December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Eudora 3.0 supports multiple tentacles
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Those of you who have or are tentacles (hee, hee) might take a look at the new Eudora 3.0 beta; it's got nice built-in support for multiple POP mailboxes/usernames, and keeps track of which identity received a messages, and sends replies from that identity (using the appropriate outbound SMTP server) so as not to confuse correspondents. It seems to be ideally set up for people who want to adopt an alternate nym for whatever reason. The filtering is also allegedly improved but I haven't fussed with that much yet. -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>However, making the government a _required_ part of such plans implies a >>motive that is not at all the same as what companies wish (mostly, >>disaster recovery). > >the distinction lies in the terminology. what does it mean, "required >part of the plan". if it essentially amounts to nothing more than >the government saying, "you must give us keys when we present you >with a subpoena/warrant", then that's no different than the system >we have today. Hmm. The government sure is putting a lot of effort into moving us to a system that you say is "no different than the system we have today." As far as I can tell, you're the only one who thinks that. The government thinks that GAK is a big change, civil libertarians think GAK is a big change .. but you're welcome to call it "status quo" if it suits you. There's a world of difference between the government subpoena-ing something from me, where I can delay disclosure until I've exhausted my legal avenues to challenge disclosure, and the government demanding data from an at best disinterested third party who cares not at all if I get my day in court before they disclose. With the second scenario, I'm forced to try to "unring the bell", and somehow limit the spread of otherwise private/confidential data in a community (law enforcement) which is organized to collect and retain information. Ha, ha. Given today's Congress and Supreme Court, there's probably precious little chance that keys disclosed prematurely or erroneously won't be used to collect evidence which will be admissible despite the lack of meaningful opportunity to challenge the "recovery" of a key. -- Greg Broiles | "We pretend to be their friends, gbroiles(a)netbox.com | but they fuck with our heads." http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | |

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SSN database scam?
by Gary Howland 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded from www-security mailing list. Gary -- "Of course the US Constitution isn't perfect; but it's a lot better than what we have now." -- Unknown. pub 1024/C001D00D 1996/01/22 Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> Key fingerprint = 0C FB 60 61 4D 3B 24 7D 1C 89 1D BE 1F EE 09 06 To: www-security(a)ns2.rutgers.edu Subject: Can you say "fraud"? (fwd) From: Mary Irene Wise <auntyem(a)umich.edu> Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 08:44:39 -0400 (EDT) Sender: owner-www-security(a)ns2.rutgers.edu This is probably a bit off-topic; if so I apologize. Can anybody comment on the item forwarded below my sig file? It claims there's a database w/ people's credit card no's etc on it and you have to give your name and social security number to get off of it. This strikes me as being a scam to get your ssn, but this went around at work and people are actually calling and giving it out. I know ssn's aren't really as secure as they're supposed to be, but still... So, does anybody know if this database is for real or if it's just a scam? TIA, Mary Wise --------------------------------- *** ------------------------------------ Mary Wise | Computer Systems Specialist * auntyem(a)umich.edu LSA Information Technology | homepage not availabe at this time 3557 LSA Bldg 1382 * University of Michigan | (313) 647-6230 * | --------------------------------- *** ------------------------------------ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > > > Your name, social security number, current address, previous addresses, > mother's maiden name, birth date and other personal information > are now available to anyone with a credit card through a new Lexis database > called P-Trax. As I am sure you are aware, this information > could be used to commit credit card fraud or otherwise allow someone else to > use your identity. > > You can have your name and information removed from this list by making a > telephone request. Call (800)543-6862, select option 4 and > then option 3 ("all other questions") and tell the representative answering > that you wish to remove your name from the P-trax database. You > may also send a fax to (513) 865-7360 or 865-1930. Include your full name and >ssn in the fax. You can also send physical mail to > > LEXIS-NEXIS > P.O. Box 933 > Dayton, Ohio 45401-0933. > > Sending physical mail to confirm your name has been removed is always > a good idea. > > As word of the existence of this database has spread on the net, Lexis-Nexis > has been inundated with calls, and has set up a special set of > operators to handle the volume. In addition, Andrew Bleh (rhymes with > "Play") is a manager responsible for this product, and is the person > to whom complaints about the service could be directed. He can be reached at > the above 800 number. Ask for extension 3385. According to > Lexis, the manager responsible is Bill Fister at extension 1364. > > I called this morning and had my name removed. The representative will > need your name and social security number to remove you from the list. > I suggest that we inundate these people with requests to remove our > info from the list and forward this e-mail to everyone we know. > > >----- End Included Message ----- > > > >Cheers . . . > >"The backup procedure works fine, but the restore is tricky!" >_____________________________________________________________________________ > | _ \ Amanul Haque > | | \ \ Pencom System Administration > | |_/__/__ __ 9050 Capital of Texas Highway North, Austin, TX 78759 > | _/ ___/| \ Email: ahaque(a)pencom.com > | | \___ \| \ \ Pager: (708) 643-7331 > |__| /____/|_|__\___________________________________________________________ > Pencom Web Page : http://www.pencom.com > > > >------------- End Forwarded Message ------------- > > > > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Nancy L. Cassidy University of Michigan LS&A Budget & Finance Team 2557 LSA Bldg. 1382 Tel: (313) 764-6465 Fax: (313) 764-2697 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

