December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

A quick discussion of Mersenne Numbers
by Scottauge＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wake of the latest find announcement, some people maybe wondering what the heck is this?!! A mercenne number is of the type: M(p) = 2**p -1 results in a prime when p is a prime. Hopefully this will lead the way to see the pattern of prime numbers and being able to compute prime numbers in a far more efficient manner (after all a function that when given a prime number results in a prime number would be quite a kicker now wouldn't it!) The other Mersenne primes include: 2,3,5,7,13,17,19,31,127,61,89, and 107. The numbers 67 and 257 are not primes.... Have fun in them prime number databases....

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Another problem with IPG algorithm
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Don and others, At the heart of IPG algorithm there is a pseudo-random number generator which generates values of A(JV). (see http://www.netprivacy.com/algo.html) DO JV=JV+1 IF JV=53 THEN JV=0 A(JV)=(A(JV)+B(JV)) MOD C(JV) UNTIL A(JV)<16384 Note that if B(JV) and C(JV) in a triplet (A(JV), B(JV), C(JV)) are not mutually prime, they will generate very few numbers and not a whole set 0-16383. For example, if C(JV) is 20000, and B(JV) is 10000, and initial A is (for example) 57, the only two numbers that this triplet will generate will be 57 and 10057. This refutes Don Wood's claim that the distribution of results approaches even. Even if only ONE triplet is such as I described (and it is VERY likely to happen statistically), the distribution will be skewed. Don, what do you think about it? igor

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Re: denial of service and government rights
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:25 PM 11/30/96 -0500, Tired.Fighter(a)dhp.com wrote: >On 30 Nov 96 at 13:10, Black Unicorn wrote: > >> On Fri, 29 Nov 1996, Greg Broiles wrote: > >> [...] >> >> > I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be true for a >> > computer. Fed.Rul.Crim.Pro. 41(b)(1) allows the seizure >> > (but seizure is not forfeiture) of "property that >> > constitutes evidence of the commission of a >> > criminal offense". >> >> It is true of computers. >> Take the case of Ripco (the Chicago BBS raided in the >> SunDevil raids back when). >> >> I don't think "Dr. Ripco" has yet gotten his equipment >> back. I don't know for sure, but what I do know is >> that 5 years after the raid, he still had certainly >> not gotten anything back. Unicorn has a long history of reciting government abuses, but then failing to provide any sort of answer to them. My solution (AP: "Assassination Politics") would make such abuse fatal. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: denial of service and government rights
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:24 PM 12/1/96 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: >So what you're saying is I (or we) can testify in front of Congress on >essentially any topic, telling a blatant lie (that we know is false, and >which they will subsequently prove is false), and totally get away with >it. You and I can do that, is that what you're saying? This is idiotic. I suspect it's deliberately idiotic, but I can't see what anyone gains by it. If you've got a point to make, would you please just say what you're thinking and move on? There's a big difference between something being punishable and someone being punished. The false testimony was given on behalf of a friendly government, and in favor of a cause which met with widespread national support and was the focus of much (literal) flag-waving and patriotic speechifying. In general, you face very few risks if you lie in a way which helps a very popular cause, and the people you're lying to want to do the thing that your lies are purportedly justifying. Your risks are much greater if you're saying something unpopular or if you are an unpopular person. I'm not talking about law, I'm talking about politics. And the fact that laws are sometimes enforced in a political matter shouldn't be news to anyone. (I'm not saying that's good, but I think it's attributable to and a result of to the general fallibility of human beings, myself included, so I'm skeptical about easy answers. Real-world solutions tend to fall short of theoretical perfection. Doh.) >If that is true, then my original contention that things are far worse >than the person I originally responded to was imagining, stands as >correct. Things are bad indeed. I'd sure appreciate it if you'd just say what you're thinking (if it's on-topic) instead of playing stupid "Is X true? Is Y true? Wow! I've just discovered something new!" games. Your comments suggest to me that what you're dancing around is, essentially, that the government is morally wrong because it (eliding distinctions between governments and branches of governments) enforces laws in an erratic or discriminatory or political fashion. That's what I'm extracting from your messages. If there's something more to what you're saying, I think I'd have a better chance of extracting it if you devoted less energy to tricky rhetorical strategies. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Phrack, where can i find it?
by nobody＠cypherpunks.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

where can i find latest (and old) phrack issues?

