December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Digicash in serious trouble
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: stalder(a)fis.fis.utoronto.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 12:03:10 -0500 To: micropay(a)ai.mit.edu From: Felix Stalder <stalder(a)fis.utoronto.ca> Subject: Digicash in serious trouble Sender: owner-micropay(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: micropay(a)ai.mit.edu [bad news] http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,28360,00.html By Tim Clark Staff Writer, CNET News.com November 4, 1998, 6:05 p.m. PT Electronic-cash pioneer DigiCash said today it's filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after shrinking its payroll to about six people from nearly 50 in February. The company, which has been running off a bridge loan from its venture capital investors since June, is seeking new investors from established financial institutions or a buyer for its software technology. The company's operations in the Netherlands, where it was founded, were liquidated in September. "To really launch and brand something like this in the Internet space is likely to take a fair amount more capital," said Scott Loftesness, DigiCash's interim CEO since August. "It's more appropriate for strategic investors, corporate players or banks themselves as a consortium model." Electronic-cash schemes have found difficult sledding recently. First Virtual Holdings, which had a form of e-cash, exited the business in July. CyberCash's CyberCoin offering hasn't really caught on. Digital Equipment, now part of Compaq Computer is testing its Millicent electronic cash, and IBM is in early trials for a product called Minipay. Under bankruptcy laws, DigiCash's Chapter 11 filing allows the company to continue operations, while keeping its creditors at bay as the company reorganizes. Most of DigiCash's $4 million in debt is owed to its initial venture capital financiers who extended the bridge loan, August Capital, Applied Technology, and Dutch investment firm Gilde Investment. DigiCash's eCash allows consumers to make anonymous payments of any amount--and anonymity differentiates eCash against other e-cash schemes. DigiCash's intellectual property assets include patents, protocols, and software systems that also could be used for applications, like online electronic voting or private scrip issued by a particular retailer. DigiCash suffered a setback in September when the only U.S. bank offering its scheme, Mark Twain Bank, dropped the offering. But a number of major banks in Europe and Australia offer or are testing DigiCash's electronic cash. Also in September, DigiCash closed its Dutch operations and liquidated its assets there. Loftesness said DigiCash has a list of 35-40 potential partners, and he has been talking to players like IBM for months. He expects to resolve DigiCash's status in the next five months. "Everybody feels anonymous e-cash is inevitable, but the existing situation was not going to get there from here," said Loftesness, who is frustrated by potential partners telling him, "This is absolutely strategic, but unfortunately it's not urgent." The company was founded by David Chaum and was well-known in the Internet's earliest days. MIT Media Labs' Nicholas Negroponte is a director of DigiCash. --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo(a)desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner(a)desk.nl -----|||||---||||----|||||--------||||---- Les faits sont faits. http://www.fis.utoronto.ca/~stalder --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

1 0

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern.
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim, you said... ***** If you do decide to stake your laptop as refered above there are a few things to know.... - Make sure the stake is in suitable ground without lots of quartz and other similar peizo-electric materials. - The stake should extend at least 3ft. into the ground. - When the stake is driven in, the ground should be thoroughly wetted which usualy means quite a bit of water (30 gals or so should do it), if possible wet it over a 24 hour period prior to staking. - Make sure the stake and the cable leading to the laptop are copper (or silver if you're rich) - You don't want to be close to phone, power, and other sorts of underground utilities. **** Please explain to me why it matters that the box be grounded! Radiated energy from chips and traces is independent of your mongo ground strap to the mother ship. All the strap does is alter the DC potential. Shield your box well but design out the leg irons and the geological requirements. Mike

2 1

Re: TEMPEST laptops (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 09:28:06 -0800 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Re: TEMPEST laptops (fwd) > The distinction you are trying to express is that not all signals have > equal information content and that it is the levels of the high-content > ones that matter. Nope. What I am saying is the absolute magnitude of the carrier wave is irrelevant, it's the modulation that matters and that modulation if small and it's riding on a big carrier is hard to get at because you swamp your front-ends because of dynamic range. > Fine, but shielding is indiscriminate so shield away. Shielding will attenuate all parts of the signal so it is a Good Thing (TM). > And run your Tesla coil and some Ramones music to increase the ambient > noise while you're doing sensitive computing. Gabba gabba hey hey...thought I don't run my Tesla Coil when my computers are on, they object to the 4ft sparks. > Look for MIB carrying Dewars in your neighborhood! > How cold do Peltier junctions get? > Probably good enough for a sidewinder or a low-noise rcvr. Peltier devices are for thermal transport by binding the thermal photons and transporting them to a different environ where they may be emitted. Hence the original environ is cooled. You're talking about Josephson Junctions I suspect and they're useless for signal detection, they're a switch. SQUIDS are what are used for truly small level signals. The KKK took my baby away.... ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 11:42:41 -0800 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. > Please explain to me why it matters that the box be grounded! Electricity runs from a high-potential point to ground. If it isn't grounded it radiates away into space where it can be detected. If the Faraday Cage isn't grounded it simply acts as a parasitic oscillator and re-emits the signal from inside, though at a lower amplitude. Remember, charge rests on the *OUTSIDE* of a object so that any charge picked up internaly gets passed to the outside surface. Which raises another point. Since sharp corners radiate better because they hold larger charges one should probably avoid sharp angles or corners. Though you might be able to use that to advantage by having a caged needle that radiates the majority away into the grounded cage. Probably the ideal 'laptop' would be a metal ball with a grounding wire and a single large mil-spec connector that drives a HMD. Something like the Rock City by Archistrat but round instead of cubical. > Radiated energy from chips and traces is independent of your mongo > ground strap to the mother ship. Not if the ground plane on the pcb is built right. The amount of free-space radiation can be minimized because the capacitive coupling between the emitting source and the local ground is less than the capacitive coupling to Earth through the atmosphere. Since the signal path impedence to the local ground plain is lower it will carry, proportionaly, the majority of the signal. > All the strap does is alter the DC > potential. Shield your box well but design out the leg irons and the > geological requirements. Actualy it is much more complex than that, it effects the AC signal path impedence as well - which is exactly what one wants. As I said above, don't ground the box and it simply acts as a secondary emitter. This is analogous to those parasitic oscillators they put in books and such that ring an alarm if you walk between the poles at the store. I'm at work right now so I can't get too specific but there is a book that I have at home that is called 'Digital Black Magic' (I believe). It covers a lot of these sorts of issues. When I'm home later I'll post a pointer to the correct title, author, and ISBN. The 1st rule of electrons: They always take the shortest path to ground. Corollary: If they can't get to ground they radiate their excess energy away as photons. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: TEMPEST laptops
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:45 PM 11/4/98 -0800, Tim May wrote: >>The other question is how hard, given a _specific_ machine would it be to >>create a "RF" jammer? Sort of an active defense versus the passive defense >>of a Tempest sheild. build a device that measures the RF coming off a Well dang Tim, if you're gonna work inside a Faraday cage you may as well run a Tesla coil outside it... --Lace Aliens Slide on my Rugs