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Re: A daily warning regarding Timothy C. May
by DMiskell＠envirolink.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Timothy C. May is a lying sack of shit. Right. And you had to insult him through use of anonymous mail. Boy, you're real brave, shedding the light to the rest of the cypherworld in such a manner. Apologies for the spam, but there was no address, obviously. -- If in fact we are the only intelligent life on this planet, why the fuck are we in this goddamn mess? -- Find my public key on the World Wide Web -- point your browser at: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html

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The daily warning about Timmy May, the lying sack of shit
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May proves that the Midwestern gene pool needs some chlorine in it.

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Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:21 AM 9/18/96 -0400, Black Unicorn wrote: >> On Thu, 12 Sep 1996 12:03:18 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote: >> >Gee, biotech has come a long way. Now I can download the Anthrax DNA >> >sequence from the net and insert it in some carrier bacteria and start >> >making Anthrax bacteria. Neat! > >Culturing and growing anthrax is painfully simple. No DNA required. Sorry Unicorn, you missed my point. (1) You need DNA to grow bacteria. You can get the DNA two ways. (A) You get a sample of the beast, or (B) You get a DNA sequence and then regenerate the DNA. (I don't think B is technically feasable yet.) (2) You can't send samples of the beast thru the net. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Frantz | "Cave softly, cave safely, | Periwinkle -- Consulting (408)356-8506 | and cave with duct tape." | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | - Marianne Russo | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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Re: 56 kbps modems
by pjb＠ny.ubs.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

if nothing else, the availability of 56kbps on an analog line might get the telcos to bring the isdn prices down to some reasonable level, which at the moment, it is not, at least not in nyc. -paul > From cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com Tue Sep 17 18:21:03 1996 > From: Adamsc(a)io-online.com (Adamsc) > To: "Bill Stewart" <stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com>, > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" <cypherpunks(a)toad.com> > Cc: "Asgaard" <asgaard(a)Cor.sos.sll.se>, "Enzo Michelangeli" <enzo(a)ima.com> > Date: Tue, 17 Sep 96 12:22:15 -0800 > Reply-To: "Chris Adams" <adamsc(a)io-online.com> > Priority: Normal > X-Mailer: Chris Adams's Registered PMMail 1.52 For OS/2 > Mime-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type> : > text/plain> ; > charset="us-ascii"> > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Subject: Re: 56 kbps modems > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > Content-Length: 1107 > > On Sun, 15 Sep 1996 01:31:19 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote: > > >and still get the original 56kbps back out. But if they can, well, > >yee-hah, ISDN is nearly dead :-) (Not totally dead; the signalling is > >still useful for some applications, the convenience of two channels on > >one wire pair is nice, and the fact that people can get 56kbps without > Also, can't you add ISDN b-channels ? (I.e. get another 64kps channel) > >the phone company's help will pressure them into offering ISDN for > >a lower price in areas where the Phone Company's idea of "all the market > >will bear" is substantially higher than voice pricing.) > > ISDN is more elegant; this sounds like a 'kludge' of sorts. OTOH, we've all > seen how well a cheap kludge can do, right? > > # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp > # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 > "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on > a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, > spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." > -- Duncan Frissell > > >

