETITION? RIPEM is the second most popular freeware email encryption package. I like PGP better for lots of reasons, but if for some reason you want to check or generate a PEM signature, RIPEM is available at ripem.msu.edu. There is also an exportable RIPEM/SIG. U.S. only availability: ftp://ripem.msu.edu/pub/GETTING_ACCESS International availability: ftp://ftp.dsi.unimi.it/pub/crypt/code/ HOW DO I PUBLISH MY PGP PUBLIC KEY? Send mail to one of these addresses with the single word "help" in the subject line to find out how to use them. These servers sychronize keys with each other. There are other key servers, too. pgp-public-keys(a)keys.pgp.net pgp-public-keys(a)keys.de.pgp.net pgp-public-keys(a)keys.no.pgp.net pgp-public-keys(a)keys.uk.pgp.net pgp-public-keys(a)keys.us.pgp.net WWW interface to the key servers: http://www.pgp.net/pgp/www-key.html http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/~bal/pks-toplev.html For US $20/year or so, you can have your key officially certified and published in a "clean" key database that is much less susceptible to denial-of-service attacks than the other key servers. Send mail to info-pgp(a)Four11.com for information, or look at http://www.Four11.com/ Of course, you can always send your key directly to the parties you wish to correspond with by whatever means you wish. CAN I COPY AND REDISTRIBUTE THIS FAQ? Yes. Permission is granted to distribute unmodified copies of this FAQ. Please e-mail comments to Peter Herngaard <pethern(a)datashopper.dk> Look for the latest html version of this FAQ at http://inet.uni-c.dk/~pethern/getpgp.html -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.7.1 iQEVAgUBMaftOm+Iqt/O4EnZAQHk8ggAwL5UcRF4Gv1F6eO7NaQcb45Xa+ST3l3S +6sPHN5vFn/LvUsNHO4o9gDBDJB3Bd8S3nDfRxoSolD1ijNtKGOvJzzXtAf2lXFI 95YXCuF+DyhBrghBfwNzFePjuiDZ/92aeXn90oAEpHc5gaUFoSo+o9Gu8sD0TMo7 p3houk0AdVRRQBTTljWDin2yoJcGLzbmY6ewRcdkYnEqmcv2oW9drSKky04bcg2A KGfOKk/5i1Mw3CPKJu/eHy1gi0P4hd5WbH23Jc3cHQVk2BvmR6lLL+ffl4TGjkxt o61fzYYunxuQzLOi4EeQWWhq31+WJwOO0CuW35nA1XzoQXALdBfF8A== =1NGG -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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net-based key archival
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've put a revised version of my "Key Escrow without Escrow Agents" abstract in my ftp directory, in PostScript and Latex formats. ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.ps ftp://research.att.com/dist/mab/netescrow.tex -matt

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407 Arms Traffickers in first month of training
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the first month the Arms Trafficker Training Page has helped 407 people to become Arms Traffickers. Here are the stats: International Arms Traffickers 407 Public List of Known Arms Traffickers 147 Letters to the president 83 Number of times page was read 2498 So about one arms trafficker for every 6 times the page is read (some people read the page more than once so the real ratio is better). Kind of fun that a web page can turn 1 out of 6 people into criminals. Thanks for your support both as arms traffickers and for linking to this page. It is off to a good start. For anyone who had missed it, the URL is: http://online.offshore.com.ai/arms-trafficker/ -- Vince Cate

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e-mail gateways to usenet
by O. C. Winton WN1Z 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wonder if anyone would consider posting a list of currently functioning e-mail ways to post to usenet. Would be useful for people like me who often use libraries' access to internet, and the libraries don't give newsgroup access. orrin(a)redshift.com

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Re: nCognito is Dead..
by Censored Girls Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Long Live nCognito! Member Internet Society - Certified BETSI Programmer - Webmistress *********************************************************************** Carol Anne Braddock (cab8) carolann(a)censored.org 206.42.112.96 My Homepage The Cyberdoc *********************************************************************** ------------------ PGP.ZIP Part [017/713] ------------------- M8H,),S$8G>&.WP(8IRA`-M['+`Q%&_C"">5-F%LX@<_Q$;*P'',Q$Z/AA[8M MF=O0H+*%(-S%&>S%+FS&<LS%3(Q&#W1"<]2%`H^;,]^1C$'HBN8PX$4SYAU^ MPGD<Q0ZLA0D+,`MCT!LA**4M[-JPAK9F?40!AJ,CW"'%DR#:'9?Q)3[%<DQ` ------------------------------------------------------------- for next chunk to export --> http://dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/export/

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Re: "Key Escrow without Escrow Agents"
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:56 PM 5/25/96 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote: > >I can see that you might create a code of law that determines >what procedures that these "distributed key juries" are supposed >to follow. but like our legal system, the interpretation and >application is ultimately left up to them. > >an interesting system, that is commendable for trying to >find a compromise between two seemingly irreconcilable polarities >(privacy and surveillance) but I doubt anyone in law enforcement >(with the mindset, "I can't be stopped from doing my job as I >see fit or criminals will get away") would go for it in the current form. But as long as key-escrow is claimed to be "voluntary," then the police should be happy if it is used at all. If they object that it is possible somebody won't agree that the person involved shouldn't have his data revealed, we can remind them that the jury system prevents conviction if not all of the jury agrees as to guilt. This is no worse than having, say, 12 key-escrow organizations and allowing any one to not reveal the correct key. Naturally, it will be necessary to ensure that they can refuse without anyone else knowing who opted out... Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 26 May 96 at 12:23, Subir Grewal wrote: > the > struggle does not always have to be violent, and it hurts our cause > to instigate violence when none has been used directly against us. How would you qualify the seizing of 50+ % of our productive work? Since only the productive work permits an individual to live, could you say that they steal half of your life? Why not? Then, any tax man targeted by AP who is past 1/2 the life expectency is getting an "an eye for an eye" or better deal... Are you telling that giving your wallet to a mugger is not done under violence directed against you since he did not shoot you or beat you in the first place? Do you tell me that the fact that he did not use his gun means that there is no violence implied? Under every pile of red-tape lies a fully loaded gun. And *this* is what gives govt employees their attitude toward you. Just some thoughts. Ciao JFA ...and actually, I am not even on CP mailing list... PLEASE NOTE: THIS POST DOES NOT MEAN THAT I ENDORSE MR. BELL'S SYSTEM. MY RATIONNAL CONCLUSIONS ABOUT IT'S INTERNAL MECHANICS AND IT'S INTRINSIC LOGICS DOES NOT MEAN THAT I LIKE NOR ENDORSE THE SYSTEM. I SIMPLY