2 1

Re: TEMPEST laptops (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:56:20 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: Re: TEMPEST laptops (fwd) > >It depends on the frequency. Last time I checked a laser or a maser (both > >are radio waves strictly speaking) travel LOS. The scattering comes from > >beam divergence and incidental refractions and reflections from the > >molecules in the air and supported detritus. > > And both Lasers and Masers scatter under certain conditions. If you > can see the laser, it is scattering a bit of [energy light photons] All EM radiation scatters *IF* the wavelength of the signal is comparable to the wavelength of the particulate. If the particulate is less than about 1/3 wavelength it won't significantly scatter. The reason that dust in the air scatters lasers (and masers don't have this problem because the wavelength is too long) is that the particles are significantly larger than the wavelenght of the signal. It is directly analogous to moon-shine. In astronomy this is related to something called the Poynting Effect. This is also the reason that IR radiation goes through smoke and fog while visible light won't. Raleigh Scattering is the reason that the fog appears white. In photography and radar mapping this is what limits the resolution of the bounced signal as well. You can build an experiment to demonstrate this with peg-board, pegs, and some rope. Lay the peg-board on a table. Place a peg on one edge and connect the rope. then along the line of the rope place other pegs at equal but different distances and try to get a transverse plane wave to travel down the rope. Note the relative wavelenght of the wave in the rope to the spacing of the pegs. It takes practice to get it to work correctly so don't give up to easy. > I was under the (apparently false) impression that things like > animal bodies, and ordinary building materials (like wood, Lathe & > plaster/drywall) wouldn't stop or significantly bounce the beams back the > way you didn't want them to go. Depends on the material, angle of incidence, water content, frequency of the signal, transmissivity of the material at that frequency, etc. In the 10cm radar (used by tanks and ground troops to find each other) even leaves will bounce a signal. > I was thinking more of controling the direction of the RF, rather > than trying to completely supress it. Exaclty. The issue then is what do we do with the signal once we've got it directed where we want it. For EM signals we want to get them to a ground plane so they go away and don't exist anymore. If it doesn't exist anymore you can't very well tap it. > We're not cooking Hotdogs here, and we aren't using (for the most > part) microwaves. Yes, you can heat a hotdog on a PII, but that is more > from heat radiation than RF. > > Microwave ovens also leak RF. True enough, but the physics are applicable. Don't confuse cause with effect. As to microwave ovens leaking, yes but they leak orders of magnitude less which makes them orders of magnitude harder to detect. That is the point to TEMPEST after all, take advantage of the 1/r^2 law so the mallet has to be sitting right in your lap to get a good field strength. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 13:09:09 -0800 > From: David Honig <honig(a)sprynet.com> > Subject: Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. > At 08:47 AM 11/5/98 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: > >Here's a simple way to test the bounce-pattern of your micro-wave oven: > > Simpler: stick a neon-bulb with the leads twisted off into the oven. > Watch the glow vary. Put a cup of water in there since you're not supposed > to run empty. Yes, but they don't give you as easily measured level of the incident radiation. with a neon bulb or a flourescent tube (what I prefer) you have a hard time mapping radiation level to brightness with commenly available photometers. Photo quality stuff isn't nearly accurate enough. > > - Make sure the stake is in suitable ground without lots of quartz > > and other similar peizo-electric materials. > > Not piezo (though quartz is), but non conductive. You have to > tap the groundwater table. Sand, granite don't conduct. Sand has lots of piezo. You don't want piezo because the ground pressure on the stake will cause excessive noise. As to non-conductive, you *WANT* it to be conductive otherwise the signals will form ground waves and propogate horizontaly. You can see this with radar signals from aircraft that bounce off the tarmac (I used to live next to the Austin airport and had access to a spectrum analyzer). If the ground plane isn't conductive it isn't a ground plane. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:: Subject: more on Dore's discovery of intelligence (satellite 415) http://www.enterprisemission.com/images/auscnfrm.jpg http://www.lunaranomalies.com/update2.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_203000/203133.stm

1 0

Holloween II: Microsoft Plugs Linux
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.opensource.org/halloween2.html is a more extensive, (positively glowing) freshly smuggled (planted?) internal analysis of Linux by Microsoft. 103k, but definitely worth reading. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