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Wed Sep 18 08:48:43 1996 Tim May wrote: <...> > (BTW, I predict that the tainted term "key escrow" is now gone from the > official lexicon. I haven't seen the Clipper IV proposal, but I surmise > that the baggage the term "key escrow" carries means that some more > benign-sounding term will be used in the final proposal. Something like > "Key Recovery System." You heard it here.) I agree, and hope so. "Key Recovery," while not as Orwellian-sounding as "GAK," is a step on the path to honesty WRT the English language, though it's important to continually point out, as Tim did in his post, that *access* -- rather than just recovery -- is obviously what Mr. Freeh wants. I'd count this likely change in terminology as a "cypherpunk victory," albeit a very small and certainly a very hard-fought one. JMR Regards, Jim Ray -- DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy "As govt.s grow arithmetically, corruption grows exponentially." -- Ray's Law of official corruption. Defeat the Duopoly! Stop the Browne out. Harry Browne for President. Jo Jorgensen for Vice-president. http://www.HarryBrowne96.org/ http://www.twr.com/stbo ___________________________________________________________________ PGP id.E9BD6D35 51 5D A2 C3 92 2C 56 BE 53 2D 9C A1 B3 50 C9 C8 I will generate a new (and bigger) PGP key-pair on election night. <mailto:liberty@gate.net> http://www.shopmiami.com/prs/jimray ___________________________________________________________________ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMj/vsG1lp8bpvW01AQFkhwP/XEkJkdXwYsdSM8kn+B3bR/bCDXaKgkIE p63RgjQ5C60byufXqlqitvuJPMuS19MRxlF7UXsXJXKY6Jm92Q45sQtLICsMqXhP /iJwDVYaEuDj24cFycsZjZMeT+xxnuy+OCuhKIEgKF6gjh2uEZxbCellCqJ86TPF XfPiQiTPBDo= =B2hR -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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SPAMS
by Stephan Schmidt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, please focus on the UPPER written text at the bottom. I think they take it _much_ to easy. -stephan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 17:55:57 +0000 From: Mailer <Mailer(a)aol.com> To: LISCIFI(a)AOL.COM Subject: Hi! Pardon the intrusion. Market study shows this may be of interest to you. If you have received this message in error, please hit delete. *********************************************************** A Personal Invitation Stop working for someone else! Put yourself in a position to leave the 9-5 grind behind!!! We invite you to listen to the most extraordinary and most powerful wealth building opportunity in the world and within a few minutes you will actually hear: * How you can make profits of $10,000 within the next 30 days! * You never have to leave your home! * A financial strategy 100 times more powerful than MLM or ANY OTHER BUSINESS! * Where you are paid directly and daily! (Don't wait for a company to pay you!) This is not MLM! This is not a pipe dream! This is a real business venture! 800-995-0796 Ext 9263. ************************************************************** ANY EMAIL ADDRESS PUBLISHED ON THE INTERNET THAT INVITES COMMERCIAL SOLICITATIONS IS DEEMED AS A COMMERCIAL ADDRESS, AND AS SUCH IS ELIGABLE FOR ETHICAL AND LEGAL EMAIL SOLICITATIONS FROM DIRECT ELECTRONIC MAIL MARKETERS. IF FOR ANY REASON YOU OBJECT TO RECEIVING THIS MESSAGE PLEASE POLITELY REQUEST REMOVAL FROM MY LIST BY CLICKING ON THE REPLY BUTTON AND ENTERING "REMOVE" IN THE SUBJECT LINE. IF YOU DO NOT DO SO, I MUST ASSUME YOU WISH TO RECEIVE FURTHER MAILINGS.

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Cognitive Bias and Software Development
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This reference was chopped from the bottom of a previous message. Communications of the ACM issue on Cognition and Software Development "Developers' thought processes are a fundamental area of concern. Cognitive scientists have discovered that people's intuitive inferences and probability judgments do not strictly conform to the laws of logic or mathematics, and that people are willing to provide plausible explanations for random events. This article examines the role these phenomenon might have in software development, ultimately concluding that what are cast as one-sided software development guidelines can be recast beneficially as two-sided trade-offs" Cognitive Bias in Software Engineering Webb Stacy and Jean MacMillian Communications of the ACM June 1995/Vol 38, No. 6 The article contains several good example of various classes of bias, including the representativeness, availability and confirmatory bias. While the article specifically adresses issues within the context of software development, all of these biases are general in nature and have correlates in other fields. Ciao, James Great minds think alike. Fools seldom differ. - Anonymous

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Re: Spam blacklist project
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

hallam(a)ai.mit.edu writes: > Well if some people find it amazing that there are people out there > who agree with the 98.8% of people who did not vote Libertarian at the > last election then so be it. Course half the eligible population didn't vote at all obviously favoring market and personal approaches over political methods of governance. DCF

