December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Shell Game News
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Online reports on the new crypto regs. MSNBC features Bernstein's challenge, with multiple sidebars. http://www.msnbc.com/news/49260.asp http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncs20.htm (AP brief)

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Thermojetic Herbal BreakThrough!!!
by jguarnie＠ix7.ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Musical Instruments WELCOME TO INTERNET'S BEST FULL LINE MUSIC STORE
by mozart＠asianet.net.hk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Zippy, anonymously
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:18 PM 12/31/96 -0500, Adam Shostack wrote: >http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/welcome.mhtml > >Let Zippy provide you with web service. Chaining through the >anonymizer works, too. :) A suggested page is: http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/zippy.mhtml/http://www.nsa.gov:8080/dirn… Pretty damn funny! (At least the version I got...) --- | If you're not part of the solution, You're part of the precipitate. | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:04 PM 12/31/1996, Douglas Barnes wrote: > The problem with payment schemes like this is that they're hard > to rationalize (as Lucky points out here). > A direct mail piece (via snail mail) can easily cost the sender > more than a dollar when all costs are taken into account. This > does not seem to have appreciably slowed down junk mailers IRL. > Spam to a large mailing list has a multiplicative effect (although > it's also easier to throw out and/or ignore.) Certainly if someone > had a real product, it would be worth anywhere from $1 to $25 to > post an advertisement to a sizeable mailing list. > On the other hand, a blanket charge would serve as a disincentive > to people who make valuable contributions, unless it were a > completely negligible cost, in which case the advertisers would > have no problem coughing up the money. There's a serious imbalance > between how annoying spam is and how much we're willing to pay > to post (most of us would like to see them charged to the point > where they wouldn't do it at all.) It won't be worthwhile for a year or two for spam artists to go to the trouble of figuring out how to do this. I'm not sure I have a good solution to this problem in the long term, however. If our custom was to send money to people who make good posts, then you could imagine the fee being quite high, say $20, since most of the money will be made back. Voila! We have a wonderful feedback system for how much contribution we have made. People who want to make sure that they are putting in at least as much as they take out can make a little rule for themselves: I won't take money out of my cypherpunks e-cash account. I will only send it to other people for their good posts. In effect, this is a fully distributed tokening system without the choke point of a single token administrator. > In general it seems very difficult to balance the various aspects > of maintaining a lively discussion, fostering a sense of community, > allowing anonymous postings, and keeping the whole thing simple > enough to actually implement. I agree that we should keep it sweet and simple. That's one nice aspect of the e-cash scheme. All the software is already out there, except (maybe) the majordomo part which I have volunteered to do. Keep in mind that if the list brings in, say, $1000/month that buys a lot of food. I have to think that this will liven up the monthly meetings and create many positive and lasting relationships. > I've been on the verge of responding to certain posters over the last > few months, and I've realized before I've hit the "send" key that > I'd be giving them just what they want -- attention -- while further > degrading the signal to noise ratio. This is exactly the sort of process which is facilitated by paying a dollar. In your case it won't make a difference, but most people will find their presence on the list becomes much more responsible when they have to put up a buck. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Criminal, criminal, who's the criminal... WSJ, December 30, 1996: Obscure Treasury Unit Helps DEA Uncover Scheme >From the beginning, it was The Case That Didn't Add Up. It started with a woman in St. Louis who wanted to pay Federal Express $38 to ship a package supposedly containing a $2 paperback book to Los Angeles. The company called the local Drug Enforcement Administration office. [Thanks, FedEx assholes!] Ralph Moore, a DEA agent, got a search warrant, [Seems like pretty flimsy grounds for a warrant to me.] opened the package and found $10,000 in cash. [So?] He checked his records: The woman was on welfare. He searched her house and found a new car, $25,000 stuffed into a coat pocket and papers showing the woman owned seven buildings. "Follow the money" is supposedly an axiom for federal investigators, but in November 1994 Mr. Moore was discovering how tough that is to do in drug cases where suspects are rich and financially savvy. So who was Mr. Moore going to call? He noticed a DEA memo about an obscure unit of the Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. [Dum-da-dum!] The St. Louis case became a prime example of how Fincen, the nation's smallest intelligence agency, brings the latest in high-tech firepower to the never-ending battle against money-laundering schemes. The agency, created in April 1990, uses a staff of 200 analysts and agents to offer state- of-the-art computer tracking and analysis to state and federal agents and prosecutors, giving them more time to work the cases from the street. The DEA's Mr. Moore desperately needed the help. The woman who had mailed the package had a boyfriend who made $20,000 a year working for an electric company. The agent found he had more than 30 different accounts in one bank. Bank records showed hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing through them in patterns that never repeated themselves. Enter James Petrakis, a graying, 47-year-old Fincen investigator, who flew out from Washington. Mr. Petrakis designed a computer program for the case that could follow the money as it flowed through companies -- some phony, some real -- and through people who transferred ownership of some 30 pieces of local real estate that seemed to be involved. There were gaps in the digital portrait that emerged, but the general outlines were stunning: Mr. Moore had uncovered a family-run drug- distribution business that appeared to have stashed between $5 million and $7 million in various investments and purchases in St. Louis banks. Because the business also trafficked in guns, the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tax and Firearms was working on the case, too. Robert Nosbisch, the top bureau agent, agreed that tracking the money was going to be key. "The objective in a case like this is to get anyone who has a significant role into jail and take all of their assets," he says. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ [What do you do when the highwaymen wear badges?] Mr. Moore's chief suspect, a short, hot-tempered man named William Y. Jones, "was too good," he recalls. Mr. Jones had a way of anticipating the federal agent's moves. "It was almost like a chess game. As I would move a piece, he would move a piece," the agent adds. There were other odd things. Although Mr. Jones was 43 (in 1995), his credit records and other personal history only went back to 1985. Before that, he had no records. Mr. Jones's biggest drug moves usually happened on government holidays, when the DEA and ATF staffs were slim. Mr. Moore had a theory: Mr. Jones was probably a federal informant, a man who had worked with federal agents in drug cases before. [More like a graduate of the Federal Witness Protection Program, I'd say. Seems odd that they want to ID us down to the last gnat's eyebrow while making up IDs for their buddies.] "We needed to become unorthodox," Mr. Moore recalls. When wiretaps led them to a $1 million stash of Mr. Jones's cocaine in a car, they seized the drugs and the car, too. Later they heard Mr. Jones say on his tapped cellular phone that federal agents didn't steal cars. One of his drug partners, Mr. Jones concluded, must have double-crossed him. [So now they'll just steal stuff from you and not even notify you that it has been confiscated. Amazing!]