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RSA key generation in 13 lines of Perl
by Steve Reid 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I've completed my Perl/dc RSA key generation program. The compacted 13-line version is below. A commented version can be found at http://www.edmweb.com/steve/rsagen.txt #!/usr/local/bin/perl $k=768;$e=sprintf'%X',65537;print"Please enter a LOT of random junk.\n" ;$a=<STDIN>;print"Working. This may take a while.\n";for(1..(length($a)- 1)){$b[$_&31]^=unpack('C',substr($a,$_,1));$b[$_&31]=(($b[$_&31]<<5)|($b [$_&31]>>3))&255;}for(0..255){$c[$_]=$_;}$a=$d=$f=0;for(0..255){$a=($a+ $c[$_]+$b[$a&31])&255;($c[$_],$c[$a])=($c[$a],$c[$_]);}open(F,'|dc'); select F;print"16dio[$e+]sa";for(1..50){for(1..$k/32){printf'%02X',&g;} print"Sr";}for(1,2){printf'%02X',&g|128;for(2..$k/16){printf'%02X',&g;} print"d$e%-2+d2%0=aSP";}print"[d2%SA2/d0<X+d*LA1=ZlP%0]sX[lR*]sZ[1+Q]sQ[ la1+sa0sc]sA[lAxlb1+sb]sB[ld1+sdLrddSssR1lP1-2/lXx+1+lP%99scd0=A2=Bclcla +32>C]sC[LsSrld1-dsd0<D]sD[le1+se0ddsasbsdlCxlDxlP2 $e*+sPlc99=Elb32=ElP 2 $e*-led1>QQ]sE_1selExsq_1seLPlExsp[p=]Plpp[q=]Plqp[n=]P*p[e=]P$e p1-lp 1-lq1-**1+$e/[d=]Pp\n";close(F);sub g{$d=($d+1)&255;$f=($f+$c[$d])&255;( $c[$d],$c[$f])=($c[$f],$c[$d]);return($c[($c[$d]+$c[$f])&255]);} I'm sure this can be compacted further. I haven't put a lot of work into compacting it; I really just want to get it out. Run the program, type in a LOT of random gibberish (several lines at least) and press enter. Then wait. Eventually it will output your p, q, n, e and d in hexadecimal. p and q: Prime numbers, congruent to 2 mod e. They can usually be discarded, but they should never be revealed. n: Your public modulus e: Your public encryption exponent (usually 10001 hex) d: Your private decryption exponent By default the program generates a 768-bit public modulus and a public exponent of 10001 hex (65537 decimal). These can be changed by adjusting the numbers in the first line. A 1024-bit modulus would be better, but for some reason generation takes a LOT longer than a 768-bit modulus. Fortunately key generation doesn't need to be done very often. Timings on a 100 MHz Pentium running FreeBSD: Size of n Time 512-bit: 4-5 minutes 768-bit: 8-9 minutes 1024-bit: 35-80 minutes (ack!) I've had some difficulty generating 1024-bit keys, but it seems to be working now. Let me know if you see any problems generating large keys other than the obvious problem with the time spent. Disclaimer: This program seems to work, but your milage may vary. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMqID5dtVWdufMXJpAQE14AgApqOI2MMPe0V74cKI0vc3bDw8hfDW723c QKqVleH0MTIv4F792bf7ItekM81RbQiaB+AhSigFFFb679ZgdCV7XpPOwhkE3SD4 vJy1xU4HdZ6TbSrfzzZn8Peqd5K5zZdY7CpXbxW30TZWFNX5lqdDAAbvM77h36QC h/jwK1nWMzrTDupbhBwemkpZKaFmk5uAms5Y94Ckezh66+sOcWmvf7smyn8RJg4q zad6OVrclso22NBp/Pa0nf2+IdgFnhEfHgHxsI0t+awSokfr6WlZ8WAScxv40kJO KfcdBX1DXg4spl8kXgoQOrrA3VIUJKWXFfpnTt2nAKr/P4XfbpyFQw== =CY5F -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Secure Memory Deletion
by Mark Rosen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone know any papers on secure deletion of things from memory? That is one thing that most people are oblivious to, though, if a program leaves your unencrypted passkey laying in memory or a buffer of your plaintext, then all the encryption in the world won't help. Should I overwrite the 32 times specified for hard drives, or are RAM chips easier to clear? Thanks.

