December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Lexis and Privacy - Bill approaches.
by Black Unicorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Pressure from the FTC Which fielded hundreds of complaints about Lexis and the social security number scrap) has prompted members of the Banking Committee to add provisions to the most recent spending bills which protect personal information (including social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and so forth) under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. This limits access to this information to credit agencies and otherwise authorized entities. (Of which I assume Lexis is not one). It's not great protection, but it's something. I urge everyone to take their own measures to protect personal data regardless of what some piece of paper on a library shelf says is protected. The only real protection is not to allow release of the data in the first place. -- I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist unicorn(a)schloss.li

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Re: We removed radikal 154 from xs4all :(
by James A. Donald 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:31 PM 9/23/96, tank wrote: >>Hi all, >> >>We have temporary removed radikal 154 from xs4all. >> >>We did this because the german ICTF and BAW continued to stop IP-traffic >>to and from xs4all. They not only blocked the web-server (with more than At 02:00 PM 9/23/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Unfortunately, this means that Germany wins. No it does not: It means that I and presumably lots of other people just added radikal to their web sites. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | 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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ISP Legal Fund
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, As it seems to be an almost daily event of hearing of a government authortity infringing on the liberty of Internet Users throughout the world I would like to present the following proposal: The establishment of an Internet Service Provider Legal Fund. All ISP world-wide would contribute to this fund. The resources of this fund would be used for the legal fees of ISP who whish to challenge government infringements of their users freedoms & liberties. Something like an ACLU for the Internet but on a Global scale. Any thoughts? -- ----------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting WebExplorer & Java Enhanced!!! Merlin Beta Test Site - WarpServer SMP Test Site Author of PGPMR2 - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice Look for MR/2 Tips & Rexx Scripts Get Work Place Shell for Windows!! PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. Finger whgiii(a)amaranth.com for PGP Key and other info -----------------------------------------------------------

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Namibia, Marxists, and Peaceful Transitions
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:02 PM 9/24/96, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com wrote: >People have been imposing their will on others in Ireland for 800 years, >and killing off the more prominent members of the opposition has been >a long-term policy of the thugs who've been doing it. Today there are >at least three competing gangs of thugs trying to impose their will on >others by force. The Protestants are afraid that the Catholic majority >on the island will enforce their rule on them, and the Catholics in the north >are afraid that the Protestants will enforce their rule on them, >both with good reason as near as I can tell. At least a few years ago, >the IRA were spouting Marxist rhetoric and wanted to impose their >Marxist thuggery on the whole island. The Queen's Empire's army ... Apropos of this (but not apropos of mathematical cryptography :-}), I read an amazing article, an uplifting article, a few years ago in the WSJ. The article was about Namibia, the country to the northwest of South Africa. Also known at times as "South-West Africa." (Being a Pynchon fan, Namibia and its Hereros had always had some interest to me.) South Africa was involved in a war/occupation situation with Namibia for many decades, with hit teams deployed to Windhoek to kill off opponents, etc. A bad situation all around. Some similarities with the situation in Northern Ireland. The leader of the opposition--which I think was called SWAPO, though that might have been Angola...anyway, some alphabet soup name like SWAPO--was a U.S.-trained college professor-type dyed-in-the-wool Marxist theoretician. He lived for years in Harlem and wrote articles about the coming Marxist paradise in Namibia. Rhetoric about driving out the parasites that prey upon the body of the people, seizing the means of production, yadda yadda yadda. All the usual Marxist stuff. Well, South Africa pulled out. Some sort of "peaceful transition" was arrived at, and the Marxists moved in. Except they almost immediately abandoned their Marxist rhetoric (which was approximately coincident with the collapse of Communism and the Berlin Wall, U.S.S.R., etc., so this may have had something to do with their loss of Marxist faith). The long and short of it is that the Namibian economy is doing well, relations with South Africa are good (also helped by changes in RSA's government one has to assume), the citizens are happy, AP-type killings have stopped, and both blacks and whites appear to be getting along fine. After reading the article, and seeing an interesting Namibian-made movie called "Dust Devil," I decided I would one day visit Namibidia as a tourist. (The article was a stunning one, the kind that the WSJ is able to sometimes do so well. I clipped it out, but have long since lost track of it. If anybody finds it in any online archives, I would appreciate getting a copy.) Whether Northern Ireland could be handled so felicitously is not clear, though I suspect the North could be absorbed into the Republic of Ireland easily and without "summary executions" of Protestants. Ireland--the Republic--is doing pretty well, has lots of high-tech plants (including a massive Intel chip factory near Limerick) and I think even the Northern Ireland Protestants would end up better off under Irish rule. (While many of us dislike the basic notion of "Irish rule," surely the nonlocal rule by a country across the Irish Sea is less appropriate than by the historical and geographic "landmass" of Ireland per se?) --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: Private Information Retrieval
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:54 PM 9/24/96 -0700, Lucky Green wrote: >On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Ravi Pandya wrote: > >> ABSTRACT: >> >> Publicly accessible databases are an indispensable resource for retrieving >> up to date information. But they also pose a significant risk to the >> privacy of the user, since a curious database operator can follow the user's >> queries and infer what the user is after. > >Hmm. Sounds like job for KeyKOS :-) Yup. That was the original problem KeyKOS nee Gnosis was designed to solve. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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: A daily word of caution in reference Tim C[unt] May
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 01:50:01 -0400, Dustbin Freedom Remailer wrote: >Tim C[unt] May is not only as queer as a three dollar bill, but he is also into >having sex with children. Hi Dmitri!