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by tmcghan＠gill-simpson.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Toto wrote: > {snip} the source of any excessive increase could be put on 'hold' > until the system operator has a chance to check on the validity > Bill Frantz wrote: > > > > The Christmas attack against this list shows the need to develop lists > > which are resistant to attacks. ...and how long has Usenet had 'moderated' newsgroups? ( only as long as there have been individuals with the time and patience to screen the volume of input, and exercise thoughtful discretion in selecting the 'worthy' postings.) How smart an 'automatic' filter can clever folks design? for(;;) { ECM; ECCM; } Thomas M. McGhan tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com http://www.gill-simpson.com voice: (410) 467-3335 fax: (410) 235-6961 pagenet: (410) 716-1342 cellular: (410) 241-9113 ICBM: 39.395N 76.469W

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Tim May wants to Kill people!
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is a very sick Tim May who says he would love to kill this guy with a ">clip of hollowpoints through your chest." On Tue, 31 Dec 1996, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > >Message-Id: <199612310025.QAA11547(a)adnetsol.adnetsol.com> > >Comments: Authenticated sender is <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >From: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >Organization: King Media and RW Marketing > >To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > >Date: Mon, 30 Dec 1996 16:33:41 -0800 > >Mime-Version: 1.0 > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII > >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT > >Subject: (Fwd) Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > >Priority: normal > >X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42) > >Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > >Precedence: bulk > > > >This is the message I got in response to my post regarding Mr. May's > >offensive, racist, and bigoted post about ebonics. I have made > >overtures towards peace and tried to explain that I thought that the > >Doctor's verbal slapping was not as bad as it seemed, maybe even he > >deserved it!. He refuses to answer. He's just a pussy, I guess. > >Like's to make terroristic threats. To Nam vets, yet. Ballsy, Tim! > > > >Maybe the Doctor is not to far from wrong. > > > >I would rather have discussed this with you in private e-mail, or > >over a few beers, but you refuse to answer my e-mail. > > > >Received: from you.got.net (root(a)scir-gotnet.znet.net > >[207.167.86.126]) by adnetsol.adnetsol.com (8.6.12/8.6.6) with ESMTP > >id UAA29906 for <rwright(a)adnetsol.com>; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:25:14 > >-0800 Received: from [207.167.93.63] (tcmay.got.net [207.167.93.63]) > >by you.got.net (8.8.3/8.8.3) with ESMTP id UAA13732 for > ><rwright(a)adnetsol.com>; Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:17:45 -0800 X-Real-To: > ><rwright(a)adnetsol.com> X-Sender: tcmay(a)mail.got.net Message-Id: > ><v03007800aeea52e5d282(a)[207.167.93.63]> In-Reply-To: > ><199612230801.AAA24862(a)adnetsol.adnetsol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 > >20:32:00 -0800 To: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> From: "Timothy > >C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> Subject: Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > >X-PMFLAGS: 35127424 0 > > > >------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- > >Date: Fri, 27 Dec 1996 20:32:00 -0800 > >To: "Ross Wright" <rwright(a)adnetsol.com> > >From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> > >Subject: Re: Mr. May's Posts. Other Things. > > > >At 12:09 AM -0800 12/23/96, Ross Wright wrote: > > > >>hard on him. This latest rant of his has made me reconsider your > >>rough treatment of Mr. May. I kinda think he deserves a slapping > >>right now. > > > >Go ahead with your "slapping." > > > >Of course, I'd treat a "slapping" as an assault. I'd love to put a > >clip of hollowpoints through your chest. > > > >Your place or mine? > > > >Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" > >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: 2^1398269 | black markets, > >collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on > >the information superhighway." > > > > > > > > > > >