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No Subject
by vitamin＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I apologize if this is off topic. I received free one month trial in July from Netcom and in mid July I canceled my account with Netcom due to lousy customer service. When I called I was treated rudely because of canceling netcom. I called again the next day and the person who answered the phone apologized me for the behaviour of the previous employee and I was told my account will be canceled. Low and behold come July I got my credit card statement and netcom had billed me. I promtly called them and was assured that my account would be cancelled. Come September I was billed again for August and September. Once again I called and she assured me it would be cancelled. Again, it was not. Come October they still billed me. In my November statement they are still billing me. I prefer L.A. Better Business Bureau and District Attorney emails and physical addresses. Someone please help me!!!!! Thank You

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Re: Strong-crypto smart cards in Singapore and Germany
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

whgiii(a)amaranth.com ("William H. Geiger III") writes: ><sigh> Big Brother comming to a bank near you. > >Does anyone understand the implications of a society moving to an >electroinc cash based system?? > >All trasactions will be recorded, moitored, tracked & analysed. This is >not just the government that one has to worry about but corporations also. Actually the German system contains some fairly elaborate safeguards to make it pretty challenging to automatically track transactions (Germans have historical reasons for being uneasy about government monitoring). However given other German laws like the Fernmeldeanlagenueberwachungsverordnung (yes, that's one word), which make the CALEA look like a picnic, I'm not sure how long these safeguards will remain in place. Given that the standard has been created by a collaboration of all German banks, who are big enough to tell the government to take a hike if they demand access to the data, it may be safe (certainly the people involved in the project that I've spoken to are confident that they can keep the data private, however I'm not so sure how it'll work out in the long run). As for the Singapore solution, the Singpore government knows whats best for you, so it isn't any of your business to question their judgement. Anyone thinking otherwise gets 25 strokes of the rattan. Peter.

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Re: Phrack, where can i find it?
by Lyghte 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>where can i find latest (and old) phrack issues? > You can browse the old ones online at the phrack homepage (http://freeside.com/phrack.html) _\ /_ / \ __ ___ __ | \ / | _ |_| | |_ THE |__ | |__| | | | |__ "It may roundly be asserted that human ingenuity cannot concoct a cipher which human ingenuity cannot resolve." Edgar Allan Poe

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pseudonymous servers
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Which pseudonymous servers are currently active?

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Re: A quick discussion of Mersenne Numbers
by Scottauge＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-12-01 16:17:01 EST, you write: > On Sun, 1 Dec 1996 Scottauge(a)aol.com wrote: > > > I wake of the latest find announcement, some people maybe wondering what > the > > heck is this?!! > > > > A mercenne number is of the type: > > > > M(p) = 2**p -1 results in a prime when p is a prime. > > > > Hopefully this will lead the way to see the pattern of prime numbers and > > being able to compute prime numbers in a far more efficient manner (after > all > > a function that when given a prime number results in a prime number would > be > > quite a kicker now wouldn't it!) > > It doesn't. If q is a Mercenne prime, then p is prime if q = 2^p-1. It > doesn't work the other way around. If it did, then it would be very easy to > find out if a number is a Mercenne prime: just add 1 and find the base 2 > logarithm and if the result is prime, then the original number is prime. It' > s > much more difficult than that. It would also be possible to find an > infinite > number of Mercenne primes using a deterministic algorithm. > > > Mark I agree, my discussion was toooooo quick and the statement: > > M(p) = 2**p -1 results in a prime when p is a prime. is misleading. I was thinking the second paragraph when I was writing the statement statement above. A case of the mind working faster than the fingers?