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Re: Taking crypto out of the U.S.
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 21:25:33 -0500 (EST), Adam Shostack wrote: >Theres a personal use exemption. Michael Froomkin's web page has a >pointer to it. What if your laptop gets "stolen"? Or you sell it for a plane ticket home after your wallet gets pinched? >| Soon I am going to be going overseas to Japan, and I want to take >| my notebook with me so I can keep up with everything, however, I have >| encrypted my hard drive and usually encrypt my mail. Is this in violation >| of the ITAR to keep everything the same when I go over?

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LACC: Encryption and Japan
by T Bruce Tober 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A few months ago I read an article concerning one of the encryption gurus (other than PZ) setting up a company in Japan to create a new encryption program as good as or better than PGP which since it was developed in Japan, wouldn't be subject to ITAR. Actually I think the article indicated he'd already set up the company and developed the software and was getting ready to market it. I think it was Diffie, but can't remember and can't find any info on it. Does anyone here have any info, leads or contact details they can provide me? tbt -- | Bruce Tober - octobersdad(a)reporters.net - Birmingham, England | | pgp key ID 0x9E014CE9. For CV/Resume:http://pollux.com/authors/tober.htm | | For CV/Resume and Clips: http://nwsmait.intermarket.com/nmfwc/tbt.htm | | | | "Just as the strength of the Internet is chaos, so the strength of our | | liberty depends upon the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the| | First Amendment protects." -- three wise federal judges |

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Re: ISPs' information on users
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:18 PM 9/24/96, Robert Hettinga wrote: >--- begin forwarded text >> ------------------------------ >> Brave Old World: >> Reflections on Europe in the Digital Age >> by Steven Carlson; 20 Sep 1996 >> ------------------------------ >> >> ** So Much Fuss About A Bottle Of Ketchup >> >> Hungarian police recently sent a fax around to the local Internet >> service providers (ISPs) asking them to provide lists of their users >> in Esztergom, a small town outside of Budapest. It seems somebody >> had planted a bomb in a bottle of ketchup. Since everyone knows you >> can download bomb-making instructions from the Internet, the police >> figured they should investigate the local users. No, I'm not making >> this up. So, Hungary has GAK -- Government Access to Ketchup. Good to know the 57 Varieties are now considered munitions. On a more serious note, perhaps legal experts here could comment on something I've been wondering about. Could ISPs in the UlS. be compelled to report on the browsing and net surfing habits of their customer base? To make this clear, I don't mean in a specific criminal case, where the records are searchable under a warrant. I mean a blanket order that all ISPs compile and forward records. Were I an ISP, I would probably say, "Hell no! They're my records and the Fourth Amendment says my records are to be secure unless a proper court order is issued. Besides, my fee for generating each kilobyte of records is $100,000, nonnegotiable." (I think I've answered my own question, namely, ISPs would be under no obligation to report on customer activities, absent a proper warrant, and consistent with the ECPA.) However, ISPs are _not_ accorded the same status as priests, lawyers, and others with such privacy privileges (and obligations). Would it be legal for an ISP to offer for sale such records? Or to voluntarily go to the cops? (There's a certain new ISP with tight links to a quasi-religious group much in the news lately, and some have speculated that this ISP may be monitoring certain users....) --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: provably hard PK cryptosystems
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:26 PM 9/24/96 +0200, Gary Howland <gary(a)systemics.com> wrote: >I fail to see *any* (non educational) use for these DNA "computers", let >alone a cryptographic use - sure, they may be massively parallel, but >what's the big deal? I can now perform a calculation a million times >faster than I could yesterday? (something I personally doubt, but will >agree to for sake of the argument). One mole of a substance contains ~6x10**23 molecules, and weighs one gram per atomic-weight of the molecule. A DNA "computer" might weigh a kilo or two for one mole of computer virus. It may not be blazingly fast, especially if you've got to synthesize lots of different molecules to make it up, plus extract the result from the data soup, but 10**23 is a _big_ number. It's probably not very useful for cryptographic applications, but Adleman was using it to solve Travelling Salesman problems, which are NP-hard, and if you do have a crypto problem that maps well into TSP, a hot-tub full of interesting solutions might be an interesting solution, especially if you've got a huge underground lab and a National Institutes of Health nearby in case you have any bugs or memory leaks in your program..... Unlike quantum computing, it doesn't change the exponentiality of the problems it's solving, it just multiplies the computing capability by a very big constant, and it does parallelize cleanly. The engineering is tricky, but I find it more believable than practical high-precision quantum computers. And if the DNA computer doesn't work, you can always recycle your lab to synthesize large quantities of recreational pharamceuticals and use the money from them to bribe the person who knows the key. Avogadro # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: List participation
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 10:25:09 -0700, Eric Hughes wrote: >I have been informed that Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM <dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com> wrote: >> [...] Tim's off-topic spews have driven Eric Hughes, John Gilmore, >> Rich Salz, and many other former valuable contributors off the >> mailing list [...] > >As for me, I stopped having time to read cypherpunks a year and a half ago. >Tim had nothing to do with it. The cypherpunks list has changed and I have >changed; so be it. What do you think the odds are the good Dr. is going to say this is a forgery by tcmay?