3 2

Now where am I gonna get a good horseburger?
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In CA it is now a felony to eat a horse. I don't remember asking to be transported to Walt Disney World...wait 'til someone other than Gary Larson anthropomorphises the chicken, cow and pig! On a lighter, more technical note - Avoiding carefully, for the moment, Harvey Rook's statement that weaknesses in cipher systems often lie in key generation and management and not in the crypto algorithms, I'll ask a few -naive- questions: If we construct a CSPRNG with a ?sufficiently? large state and then use the output of that PRNG to generate a new key for each block encrypted by a standard block cipher have we gained anything? Large files vs. small? When used with triple encryption like 3DES? The ROI for finding a single key is certainly much lower if the PRNG is "good". I've never seen a PR keystream for a conventional block cipher discussed so I thought I'd lob it out there. Mike

1 0

RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Matthew James Gering 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Robert Hettinga wrote: > > A government is just another economic actor. A very large > > economic actor with lots of guns and a monopoly on force, > > but an economic actor nonetheless. > > No they are not, > > Yes, they are. Can you say 'taxes'? Imposed by a gun. > Can you say 'interstate commerce'? What about it? > Can you say 'mint money'? Can you say 'federal reserve'? Can you say government fiat? > Can you say 'FDIC'? Can you say banking regulation at the point of a gun? > I thought so. Yep. > > History shows this. > > Really? What history? The Soviet Union is a prime recent example. British Mercantilism. Governments are ultimately bound to economics in the sense of human behavior and productivity -- the more they deny the nature of microeconomic actors, the quicker they self-destruct. History shows that every dynasty well eventually self-destruct, to think ours won't is foolish. My point is we don't have competitive governments per se, you have a power void that is filled by new government that can be just as hostile to those microeconomic actors. All our government failures have yet to produce a sustainable government. > False distinction. Politics is about control and power The fundamental laws of economics are supply and demand. As soon as you through force into the equation, it is no longer economic, it is political. > in human society that breaks down to force and money. The essence of money has no political roots. The essence of money is human productivity and trade. Money is tied to politics currently because it is regulated by force of government and the money *supply* is created by government fiat. > There you go again, confusing privacy with economics... The discussion *was* *privacy*, or did you completely miss the initial discussion? Privacy (as opposed to secrecy) is about discretionary disclosure of information. To invade privacy is to remove or prevent that discretion. There is an economic cost of doing so, and an economic benefit. Corporations are bound by those economics, whereas government can mandate transparency by whim and gun. > > use coercive force today preventing privacy, but government is > > their instrument of force. > > True, but that isn't a function of regulation per se only the > particular type of regulation that we have implimented. It is the *nature* of regulation. The end element of any regulation is a gun. Government is a natural instrument of collective legalized force by any group that can influence it, and to think it can't and won't be influenced denies human nature in regards to power. Every government is despotic by nature, force corrupts. > > They have a *legal* monopoly on force (within a state). > > No, they don't. It is perfectly legal for an individual to > own a weapon. The legal monopoly on the *initiation* of force. And in fact you have very little freedom (eternally diminishing) to obtain potential force (arms) and use it in a *reactionary* manner. You have absolutely *no* freedom to use it reactionary against government (which is in the face of the 4th). > There is also a clear distinction between the local police, > your state police, federal agents, military, etc. It is an irrelevant distinction in this case, it is all government. They do not use force against each other as any sort of competitive balance. > No it doesn't. It points to the fact that individuals want to > participate in some activity that some other party doesn't > want to occur. General democratic consensus is highly controlled by media and government propaganda (if they are not one in the same). What is the underlying motivation? Is hemp illegal because people don't want people to smoke weed, or because of the cotton lobby? Is the war on drugs so unbreakable because people don't want people taking drugs, or because the government funds black operations with its sales, uses it to confiscate private property, and as a sounding post for increased powers? Do people not want free banking, or does the government wish to protects its fiat currency and artificial stability flying in the face of economic reality? > It does not imply that the regulating party wants the potential > income from those activities. Money or power, more often than most people think. > Further more, even in a free-market there will exist > black markets. Provided you don't corrupt the meaning of free-market to include any possible black market, then yes, there will *always* be a black market. It can be made rather insignificant however. > The aspect of a free-market is that there is no consequence from > such actions (unless you want to admit to allowing corporations to have > their own hit squads). And again you pervert the meaning of free market. I'm tired arguing that subject with you, go read a book. Matt