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Re: denial of service and government rights
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:24 PM 12/1/96 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: >So what you're saying is I (or we) can testify in front of Congress on >essentially any topic, telling a blatant lie (that we know is false, and >which they will subsequently prove is false), and totally get away with >it. You and I can do that, is that what you're saying? You and I can't. The government can. It is one thing to commit a crime (if a crime has even been committed in the case in question). It is another thing to find somebody willing to prosecute it. In today's day and age, the Constitution exists for historical purposes only. Much of it has long been abolished by the courts. The remainder is being mostly ignored. The "Kein Kläger, kein Richter" principle makes it irrelevant if doing so is illegal. A favorite saying of 2nd Amendment supporters is: "Which part of 'shall not be infringed' don't you understand?" If society doesn't care that the Constitution is being violated, the violations will continue. And society couldn't care less. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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RE: Secure Memory Deletion
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Seems to me that the chip itself hardly a worry. memset() does the trick for the memory locations you are aware of. Any electrical or molecular level residues would be terribly difficult to sort out. The OS provides ample opportunities for unknowns though. ie, Is there some structure in memory that has the data from the user interface object used to collect the passphrase? Is there a keyboard buffer storing the last several (dozen? hundred?) keystrokes? Can 100% security be achieved at all with our current OS's? >Mark Rosen (mrosen(a)peganet.com) said something about Secure Memory Deletion on or about 12/1/96 4:49 PM > Does anyone know any papers on secure deletion of things from >memory? That >is one thing that most people are oblivious to, though, if a program leaves >your unencrypted passkey laying in memory or a buffer of your plaintext, >then all the encryption in the world won't help. Should I overwrite the 32 >times specified for hard drives, or are RAM chips easier to clear? Thanks. > >End of message --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending me mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

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IP address
by Internaut 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is the risk of publishing your dynamic IP address to a web page while you are on line? How vulnerable is someone just connected to the internet, w/o any server running? What attacks are feasable? --Internaut

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RE: IP address
by Internaut 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Adamsc wrote: > > Igor wrote > > > On Sun, 1 Dec 1996 22:23:30 -0600, Internaut wrote: > > >What is the risk of publishing your dynamic IP address to a web page > > >while you are on line? How vulnerable is someone just connected to > > >the internet, w/o any server running? What attacks are feasable? --> >> Well, if you are running Win95 (all) or 3.1 (w/certain TCP/IP stacks) your >> machine can be locked up or rebooted at *any* time using just PING! >Isn't is Unix that is actually vulnerable? I tried pinging myself off and it didn't work; maby it has to be from a remote host.

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The Good Doctor (Dobb that is) on DSNT
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The January 1997 Dr. Dobb's Journal has a somewhat interesting interview with Eva Bozoki, Chief Scientist for Digital Secured Networks which more about scientific research in the old USSR as it does about VPN's and encryption. Some notable quotes from Ms. Bozoki: "If people understand our competence, they will trust the product." "I don't like key escrow because I don't trust anybody." "We add a twist by encrypting the public key exchange." Seems like the interviewer had a nice chat with Ms. Bozoki but it is a shame that he did not press her on more technical details. It is after all a programmer's journal. I find the first two quotes interesting in that it would appear that Ms. Bozoki would not purchase the product she is creating! In order to establish trust in an encryption product more is required than simply agreeing that the company is competent. Competence does not imply trustworthiness. Trust can be established through review and examination of the innards, algo's and source code. A quick read of www.dsnt.com does not reveal any additional information on the crypto used (other than it being a 512 byte public key algo using Diffie-Hellman key exchange). Yet it would seem that DSNT has painted themselves into a corner as revealing their architecture would make encrypting the public keys ineffective. The interviewer also failed to press Ms. Bozoki for a position regarding key escrow. She states that she does not like key escrow but she does say (when discussing how security is being retrofitted into TCP/IP) "So you have to make sure that certain secrets don't go out and that you can legally wiretap certain conversations in a situation which wasn't designed for that." And also she mentions "the need for a government to defend its country". So does DSNT's products support wiretapping out of the box? --j ----------------------------------- | John Fricker (jfricker(a)vertexgroup.com) | -random notes- | My PGP public key is available by sending me mail with subject "send pgp key". | www.Program.com is a good programmer web site. -----------------------------------