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:32 PM 12/31/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >At 1:04 PM -0800 12/31/96, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>At 11:47 AM 12/31/1996, Lucky Green wrote: >>>At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>>> The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a >>>> dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he >>>> sees fit.) >>>> We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which >>>> already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. >>> I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this >>> list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message. >> Let's try it and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, we can try >> a more complicated scheme. (I volunteer to modify Majordomo to >> make this happen. We could have this feature in the near future.) > "Let's try it and see how it goes" is often a dangerous step. It could kill > the list as we know it; exactly what fraction of current subscribers do you > think will arrange for digital cash accounts, will arrange their mailing > software to use this, will bother with PGP, etc.? It's not always bad to take a few chances. I've noticed that there is a lot of negativity in the cypherpunks scene. (I am not without sin in this department. ;-) It would be more exciting to try out a few ideas. I would much rather be trying lots of things and throwing out the bad ones. This should lead to better technology. This not only benefits the cypherpunks list, it benefits everybody using the Net, which is (I think) one of our goals. It short circuits poorly intentioned authoritarian schemes to dictate what may or may not be sent to a mailing list. (For example, people often propose to make spam illegal. Most readers of this list will recognize the camel's nose.) > Now maybe this is a Good Thing, to drive out the slackers and those without > good tools integrating PGP into their mailers, etc., but maybe it is not a > Good Thing. It could be a mistake, but I think the only way we will find out is to try it. Unlike the interesting token scheme, this is easy to deploy and it doesn't provide an insurmountable barrier to dissent. You can still put up a dollar to say "This is a drag! Let's get rid of it!" But if your token gets pulled by an abusive token administrator, it's harder to get the word out. (Not impossible, though.) Keep in mind that the worst case is that people will have to ask their e-cash endowed friends for a few ASCII tokens to prepend to their posts to the list. That is not very tough to arrange. >> I have seen a lot of complaints about "too much noise". That is >> not a problem. The problem is too little signal. I can extract >> the signal - unless it isn't there. > My sentiments exactly. But I fail to see how collecting a dollar per post, > or whatever the fee is ultimately set at, increases the number of good > posts (not the percentage, the S/N, the _number_, which is what we both > agree is the important thing). > Explanation? One thing it does for sure is to eliminate attacks where somebody sends thousands of messages to toad.com and overloads its capacity to forward them. It also means that bigger faster hardware can be purchased if the load gets too high, or to compensate somebody to wrangle majordomo. I suspect it will also promote high quality posting. Certainly, "me too" posts and "unsubscrive" posts will be greatly attenuated. And, people who post reams of drivel and invective can only do so at the expense of financing the monthly cypherpunks food bash. This doesn't mean they will stop, but it does mean that we can chown down on hundreds of pounds of guacamole at their expense. As for other people, I think if it isn't worth a dollar to you to post a message, it probably isn't worth it for the rest of us to read it. Without any real evidence, my feeling is that if somebody has to pay a dollar to post a message, they will give it more thought and write it more carefully. This is sort of like expecting children to use proper grammar, forms, and excellent handwriting in preparing a report. The result is that greater care and thought is devoted to the ideas in the report itself. I don't believe that people making valuable contributions have any trouble at all coughing up a dollar to do so. Very few people post more than 10 messages a month. $10/month isn't much of a burden. If this does turn out to be a problem, when readers see a post they like they should send the person a buck to encourage more good work. This is a very effective way of saying "I really enjoyed what you had to say." And, nothing stops frequent posters from asking for money on the list to continue their fine work. In a sense, this is a fully abstracted version of the token scheme. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Would you be interested in this?
by JohnnyDaven＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Our mutual friend, JamesB(a)aol.com said this might be something you would be interested in. You can save a substantial amount of money on your next Florida Vacation and receive an adult pass to Universal Studios. If you are interested please visit the web page at: http://www.o-c-s.com/getaway Or for more information via Auto Responder, send an E-Mail message to: getaway(a)o-c-s.com Best wishes, John