CONCLUDED THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PREVENT THE SYSTEM FROM BEING IMPLEMENTED. IMO, IT IS UNAVOIDABLE. DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, Silverware and mouth blown crystal glasses JFA Technologies, R&D consultants. Physists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:23 PM 5/26/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >On Sat, 25 May 1996, jim bell wrote: > >:At 09:48 PM 5/25/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >:How "removed" do they have to be to be innocent, in your opinion? > >If they didn't pull the trigger or give the order, they're innocent. >Making these criteria any laxer will cause problems as more and more >people are drawn into the category of offenders, pretty soon you're the >only victim, everyone else is out there to steal from you or assist in the >theft. Qualitatively, perhaps. But quantitatively, no. I think that blame for any given situation or government behavior will be distributed in a reasonably fair fashion, with those directly responsible for abuse becoming "dead meat" while those on the periphery only marginal targets. Your generous interpretation of their guilt is certainly not binding on me. And in any case the fact that the people involved will usually be able to resign will be a logical "out." >:Nuclear bomb design. Done with funds stolen from taxpayers. Done to >:protect the leadership of this country, not the public. > >Pure mathematics as far as the people working at the lab were concerned. >You really think if the receptionist had died, it would have been >self-defense? A couple of kids died in computer labs at other schools >where this happened, they were there feeding punched cards into the >machines. Somehow that doesn't sound right to me. I agree. Which is why I'd much prefer a method to preferentially target a relatively smaller number of people, and I've invented (discovered?) just such a system. Why not let it work? >:And isn't it immoral for George Bush, for instance, to choose a solution >:that results in the deaths of tens of thousands of comparatively innocent >:Iraqis, both during and after the Gulf war, rather than bumping off Saddam >:Hussein? Think about it. Exactly why does he do the former, rather than >:the latter? > >And the Iranian leaders really think Clinton is an ungoldy kafir for >meeting Rushdie the apostate. Why not kill him, after all various >Americans have suggested this is a valid tactic? Why not kill those Iranian leaders, using AP? And if you're afraid they'll retaliate against "our" leaders, I see nothing wrong with that, either. It's the leaders who maintain the dispute. > Your methods will be used for ends you do not agree with. Hey, I realized that long ago! But I'm not under any illusion that this system can be molded to conform to my wishes alone: If I could, I'd become a dictator and the cycle of tyranny would continue. > From what I've learnt of the Gulf >war (I was reading most of the time, kept away from the TV), they did try >very hard to kill Sadaam Hussein, but got nowhere. "Very hard"? If they'd tried "very hard" they would have succeeded. No, the various leadership groups controlling different countries have far more in common with each other than with the ordinary citizens. They all are perfectly aware that if a precedent is established that killing the leadership is to be used to solve a dispute, eventually they'll all be dead. Thus, they reject this solution like the plague. The government only pretends to not be able to succeed at this task in order to assuage the natural desires of the public. >As is apparent, >political leaders value their own lives more than they do those of the >foot-soldiers. Many among the foot-soldiers belive their lives would be >"brutish, nasty and short" without the mechanism of the state and are >willing to defend it and those who currently operate the machine. They are misled, of course. >Of >course George Bush I don't trust at all because the man was practically >glowing during "his war", anyone who enjoys a war, revels in it, is not >someone I admire, respect, or even talk to. However, when you propose >that we kill this person, I'm not going to stand with you either. Rest >assured, there will be many others waiting to take his place when he is >killed, and some of them will spell potato like the English feudal lords >did. The only reason there might be "many others waiting to take his place" is that assassination is actually a rare event. Make it easily accomplished, and who would want to take any politician's place? >:"Another set of costs"? Yikes! Read the essay, governments as we know them >:can't possibly survive post-AP. > >Oh no, I think they will survive post AP. The odds are quite high that >the people who are convinced to act on the AP philosophy will be branded >terrorists and become the objectives of many witch hunts the world over. Unless I capture the public's imagination, and they realize what kind of improvements it promises. Or, at least they recognize that opposition by those in government is entirely self-serving. >:Well, I disagree. Until recently, public opinion was almost entirely >:manufactured. It was a joint project of the government and the news media. > >I too think Chomsky has perceptive vision when it comes to the media. It doesn't take a great deal of perception to see this. The media and the government are dependent on each other: The media needs access to news, the government needs a pliable sounding board. Chomsky has gotten smart on this subject, a little bit late in my estimation. Chomsky's main advantage is that he's been a public figure for years, which means when HE spouts this stuff it's considered news. When we talk about it, it's ignored. >:Is there any significant likelihood that the people in power today will >:relinquish power absent a system such as AP? I'm not optimistic about that. > >No, noone "relinquishes" power. They fight to keep it, but the struggle >does not always have to be violent, It isn't that it "has to" be violent. Resignation is always an option. Problem is, they don't want to give up their positions of power. > and it hurts our cause to instigate >violence when none has been used directly against us. That depends entirely on what your definition of instigating violence really is. I happen to believe that the act of collecting taxes, involuntarily, IS the "instigation of violence" even if the victim gives up his assets without a fight, if there is the prospect of eventual violence should he refuse to cooperate. Until you see this, you'll have a warped view of the propriety of AP, not to mention the libertarian non-initiation of force principle. (NIOFP.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: COMMUNITY CONNEXION ANNOUNCES WORLDWIDE BETA-TEST OF THE ANONYMIZER (fwd)
by Alan Horowitz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Sun, 26 May 1996 14:17:38 -0400 From: Ralph Jennett <jennett(a)citicom.com> To: Alan Horowitz <alanh(a)infi.net> Of course the people at Community Connection know what you are up to when you use their service.