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Re: A quick discussion of Mersenne Numbers
by David E. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Scottauge(a)aol.com, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Sun Dec 01 23:29:04 1996 > > I wake of the latest find announcement, some people maybe wondering what > the > heck is this?!! > > A mercenne number is of the type: > > M(p) = 2**p -1 results in a prime when p is a prime. > Oh, if only it were all that easy... For more information on Mersenne primes, and using those spare CPU cycles to search for new ones, check out: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/range.htm(l?) - ----- David E. Smith, P O Box 324, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail with subject of "send pgp-key" for my PGP public key "Remember: King Kong died for your sins" - Principia Discordia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMqJpMXEZTZHwCEpFAQEq/wf+NFGMQtkqDgcJzrOvBMwqeHvJmy6Rx5S2 /goRQCyoxIVtwzYRuPwRByWvsylpinq2F1VH+Jsfpg4PFzDgYxjElROY0Ne/XnsV 2roop+zKkXDBpElC+2dRp+OrBHFer+EU3bOXfINRe8QyLJLu7+gmZWE1ghOBRC/1 5hdHTTSnWGFRFPU3suz+XRznmCkTuFl5y2ycV2TWQMmXqcBmaoPVikeygcnXCcax EJgwFg7+od2SZ97SIBqsDbSYKNFnUGgP0ZScZXf6op8UWSwq2x2KKYlbYptQKVjX UmBt40SFP+YcTllKqe9XGSyilY7Pe96O3PFbmR+Ni7LY8AQcH4w0Qw== =X0ML -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Announcement: Very Good Privacy
by David E. Smith 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: Sun Dec 01 23:30:00 1996 > Dear Sir, > > > I'm not sure how an encryption product that uses encryption > > algorithms weaker than Pretty Good Privacy can be described > > as being better than PGP. > > > > Especially when all the algorithms listed have known problems > > of one kind, or another. << And yes, I know that the known > > problems -- in some instances --- are entirely theoretical in > > nature. >> > > What puzzles me is that he included two cyphers that are _extremely_ > easy to > break, the vignere cypher and the ascii cypher. Why include these? And > what > is his new permutation of RC4 and DES? > Concur. Also, let's see: only available for Win95/NT, no sources available, and cyphers that are known to be weak - and that can be used without any warnings whatsoever - anyone else watching their Snake-Oil-O-Meter get pegged? Give us some source code, port it to XWindows, and then maybe we'll talk. dave - ----- David E. Smith, P O Box 324, Cape Girardeau MO USA 63702 dsmith(a)prairienet.org http://www.prairienet.org/~dsmith send mail with subject of "send pgp-key" for my PGP public key "Remember: King Kong died for your sins" - Principia Discordia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMqJpYHEZTZHwCEpFAQFWPAf/Q2FoUPrgXAyjkWlLRQiRSV544TawvdL0 efdxOuRoGJ9jPSOBxm2KepfSw6Gl6yjwK7buuIB9LcMPMbp41Yn7Z4BTx1lY4fEQ XjdKMZMGoDYfiFCP4Xm9D1vG0cX+eWUL9jxih3ZSGR8OjcypVNrTBxoSbO3q5pHu 69+ASfTdcyG4VySD/YJ2NM17P2wzU7BTNXawOIisaN87Us5hTNLtHt55/D5r5pcs SPgLo1bBBP/z98+/r6flPtIk7LXwWPqWuJRMFp5FVUk+9/TfbdgsUT9tfl7VzABW nY4z+zVvSuFBomVR5ON9wdNonG8YAeBCQGHy69oXhsErKDv6EXgbDQ== =VeBI -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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The Good Doctor again
by John Fricker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Also in the January issue has an article on RIPEMD-160. Source code (and full article text) is available at www.program.com/source/crypto --j