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Re: WARNING: This Message Actually Contains a Question Reguarding Crypto!
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:34 AM 9/24/96 -0500, "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii(a)amaranth.com> wrote: >I just recently downloaded copies of Blowfish & Ghost. Do you mean GOST, the Russian algorithm family? >Does anyone have any experiance with these two algorithims? >How do they comare to RSA, DES, 3DES, IDEA ? Bruce Schneier's book Applied Cryptography discusses Blowfish (no surprise, since it's his algorithm) and I think also discusses GOST. Blowfish is very fast once you've finished the (deliberately slow) key schedule. It appears to be tolerably strong, though there hasn't been as much analysis on it as on RC4 or IDEA yet, much less DES. GOST requires you to set some parameters, I think S-boxes, and the strength of the algorithm depends on lots of subtle effects of those parameters. The set used by the Russian military is classified; some of the other sets are public, and presumably the implementation you have gets its values from someone. Unless you know who, and how strong they are, I wouldn't trust it. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: Bork book
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:28 AM 9/24/96 -0400, "Marc J. Wohler" <mwohler(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: >Heard him on Limbaugh pushing hard for censorship as a cure for society's >problems. Looks like Ted Kennedy & Co. were right to keep him off the court. Bork's comment a few years ago about the Ninth Amendment being an ink-blot on the Constitution was one of those Rorschach things you can interpret either way, but given that he clearly doesn't believe in the First Amendment, I'd guess he wouldn't have helped the 9th or the other rights-protecting amendments either. I didn't catch Bork directly, but I heard Limbaugh talking about it the day before and about half an hour after, so I caught some flavor of it. It was interesting hearing Limbaugh's mixed feelings about it; he seems to clearly _approve_ of censoring people that offend him, like 2 Live Crew, but also realizes that people would want to censor _him_. I'm guessing that the schtick he did on Pee-Wee Herman (with background music by Michael Jackson) a few minutes before saying he'd be interviewing Bork on Friday was coincidence, rather than something he'd done to set the tone of a discussion of censorship, but maybe not. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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Re: SAY WHAT? [Hallam-Baker demands more repudiations or he'll write!]
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:19 PM 9/24/96 -0400, Simon Spero wrote: >On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, attila wrote: > >> >> go back to your beloved England and your labour unions > your roots are showing :-) ----^ > >> NO, I will not outright reject Jim Bell's "Assassination >> Politics." > >Assasination politics is impossible to defend from a classical >Liberal/Libertarian position. Bell advocates arbitrary applications of >violence and coercion without restriction. There is no way to justify the >initiation of force without abandoning any pretence of being a >Libertarian (which, to be fair, Bell doesn't claim to be). You're wrong on at least three counts: I absolutely do claim to be a libertarian, for one. Secondly, while I advocate a system which I call AP, I do not "advocate" the MISUSE of that system for the act of attacking people who have no initiated force or fraud. On the other hand, to be intellectually honest I can't exclude the possibility that this will happen, any more than a libertarian who advocates a free society deny that somebody might abuse the freedoms of that society by initiating force. There is no contradiction here, except in the mind of a person who believes that people can't be given any freedoms it is possible for them to misuse. It's clear you haven't read AP part 7. Here it is; maybe you'll learn something from it. 1. I defend AP from a classical liberal/libertarian position. 2. I don't advocate arbitrary applications of violence and coercion without restriction. 3. I only _advocate_ responding to force/fraud with force. "Assassination Politics" Part 7, by Jim Bell Dear libertarian Friend, I very much understand the concerns you voiced about my idea which I call, "Assassination Politics," because this essay is nothing if it is not radical and extreme. I wrote it, in the middle of last year, partly because I think libertarianism and libertarians in particular need to address what is, if not a "contradiction," is at least an intolerable reality: On the one hand, we are told not to initiate agression, but on the other we are agressed against by the government every time it collects a tax. I much appreciate the way some people I know have "dropped out" of the system, and the guts that such a tactic requires. But that's the problem, I think: Only those with the "guts" do it, which gives the government fewer targets so that it can spend more time attacking the few who oppose it. The reality is that the government STILL collects taxes, and it STILL uses that money to violate our rights. We all know that's wrong. My position is quite simple: If tax collection constitutes agression, then anyone doing it or assisting in the effort or benefitting from the proceeds thereof is a criminal. This is quite analogous to current law which prosecutes co-conspirators. While I am not holding out "current law" as some sort of gold-standard of reasonableness that we must always accept, on the other hand I think it's plausible to use it to show that once we have come to the conclusion that taxation is theft, the prescription follows directly by a form of reasoning allegedly acceptable to society: It is reasonable to "attack the attackers" and their co-conspirators, and everyone who is employed by the government is thus a co-conspirator, even if he is not directly involved in the collection of those taxes. That's because he IS involved in _benefitting_ from the proceeds of these taxes, and he presumably provides a certain level of "backup" to the young thugs that governmental organizations often hire. I realize, and you should too, that the "non-agression principle" says nothing about the EXTENT of the self-defense/retaliation that one might reasonably employ in defending one's own rights: In a sense, that sounds like an omission because it at least suggests that a person might "unreasonably" defend himself with lethal force when far less drastic means might normally be called for. For what it's worth, I think most people will behave responsibly. But I think it is pretty straightforward to argue that whatever means are necessary to stop the attack, are reasonable given the terms of the non-agression principle: If a given means are known to be inadequate to actually stop the attack, then further and more serious means are reasonable and called-for. To