2 1

Re: Children's Privacy Act
by Bruce Baugh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:15 PM 5/25/96, Chris Adams wrote: >particularly if he plans to resell it. It does make me wonder whether you could file a suit >against TRW for selling information about you, particularly since it could affect you >adversely and there is no guaruntee it is accurate. Thanks to existing laws, almost certainly not. If they satisfy the government, credit agencies don't have to worry much about what harm they might do to individuals. -- Bruce Baugh bruce(a)aracnet.com http://www.aracnet.com/~bruce

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No Subject
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- We are pleased to announce the opening of the Czarevna Tatjana Mixmaster Remailer at tat(a)mindport.net. At present the remailer is configured to accept type2 messages only. Questions or comments should be directed to tatjana(a)mindport.net. Please note that some debugging is still in the works. An announcement of our complete confidence in the remailer's full and proper operation will be made presently. All official announcements will be signed with the following PGP key: - -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQBtAzGo67oAAAEDAK/Pr9W3uySr/cb8cxHIEu0rfTGVaulmtFZ5fVN0M+fg9/AA 1ZM1PoJR9f8Oxjmg1+UG69SFLxgJSAZAQDwJjOAfwQG47n08eDjeNnZSezuZEC1L ZIj7KCG7mCX4fe8+7QAFEbQsQ3phcmV2bmEgVGF0amFuYSBSZW1haWxlciA8dGF0 QG1pbmRwb3J0Lm5ldD4= =4ukd - -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Mixmaster key information follows: czarevna tat(a)mindport.net 0bd7631f6a2ca8c6a16f3e85a7526f43 2.0.3 - -----Begin Mix Key----- 0bd7631f6a2ca8c6a16f3e85a7526f43 258 AATLWxuW8j90eNaVFGVBMV5rCWT49MOoPTZXpHGb vGbTLUe/K60+bMP6+nIuWU3dbIQORa7ZI0emwRRr EWXVhCZnnDnf+G3O2Vjqw8Py9JoXJufSYig1bV0K kuN4p87Cu6FlWdQFT19fI28B42b0pZYgyVuB9ns0 3VARqmCl5LHziwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQAB - -----End Mix Key----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMajtQbuYJfh97z7tAQGRGwL/fm9VqOsTxtb61aZi5yq6YNzl05mZu6QU uzsIXz9LPd2J/iWYDx5CKASytDeb9YOY6HxYEec7sLFArjUu2999UcQRGp8uoFmT 9YKiRrwrc4Nr82E2q3LMZzVHgt403Z+U =SXwM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Quickremail v1.0b
by Mark M. 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I have just released Quickremail, a UNIX program that provides an easy interface to install an anonymous remailer. Just unzip and untar in your home directory, execute remailer-install.sh, and then you will have a fully functional remailer. You do not need root access to install it. It is available at http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/quickremail.1.0.b.tar.gz . - -- Mark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= markm(a)voicenet.com | finger -l for PGP key 0xe3bf2169 http://www.voicenet.com/~markm/ | d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348 ((2b) || !(2b)) | Old key now used only for signatures "The concept of normalcy is just a conspiracy of the majority" -me -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBMakKLLZc+sv5siulAQFRggP8CUjAKn6WKL73PuPbG+h1DsZKj+K5v0iG 3a01RPmQca3VWa8jeFsX6OfUH6XrI4L+GN8o2W+6nzULur36Fyxovj9NN0A8sGBu Ww1v0wu6MTA/r6HXiaGmPdSCZ5BeUF7TqPI2C9mgsAqlTinffR85aGpjYaev2Ffq MumHbq1wH7g= =4PPV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Tempest Info
by SpyKing 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RISE of the TEMPEST by Sarah Ellerman Reprinted from Internet UnderGround Magazine June 1996 Edition Pg. 42 thru 46 The unmarked government van slows and stops. The agent inside puts down his coffee and starts in on the day's work: monitoring John Doe's computer, 10 blocks away. John is busy working on his Mac with the curtains pulled against the morning sunlight. The agent watches with great interest as John reads through the cryptography and privacy newsgroups, then downloads some fiction from alt.sex.stories. Everything that flashes by on John's monitor is videotaped for later review: the balance and payees of John's checking account, some decrypted e-mail that John assumed was private and an illegal copy of Adobe Photoshop. Is this scenario making you take stock of what appears on your computer screen? We all indulge in vices large and small, mentally shrugging, "Who will ever know?" In everyday life, we usually manage to keep our transgressions secret, but when it comes to information flitting across our computer screens, the answer is that there are no secrets, thanks to a relatively new, obscure form of surveillance that's a threat to your privacy and your civil rights. It's so secret that the Feds refuse to even release its real name. Privacy advocates have filled the void by nicknaming this technology "TEMPEST," which stands for "Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation Surveillance Technology." What it does is allow a simple scanning device to read the output from your monitor from up to one kilometer away. No one ever need enter your house to plant a bug or copy your floppies; it's non invasive and virtually undetectable. You won't even know what hit you until your name gets put on a list of troublemakers or the marshals come busting down your door. Here's how it works: There is an electron gun in the back of your monitor which repeatedly fires electrons at your screen, causing different pixels to illuminate and form the text or graphics that you see. The gun sweeps rapidly up and down, sending an electromagnetic signal which constantly refreshes the information displayed on the screen. This signal doesn't stop at the perimeter of your computer; it continues expanding outwards, seeping through