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Mercenaries
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:40 PM 9/17/96, William Knowles wrote: >On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Michelle Thompson wrote: > >> Interesting information from a friend of mine- >> >> >An american can not serve for pay for a position in another military >> >that could be filled by local populace. I may have my jurisdiction >> >wrong tho, this could be an international law not a US law. >> >Basically, you can't go be a grunt or an assasin in another country, >> >because they can find their own, As to Michelle's point that Americans cannot serve for pay in other militaries, there are all sorts of waivers and "look the other way"s involved. For example, the retired American officer who became the top military man in Estonia (or one of the Baltic States)--while still retaining his U.S. citizenship. >What about the French Foreign Legion? or the Volunteers for Israel, >which isn't really a fighting force, but Americans can help keep >the Israeli army at a ready state. Israel is one of several states which the U.S. allows dual citizenship with. For political reasons, because of America's extermination of the Jews in WW II (Whoops, we were on the other side...so why do we have such a cozy deal with Israel, but not with, say, France? Beats me. Politics.) Brian Davis, our former Prosecutor, can tell us how likely it is that any person would be charged and brought to trial for being a paid mercenary for some small country in the Third World. The CIA is often behind such mercenaries, so national security issues could make the issue murky. But the real reason such prosecutions are rare is that the government realizes how Orwellian it sounds to say: "You are being prosecuted because you were a mercenary for Oceania in its war with Eastasia. While Oceania was once our ally in our battle with Eastasia, and we endorsed and financed your role as a mercenary, we became allies with our great friend Eastasia and are now in a state of war with the tyrants of Oceania." >Explicit isn't a dirty word, Or is it? AOL has declared "explicit" to be a Banned Word, along with "pissant," "craps," and "cock," and numerous other such ordinary words. (So much for mentioning their pissant policies, a game of craps in Las Vegas, or a male chicken.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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RE: Redundancy in XOR encryption
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

in any practical or semi-practical application, you'll have to have a way to decompress the perfectly compressed data. A dictionary? A Huffman-tree-ish sort of thing? Are you going to transfer it out-of-band? **It** becomes the target of interest. ---------- From: paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk[SMTP:paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk] Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 12:33 PM To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: Redundancy in XOR encryption > > > > Compress P to get perfect compression (ie. 0 redundancy) > > Encrypt F (the compressed text) using a repeated key XOR > > > > of course this is all rather theoretical as there is no such thing as > > perfect compression, but I just thought it might be interesting to > > see if this is indeed strong, superficially it appears so to me... > > > > Paul: > I think that if the cryptanalyst knows that F has zero redundancy > that he can run searches from 0 to n bits for the key and have > the computer flag solutions that have zero redundancy. I never though of that. > I also think that a perfectly compressed file would have a relative > entropy value close to one also, hence the computer could flag possibles > that have both characteristics. yeah, these two are reasonably unlikely to occur together (only a reasoned guess, anyone got any comments on this?) so we really have a weakish system. > Hence, instead of searching for plaintext by counting coincidences, > we are searching the decrypts for solutions that have zero redundancy > and a relative entropy value close to one. How many solutions will > have both these qualities? I don't know. But if the compression method > is known, brute force will be tried, and only having to try to > decompress (read) data that has the resultant characteristics > of compressed information will speed things up by quite a bit. Yeah, this is still a form of brute force but I was thinking of this in terms of a smallish (sub 200 bit) key, so brute force against solutions with 0 entropy is a realistic possibility.

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RE: Workers Paradise. /Political rant.
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