set up a reasonable analogy, if I'm walking down the canonical "dark alley" and am accosted by a man wielding a knife threatening me with it, it is presumably reasonable for me to pull a gun and threaten back, or possibly take the encounter to the final conclusion of gunfire. Even if I should choose to hold my fire and test to determine whether my actions deterred him, I can't see that this possibility binds me morally. And should he advance, despite the gun, as if to attack, I should feel no remorse in shooting him and taking myself out of danger. If you accept the premises so far, you apparently accept the principle that escalation of the self-defense/retaliation is reasonable as long as if the current level of returned counter-threat is inadequate to stop the agression initiated by the other party. To believe otherwise is to believe that ultimately, you are obligated to accept a certain high level of agression simply because you do not have the resources (yet) to resist it. I totally reject this concept, as I hope you would. So if, hypothetically, I could have an anonymous conversation with a hard-nosed government employee, and asked him, "If I killed one of your agents, would you stop trying to collect that tax from me," his predictable reaction would be, "no, we would continue to try to collect that tax." In fact, he would probably hasten to add that he would try to have me prosecuted for murder, as well! If I were to ask if killing ten agents would stop them, again they would presumably say that this would not change their actions. The conclusion is, to me, obvious: Clearly, there is no practical limit to the amount of self-defense that I would need to protect my assets from the government tax collector, and to actually stop the theft, so I suggest that logic requires that I be morally and ethically allowed (under libertarian principles) to use whatever level of self-defense I choose. You raised another objection, that quite frankly I believe is invalid. I believe you implied that until a specific level of escalation is reached ( such as the Feds showing up on your doorstep, etc) then it is not legitimate to defend oneself. Delicately, I must disagree. As we all well know, government ultimately operates primarily not on actual, applied force, but simply the threat of future force if you do not comply. True, there are people who have decided to call the government's bluff and simply drop out, but the reality is that this is not practical for most individuals today. This is no accident: The government makes it difficult to drop out, because they extort the cooperation of banks and potential employers and others with which you would otherwise be able to freely contract. In any case, I fail to see how not "dropping out" makes one somehow morally obligated to pay a tax (or tolerate the collection of one). I trust you did not inadvertently mean to suggest this. The reason, morally, we are entitled to shoot the mugger if he waves the knife in our face is that he has threatened us with harm, in this case to our lives, but the threat the government represents to the average citizen (loss of one's entire assets) is just as real, albeit somewhat different. Since government is a past reality, and a present reality, and has the immediate prospects of being a future reality as well, I sincerely believe that the average citizen can legitimately consider himself CONTINUOUSLY threatened. The agression has already occurred, in continuously occurring, and has every prospect of continuing to occur. If anything would justify fighting back, this would. To continue the analogy, if you've been repeatedly mugged by the same guy down the same dark alley for each day of last month, that DOES NOT mean that you've somehow consented to the situation, or that your rights to your assets have somehow been waived. With my "Assassination Politics" essay, I simply proposed tht we (as libertarians as well as being ordinary citizens) begin to treat agression by government as being essentially equivalent to agression by muggers, rapists, robbers, and murderers, and view their acts as a continuing series of agressions. Seen this way, it should not be necessary to wait for their NEXT agression; they will have always have been agressing and they will always BE agressing, again and again, until they are stopped for good. At that point, the question shifted to one of practicality: Sure, theoretically we might morally have the "right" to protect ourselves with lethal force, but if they have any reputation at all, government agents have a habit of showing up in large numbers when they actually apply direct force. To take a position that you can only defend yourself when _they've_ chosen the "where" and "when" of the confrontration is downright suicidal, and I hope you understand that I would consider any such restriction to be highly unfair and totally impractical. Understand, too, that the reason we're still stuck under the thumb of the government is that to the extent it's true, "we've" been playing by THEIR rules, not by our own. By our own rules, THEY are the agressors and we should be able to treat them accordingly, on our own terms, at our own convenience, whenever we choose, especially when we feel the odds are on our side. I understand, obviously, that the "no initiation of agression" principle is still valid, but please recognize that I simply don't consider it to be a valid counter-argument to "Assassination Politics," at least as applied to targets who happen to be government agents. They've "pre-agressed," and I don't see any limit to the defenses I should be able to muster to stop that agression completely and permanently. Not that I don't see a difference between different levels of guilt: I fully recognize that some of them are far worse than others, and I would certainly not treat a lowly Forest Service grunt in the same fashion as an ATF sniper. Now, there is one more thing that I would hope we could get straight: As I originally "invented" this system, it occurred to me that there could be certain arguments that it needed to be "regulated" somehow; "unworthy" targets shouldn't be killed, etc. The "problem" is, what I've "invented" may (as I now believe it to be) actually a "discovery," in a sense: I now believe this kind of system was always inevitable, merely waiting for the triad of the Internet, digital cash, and good encryption in order to provide the technical underpinnings for the entire system. If that is genuinely the case, then there is no real way to control it, except by free-market principles. It would be impossible, for example, to set up some sort of "Assassination Politics Dictator," who decides who will live and who will die, because competition in the system will always rise to supply every demand, albeit at possibly a very high price. And if you believe the maxim that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," you wouldn't want to accept any form of centralized control (even, perhaps, that of your own!), because any such control