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constitutionlity of mandatory GAK
by Hal Abelson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Given the current discussion of possibile GAK legislation, you may want to check out the session from last March's Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference on outlawing non-escrowed encryption. We invented a manadatory GAK law "Cryptography Control Act of 1995" and debated its constitutionality in a mock "Supreme Court" hearing before a panel of real fedreral judges. The briefs and the oral arguments (available on the Web in RealAudio format) are an excellent source on questions of whether mandatory GAK would be constitutional. The text of the web page is attached below. The actual page has links an extensive set of documents. By the way, watch for the announcement for CFP97, which will be held March 11-14 in Burlingame, CA. -- Hal Abelson ****************************** Text from the Web page: http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/~switz/cfp96/plenary-court.html CFP96 Plenary Session Before the Court: Can the US Government Criminalize Unauthorized Encryption? Presented on Thursday, March 28, 1:30-3:30 PM * Report on the session from the CFP96 Newsletter * Recording of the oral arguments (in RealAudio format) Advocates for the Government: Mark Rasch Mark Jackowski Advocates for the Defense: Andrew Good Phil Dubois Federal Judges: Hon. Sandra Lynch Hon. Susan Bucklew Hon. William Castagna Hon. Nancy Gertner Hon. William C. Young Shadow Panel: Judith McMorrow Charles Nesson Maureen O'Rourke Majority Opinion: Michael Froomkin Dissenting Opinion: Christine Axsmith Bench memo: Alyssa Harvey Brief writers (appellant): Jeffrey Hermes Chris Kelly Brief writers (respondent): Bob Kluge Dan Zelenko Scott Faga Organizer: Andrew Grosso Looming over the controversies surrounding the Digital Telephony Legislation, the Clipper Chip proposal, and the criminal investigation of PGP, is the shadow of perhaps the most critical issue of them all: Will Americans be prohibited from ensuring the privacy of their communications, including preserving those communications against government intrusion? Will strong, non-escrowed encryption be outlawed, and those who use it subjected to criminal prosecution? CFP96, in co-sponsorship with the American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section, presented a moot Court highlighting this question. The format was that of a Supreme Court argument, where former federal prosecutors argued against noted civil liberties lawyers before a panel of five federal judges. A second panel, comprised of regional law school professors, served as a shadow court and rendered a written judgment on the case. The issue being tested was whether an individual, who has successfully used outlawed encryption to hide his conversations while the target of a criminal investigation, can be prosecuted and convicted for use of unauthorized encryption under the (fictional) "Cryptography Control Act of 1995". The background for this session assumed that the defendant's conviction was upheld 2-1 in an appeals court decision, whose majority opinion and dissenting opinion set forth the central Constitutonal arguments for upholding, or overturning, the prohibition of unauthorized encryption. At the CFP session, the Court reviewed the decision and the shadow court overturned it, rendering a majority opinion and a concurring opinion. Documents available The appeals decision * Overview * Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge Mitchell. * Concurring statement filed by Circuit Judge Froomkin. * Dissent filed by Circuit Judge Axsmith. The review before the Court * Brief for the Appellant * Brief for the Respondent * Bench memo * Recording of the oral arguments (in RealAudio format) * Majority Opinion by Justices McMorrow and O'Rourke * Concurring Opinion by Justice Nesson Session participants Arguing on behalf of the government were former federal prosecutor Mark Rasch, and Mark Jackowski, Assistant US Attorney from Tampa, Florida. Mr. Rasch is a former Trial Attorney with the Department of Justice Fraud Section, in Washington, D.C, where he prosecuted the Robert T. Morris case. Mr. Rasch (Mark_Rasch(a)cpqm.saic.com) is currently Legal Counsel for the S.A.I.C. Corporation, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, specializing in computer security matters. Mr. Jackowski became an AUSA in 1984, and concentrated in prosecuting very complex narcotic importation organizations. He tried the