the ether much like a radio wave. Exposed cables act as inadvertent antennas, trans mitting the contents of your screen across your neighborhood. Information even travels back along modem lines and power cords, back into the walls and out into the world. These signals can be easily reconstructed. What's more, a spy can differentiate between many different units operating in the same room. The signals don't conflict or jam each other as one might suspect. Even identical units send out distinct signals because of slight differ ences in the manufacturing of various components. You may not think it, but your PC is hardly a self-contained unit storing information privy to you alone. In fact, you're better off thinking of it as a small-scale broadcast station operating out of your house. You may think, "So what if someone can see a screen?" Consider the test conducted by security professionals for the Technical Assistance Group at http://www. thecodex.com who actually jury-rigged their own Tempest scanning device and took it for a test drive in downtown Manhattan this spring. As described in an essay by CEO Frank Jones, their "DataScan" device (four years in the making) enabled them to "view CRT screens at ATM machines, banks, the local state lottery machine in a neighborhood candy store, a doctor's office, the local high school, the fire department, the local police department doing a DMV license plate check, a branch office of a securities trader making a stock trade and the local gas station (owner) tallying up his day's receipts...The U.S. Customs building (in NYC) leaks information as well as the Federal Reserve. Wall Street itself was a wealth of information for anyone interested. The World Trade Center was fertile. It afforded open parking areas nearby with millions of glass windows to snoop. We headed east toward the New York Post newspaper offices and read the latest news off their monitors (which was printed the next day). We headed north toward City Hall and NYPD Police Headquarters. Guess what? They're not Tempest-certified either...Neither is the United Nations, any of the midtown banks, Con Edison (the power company), New York Telephone on 42nd Street or Trump Tower!" Although this kind of eavesdropping has been featured in the media, most people are unaware of the ease with which spies can virtually look over their shoulder. Most react with incredulity swelling into anger and fear when the technology is demonstrated to them. However, specialists agree that the average person should not be unduly concerned with being spied on. "No, by and large it's not used to crack down on the common criminal," says Winn Schwartau, author of Information Warfare and Security Insider Report. "You've got to look at the expense that goes into one of these things, the eavesdropping vans and equipment. It's not cheap stuff to do at the very highest levels. As a number of prosecutors have told me, 'I wish so many people wouldn't be so paranoid. They don't know we don't have the time or the budget to waste on them.' I wouldn't worry for the individual reader; I'd worry for the corporation that has something of value." Mike, an electronic surveillance specialist (who requested that we not print his last name) and proprietor of the Chicago-area Discreet Electronics and Security, Inc. at http://www.w2. com/docs2/z/spyshop. html, also warns the public to keep things in perspective. "Let's say you are invaded, and there's an outrage at the invasion. It may be that your federal rights were violated... but so what?" he says. "One variable in how to assess countermeasures and detec tion devices is to figure out how much damage could happen to you as a result of your privacy being invaded." What could someone find out from your screen that would be of enough value or interest for them to go to the trouble and expense of getting a crack at your intellectual property? Pure curiosity? Unlikely. A nasty divorce or child custody case? The pur suit of a suspected hacker? A suspicion that you stole company secrets? Maybe. "If, on the other hand, you're involved in something that's rather political, if you're suing an insurance company for a $500,000 worker's compensation claim, boy, there's a lot involved here," Mike says. "And they're going to do whatever they have to, believe it or not, to get their information." GOOD NEWS BAD NEW Paranoid or protective U.S. citizens and companies can purchase snoop-proof" Tempest-certified" computers for their own use. However, the high cost of such a secure system may be prohibitive to consumers, says Jules Rutstein, program manager for Secure Systems at Wang Federal, Inc. Even after paying through the nose, information on how the computer was modified to meet the undisclosed emissions standards is top-secret. Wang, found at http://www.wangfed.com, a leading supplier of computers to the government, offers an affordable alternative to Tempest products, called ZONE. Rutstein explains, "The ZONE alternative is a lighter version of the full Tempest program. The ZONE program is actually an endorsed program under NSA (the National Security Agency.)" The cost of ZONE protection is significantly less than Tempest-certified units, but Rutstein wouldn't provide IU with definitive figures. "We try to price our ZONE products at what we consider commercial prices. [I'm] ambivalent because it's so difficult to pin down prices on PC products today...We've been selling it from the position that you can purchase a ZONE product for virtually the same price as a normal system. It's not costing you any more." IU pressed to find the exact difference between the products, but