would eventually be corrupted. Most rational people recognize this, and I do too. I would not have invented a system where "Jim Bell" gets to make "all the decisions." Quite the contrary, the system I've described absolutely prevents such centralization. That, quite frankly, is the novelty and dare I say it, the beauty of this idea. I believe that it simply cannot be hijacked by centralized political control. As I pointed out in the essay, if _I_ were running one of the organizations accepting those donations and offering those prizes, I would selectively list only those targets who I am genuinely satisfied are guilty of the violation of the "non-agression principle." But as a practical matter, there is no way that I could stop a DIFFERENT organization from being set up and operating under DIFFERENT moral and ethical principles, especially if it operated anonymously, as I antipate the "Assassination Politics"-type systems will be. Thus, I'm forced to accept the reality that I can't dictate a "strongly limited" system that would "guarantee" no "unjustified" deaths: I can merely control my little piece of the earth and not assist in the abuse of others. I genuinely believe, however, that the operation of this system would be a vast improvement over the status quo. This, I argue, is somewhat analogous to an argument that we should be entitled to own firearms, despite the fact that SOME people will use them wrongly/immorally/illegally. The ownership is a right even though it may ultimately allow or enable an abuse that you consider wrong and punishable. I consider the truth of such an argument to be obvious and correct, and I know you would too. I realize that this lacks the crisp certitude of safety which would be reassuring to the average, "pre-libertarian" individual. But you are not the "average individual" and I trust that as long-time libertarians you will recognize rights must exist even given the hypothetical possibility that somebody may eventually abuse them. I do not know whether I "invented" or "discovered" this system; perhaps it's a little of both. I do genuinely believe that this system, or one like it, is as close to being technologically inevitable as was the invention of firearms once the material we now know as "gunpowder" was invented. I think it's on the way, regardless of what we do to stop it. Perhaps more than anyone else on the face of this planet, this notion has filled me, sequentially and then simultaneously, with awe, astonishment, joy, terror, and finally, relief. Awe, that a system could be produced by a handful of people that would rid the world of the scourge of war, nuclear weapons, governments, and taxes. Astonishment, at my realization that once started, it would cover the entire globe inexorably, erasing dictatorships both fascistic and communistic, monarchies, and even so-called "democracies," which as a general rule today are really just the facade of government by the special interests. Joy, that it would eliminate all war, and force the dismantling not only of all nuclear weapons, but also all militaries, making them not merely redundant but also considered universally dangerous, leaving their "owners" no choice but to dismantle them, and in fact no reason to KEEP them! Terror, too, because this system may just change almost EVERYTHING how we think about our current society, and even more for myself personally, the knowledge that there may some day be a large body of wealthy people who are thrown off their current positions of control of the world's governments, and the very-real possibility that they may look for a "villain" to blame for their downfall. They will find one, in me, and at that time they will have the money and (thanks to me, at least partially) the means to see their revenge. But I would not have published this essay if I had been unwilling to accept the risk. Finally, relief. Maybe I'm a bit premature to say it, but I'm satisfied we _will_ be free. I'm convinced there is no alternative. It may feel like a roller-coaster ride on the way there, but as of today I think our destination is certain. Please understand, we _will_ be free. Your libertarian friend, Jim Bell Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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wanted: cryptographers and security consultants
by Carl A. Wescott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

WANTED: CRYPTOGRAPHERS AND SECURITY EXPERTS ------------------------------------------- I am consulting at a technology company which is supplying electronic commerce solutions. We need security experts, hackers/crackers, & programmers, to help in performing blackbox and clearbox penetration testing of the systems/server and the front-end client/product. We also seek collaborators who can help us with security policy review and programmers who can help us implement our visions. Interested parties please contact me via email or at 415 380 8100. Thanks, --C;

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Re: Public Schools
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 22 Sep 1996 15:40:32 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>> thru about the 3rd or 4th grade, and I do agree that most of todays schools >>> are shit, however there is one area--social skills--that homeschooling >>> simply can't compete. Children need to learn how to interact with one another >>in a certain area get together. Homeschooling does not have to stand in >>the way of a normal socialization process. >Also--and I mean this point completely seriously!--many parents are not >altogether convinced that the "public school socialization" is all that >beneficial. Do kids really _need_ to learn to wear gang colors, smoke to be >cool, get pregnant at age 14, and so on? >I think the "social skills" Snow talks about above are actually the _worst_ >part of public schools in fin-de-Siecle America. If I had a kid, I wouldn't >want him or her in the local public schools. I'd have to disagree with you on this. Based on my experience in 3 widely different districts, such behaviour/problems isn't likely to result from the school environment. It's a function of the family life these kids have. If they come from a disfunctional family, kids are going to join gangs, get pregnant , use drugs, etc no matter what school they're at. If they have the right background, it's not going to happen. Of course, in some areas (esp. inner cities) the rate of social dysfunction is extremely high, so some schools are 90% 'problem-kids' as well. I'd reccommend against having a homeschooled kid go to one of those (unless you've been using the Cypherpunks Homeschool Plan For the Instruction of the 3 Rs, Martial Arts, Bomb-Making, Assasination and Black-Helicopter Countermeasures. I imagine school would be very popular if some list members were teaching) just because it would significantly reduce the opportunity for them to catch a stray bullet or something. I still doubt that a homeschooled kid from a strong family would join these groups.