2 1

RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:43:40 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone > (fwd) > Anarchy is usually defined as the absense of government. What > exactly makes up a "government", what are it's defining characteristics? Well let's see.... control over some geographic area arbitration of conflict tithe from the inhabitants of that area regulation of economic systems by controlling the medium of trade (ie money) > Simply a device for reallocating wealth?--Insufficient, there are > lots of mechanisms for that. No, government control economies that's not the same thing as having re-allocation of wealth as a goal. That's more a responsbility of a business than a government. Governments, at least in principle, are concerned with stable economies and the continued existance of same. Who exactly, if anyone, is holder of that wealth is in principle irrelevant to the definition of political systems as a general expression of human psychology. Though it is clear the devil is in the details. > A body that lays down standards and rules of conduct?--Sounds like > a church or industry consortium to me. It sounds like an expression of the social aspects of human psychology. Whether it's a church, industry consortium, local LEA, local fire dept., etc. > A heirarchical (sp?) structure that uses fear, propaganda and force > to reallocate wealth, enforce standards and rules of conduct, and other > things at whim (for varying values of "whim", from the "whim" of a > dictator, to the "whim" of the "body politic"). Who cares whether it's heirarchical or flat (as in an anarchy or free-market). The point is that abuse takes place. It is no more ethical to bash somebodies brains in under an anarchy than it is in a democracy or a communicsm. > Now, THAT is a government. Yes, some of what it enforces is > probably a good idea (i.e. everyone driving on the same side of the road, > &etc) some if it is kinda silly (don't smoke dope, or you're going to jail > (Here, have a beer)), and some of it is downright stupid and shortsighted > (encryption policy, not drinking beer out of a bucket on the sidewalk). Sounds like an expression of the range of human beliefs. Whether something is right, wrong, stupid, etc. is a function of individual statements of importance and ranking of consequences. > Anarchy is not having to be effected by that, being "free" to > follow what one thinks is right. Which unfortunately includes the neighbor being able to take your property by force since he believes it's right. > How one gets to that state is not really > relevent. Tell that to the mother of the kid who got killed last night because he had something somebody else wanted. Also explain to here how under an anarchy there isn't any recourse for her other than to try to find that person herself and kill them.... Yep, that is a very efficient and ethical system you wanna build. My statement above simply lays out the position having Privacy > (for large enough values of privacy to be meaningful) and Freedom (for > large enough values of Freedom to be meaningful) one is effectively in an > anarchistic state. That is what "close enough to be meaningful" meant. Freedom is the right to do what you want *WITHOUT* impinging or otherwise limiting others right to express their desires and wants. Anarchy clearly won't do that. > Privacy is (at least it's my understanding) the ability to hide or > mask information in such a way that only people you wish to have access > to it do. If privacy exists you don't have to hide things because nobodies looking in the first place. You only need to hide things if you're reasonably certain somebody else wants it. > There are varying degrees of Privacy, from "Well, at least they Yep, like there are varying degrees of pregnancy. Either somebody is looking or they aren't. > don't analyize what's in my feeces, even if they do watch me take it" to > being able to completely hide any information at all from anyone. No, that is varying degrees of *respect* for privacy. Not the same animal at all. > Freedom is the ability to make choices, and exercise those choices. Without impinging on others freedom. It's worth noting that anarchist don't add that last one in there because it blows their whole little house of cards completely away. > Just like privacy, there are varying degrees of freedom, from the > convict who can chose wheter he/she wants to eat that slop or go hungry, to > the president of the US who can (apparently) bomb people with impunity, lie > under oath & etc. No, there are varying degrees of respect for freedom. > When the amount of freedom and privacy is high enough, it is > indistinguishable from anarchy. Sure it is, because under anarchy there is no protection that one persons expression won't interfere with anothers expression without resorting to violence. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