emission levels are top secret information, and ZONE can only be measured as relative to Tempest. It is probably safe to say that ZONE products would be acceptable for the average consumer's privacy needs, which is good news for those concerned enough with security to purchase a new computer. The bad news is that you don't have the highest level of security. Information about exactly how the process works is veiled. Seminars on building Tempest-certified equipment are only available to persons with certain security clearances, and rumor has it that people attempting to talk about Tempest are often silenced with the excuse that they're creating a security threat. Rutstein says, "Tempest is a munitions controlled item, which means that the export of the product is controlled. . . Currently the only [foreign entities] we sell to are NATO governments." These prohibitions protect the U.S. from acts of terrorism, but the secrecy surrounding Tempest specifications creates a dilemma for citizens. The government's reticence about standards prevents us from properly shielding the normal computers we already own. We can guess what kind of emissions they're giving off and try to suppress them, but without cold hard data, we can never rcally be sure. Most people don't even know of the existence of the technology, much less the exact shielding specifications. "It is not possible for the average person to go to a database and find out what is Tempest certified and what is not. I believe that perhaps that's the way the government wants it," says Jones of the Technical Assistance Group. Jones feels that citizens should be able to test emanations on their own. He points out that "there are several ways of blocking unintended transmissions, but how effective are they? The people who manufacture shielding always say, 'it's great, it's effective,' but you don't really know. But now there is a way to test it. We built a room and we used woven shielding with the DataScan device and it did block emissions, but it didn't block them to their specs. We had to use close to twice what they thought was secure to actually make the room secure." Mike of Discreet Electronics and Security, Inc. also comes out in favor of defensive countermeasures, saying, "Used in the application of creating awareness, to show how vulnerable let's say, a bank could be, it actually serves a very high and valuable purpose. The idea here is to create an awareness, because most people don't know, and what's frightening is that they don't know that they don't know." YEAH, BUT IS IT LEGAL? Jones says it's somewhat unclear whether citizens can lawfully monitor electromagnetic emanations. Depending on how one interprets the 1986 Electronic Communications and Privacy Act, it seems it could be legal. According to Jones, the 1986 measure covers, in depth, that "it is illegal to own, possess or use any device whose primary purpose is the surreptitious interception of ora/ or data communications." How does this apply to Tempest scanning devices? Well, that depends on how you define the word "data. " Tempest works by picking up computer emanations that happen to seep into the ether, remember? Those electrons were not created to transfer information to another party; rather, they were created for putting images on a computer screen, many theorize. "The emanations are not communications, it's not 'data' by the definition of the word," Jones says. "They are spurious emissions that are nothing but white noise. It's garbage." So what about the Act's clause that forbids the "interception of intended communications?" That's where things get complicated, Schwartau admits. "The key word there is 'intended,' that's exactly correct," Schwartau says. "I've posed this question of Tempest interception to lawyers and judges. The operational phrase came out of some of the cellular interception, the mobile home phone interception: Those are intentional broadcasts, and interception of those is clearly illegal." Schwartau says that legal colleagues agree with Jones' assertion that intercepting unintentional, surreptitious emanations from electronic equipment is not illegal. "However, there have been other lawyers who've maintained--and these operate on the government side--that "we'd find a way to get you." In the end, no matter how brilliant an argument lawyers can make that such transmissions "don't count," there's only one interpretation that really matters: namely, the definition decided on by the government. "That is the end-all and be-all," says Mike of Discreet Electronics and Security, Inc. "If the government says it's illegal, then guess what? It's illegal." So although the consensus may be that current law leaves a convenient loophole that technically permits Tempest monitoring, the prudent person shouldn't risk it. "I can modify a black-and-white television set, with seven cents in parts, to make it work. Does that make my TV illegal? No, of course not," says Schwartau. "The equipment that the government uses to monitor and test this type of equipment is open sale equipment. There are no clearances required. " Schwartau believes that even while providers' motivations in selling Tempest scanning equipment may be questionable, it's clearly legal for them to sell the stuff. Using it is another question. "lt's shaky ground if I'm going to go out and intercept the signals surreptitiously, but you also have to ask the question: How can you prosecute something that is passive and invisible?" That's a good point and a chief concern for privacy advocates. This monitoring is so non-invasive that most people will never even have a clue that they were