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Anonymous Mail at US Post
by Greg Kucharo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I don't know if anyone else has seen this, but I was mailing letters in the "out front" boxes the other day when I noticed a sign. The sign said that all packages 16 ounces or over had to be taken inside for disposal into the mail slot. The obvious explanation being that even though you can abstain from marking a return address, the postal inspectors would like a nice photo of you with your mail. Greg Kucharo sophi(a)best.com "If you want facts, buy an almanac" -The Daily Iowan

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Re: Taking crypto out of the U.S.
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 24 Sep 1996 07:01:51 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >> Soon I am going to be going overseas to Japan, and I want to take >> my notebook with me so I can keep up with everything, however, I have >> encrypted my hard drive and usually encrypt my mail. Is this in >> violation of the ITAR to keep everything the same when I go over? >Bad enough now that many places require you to put your laptop computer >through the big gray x-ray machine (no exceptions in some places, >especially federal buildings in the U.S.), but if they start requiring >you to list individual files (?????). Very high potential for abuse here! <g> Under HPFS (OS/2's file system) each file takes a minimum of 512 bytes. On your average $200 2GB drive, that'd be around 4194304 files. I wonder if they have that much printer paper? (Particularly to handle those fully qualified filenames...) <g> Now, if you were some sort of evil-cypherpunk-hacker, you might have a hacked copy of Linux that has some really "creative" file systems (The fractal file system - 5 trillion files and counting) and puts that to shame. Even better, have something equivelent to a source-code shrouder that would go through and create a bunch of random looking file names (Was PGP 0e3ahjw2.exe or 052a6v62.obj?) In other words, I have a feeling this would fly about as far as a V-22.

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The Iron Lady almost on target
by attila 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Iron Lady launched into an attack against government regulations, political correctness, and a licentious socity. Let's run her for President. she couldn't be any worse than Bubba or Dolt --and she might terrorize half or more Washington. ------ Forwarded ------ London Daily Telegraph for 25 Sep 95 <HTML> <Head> <Title>Thatcher hits out at moral 'corrosion' [Anonymized]</Title> </Head> <Body bgcolor=ffffff text=000040 link=ff0000 vlink=7080f0 alink=ff0000><H1 ALIGN=center> LADY Thatcher spoke out against the "licentiousness" of the permissive society last night and said that children were being brought up in a morally corrosive atmosphere.</summary> The former Prime Minister expressed her distaste for the coarsening of popular culture in a lecture in London which praised the enduring values and institutions of American civilisation. On the day in which the annual crime figures showed the first overall increase in Britain for several years, she also lamented the steady decline in law and order which had rendered everyone "less secure than we of a right should be". She said: "From the most heinous acts of terrorism to the petty burglar and street corner mugger, we are confronted by those for whom words such as 'justice' and 'right' have no meaning. We see around ourselves the licentiousness of modern society manifested in popular culture. We have witnessed a coarsening of everything from art to music to literature and film. But for some people there seems to be nothing beyond the pale, for them freedom has no limits." Lady Thatcher did not specify the targets of her criticism, but went on to accuse those who advocated unrestrained freedom of expression as perverse, demeaning and dangerous. She said: "The younger generation is being reared in a morally corrosive atmosphere where they are taught that in the name of liberty, anything goes. There is no elevation of the human spirit in works designed merely to shock or to appeal only to our most base instincts." Lady Thatcher's vigorous defence of the rule of law reprised a familiar theme from her period of office in Downing Street, when the Conservatives were themselves accused of fuelling the rise in lawlessness by putting too great an emphasis on individualism. However she did not refer to the present Government and its internal difficulties at all, except to warn in passing of what she saw as the dangers posed by the Labour Party or bureaucrats in Brussels. She said: "If we should be enticed once more down the rutted and muddy road of socialism, we will again find Britain mired in a morass of stifling regulations and government controls." In a sustained attack on state-enforced egalitarianism, Lady Thatcher also hit out at the fashion for political correctness as "the guiding sentiment of tyrants in every age" who believed that if they controlled what people read, they controlled the people themselves. Delivering the inaugural James Bryce lecture for London University's Institute of United States Studies, Lady Thatcher called for more serious study of the history and culture of America to understand the exceptional role the US had played in world affairs. It had served as a beacon of enlightenment in the struggles against German imperialism, fascist aggression and communist tyranny during this century, and would dominate the next. She said: "We are confronted by a stream of dictators and tyrants who will seek to dominate those nations around them, if not the entire world. The deepest conflicts between men will not subside, nor can they subside until the basic principles of individual liberty and political freedom are embraced throughout the world." Lady Thatcher said that too much talk of "rights" was in danger of overwhelming the importance of duty and responsibility in a free country. She said: "In the process, liberty decays into licence in an atmosphere where all is permitted and nothing prohibited. The resulting permissive society is in fact no society at all. It is little more than a state of nature where the line between right and wrong is first blurred and then obliterated - a place where no one dares to say no. There can be no order without authority, and authority that is impotent or hesitant in the face of intimidation, crime and violence, cannot endure." She challenged the modern assumption that progress was the general rule and corruption the exception. Often, it was the other way around. "Freedom and civilisation are conditions that require great effort, deep thought, and unwavering commitment," she said. </body> </html>

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[Fwd: Int'l Crypto Resolution Released in Paris]
by geeman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Snooping ISP admin??