FYI: Digicash bankruptcy
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text X-Sender: "Nahum.array" <nahum.array(a)csci.ca> Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 14:32:51 -0500 To: ibc-forum(a)ARRAYdev.com From: Nahum Goldmann <Nahum.Goldmann(a)ARRAYdev.com> Subject: FYI: Digicash bankruptcy Mime-Version: 1.0 I believe this kind of information is invaluable. Personally, I do not subscribe to Agre's doom and gloom. For years I'm saying that there is a very little "i" and a very large "C" in iCommerce. Chaum might be many bright things but an entrepreneur he definitely ain't. But than it's quite difficult in this new paradigm for all of us. Of course, Bob Hettinga could have saved quite a lot of energy and avoid much disappointment if he did pay for that my trip to Antigua. I always believe that unpaid advice is not listened to, and here is a good prove of this concept. Have fun. I'm sure it will come. Eventually. Nahum Goldmann ARRAY Development http://www.ARRAYdev.com ======================================================= Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 10:36:52 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre <pagre(a)alpha.oac.ucla.edu> To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> Subject: [RRE]Digicash bankruptcy Sender: <rre(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu> List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.2 by Fog City Software, Inc. List-Subscribe: <mailto:rre-on@lists.gseis.ucla.edu> List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:rre-off@lists.gseis.ucla.edu> [With the bankruptcy of Digicash, it is time to assemble the definitive list of underperforming Internet technologies. The received wisdom is that the Internet lies at the vortex of a historically unprecedented era of intensive and disruptive technological change. A sober reading of the evidence, however, supports something much closer to the opposite thesis, viz, the Internet is a modest and useful new tool that, despite itself, has given rise to an astonishingly wasteful mania whereby perfectly good capital is plowed into one ill-conceived technology after another. Consider: interactive television, VRML, Active X, network computers, "push" technology, agents, "social" interfaces, resource visualization, cryptographic payment mechanisms (aka "electronic commerce"), and others that I hope you'll remind me about. Each of these has been the object of a frenzy that has compelled all manner of smart people, and a whole lot of dumb ones such as myself, to say things like, "boy oh boy, the world is going to be completely different a year from now". This has been going on continuously since the PR hype that accompanied the run-up to the (failed) Communications Act of 1994 and then the (passed but then catastrophically failed) Communications Act of 1996. It has been fanned by Wired magazine, whose capitulation to Conde Nast has ended an era that should never have begun, and now it is marked by the bankruptcy of David Chaum's Digicash. All right-thinking people were in favor of Digicash, whose technologies were as intellectually elegant as they were socially responsible. The problem is that the Digicash people were living in the world of Alice and Bob -- a place where a mathematical proof can change the world in perfect defiance of the dynamics (if you can call them that) of large, highly integrated institutions. Like many Internet-related startups, Digicash existed only to the precise extent that the press was writing about it, and now it doesn't exist at all. So right now would be an excellent time for us to renounce the false idea that we are living in a time of unprecedented technical change. Yes, the Web has been going through a period of exponential growth. But no, that growth is not at all unprecedented, and in fact it is running behind the penetration rates that earlier technologies such as the radio and gas cooking achieved once they started being adopted on a mass scale. (See, for example, Ronald C. Tobey's scholarly and absorbing "Technology As Freedom: The New Deal and the Electrical Modernization of the American Home", Univ. of California Press, 1996.) Nor has the underlying Internet changed at all quickly. The Internet protocols that we use today are unchanged in their essentials from about 1982. In fact, once the real history of this era is written, I think that 1982 will shape up as the true annus mirabilis, and 1994 will simply be seen as the era when the innovations of ten to fifteen years earlier finally caught public attention and reached the price point that was needed to achieve the network externalities required for its large- scale adoption. If we get out the rake and drag away all of the detritus of the underperforming technologies that I listed above, and compare our times on an apples-for-apples basis with other periods of technological innovation -- including the Depression era, for heaven's sake -- then I think we will have a much healthier perspective going forward. As it is, people the world over have been propagandized into a state of panic, one that encourages them to abandon all of their experience and common sense and buy lots of computer equipment so that they will not be scorned by their children and left behind by the apocalypse that is supposedly going to arrive any day now. No such apocalypse is going to occur, and all of the TV preachers who have been announcing this apocalypse should apologize and give the people their money back. Yes, the world is going to change. Yes, information technology will participate, and is already participating, in a significant overhaul of the workings of most major social institutions. But no, those changes are not going to happen overnight. The sad line-up of underperforming technologies should be understood not as serious attempts at innovation but as a kind of ritual, an expensive and counterproductive substitute for the chants and dances that healthy societies perform when they are placed under stress. Maybe once we get some healthy rituals for contending with technological change ourselves, we will be able to snap out of our trance, cast off the ridiculous hopes and fears of an artificially induced millennium, and take up the serious work of discussing, organizing, and contesting the major choices about our institutions that lie ahead.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html or send a message to requests(a)lists.gseis.ucla.edu with Subject: info rre =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 18:02:08 -0500 From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs(a)philodox.com>, dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu, e$(a)vmeng.com, cryptography(a)c2.net, cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net Subject: Re: DigiCash Inc. to File Reorganization, Seeks Partners to Drive eCash Forward -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Okay. Contrary to my own previous -- and painfully recent -- opinions on the matter, Digicash, Inc., is, more or less, in play again, or it will be if there is enough money chasing it. Whatever "enough" means. Putting on my Gordon Gekko hat, here, I'm interested in finding out a few things. Yes, I have seen the greater fool theory of the blind signature patent operate more than a few times, but I am, nonetheless, driven to think about this, and I might as well be public in my musing, at least for the time being. For expenses of any new company, it should be pretty clear by now what I would do with the DigiCash technology portfolio. I would put a real good intellectual property lawyer on the payroll, keep the cryptographers who would still consent to stick around, keep or improve whatever software test people they have left, and do nothing but sell licenses and implementation certifications, using the the underwiting model at <http://www.philodox.com/modelpaper.html> as a roadmap. For this imaginary company's revenue, aside from direct fees for validating a developer's, and possibly an underwriter's, implementation of the protocol, the trustee would be the only point of patent royalty collection and payment from the underwriters and developers to the new patent holder. As far as the current installed base is concerned, I would probably spin off a company to support those customers, and give it a non-exclusive license as if it were any other developer. This assumes, of course, that DigiCash BV/Inc. didn't issue exclusive-by-country licenses. While it appears on the surface that they have done exactly this, I have been met with what seems like incredulity from various DigiCash folks when I talk about it, so, for the time being, I'll take them at their word when they tell me it isn't so. Actually, when I think about it, it may be immaterial, as there are lots of countries on the internet to park underwriters and trustees in, and they can denominate their bearer cash instruments in any currency they want. One way or another, the software side of DigiCash would be gone. We figure out what the net present value is of the current licenses, and hope that a company can be formed around that cashflow and spun off into a separate software development company. If we're lucky, we make money on the spinoff and keep the patent. If we're not lucky, DigiCash will probably have to get rid of it's current obligations before *anyone* clueful would step in to pick up the patents, and just the patents, alone. Obviously, what has been spent so far building DigiCash, BV or Inc., is immaterial to any discussion of the future. Just like what happened to Chaum, et. al., when Negroponte and companies um, executed, the purchase of last version of DigiCash, we have to completely forget the all the money which has been spent on Digicash BV, now Digicash Inc., so far, and ignore the howls of the current investors, as painful as that may be to listen to. :-). They knew the job was dangerous when they took it, anyway... Okay, that's a nice story. How about some actual data? I expect the best way to get a handle of royalties is to start soliciting actual projected royalty estimates from potential developers and underwriters, but, frankly, I think that most developers and underwriters, like the rest of us, have no real idea how much money they're going to make. Nonetheless, if anyone's interested in telling me, offline, what they think they would would be fair royalty payments, either as an underwriter or as a developer, I'd like to hear their estimates. My PGP key is attached. My own rule of thumb, for cash anyway, is that an underwriter can probably charge no more than a bank charges to one of their non-customer ATM transactions. That's probably no more than $3.00 a withdrawl. They also get to keep the interest on the reserve account, if any, of course. Frankly, if the royalties are low enough, that may be more than enough revenue to bootstrap a business with, and I would personally lobby for as low a royalty structure as possible. That, of course, is driven entirely by the cost/revenue picture, but it might be that a majority of the short-term operations can be bootstrapped out of validation fees. That leaves all the other potential markets for blind-signature macroscale digital bearer settlement, everything from long-duration bandwidth purchases for IP or voice dialtone on up to actual securities transactions themselves. Most of these potential applications will occur after the patents expire, but whoever owns these patents should allow not only licenses to all comers, but, more to the point, should allow all *licensees* to worry about the legal ramafications of the patents' use. If a particular licensee can find a legal jurisdiction to offer utterly anonymous digital bearer instruments backed by totally anonymous reserves, then, as long as the licensee pays up, god bless 'em. The patents should be licensed within the law, certainly, but, other than that, their use should be considered value neutral, like all technology. As in all bearer markets before them, the digital bearer trustee will be the point of maximum legal compliance, and, as such, will be the functional "policeman" of the system. I leave the interesting solution of bearer-backed trustees for some other day, probably after the patents have long expired. Okay. There's lots more to talk about, of course, but I'm kind of tapped out on this for the time being. If you're an intellectual property lawyer, and you fancy yourself running the DigiCash patent portfolio, contact me directly. I'm not sure exactly what I can do, if anything, but I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this, as the potential core person of this as yet imaginary enterprize, up to, and including what it would cost for you to sign on for this much fun as at least in-house counsel, if not the actual CEO. :-). In addition, if someone has a reasonable non-proprietary(!) estimate of the projected revenues on all those outstanding ecash contracts, that would be nice to know as well. The terms of those contracts, are, of course, probably unknowable at the moment, at least until someone has enough known scratch to belly up to the table, sign an NDA and take a peek. Of course, then they couldn't tell us anything anyway... Isn't this fun? Cheers, Bob Hettinga [Public keys ommitted] ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------160D55EEEBD38D036F141A24-- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