spied on. Many fear that the government will abuse their privileged position as the keepers of Tempest standards and that the situation could turn into an unconstitutional, one-sided information war. As a consequence, there is a grass-roots movement of people learning to protect themselves. In his article "Tempest in a Teapot" at http:t/www.quadralay.com/ www/Crypt/Tempest/ tempest.html, Grady Ward notes that concerned computer users can take a number of simple steps to reduce compromising emanations. Ward suggests keeping cables between components as short as possible, to reduce the length of cable that acts as an antenna and to use only shielded cable which is wrapped with metal to keep emissions within the sheath. He recommends that users make sure that all computers and peripherals that they use meet the Federal Communications Commission's Class B stan dard which permits only one tenth the power of spurious emissions than the Class A standard. Ward also instructs users to keep the cover on their computer, to mount telephone-line filter products at the jack of the modem and to snap metallic ferrite beads over all cables so that offending electromagnetic emissions are used up in a heat sink instead of being released into the air. Those who feel the need to protect truly valuable information can take further steps by altering the rooms in which they work. "You don't need the proverbial lead-lined room anymore," Jones says. "There are composite non wovens that are similar to wallpaper that you can do a room in: the walls, the ceiling, the floors. Paste the stuff on the walls and then put paneling or regular wallpaper over it, and it pretty much makes the room secure. It blocks the electromagnetic emissions from going out. There also is translucent shielding similar to the sun tinting in an automobile that you put on the windows." Schwartau offers an alternative, saying, "The least expensive and easiest way to do it is electromagnetic moire' pattern masking. That' a technique using an inline box that plugs between the monitor and the video card on your PC. It creates an electromagnetic moire pattern that for all intents and purposes would keep out everybody but the absolutely most dedicated national resources." What's more, the active-matrix screens now built into laptops operate with out electron guns and their emissions are much lower. When such screens are commonly used as desktop monitors the possibility for being spied on will be lessened. Active matrix ? Electromagnetic moire? Isn't all this a little extreme ? Maybe not. Privacy advocates note that Tempest monitoring is just one facet of an information war in which the government has an unfair upper hand. We probably don't need to remind you, but the U.S. government has not always demonstrated the best judgment when it comes to emerging technologies, individual rights or covert actions involving "dangerous"citizens. The hope is that public indignation about Tempest monitoring will cause a true tempest, a whirlwind of anger and official accountability. Only then will we have the same tools and information as the Feds, bringing the battle onto an even playing field. Perhaps strife, outcry and controversy during this period of rapidly emerging technology would not be such a bad thing. Consider these words from Shakespeare's Orthello: "If after every tempest come such calms, may the winds blow till they have waken'd death!" You may view Jones' paper " Nowhere to Run...Nowhere to Hide...The vulnerability of CRT's, CPU's and peripherals to TEMPEST monitoring" at: http://www.thecodex.com/c_tempest.html You may view Jones' DataScan TEMPEST monitoring device at: http://www.thecodex.com/datscan.html Check out our WEB SITE - The Codex Privacy Page URL: http://www.thecodex.com Home of The Codex Surveillance & Privacy Newsletter DataScan - Diagnostic TEMPEST Evaluation System Technical Surveillance CounterMeasures (TSCM) Forensic Audio Restoration & Audio Tape Enhancement -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.7.1 mQCNAzDgc7MAAAEEAK1gzGapvWKn287T8QPYphpIzF6+uHAyf/shVPbrGD/f5v8i sgMOSC5x05w9xyijpzx2ua5i4eXXzjiq257y7oJy60TEFWRHYqGJtZRpqlh9DKjD 0EA5dVitmEgKNot3rmcF9amBxUP2RwIq2nzHfgiLGB3obqeKYp0MXw7qZrH7AAUR tB5TcHlLaW5nIDxzcHlraW5nQG5vdmFsaW5rLmNvbT4==UBv6 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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cryptlib debugging for Win95, WinNT
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In order for the RSA encryption functions in cryptlib (ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/security/crypl110.zip, but that one's without the RSA stuff for reasons which will become apparent) to work, I need to find someone to test the Win95 and WinNT random-number generation code, which calls various Win32 statistics-monitoring functions to seed its internal random number pool. I've written most of the code, but since some of the documentation for the API's is pretty dodgy, it'll need a bit of debugging and testing to get going. Is there anyone here who can help with this? I estimate that it's an hour or so of work for the Win95 side (which has Toolhelp32), and maybe half a day for NT (which has the incredibly complex registry-walking system and semi-documented network statistics gathering). There are two files to compile, with a total size of about 20K. I can't do it myself since I don't have easy access to any sort of Win32 system. Oh yes, this part of the code has nothing to do with crypto, so there are no problems with US people doing it. Peter.

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Re: [SCARE]: "If you only knew what we know..."