snow <snow(a)smoke.suba.com> wrote: > Actually, don't some wealthy Canucks come south of the border for > certain treatments unavailable in the Great White North? Yes, some wealthy (and not so wealthy people) go south of the border for treatment. Some go because the treatment is unavailable here, others go if they chose not to wait for treatment here. The most common types of exported services are usually high cost and/or experimental but their availability is most often constrained by the low number of people who are qualified to render the service. Many services unavailable in a patient's local area are still covered by provincial health plans. This works when a patient has to travel from a remote region, to another province or to the U.S., and can cover experimental treatments. Some Canadian hospitals make use of U.S. care providers for services when a backlog exists in Canada. For example, Windsor has used Detroit MRI services to reduce waiting times. There are also people who go the other way (U.S. to Canada), usually when they have to pay their own bill. Detroit to Windsor is again not uncommon. > Are the PRICES as high in Canada as here? In general, prices are lower in Canada for the same level of care. I do not know if the underlying costs are also lower in general. Each province create a payment schedule for services that it reimburses. Hospitals bill the province for services, but all capital cost items (e.g. equipment, buildings) must be paid for from other sources (e.g. donation). Thus, we tend to have fewer capital intensive treatment facilities since the ROI is usually low. The figures that I have seen indicate that the U.S. pays 40%-50% more than Canada on overall health care services. Some of this is due to the rapid availability of higher cost/experimental services. Some of this is due to the higher cost of the administrative bureacracy. Due to the large difference in total costs, I do not think that travel in either direction significantly effects this number. Ciao, James Check out www.spinex.com for more effective alternatives to MRI for diagnosing spinal function at 1/20th of the cost. P.S. No, Canada is not perfect, and I don't know everything.

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[joke, non-code] Re: Get this for a snake-oil example :)
by f_estema＠alcor.concordia.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Benjamin Grosman wrote on coderpunks: > Hey there...thought I'd drop this in to you... > someone I know is in the process of being set upon by a shamster (well, ^^^^^^^^ Shamster: SHA-enabled biocomputing hamster. Distantly related to Shneier's DESosaurus. Cute, cuddly and mathematically secure and authentic. I leave to the imagination its input and output processes. Eats snake oil for lunch.

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Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:49 PM 9/18/96, Declan McCullagh wrote: >On Tue, 17 Sep 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> >> (BTW, I predict that the tainted term "key escrow" is now gone from the >> official lexicon. I haven't seen the Clipper IV proposal, but I surmise >> that the baggage the term "key escrow" carries means that some more >> benign-sounding term will be used in the final proposal. Something like >> "Key Recovery System." You heard it here.) > >I agree, of course. But Gore's office has been telling me about the "Key >Recovery System" for months. It's nothing new in the DC cryptolexicon. Yeah, I shouldn't have added the "You heard it here" line, implying I had invented the term. As others have noted, this seems to be the new term for key escrow. The brainwashing must've taken hold on me, and as a good citizen-unit I had absorbed the message: "Key Recovery is Security, Ignorance is Strength." --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Cryptologie: Conference internationale - 25 SEPT - Paris
by Jerome Thorel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(message sent to interesting persons - bcc: field) Conference The Public Voice and the Development of International Encryption Policy Sponsored by Electronic Privacy Information Center Global Internet Liberty Campaign Internet Privacy Coaltion Open Society Institute - Soros Foundation Planete Internet September 25, 1996 Centre de Conférence Internationale 19 Avenue Kleber, Paris 16, France Program, registration and further information (English): http://www.epic.org/events/crypto_paris Or (French) http://www.netpress.fr/crypto PARIS, September 16 The international developement of the Internet leads governments, users organisations and corporations to find a compromise for the use and disposal of encryption, which allows to keep the secrecy of digital communications. Governments want to keep the possibility to intervene on communications in order to fight computer crime. The industry (private companies) search a way to keep an eye on their communications' integrity not to erode their competitivity. And privacy organisations want to preserve citizens' privacy and freedom of speech in expression networks such as the Internet. Before a meeting of governmental experts (under the auspices of the OECD Sept 26, 27 in Paris), the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a Washington, DC-based organisation, asked scientists, international right jurists and associations to meet on September 25 for a conference. The conference will stresses on legal aspects of computer-based secrecy, based on propositions made by some countris to create a regime of "encryption under conditions" (encryption under control), on the Trusted Third Party Services (TTP) scheme. Companies that will keep encryption keys of corporations and individuals would have to keep them at disposition of law enforcement authorities. Who will play this TTP role? Which garanty for end users? EPIC asked the world's most valuable experts to answer these questions. PROGRAM SUMMARY find the whole and last one at http://www.epic.org/events/crypto_paris/schedule.html Cryptographers: Zimmermann (PGP Inc), Diffie (Sun, pub-key system inventor), Anderson (Cambridge U., UK), Blaze (Bell Lab), etc. Scientists and experts: Horibe (Hitotsubashi U.), Carpenter (IAB), Simons (ACM), etc. Privacy advocates from EPIC (Rotenberg, Banisar), ACLU (Steinhardt), Privacy International (Davies), and French League for Human Rights. Officials and/or governmental experts from : OECE crypto & security ad hox commissions, Attorney General Dept and High Court (Australia), Economic Ministry (Germany), Austrian Law Institute, etc. CONTACTS FOR INFO & REGISTRATIONS USA: EPIC: Mark Rotenberg <rotenberg(a)epic.org>, Dave Banisar <banisar(a)epic.org>. 666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20003. +1 202 544 9240 (tel), +1 202 547 5482 (fax) FRANCE Planete Internet (Net Press), Paris: Xavier Cany <cany(a)netpress.fr>, Jerome Thorel <thorel(a)netpress.fr>. 191 Av. Aristide Briand, F-94230 Cachan. +33 1 49 08 58 33 (tel), +33 1 49 08 58 31 (fax). Jerome Thorel * Planete Internet Journaliste / ID#72052 * Editor / Redak chef 191 Av. A. Briand * Tel : (331) 49085830 94230 CACHAN * web : www.netpress.fr