5 5

No Subject
by Mixmaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Re voting for politicos: just received this spam... --------- Begin forwarded message ---------- Subject: Psst..... Date: Wed, 4 Nov 1998 09:31:39 -0500 Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19981104093139.00b88b80(a)nyc-services.nis.newscorp.com> >>> >>>>When John Glenn returns from space, everybody dress in Ape Suits. >>>> >>>>Pass it on. >>>> --------- End forwarded message ----------

1 0

Euro-Telecoms Standards gives access to GSM & other specs
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone pointed out this information to me. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) have granted access to allow everyone, not just members, to their specifications. These include the GSM specs. Start here: http://webapp.etsi.org/publicationssearch/ Adam

1 0

Re: Project 415
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Duncan Campbell says he doubts the Paul Dore story has anything to do with P415/Echelon, which is a collection system not a satellite. Moreover, the description of a "deep space" satellite does not fit the the known parameters of those that gather intelligence. Might be a completely new type but that's a stretch. One article Anonymous posted says Paul Dore denies having anything to do with the Web page we cited here as having been removed. Another says the SETI people are pissed about the incident, one saying it has set SETI's credibility back "by a 100 years." Still unexplained is the reason for the now 11,000 downloads of Duncan's 1988 article on P451/Echelon in the last 36 hours. Could be an alien bot, pissed at being awakened by SETI putzes' screen savers.

1 0

Re: Grounding
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim, I really have to disagree about shielding and leakage. *** Electricity runs from a high-potential point to ground. If it isn't grounded it radiates away into space where it can be detected. If the Faraday Cage isn't grounded it simply acts as a parasitic oscillator and re-emits the signal from inside, though at a lower amplitude. Remember, charge rests on the *OUTSIDE* of a object so that any charge picked up internaly gets passed to the outside surface. *** Consider a battery-powered spark gap inside a copper box. Lots of beautiful wideband noise. I refuse to ground my copper box. I'm going to suspend it from a weather balloon over Menwith Hill. The solutions to the wave equation inside the cavity have a real part ~0 in the exponent. The boundary condition at the inside surface of the copper box splices together the solutions in the cavity and inside the conductor. Which solutions, BTW, have a real component that is non-zero so the waves are of exponentially decreasing amplitude the further into the Cu you go ( skin depth, power loss ). At the inside boundary, the higher the conductivity the smaller the E field at the surface, the shallower the skin depth and the more power is reflected with less loss. The amplitude of the internal Cu ( exponentially decreasing ) solutions at the outside surface determines the extent to which the wave leaks out because the solution is imaginary again outside. If it helps, the solution looks like the Schroedinger equation solution for a particle in a potential well when at least one boundary is a region of finite potential. Leakage has nothing to do with being grounded since the wave can be generated without the total charge residing on the surface of the box ( DC potential ) changing at all. What's there just moves around a little, that's all. I don't think it takes a whole lot of copper to do the job: the skin depth is pretty small. A copper screen behaves much like the copper sheet execept that it deviates as the wavelengths become closer to the dimensions of the holes. You might say that the resistivity increases with frequency. It leaks more. ** The 1st rule of electrons: They always take the shortest path to ground. Corollary: If they can't get to ground they radiate their excess energy away as photons. *** Oh, for crying out loud! Where did this stuff come from? I prefer the three laws of thermodynamics in layman's terms: i) You can't get something for nothing ii) The best you can do is break even iii) You can't even do that Works for my checking account too. Regards, Mike BTW - I'm still at a loss to understand what the geology has to do with RF shielding. Chaff, I think. BTW^2 - The more conductive the TARMAC the more clutter you'll get because it will be a better reflector. Ground or not. The incident waves *don't care*.