BCCI case, a six month trial which took place in Tampa in 1990. He also indicted Panama's General Noriega. He is currently with the Independent Counsel's Office investigating HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. Representing the defendant were two prominent attorneys in the area of cyber liberties, Andrew Good (agood(a)world.std.com / (617) 523-5933) and Phil Dubois (dubois(a)dubois.com / (303) 444-3885). Andrew Good of Silverglate & Good specializes in criminal defense and civil liberties law. He is currently a member of the ABA Task Force on Technology and Law Enforcement, and was co-counsel for David LaMacchia and for Steve Jackson Games, Inc. Mr. Dubois is a solo practitioner in Denver Colorado; among his clients is Phil Zimmermann, author of PGP. The panel judging the arguments was comprised of federal appellate and district court judges: * The Honorable Sandra Lynch serves on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and sits in Boston, Massachusetts. She was appointed to the bench by President Clinton. * The Honorable Susan Bucklew is a United States District Court Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting in Tampa. She was appointed to the bench in 1994 after having served a Circuit Court Judge for the State of Florida. * The Honorable William J. Castagna is a Senior District Court Judge U.S. District Court Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting in Tampa. He was appointed ot the bench in 1979. * The Honorable Nancy Gertner is a United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was appointed by President Clinton. * The Honorable William C. Younga is United States District Judge for the District of Massachusetts, in Boston, Massachusetts. He also serves as an adjunct professor at Harvard Law School. A second panel, made up of regional law school professors, served as a shadow court and rendered a judgment on the case. * Judith McMorrow (McMorrow(a)hermes.bc.edu) is Associate Professor of Law at Boston College. She has served as a law clerk for the former Chief Judge of the United States Supreme Court, Warren Burger. She earned her J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, and has a B.A. from Kalamazoo University. * Maureen O'Rourke (MO1(a)acs.bu.edu) is Associate Professor of Law at Boston University. She holds Bachelors' degree in accounting and computer science from Marist College, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. * Charles Nesson is Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Contact: nesson(a)hulaw1.harvard.edu / 617 495-4609 * The shadow court rendered a Majority Opinion and a Concurring Opinion. Michael Froomkin (Appeals Court Majority Opinion) is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Miami, in Florida, a position he has held since 1992. He has served as a law clerk for both the Hon. Steven F. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Chief Judge John F. Grady, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He earned his law degree from Yale University, holds a M.Phil. degree from Cambridge University, and earned a B.A. from Yale with a double major of economics and history. Among his recent writings is, "The Metaphor is the Key: Cryptography, the Clipper Chip and the Constitution", which was published in 1995 in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Contact: Froomkin(a)law.miami.edu / (305) 284-4285 Christine Axsmith (Appeals Court Dissenting Opinion) is a Computer Security Consultant with the Orkand Corporation, in Washington, D.C., and is currently assigned to the Office of Consular Affairs of the United States State Department. She received her J.D. from Catholic University, and holds a B.S. Degree in Computer Science from Drexel University. Contact: axsmith(a)dockmaster.ncsc.mil Alysssa Harvey (Bench memo) is a student at Georgetown University Law School. Jeffrey Hermes and Chris Kelly (Brief for the Appellant) are students at Harvard Law School. The brief for the Government was prepared by Bob Kluge and Dan Zelenko (American Univeristy School of Law) and Scott Faga (George Mason University School of Law). Andrew Grosso (Organizer) is currently in private practice in Washington, D.C. From 1983 to 1994, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Tampa, Florida, and Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his J.D. from the University of Notre Dame Law School, and holds M.S. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in both physics and computer science. Contact: agrosso(a)acm.org / (202) 663-9041