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 23 Sep 1996 08:30:34 -0700 (PDT), Eric Murray wrote: >> encountered "POP3 account in use by another user" several times in the >> past few days and I am the only user... wondering if that "in use" >> messsage is the result of a clumsy sysadmin being caught with his hand >> in the cookie jar. >> Any thoughts from the group??? > >If the sysadmin is reading your PGP mail, let him. It's very very >unlikely that he has the resources available to crack a PGP >message in this century. And if he does, his machine should be fast enough to read the entire mailbox before Michael could notice... <g>

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Not reputation again! (Was: The Nature of the Cypherpunks List)
by gregburk＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I know, I said I was through arguing "reputation theory" and I really thought I was, but this latest impelled me to say more. tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) writes: > --Tim May, whose reputation is, like the list, whatever it is, for whatever > reasons, and who thus needs no defenders Indeed, your reputation needs no defenders among those of us who know you directly (if electronically) But here's something for you to think over: If there are such things as negative reputations, why hasn't your reputation zoomed to godlike status upon the ... let us say unreserved... condemnations of the Poster With Nothing Better To Do, if s/he has a negative reputation (I presume you would say so) You could contend that his/her reputation is positive, but if that's positive, what isn't? This would appear to concede my point. You could contend that the Poster With Nothing Better To Do's reputation is balanced precariously at exactly 0. I would find that a big stretch, and as above, if that's 0, what's negative? Or you could contend that there's no such thing as collective reputation, but I think there are two major flaws: His/her 1-to-1 "reputations" clearly add up to a collective consensus among us annoyed cpunk readers. Even if you contend that reputations in general do not behave collectively, it is no defense in this case at least. And I think if "reputation theory" predicts no collective behavior, it must be pretty weak. > But there comes a point where I need to speak up. (By the way, somebody > even sent me a bizarre message, saying: "I am not quite sure why you have > not shot back at Dr Virmin and his cause. Maybe that is the best way? Or > are you guilty as charged?" So, to some, my silence means I might be > guilty. Jeesh.) Because s/he can *never spend reputation down to zero*. BTW, your example is reflected in politics too. A charge that goes unanswered is assumed true by many. Just ask Michael Dukakis. Frankly, I think you should just admit that your reputation theory is flawed and rethink it. I would be interested in hearing it, but what you have now is IMHO badly flawed. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQBVAwUBMkjPErMyVAabpHidAQFmVAH/XJ8GqayxiJOKv/5obx7MPcFX9VUJSldJ M/Vh4OBN3PYytw8TKvzxwcvJAqCjSA7AfZZZAgzfb9UMCetR4wZv8g== =5HgH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Public Schools
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:40 AM 9/25/96, Jay Gairson wrote: >First off, what does this have to do with cryptography? or anything >cypher for that matter? Nothing, but Dmitri has "different" standards of what is list-relevant than many of us do. >So, basically your saying, since my parents cannot afford to pay for a >private school for me, we are genetically inferior to those who can? >Because hate tell ya, but I've ran into some major idiots that go to >private schools. Also to consider that from the school I go to, last >year we had two perfect sat scores (no problems missed). A minor point: An 800 SAT or Achievement score does _not_ mean "no problems missed." There is some threshold for the percentage of right answers, which varies from year to year and from test to test, above which the score is marked "800." Don't ask me why they do this. (*) This should give you more hope and more determination to get a few 800s when you take the exams. (* Back in 1969 when I was taking these exams and was more neurotically interested in such things, I surmised that the 800 top end was set up to correspond to the IQ = 160 top end reported on some major IQ tests of the time. While some IQ tests are open-ended, resulting in, for example, the dubious claim that Marilyn vos Savant has an IQ of 210 or somesuch, it's more common for tests to have an upper limit, beyond which the results are considered essentially meaningless. So, if one notes that 800 + 800 = 1600, which is exactly 10 times 160, and that the "percentiles" for SAT combined scores of 1500, 1400, 1300, etc. match up with the percentiles for IQs of 150, 140, 130, etc., it's pretty clear what was done with the SAT scoring model. Obviously, many imperfections, some implicit in the nature of tests, some in the whole nature of "IQ" per se. This is why Mensa, which takes (alleged) IQs of 130, also accepts SAT combined scores in that general range (x10, of course). Of course, as Roger Gregory puts it, "Mensa is the scum of the cream of the crop.") --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: Not reputation again! (Was: The Nature of the Cypherpunks List)
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:45 AM 9/25/96, Greg Burk wrote: >I know, I said I was through arguing "reputation theory" and I really >thought I was, but this latest impelled me to say more. > >tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) writes: >> --Tim May, whose reputation is, like the list, whatever it is, for whatever >> reasons, and who thus needs no defenders > >Indeed, your reputation needs no defenders among those of us who know >you directly (if electronically) > >But here's something for you to think over: If there are such things as >negative reputations, why hasn't your reputation zoomed to godlike >status upon the ... let us say unreserved... condemnations of the >Poster With Nothing Better To Do, if s/he has a negative reputation (I >presume you would say so) First off, I certainly don't know what the precise "calculus of reputations" looks like. That is, how it adds, subtracts, how the reps of others factor in, etc. I think studying how it might work--and how it compares to other fields, such as movie reviews, music reviews, book reviews, etc.