1 0

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

24 shots came from 1 officer in Oregon case Policeman fired until gun empty, then reloaded and kept firing By BOB SABLATURA Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle One of the officers nobilled in the death of Pedro Oregon Navarro fired his semiautomatic pistol at the 22-year-old man until the magazine was empty, then reloaded and continued firing. In all, Officer David R. Barrera fired 24 of the 33 shots discharged in Oregon's southwest Houston apartment July 12, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Assistant District Attorney Ed Porter confirmed that Barrera fired most of the shots. While the medical examiner's office could not determine the exact caliber of the bullets that made the 12 wounds in Oregon's body, Porter said, three of the four bullets recovered from the body were fired from Barrera's weapon. Porter, who was present on the scene a few hours after the shooting -- and reconstructed it during a walk-through with the officers involved -- suggested that the bullets that struck Oregon may have been some of the last shots that the officers fired. "I strongly suspect that was the case," Porter said. Richard Mithoff, an attorney representing Oregon's family, said it is "incomprehensible" that one of the officers paused to reload his weapon. "They had no grounds to be in the apartment, and no grounds to open fire," Mithoff said. "And if this is true, there certainly was no grounds to reload and execute this guy lying on the ground." Aaron Ruby, a member of the Justice for Pedro Oregon Coalition, said Barrera's actions could only be termed "homicidal and premeditated," and probably explain the numerous bullet holes in Oregon's back. "If that fact was known to the grand jury, it makes their actions all the more outrageous," Ruby said. "I believe the people of Houston will be stunned when they learn of this." Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. said state law allows police officers to use deadly force if they believe it necessary for self-defense and can continue shooting "so long as they reasonably perceive" the threat continues. "An analogy I use is that if it is OK to kill a guy dead, it is OK to kill him dead, dead, dead," Holmes said. Holmes said it is also not uncommon for a police officer involved in a shooting to have no idea how many shots he fired. Barrera, a five-year veteran of the Houston Police Department, was armed with a 9 mm Sig-Sauer semi-automatic pistol loaded with nylon-coated bullets. According to the Police Department, after illegally entering Oregon's apartment with fellow members of the HPD gang task force in an unsuccessful search for drugs, Barrera and several other officers chased Oregon to his bedroom and kicked in the locked door. During the pursuit, Barrera's pistol discharged, striking one of his partners in the shoulder. The officers said they believed they were being shot at, and two officers joined Barrera in firing at Oregon. Barrera emptied his pistol, paused to reload a new magazine, and resumed firing, according to prosecutors. Investigators later determined that Barrera fired a total of 24 rounds. Barrera's weapon was originally loaded with a standard 16-round magazine, which held at least 14 rounds. He reloaded with an extended magazine holding even more rounds. The second magazine was not emptied, according to sources. Officers David R. Perkins and Pete A. Herrada fired a total of nine rounds between them. Both officers were armed with similar .40-caliber handguns. Perkins carried a Sig-Sauer Model 40 and Herrada was armed with a Glock Model 23. Prosecutors said only about 10 seconds elapsed from the time the shooting began to the time it ended. Semi-automatic pistols typically are double-action on the first shot, meaning that pulling the trigger draws the hammer back -- cocking it -- and then releases it. After the first shot, the hammer remains in a cocked position so less trigger-tension is required to fire the weapon, making it fire quicker. The officer can also aim the gun more accurately because it takes less movement of the trigger to discharge shots. Oregon's body was hit 12 times, nine times in the back, once in the back of the shoulder, and once in the back of his left hand. In addition, one shot entered the top of his head, exiting above the right ear. At least nine shots entered his body at a downward angle, suggesting he was shot while face-down on the floor. Four bullets were recovered from Oregon's body, and numerous bullet fragments were found underneath the carpet beneath the body. The body was face-down, with his head toward the doorway through which the police officers were firing. Attorneys for the Oregon family dispute the police officers' version of events, and say Oregon was not in the front of the apartment when police illegally barged in. "It is my understanding that he was in the bedroom," Mithoff said. They also contend that some of the officers' shots were fired through the bedroom wall, indicating they were blindly firing into the room. Porter said he has examined numerous crime scenes involving police shootings during his career and is amazed just how often shots fired by police officers miss their mark. "Most people think an officer fires a weapon and someone gets shot," Porter said. "Often that is just not the case." Holmes said the grand jury heard evidence regarding all the shots fired, the trajectory of the bullets, the position of the officers and the medical examiner's reports regarding wounds to Oregon's body. "The specific number of times and the path of the projectiles was known to the grand jury," Holmes said. After hearing all the evidence, a grand jury cleared five of the six officers -- including Barrera -- of all charges. One officer was charged with a misdemeanor offense of criminal trespass. Earlier this week, all six officers were fired by Chief C.O. Bradford for violating the law and ignoring department procedures. Barrera's attorney did not respond to a request for an interview. Rick Dovalina, national president of LULAC, said he is especially concerned that HPD Internal Affairs found the officers had violated the law in conducting the raid, but the grand jury had brought no charges. He renewed his call for Holmes to try to bring charges against the officers. "They are both supposed to be looking at the same evidence," Dovalina said. "Johnny Holmes needs to do the right thing and present the case to another grand jury." Posted for the entertainment of those that chide Tim for being armed to the teeth. Regards, TimeToBuyAGun

1 0

100S OF FREE PICS'N'LINKS EVERY DAY!
by STUFFED FRI NOV 6 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

+ 30 SUPERB, HI-RES, HOT PHOTOS + 5 SUPER SEXY STORIES + A SEXY GIRL + TRAMPVILLE + HOT BABES + SEXY BLACK BABES + TABBY'S 007 PUSSY + PANTIES & LACE + ANAL DESIRES + VERY WET FETISH SITE + SEX GALLERY + LADY PASSION'S EROTIC HAVEN + BONUS PIC 1 -> http://www.stuffed.net/home/3392.htm + BONUS PIC 2 -> http://www.stuffed.net/home/2117.htm + BONUS PIC 3 -> http://www.stuffed.net/home/5753.htm + BONUS PIC 4 -> http://www.stuffed.net/home/6184.htm + BONUS PIC 5 -> http://www.stuffed.net/home/2539.htm + MUCH, MUCH MORE! ----> http://stuffed.net/home/ <---- If you haven't visited STUFFED in the last few days, you're in for a real treat. It's faster than ever before and now, as a subscriber, you get 35 FREE new pics every day, plus over 100 more at carefully selected FREE sites we link to. This email is never sent unsolicited. Stuffed is the supplement for the Eureka newsletter you subscribed to. Full instructions on unsubscribing are in every issue of Eureka! ----> http://stuffed.net/home/ <----