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:58 PM 12/30/1996, Bill Frantz wrote: > The Christmas attack against this list shows the need to develop lists > which are resistant to attacks. If cyberspace is to become the town square > of the next century, we need to be able to discourage brown shirts attacks > on political gatherings. If lists are to be a major part of the political > life of the community, then they must be resistant to attacks from > knowledgeable, well financed attackers, not just the shits who were the > most recent perps. > [Fine posting token proposal deleted.] The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he sees fit.) We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. What I like about this scheme is that well-financed attackers will be welcomed. A spam attack just means that John can buy more sushi! (I volunteer to modify majordomo to accept e-cash if there is enough interest in this proposal.) Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:04 AM 12/31/1996, Sandy Sandfort wrote: > There is a simple solution to keeping anonymous posters anonymous > under this or any similar scheme. Volunteers could act as > "gateways" for anonymous posts. Self-selected list members could > announce that they would forward anonymous posts using one of > their own tokens for the purpose. (In the alternative, the > gateway volunteers could be given extra tokens solely for that > purpose.) Would this expose the posters to liability? Unlike an anonymous remailer, they are deciding what to post. In the case of software, criminal liability result. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Booms, busts and cranks
by jbugden＠smtplink.alis.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

by Terence Corcoran "ONCE again the holidays and other sources of good cheer, including a growing economy and rising stock markets, have been wrecked by the annual Maclean's/CBC News poll. In this annual national survey, the majority of Canadians express generally sensible views on most issues--less government isn't so bad, a bigger role for the private sector is good, debt reduction hasn't gone far enough, private health care is acceptable, as are multiracial immigration ... ... "An accompanying Maclean's story on the looming expansion of the private sector is mostly an anti-business report that chastises companies for layoffs and mean-spirited bottom-line thinking. The problem, it claims, is the failure to hold companies responsible for anything other than maximizing shareholder value, a popular theme among statists who have run out of state. http://web.theglobeandmail.com/web/cgi-bin/ DisplayPage?SITE=web&KEY=961231.ROBColumn.RCORC

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 31 Dec 1996, Hal Finney wrote: > An alternative is to give each subscriber only a small, fixed number of > blinded tokens which he will use for the lifetime of his subscription > to the list. When someone posts anonymously, they use up one of their > tokens. Then, if the message was not abusive, a new blinded token is > created, encrypted with the public key of the good-guy anonymous poster, > and broadcast to subscribers. This way good anonymous posters will get > to keep posting, while abusive ones will shortly run out of anonymous > posting tokens. Oops, ran out of tokens.... UNSUBSCRIBE cypherpunks SUBSCRIBE cypherpunks Lance OK now I'm ready to post more crap!

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a >dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he >sees fit.) > >We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which >already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message. -- 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://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm

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[IMPORTANT] ElGamal
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim Mayonnaise's abysmal grammar, atrocious spelling and feeble responses clearly identify him as a product of the American education system. \0/ \0/\ \ / / \0/ \0/ \0/\ \ / /\0/ \0/ Tim Mayonnaise | / /) | (\ | | / /) | (\ \ | / \__/\__/0\__/0\__/0\__/ \__/ \__/\__/0\__/0\__/0\__/\__/ \

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by Hal Finney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "Mark M." <markm(a)voicenet.com> > On Tue, 31 Dec 1996, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > > Send a number of unique tokens to each subscriber each day. > [...] > > If tokens are used improperly (to post off-topic materials) the > > offending subscriber is denied any further tokens. > > > > The problem of this scheme is (besides its cost) that anonymous users > > will not be truly anonymous. > > I think this problem can be solved by blind signing the tokens. A user > generates a random number, multiplies it by the blinding factor, then sending > it to a token server which would append a timestamp and sign the blinded > token. All signature requests should be signed with a PGP key. The server > response would be encrypted with the user's public key. A person's PGP key > would be sent along with the subscription request and then saved by the list > software. This is an interesting idea, however it will be possible for someone with a respectable public persona to continue getting tokens indefinately for posting abusive anonymous messages. There is no way to link the anonymous tokens with the ones which were issued to good subscribers. An alternative is to give each subscriber only a small, fixed number of blinded tokens which he will use for the lifetime of his subscription to the list. When someone posts anonymously, they use up one of their tokens. Then, if the message was not abusive, a new blinded token is created, encrypted with the public key of the good-guy anonymous poster, and broadcast to subscribers. This way good anonymous posters will get to keep posting, while abusive ones will shortly run out of anonymous posting tokens. The big problem with schemes like this is the difficulty of defining "good" posts in an acceptable way. Some list members are hard-line freedom-of-speechers and don't want to see any limitations on list postings. Others would probably classify 80% of the messages on the list at times as grounds for termination of posting privileges. Everyone will have their own thresholds. There is also the administrative problem of who will judge the posts. This could take a large commitment of time. I'm sure many of us have gotten behind in our list reading from time to time and it can be intimidating to return from a trip to find hundreds of messages waiting. Imagine how it would be if you were supposed to be reading them and looking for bad messages. We might also want to consider the paradoxical possibility that if we remove the junk, the list will die! At least now we are constantly reminded that the cypherpunks list exists. Other lists like the cryptography and coderpunks can sometimes go for quite a while without any posts at all. On CP you have the sense of a dynamic community where you can hope for a response to your posts, more so than on a list which is silent for days at a time. Hal