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Re: SSN database scam?
by Jim Byrd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:22 PM 9/18/96 +0200, Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> forwarded: >Forwarded from www-security mailing list. [snip] >Can anybody comment on the item forwarded below my sig file? It claims >there's a database w/ people's credit card no's etc on it and you have to >give your name and social security number to get off of it. This strikes >me as being a scam to get your ssn, but this went around at work and >people are actually calling and giving it out. I know ssn's aren't really >as secure as they're supposed to be, but still... I happen to work for Lexis-Nexis, but I don't speak for the company. Yes, P-Trak is real, it was recently made available to our customers. It is NOT a scam to get SSNs. Lexis-Nexis is a large and reputable company, best-known for its huge legal database system, Lexis. The Nexis side has news reports from a large variety of sources. P-Trak originally made SSNs available, but Lexis-Nexis removed this feature in response to protests.

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Macintosh Mixmaster port... Who's doing it?
by Myers W. Carpenter 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any idea who might be attempting a Macintosh Mixmaster port? I and some other people were eyeing the idea. If you know who might be doing this port I would appreciate hearing from them. Thanks. myers

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Re: The Near-Necessity of Health Insurance
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" 18-SEP-1996 02:54:27.36 >Personally, I have not been a patient in a hospital in my entire adult >life. Nor have I seen a doctor, except for a mandatory college physical in >1970 and an insurance company physical in 1977. I just haven't broken any >bones, had any serious illnesses, or felt the need to visit a doctor, an >emergency room, or a walk-in clinic of any sort. I suppose I've been lucky. >Also, I dislike hospitals and avoid doctors unless there seems to be a >compelling need. So far, there has not been. While this is certainly your business, I would suggest at least one physical a year, including blood work, as a good preventative measure... I believe it _has_ been shown to extend lives; I can do a Medline lookup if desired. >In other words, the person who insures himself (through savings and >investments) and who offers to pay for treatment out of his own funds, may >be at a serious disadvantage. He pays the inflated rates for services, and >may face delays in being admitted to a hospital. [...] >(Obviously the folks who use their insurance routinely, as one of my >engineers once used to do (he'd take his kids to the hospital every time >they sneezed), are being subsidized by those of us who avoid hospitals at >all costs.) Actually, the major subsidy appears to be that employer-paid health insurance isn't a taxable benefit. The status regarding self-insured persons such as you is constantly changing, but they're looking at subsidizing that also. Essentially, taxes paid by those with low or no employer-paid health insurance are subsidizing those with high-cost employer-paid health insurance. -Allen

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Re: Anthrax on the 'net [Was Re: Fear of Flying -- from HotWired ]
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 17 Sep 1996 17:14:53 -0400, Mike Fletcher wrote: >>>Gee, biotech has come a long way. Now I can download the Anthrax DNA >>>sequence from the net and insert it in some carrier bacteria and start >>>making Anthrax bacteria. Neat! >> Now the bad news: the DNA replicator only works under Windows 95 and comes >> with buggy drivers! > Buggy drivers? But isn't that the point in this case? :) True, true... <g> And you *really* don't want to see what happens when it crashes! >> Unfortunately, it can be very deadly. The idea here is that it rarely infect >s >> humans - in the normal course of events. If a determined biowarrior is tryin >g >> to infect people, all bets are off. > > The Frank Herbert (of _Dune_ fame) book _White Plague_ comes >to mind. Basically a molecluar biologist's wife and kids are killed >by an IRA bomb while visiting Dublin. He snaps and creates a plague >which kills women (men are carriers) as revenge. All without using >that nasty Internet (in fact, the book was written back before even >ARPAnet). I remember reading this one. Very applicable! # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 "I have never been able to figure out why anyone would want to play games on a computer in any case when the whole system is a game. Word processing, spreadsheets, telecoms -- it's all a game. And they pay you to play it." -- Duncan Frissell