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:39 PM 5/26/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > >On Sun, 26 May 1996, jim bell wrote: > >:At 12:23 PM 5/26/96 -0400, Subir Grewal wrote: >:Qualitatively, perhaps. But quantitatively, no. I think that blame for any >:given situation or government behavior will be distributed in a reasonably >:fair fashion, with those directly responsible for abuse becoming "dead meat" >:while those on the periphery only marginal targets. Your generous >:interpretation of their guilt is certainly not binding on me. And in any >:case the fact that the people involved will usually be able to resign will >:be a logical "out." > >Nor is your generous interpretation of the guilt of of hte peripheral >binding on those who do not like them for whatever reason. True, but if I oppose and you don't, and my opposition results in their forced removal from office, what you believe will be irrelevant. >Your >suggestion is that open season be declared on those who work for the state >(or are the state). They obtain their salary through theft from taxpayers. I'd say that's plenty of an offense. > Your claim is that one has to satisfy everyone >(or the small minority that is unsatisfied might come out and kill you) >andd the only way that will happen is when there is no state at all. Or, at most, an exceedingly minimal one, operated by donation or extremely minor tax levels. > Of >course there are those who fervently believe in the socialist ideal and >would probably feel justified in killing the do nothing libertarians (as >opposed to old-style liberals, i.e. minimalists) who ostensibly form the >state. But it wouldn't matter. They wouldn't know who to target, and the people wanting to form a state have an inherent disadvantage against those who do not: The act of forming the state identifies them. > For them, inaction might be sufficient cause to initiate an AP >campaign. How would you distinguish between just some ordinary citizen and somebody that ought to be targeted because of opposition to the state? With my system, the latter can be silent and get the job done. >Now what happens if one group feels another group's AP campaign >is directly hurting their interests (for a smaller/larger state). Then there will be a fight, won by the group that isn't publicly recognized. A group trying to form a centralized entity (and force this on others) will fail; those opposing it will win. >Isn't >there the possibility that they will begin to assign to the other's AP >leaders the status of the state (after all their AP campaign is >determining the nature of the state, and we can begin a reverse AP >campaign on them to halt that). It doesn't work like that. The act of formation of a state inevitably calls attention to oneself. The act of opposing that formation does not. AP is "biased," as it were, against centralized, organized political structure that arouses the ire of even a tiny fraction of the population. A person who dedicates himself to ELIMINMATING the state, and does so anonymously, is difficult or impossible to target. > The ideal of the minimalist state permits >an out clause, so the socialists (or anyone who wants a paternal govt.) >can form their own little community with their state acting as mother. I don't deny that a group of people can, willingly, form a subset of society where they agree to be bound by certain conditions that the rest of society does not tolerate. However, the key word is "willingly." If that mini-state ever becomes abusive of the rights of its own citizens, or becomes threatening of any outside individuals, its leaders will be targeted, either by its own citizens or those outside who feel threatened. > If >you envision "resigning" as a means of escaping being the target of AP, >you must be aware that we don't forgive easily and there will be groups >who wish to kill politicos who've "ruined our lives because of what they >did x years ago". I have no problem with that. That's just great. Arbitrarily serious guilt should be followed by arbitrarily harsh punishement, even if it is years or decades later. Resigning is in no way respected by the AP system per se, but it _may_ be considered by the average citizen to be a reason for mercy. > If those who begin AP campaigns on "retired" govt. >employees will be "playing unfairly" and your system has a clause to >tackle them, I can see a group using a succession of politicos (each of >whom gains amnesty by retiring after a bit) to accomplish what they wish >to. No, AP has no inherent ability to punish those who "play unfairly." However, the cost to purchase "predictions" (and the number of other citizens who share in this cost) will probably depend substantially on the perceived guilt of the target, in the minds of others. A person who resigns, and especially one who did little to directly anger the populace, other than to collect a stolen paycheck, is probably fairly safe. An ex-employee of a particularly abusive government agency is, however, far more likely to remain considered a legitimate target by the public. >:I agree. Which is why I'd much prefer a method to preferentially target a >:relatively smaller number of people, and I've invented (discovered?) just >:such a system. Why not let it work? > >I'd prefer a system that doesn't "target" people at all. Perhaps, but the current system does, and even after AP is instituted there will still be common criminals to keep down. >:Why not kill those Iranian leaders, using AP? And if you're afraid they'll >:retaliate against "our" leaders, I see nothing wrong with that, either. >:It's the leaders who maintain the dispute. > >Sure, and suppose the option is that there be no dispute at all. So >Rushdie (or you or I) becomes the sacrifical lamb, precisely because the >"leaders" value their own lives, but ostensibly to kill the "dispute" in >the bud. No, the donations will be made against those people who are actually seen by the people as the real problem. In an "AP-world," there would be no "Islamic leaders" to call for Rushdie's death. True, if an author like Rushdie said or wrote something that really angered a substantial number of people, they might individually be aroused enough to target him, but that is far less likely than ire directed by an Islamic leader today, I think. > One of the fundamental principles of justice is that it be >comensurate (in some sense) to the crime, AP lacks that aspect. I (and others) have predicted that there will indeed be "court systems" in place, although they will be numerous, competing, and voluntary, which will turn most offenses into crimes punishable by fines. That will adjust the punishment to the crime, in most people's opinions. >:Hey, I realized that long ago! But I'm not under any illusion that this >:system can be molded to conform to my wishes alone: If I could, I'd become >:a dictator and the cycle of tyranny would continue. > >The question is not one of becoming a dictator, but rather one of what >values will be protected, what freedoms will people have in the >world/state you imagine. No "values will be protected," except those that the individuals in society choose to be protected. > I think the values AP engenders are not the ones we want. Who is "we"? > We probably don't want to legitimize murder. Don't call it "murder," then. It's self-defense, at least by those who use it legitimately. > It's difficult to >operate in a vacuum of principles/values, we can't simply say, "well >whatever people will want to happen will happen and why not give them that >choice". Ultimately, that's the way it's going to happen, UNLESS the society's control is waylaid by government. > Marx was not the first to poitn out that institutions influence >our actions, that we are products of our times, that the choices we face >are as much determined by our own preferences as they are by the world >around us. AP will create an environment where, I believe, an >undesireable set of options will be presented to each of us. This is >the "outcome" argument, i.e. undesireable ends, the means themselves are >reprehensible. I wish I understood what you just said... >:It isn't that it "has to" be violent. Resignation is always an option. >:Problem is, they don't want to give up their positions of power. > >You've heard about the elections where libertarian candidates ran for >office with the objective of doing away with the office if they were >elected. I believe one such candidate won the election and came through >on his promise. Yes, that's great. But I don't think we (the public) should have to depend on the good will of the elected officeholder, especially one who DIDN'T make such a promise. >:That depends entirely on what your definition of instigating violence really >:is. I happen to believe that the act of collecting taxes, involuntarily, IS >:the "instigation of violence" even if the victim gives up his assets without >:a fight, if there is the prospect of eventual violence should he refuse to >:cooperate. Until you see this, you'll have a warped view of the propriety >:of AP, not to mention the libertarian non-initiation of force principle. >:(NIOFP.) > >As I've said, the minimalist state is desireable in my opinion. But what is the minimum in "minimalist"? I was a minarchist for a couple of decades, because I couldn't think of an intellectually consistent way to get rid of the last vestiges of government, permanently. Now I can. The most >efficient system of taxation is the truly flat tax (i.e. a fixed amount >for each individual), since each person derives aprox. equivalent benefits >from the minimalist state, their contributions are also equal. Each of us >derives some benefits from the existence of the state, some of these >benefits are non-exclusionary. Till these benefits are dependent on >territory and jurisdiction taxation of those who reside within the >jurisdiction/territory will have to be enforced. Sigh. I'm afraid that kind of thinking has been obsoleted... > You must of course, be >aware of the medieval practice of making an offender an "outlaw", i.e. not >under the protection of any laws. These outlaws were then fair game for >anyone. When we have arrived at the point where the free-rider problem >does not exist for things like national defense (i.e the shields won't >exist over your property, and you'll enforce your ownership of it >yourself) you will have the option (once again) of becoming an outlaw. The whole concept of having to maintain "the national defense" is totally obsoleted by the stable anarchy formed by AP. After AP, all defense will be local, because no large attacker could survive the "predictions" of the rest of the world. > I >don't think it's going to be very pretty. I agree it sounds a bit scary, but that's mainly because it's so different from the current system. > To bring up another subject, we >make compromises. Reminds me of the old saying, "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner." The problem with the concept of "compromises" is that it assumes that it is necessary to make those compromises. > I personally find socialists endearing and am willing >to make certain compromises to live with them amicably. I don't care what they THINK, but if they try to enforce their society on me I'll feel no hesitancy to eliminate them. > AP will draw >battle-lines that will make such associations extremely hard to maintain. No, it'll make compromises totally unnecessary. >I'd rather not be the member of a "group" and have that membership/taint >dictate the degree to which I can associate with a particular set of >people. AP, in providing "final solutions", will bring about a state of >affairs where the actions of a particular group (which they think are >legitimate and do not run counter to the rules of the game) will be >unacceptable for another group and the "finality" of these actions will >create rifts. Violence does not beget peace. Historically, that has been often true. But then again, I think the rules have changed. (or will soon change.) Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"hfinney(a)shell.portal.com" "Hal" 24-MAY-1996 22:08:34.83 >In a way, our position is like those revolutionaries who are convinced >the government is evil, while the populace mindlessly goes along with >the status quo. Terrorists inflict terror largely to force the >government to crack down, raising popular awareness of its oppressive >nature, and fostering revolutionary feelings. This has some interesting analogies in the area of currency, and promoting privately-backed currencies. We want privately-backed currencies because they won't have the political motives (e.g., Senator Harkin holding up Greenspan's confirmation because Greenspan doesn't produce enough inflation for Harkin's voters' liking) to have inflation that governmental agencies do. But that doesn't mean that inflation of _governmental_ currencies isn't a good thing from our viewpoint (so long as we're invested into non-governmental currencies and other investments); it encourages people to switch. It is also interesting, in the same area of thought, to take a look at the effects of the inflation-indexed bonds that the Treasury Dept looks to be coming out with soon. If there's enough inflation for people to be interested, and those people trust the government, then people will move their capital from more liquid areas (e.g., bank accounts) into these (as well as from existing governmental bonds). This reduces the value of money, since less people want to hold it in liquid form (for one thing, if inflation is a concern, you might as well go ahead and spend money) and there is more of it in that liquid form - democratically-elected governments that get this money are going to spend it or use it to reduce taxes. That means the rate of inflation will increase... meaning the government will have to pay out more on the bonds, and those buying the bonds (or, preferably, moving to other currencies) will increase. Such bonds are normally created by governments with high inflation rates - usually prior to a hyperinflationary collapse. It's an interesting question whether this is cause or effect - likely both. -Allen

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Re: Children's Privacy Act
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"bruce(a)aracnet.com" "Bruce Baugh" 26-MAY-1996 17:00:35.76 >Righ. But in addition to the forcible acquisition of information, there's >the unwitting acquisition - you are never informed that party A has >transmitted information X to party B, who in turn passed it to C, who >garbled it and then passed the erroneous info to D.... Assume that they're gathering all information they can, unless they make a specific agreement that they aren't doing so. Some magazines have that as part of their subscriptions - they state that they only exchange mailing list with certain other parties, wh have agreed that they won't transmit it further; these magazines (e.g., Consumer Reports) also tend to give people an opt-out option on even this exchange, incidentally. -Allen

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