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Cash-Grabber-Reversal !!!
by bizman＠mwt.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some time ago....you shared an email message with me. I'm not going to tell you to quit doing what your doing but... I will share something that may help and compliment your current offer. Yours FREE! I will send you a copy of my "Reversal Letter" that has made over $1.098.00 last month. Use this powerful letter to anyone who sends you a offer via direct mail. The "Reversal Letter" is sent snail mail only, If you would like to get a copy of this "money-grabbing...cash producing letter" email me your snail mail address. If you are working a Primary MLM or business opportunity...feel free to let us know, The Reversal Letter is sent to people who send you their offers. Powerful! Thank You!

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Re: Old Russian Orthography
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr Yoshimasa Tsuji <yamato(a)YT.CACHE.WASEDA.AC.JP> writes: > Hello friends, a Happy New Year to you all. Thank you! And a Happy New Year to you too. <very interesting stuff - near year's present? - skipped> > Incidentally, I wonder how one can transliterate oldish Russian alphabets? > I am sure fita should be "th", but as to dotted i and jat', I haven't got > the faintest idea. I remember seeing an old Library of Congress transliteration table where jat' was transliterated as e with some accent, and dotted i was an i with some accent. I took a quick look on my shelf and can't find it now. (LOC is not a good scheme, since one can't always recover the original from it. :-) The U.S.G. Printing Office manual seems to suggest that one translates into the new orthography before transliterating (fita to f, dotted i and izhitsa to i, yat' to e or yo). This may lead to an occasional problem: suppose you have an index alphabetized according to the old rules: ib.. ik... (regular i) ia... ie... (dotted i before another vowel) If you fold dotted i into i, you'll be looking for 'ia' before 'ib'. Ditto for yat', which came much later than e in the collating sequence.

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by ph＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:47 AM 12/31/1996, Lucky Green wrote: >At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >> The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a >> dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he >> sees fit.) >> We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which >> already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. > I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this > list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message. Let's try it and see how it goes. If it doesn't work, we can try a more complicated scheme. (I volunteer to modify Majordomo to make this happen. We could have this feature in the near future.) I think we should understand that two features are being discussed. One is protecting the list from spam attacks. By this I mean attacks where somebody sends very large numbers of messages to the list and brings the mail server to its knees. Charging a dollar a message solves this problem - just buy more hardware with the proceeds. If The Enemy wishes to finance the cypherpunks list - more power to him. The other feature is filtering. I do not need anybody to filter my mail. I am quite capable of doing it myself, thank you. If somebody wants to set up a tokened filter scheme, that is great, but let's see it implemented as an added header to the cypherpunks messages. Then people can filter on it if they want, but it should be their choice. Anybody who cannot set up such a filter, or find somebody who can set up such a filter for them, or cannot find somebody who will forward only filtered messages to them, is too helpless to be a cypherpunk. I have seen a lot of complaints about "too much noise". That is not a problem. The problem is too little signal. I can extract the signal - unless it isn't there. I propose that we spend the money on food for the monthly meeting. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Zippy, anonymously
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.metahtml.com/apps/zippy/welcome.mhtml Let Zippy provide you with web service. Chaining through the anonymizer works, too. :) Adam -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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subliminal channels and software failure modes
by David Molnar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Just a thought I had the other day. Probably unconciously plagarized, but bear with me. What about using subliminal channels as a tool to signal software failure? That is, suppose we define some kind of condition in which the software could continue to work, but should not. In addition, simple cessation of function is not possible, or not advisable. For examples, all that comes to mind off the top of my head is "stolen" software...though perhaps one might use subliminal channels for diagnostic equipment if competitors are assumed to be listening in? When such a condition is met, the software modifies its output (which should be signed w/something which has a nice, big subliminal channel...SHA?) to signal the condition and the particulars. After modifying itself to produce the altered output, it deletes the code responsible for the modification. Unless caught in the act, or compared to a legitimate copy, the application appears no different than before. I was thinking in terms of crypto (or other) software that attempts to personalize itself to a particular machine. If someone steals the HD or grabs the keys and program, their output will be 'tainted', alerting legitimate users to the theft. Hardware disconnected from its normal environment might use such a channel to indicate its 'stolen' or 'temporarily down - come fix' status. This is security through obscurity...the chances of it working are about the chance that no one notices the change or finds the code responsible. I suppose the software industry (and the pirates) will be too happy to provide examples of many attempts to use such schemes. For this reason, I would only ask if it makes sense for limited distributions of software or hardware products. Is this kind of system already in use? Any ideas on making it more applicable to general distribution, or has this already been tried and discarded? David Molnar