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Re: IP address
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 1 Dec 1996 22:23:30 -0600, Internaut wrote: >What is the risk of publishing your dynamic IP address to a web page while you are on line? How vulnerable is someone just connected to the internet, w/o any server running? What attacks are feasable? --Internaut Well, if you are running Win95 (all) or 3.1 (w/certain TCP/IP stacks) your machine can be locked up or rebooted at *any* time using just PING! # Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp # <cadams(a)acucobol.com> | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY" "That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them." --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)

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Re: Announcement: Very Good Privacy
by Mark Rosen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > What puzzles me is that he included two cyphers that are _extremely_ > > easy to > > break, the vignere cypher and the ascii cypher. Why include these? And > > what > > is his new permutation of RC4 and DES? > > > > Concur. Also, let's see: only available for Win95/NT, no sources > available, and cyphers that are known to be weak - and that can > be used without any warnings whatsoever - anyone else watching > their Snake-Oil-O-Meter get pegged? The plus side of the Vigenere and ASCII ciphers is that they are fast. For example, on a friend's machine, I can get 1.7mb/s using ASCII while NewDES, the fastest "secure" algorithm, runs at a only 600k/s. Documentation of each algorithm with an explanation of its security is provided in the help file. As for snake-oil, this is a genuine product. I am trying to compete with Puffer 2.0, which costs like $25-$30; $5 is certainly less than that. As soon as I get the money to buy the needed compiler, I'll make a port to the Mac, and a port to Windows 3.1 should surface in a few days. > Give us some source code, port it to XWindows, and then maybe > we'll talk. I'm working on installing Linux on my machine and will be working on an X port. I'll keep you posted. BTW, I personally really enjoy using VGP and have encrypted all of my source code and other archived things like that. Mark Rosen FireSoft - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/2690 Mark Eats AOL - http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/6660/

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Codebreakers on the telly.
by pjb＠23kgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

on tuesday, 3 dec at 2000 hrs, channel 13 (PBS) in the new york area will air the Nova special, "The Codebreakers". this isn't anything new, but, as i remember, it's worth watching again. cheers, -paul

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Just in time for Christmas!!!
by orders＠compugen.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Computer User: The perfect gift for your family, a friend, or just for yourself. "Personal Computer Accessories" Mitsumi Keyboards, Microsoft Mouse, Computer Speakers and more... Select the URL below to place your order; just in time for Christmas. *************************************************************************** To place your order visit our website at: http://www.pcorders.com ***************************************************************************

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New payment scheme for Web access
by Asgaard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(See abstract from Edupage at the end) Who wants to use the MTV web site anyway, but I suppose this could spread. I guess a very popular site could allow access only to domains (....foo.bar) that have paid instead of blocking those who have not, otherwise 'new' sites could circumvent it easily. On the other hand, a proxy server inside of an allowed domain would circumvent the allowing kind of scheme, at least for a while (until they found out about it). Great opportunities for hacking wars. Another payment scheme in use is to recieve passwords for closed Web pages by voice phoning to an expensive number. Did the porno sites invent this (they have long been in related business)? Asgaard ************************************************************************** MTV TURNS THE TABLES IN WEB VIEWING Viacom's MTV Networks has come up with a new way to make its Web investment pay off -- it's putting the squeeze on online service providers, demanding that they pay multimillion dollar fees or risk having their subscribers blocked from viewing MTV's Web site. <...>

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