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Re: Snake-Oil FAQ
by droelke＠rdxsunhost.aud.alcatel.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> wrote: > > Krenn wrote: > > It would be nice to have a list of actual products which are deemed > > potential snake-oil. Such a list could be maintained anonymously > > through a nym to avoid all the annoying legal problems with commenting > > on another's product. Though truth is the best defense against libel > > charges, it would be very annoying to be sued or some such by some > > hairbrained snake-oil peddler. > > Think how much more annoying it would be if the shoe were on the other > foot. > Libel/Slander is very different from doing a review. Unfortunately, in todays legal climate, it is way to easy to find a lawyer that will harass someone for a negative review. Unless you are prepared to fight such a legal battle, it is much easier to do anonymous reviews, and build up a reputation as a good reviewer through use of signatures, etc. If you have a good product, and get negative reviews, the truth will come out eventually through other channels. Either the product really isn't good, or the reviewer loses his reputation and his messages descend into the noise. Thats life - deal with it! Dan ------------------------------------------------------------------ Dan Oelke Alcatel Network Systems droelke(a)aud.alcatel.com Richardson, TX

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Re: SSN database scam?
by Jim Byrd 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One thing people forget is that Lexis-Nexis is hardly the first company to offer this kind of service. Several years ago, there was a controversy when Lotus planned to offer this kind of information on CD-ROM. The main competition of Lexis-Nexis, West Publishing Company ("Westlaw"), offered this kind of service before Lexis did. The last I heard, it was possible to get SSNs via Westlaw. I don't know if this is still true. I checked with a friend of mine, and got this response: "Westlaw offers access to several databases (including its PEOPLE-CB and INFOAM databases). They provide a person's "Credit Bureau Header," which contains social security number, previous address(s), telephone number(s), spouse name, date of birth, related names/aliases, and the date the report was filed." I happen to work for Lexis-Nexis, but I don't speak for the company. I work in a very different part of the company, and don't know the people involved with P-Trak.

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Edited Edupage, 17 Sept 1996
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)educom.unc.edu" 18-SEP-1996 05:39:23.00 >************************************************************ >Edupage, 17 September 1996. Edupage, a summary of news about information >technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, >a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities >seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. >************************************************************ >THE BOTTOM LINE ON ELECTRONIC LIBRARIES >A former Public Library Association official estimates the cost of wiring >the nation's libraries at somewhere between $2- and $3-billion -- "a sum >nearly equivalent to that spent by the philanthropist Andrew Carnegie during >the great spurt of library building," notes journalist Nicholas von Hoffman. >But, "being able to afford the hardware is one thing," says a senior VP of >New York Public Library's Research Libraries. "Being able to replace it >year after year and being able to afford the staff to help people use it is >another. We could put workstations everywhere, but we don't have enough >staff. The equipment is on a three-year, six-thousand-dollar replacement >cycle. If people are using things like the World Wide Web, we need one >staff member out on the floor for every 20 workstations in use... Right now >we have 250 workstations for the public, so one staff member for every 20 >workstations becomes a major investment." (Architectural Digest Oct 96 p130) I would suspect that one of the following will take place: A. Libraries will not wind up getting Internet access subsidized to any great extent, since they can't afford to pay for the rest of it. B. Libraries will get Internet access subsidized, but won't be able to use it a lot so the subsidy may eventually go by the wayside due to lack of political support. C. Libraries will get everything subsidized. -Allen >Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl(a)educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas ><douglas(a)educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the >University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. >************************************************************ >Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: >send mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe edupage >John McCarthy (if your name is John McCarthy; otherwise, substitute your >own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with >the message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you have subscription problems, send >mail to manager(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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XPA_nix
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WSJ and WaPo have reports on Panix-jamming by info-request bombardment, and Bell Labs security expert Bill Cheswick's attempt to solve it. Cheswick opines,"This is the first major attack of a kind that I believe to be the final Internet security problem." ----- http://jya.com/xpanix.txt XPA_nix

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