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Re: Just another government fuckover: New crypto regulation
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 31 Dec 96 at 13:56, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > > "Cypher punks" write stupid racist flames and postmaster complaints, > not code. Yes, and they are sad that ebonics IS NOT going to be a course taught in school. I spoke with a source at the Oakland School District who said they would not allow papers to be turned in written in ebonics. It is just an effort for educators to better understand how their students may communicate. So everyone who liked Tim May's fake sarcasm are now sad that they made fools of themselves. > > > I am not "here" - I've been unsubscribed by the head censor, > cocksucker John Gilmore at the request of Ray Arachelian and Timmy > May. They're "here" to harrass and to flame and they don't want > followups from the victims of their harrassment. You are correct, there Doctor! Just look at what just happened to me. > > > Freedom for whom, or from whom? I have no great despect for Abraham > "I freed who?" Lincoln, but I like the quote from him: "Those who > deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." > Some folks on this mailing list remind me of hardcore communists > that believe that orthodix marxism works, and everyone who tried and > failed to implement it, was perverting marx's ideas. > U.S.constitution was an instrument of class warfare. > > Yes, let's see some more "dissidents" unsubscribed! Let's see some > more mailbombs and postmaster complaints! Let's see punitive action > in response to speech! That's all "cypher punks" are good for. > Yes, Yes, Yes! =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Re: Hardening lists against spam attacks
by Douglas Barnes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The problem with payment schemes like this is that they're hard to rationalize (as Lucky points out here). A direct mail piece (via snail mail) can easily cost the sender more than a dollar when all costs are taken into account. This does not seem to have appreciably slowed down junk mailers IRL. Spam to a large mailing list has a multiplicative effect (although it's also easier to throw out and/or ignore.) Certainly if someone had a real product, it would be worth anywhere from $1 to $25 to post an advertisement to a sizeable mailing list. On the other hand, a blanket charge would serve as a disincentive to people who make valuable contributions, unless it were a completely negligible cost, in which case the advertisers would have no problem coughing up the money. There's a serious imbalance between how annoying spam is and how much we're willing to pay to post (most of us would like to see them charged to the point where they wouldn't do it at all.) Possibly a system of charging for non-list-members? Sort of a closed list with a way for outside posters to contribute if they really wanted to? In general it seems very difficult to balance the various aspects of maintaining a lively discussion, fostering a sense of community, allowing anonymous postings, and keeping the whole thing simple enough to actually implement. The best approach I can think of for dealing with a lot of this crap is to a) ignore outright spam, b) do not feed the energy creatures (the people on the list who thrive on conflict.) and c) instead of responding to noise, contribute to signal. I've been on the verge of responding to certain posters over the last few months, and I've realized before I've hit the "send" key that I'd be giving them just what they want -- attention -- while further degrading the signal to noise ratio. At 11:47 AM 12/31/96 -0800, you wrote: >At 10:25 AM 12/31/96 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>The easiest and fastest solution is to set up toad.com to charge a >>dollar per message. (Proceeds to be spent by John Gilmore as he >>sees fit.) >> >>We can then leverage off the existing e-cash infrastructure which >>already provides blinding software for free on all major platforms. > >I am not sure that this proposal would work. Some of the spammers on this >list are rather dedicated. They might gladly pay a dollar per message. > > > >-- 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://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm >

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