--might be an excellent Masters-level thesis for someone in sociology or even CS (if done with the proper slant). However, I would never think the calculus is something so simplistic as: "I rate Alice's reputation as very negative. Alice just said some bad things about Bob. Therefore, Bob's reputation will go up a great deal." More likely, something like: "Alice just said a bunch of things bad about Bob. Cool. Maybe this Bob person deserves a look." In other words, smaller steps, with diminishing returns. And with few sudden movements, except by direct judgment. >Or you could contend that there's no such thing as collective >reputation, but I think there are two major flaws: His/her 1-to-1 >"reputations" clearly add up to a collective consensus among us annoyed >cpunk readers. Even if you contend that reputations in general do not >behave collectively, it is no defense in this case at least. And I think >if "reputation theory" predicts no collective behavior, it must be >pretty weak. I believe that, to first order, reputation is a tensor. Given N people, imagine this matrix: Alice Bob Charles Daphne Earl Fiona Gloria Harold Alice .99 -.21 .75 .94 .94 .83 -.03 .22 Bob .72 .96 -.02 .85 .71 -.60 .10 .32 Charles .82 .02 .97 .90 -.50 .42 -.10 .70 Daphne .45 .87 .23 .92 .74 .87 .11 .23 Earl .89 .54 .34 .90 .95 .23 .23 .46 Fiona .87 .50 .32 .68 -.34 .97 .78 -.15 Gloria .59 .78 -.23 .15 .29 -.30 -.80 .51 Harold .65 .03 .34 .78 .51 -.76 -.51 .97 This can be read thusly: Alice has a .99 rating of her own self, a negative .21 rating of Bob (or Bob's opinions, or his posts, or whatever is being rated), and so on. Bob has a .72 rating of Alice, a .96 rating of himself, etc. "Alice(Bob) = -.21" Now in this example I made up, some various observations can be made. Nearly everyone rates Harold pretty low, except for Harold. Thus, Harold's own opinions of others, if expressed, probably won't change too many other opinions. Nearly everyone rates Daphne very highly, and her opinions are read carefully. However, Gloria does not rate Daphne highly...but then Gloria rates her own stuff a negative .80, so Gloria has some psychological issues to deal with and others typically rate her pretty low. And so on. In the real world, I think we can see how such a matrix could be constructed, based on either direct inputs (votes) from people, or based on their apparently positive or negative comments, etc. (For example, it is fairly obvious that I might give Hal Finney a rating of .90, and Vulis a -.90. And so on, for others.) Now is there a "collective reputation"? There are various additive properties, with easily understandable meanings. (If Harold is in a lot of kill files, this says a lot, for example.) Anyway, as I said before, the "calculus of reputations" is not worked out, so far as I know. Some weeks back I suggested that the mathematics of belief as developed in "Dempster-Shafer belief theory" has some nice properties that make it seem a promising area to look into. .... >Because s/he can *never spend reputation down to zero*. So you say. I see no reason reputations cannot be negative, in the sense that not only do I take the opinions of such a person very seriously, I tend in fact to believe the opposite opinion is more likely. This is a "negative " reputation. Thus, a reputation can be "spent down" to zero, and below. >Frankly, I think you should just admit that your reputation theory is >flawed and rethink it. I would be interested in hearing it, but what you >have now is IMHO badly flawed. --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: SAY WHAT? [Assassination NOISE]
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

An earlier generation of Assassination Politics set the public's stereotype view of "anarchists" for the next hundred years. Do we really want to do it again? Perhaps the public will realize that we're not lefty-anarchists, we're the Totally Unified Cypherpunk Anarcho-Capitalist Movement... Someone, probably Simon Spero <ses(a)tipper.oit.unc.edu> said: >= .Assasination politics is impossible to defend from a classical >= .Liberal/Libertarian position. Bell advocates arbitrary applications >= .of violence and coercion without restriction. There is no way to >= .justify the initiation of force without abandoning any pretence of >= .being a Libertarian (which, to be fair, Bell doesn't claim to be). Bell, like X, is proposing mechanism without built-in policy, as well as suggesting some potential policy implementations. If you use the mechanism to sponsor assassination of people who have initiated force against you, you're only using retaliatory force, not initiating it. On the other hand, the mechanism also can be used against people who haven't initiated force against the sponsor - even against politicians who have refused to get the country into misguided but popular wars or judges who have refused to convict innocent but wrong-colored defendants. Like democracy, it's a really terrible system, and like democracy, there are some alternatives that aren't worse :-) Maybe even democracy. It's at least as appalling an idea as government. If it does catch on, and I suspect that the technology will certainly make it possible, I hope that most of the public will have enough sense and decency not to pay for murdering people who don't deserve it, so assassins will find more of a market for killing people who do, and that the lower-paid assassins who kill undeserving people will be less competent and get caught like most stupid bank robbers do. But there are enough Drug-War-Loving Americans that I doubt it. And there's enough intersection between the morality-challenged and the financially-challenged fellow Americans down on their luck that some of them will take a break from robbing liquor stores for drug money to make bigger bucks serving the desires of the public that the high-tech lynch mobs will have people they can hire. Not everybody needs Mario Greymist to get some basic "work" done. Glory of the market, matching up supply and demand. And attila replied > all very true. but I will defend Jim Bell's rights to propose > them, even if Bell is more than a few cards short of a full deck. Sure, he's got the right to, and if I run a remailer again he's welcome to use it to discuss AP (though not to propose assassinations....) Doesn't mean I want to encourage this sort of thing, though. Remailers can damn well afford to be choosy, and I'll bet 5 zorkmids that the first person to use my remailer for assassination doesn't last a month. (Oh, wait...) # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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