1 0

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern.
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matt, > Please explain how you can sheild something without grounding it. > Doesn't the energy need some place to go? > Wrong metaphor for RF energy. It's not water. A ground is not a storm drain. Imagine two conductive spheres ( earth and moon ? ) and an RF generator in a box sitting *peacefully* in space. Classical 3-body problem. The DC potential that exists between any of them has absolutley no effect on a wave travelling anywhere ( unless you want to get into the topic of nonlinear materials ). So forget about everything in the scene except that generator in the box. Shielding consists solely of preventing the wave from getting out of the box into free space where it can be detected. There is nothing special about *any* of the DC references. Earth may be special ( source of women and beer ) but not to a wave. Besides, chaining my laptop to a giant copper spike in a geologically suitable region is out of the question. Just shielding it would make an already heavy ThinkPad into a main battle tank. Mike

1 0

Halloween II
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 18:53:46 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: love(a)cptech.org Originator: info-policy-notes(a)essential.org Sender: info-policy-notes(a)essential.org Precedence: bulk From: James Love <love(a)cptech.org> To: Multiple recipients of list INFO-POLICY-NOTES <info-policy-notes(a)essential.org> Subject: Halloween II MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Comment: To unsubscribe from this list, send the message "unsubscribe info-policy-notes" to "listproc(a)essential.org". Leave the "Subject:" line blank. ------------------------------------------------------------ Info-Policy-Notes | News from Consumer Project on Technology ------------------------------------------------------------ November 5, 1998 Halloween II On November 2, 1998 Info-Policy-Notes provided a link to the so called Halloween document, which detailed Microsoft's analysis of Linux and other open source software. (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html) Now Eric Rayond has published a second document which he has dubbed Halloween II. This one is on the web at: http://www.opensource.org/halloween2.html Halloween II is authored by Vinod Valloppillil (VinodV), the author of the Halloween I, and Josh Cohen (JoshCo). It is dated Aug 11, 1998 , and is version 1.0. The heading is: Microsoft Confidential Linux Operating System The Next Java VM? The document is very interesting. One line that has gotten a lot of attention is at the end, where the authors suggest: "The effect of patents and copyright in combating Linux remains to be investigated." The Linux community generally thinks they can out code Microsoft, so long as they are permitted. But there is a lot of concern over software patents, which are often very broad, poorly researched by the US government, and expensive to litigate. Under recent court cases, there are few barriers to harassment based upon spurious litigation over patents, so this is a cause for concern. On a topic discussed at some length in Halloween I, Halloween II says by "folding extended functionality into today's commodity [open standards] services and create new [proprietary] protocols, we raise the bar & change the rules of the game." (the brackets added by me). There is also an interesting article in today's Linux Today: Who are all these people behind the Halloween document? Nov 5th, 12:32:47 Here's an in-depth look at the personalities behind the Halloween documents. By Dave Whitinger http://linuxtoday.com/stories/638.html A few other related articles are Tim O'Rielly's Open Letter to Microsoft about Halloween I, which is on the web at: http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/press/tim_msletter.html and, news that Microsoft has tried to hire Linux hacker Alan Cox. This last one suggests Microsoft is stepping up their campaign to crush the open software movement. Here are some excerpts that Alan Cox posted today about the Halloween document. http://www.linux.org.uk/ [snip] Its important to realize how fundamental open standards are. Most people are probably sitting at a PC built with mixed cards from mixed vendors on an open standard bus, typing on a keyboard with open standard connectors, using an open standard Qwerty layout, talking an open standard RS232 serial protocol to a modem that talks an open protocol to the ISP. Its all running off a standard electricity specification. Even your chair is probably held together by open standard nuts and bolts. Computing is becoming a commodity item and like all commodity items it needs to be open, for the consumer and for the long term good of the industry as a whole. Linux is open, if there is anything you didn't get told you can check the source code. A couple of other fun things have happened too, the I2O SIG developing the next generation high end I/O interface for PC's have now made their specification open, and Microsoft tried to hire me. I think the I2O SIG have the better chance of success here. Alan This is Alan Cox's home page: http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/ There is also running commentary, much if it entertaining, often rather speculative, but also a very good source of breaking news on these issues at: http://www.slashdot.org Finally, CPT will be studying the Halloween documents, and asking antitrust authorities to determine if Microsoft's intended plans to corrupt open standards violate antitrust laws. More on this next week. Jamie Love <love(a)cptech.org> 202.387.8030 ------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION POLICY NOTES: the Consumer Project on Technology http://www.cptech.org, 202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5127. Archives of Info-Policy-Notes are available from http://www.essential.org/listproc/info-policy-notes/ Subscription requests to listproc(a)cptech.org with the message: subscribe info-policy-notes Jane Doe To be removed from the list, the message should read, unsub info-policy-notes ------------------------------------------------------------- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

1 0

Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 16:24:21 -0800 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Re: How to test *your* microwave oven distribution pattern. > Wrong metaphor for RF energy. You said more than you know with that one. > It's not water. A ground is not a storm > drain. >From the perspective of the flow of charge that is a very good metaphor. Charge flows from the high charge area to the low charge area *always* and ground is by definition the lowest charge area there is. Just like water *always* flows from the high PE to the low PE. > Imagine two conductive spheres ( earth and moon ? ) and an RF generator > in a box sitting *peacefully* in space. Classical 3-body problem. That's gravity, not electrostatics. There are no intractable problems regarding n-body electrostatics issues as there is with gravity. Now of course in the real world we can't get one without the other, but you didn't mention that aspect. > The DC > potential that exists between any of them has absolutley no effect on a > wave travelling anywhere DC potentials have no effect on a wave anyway, they don't emit photons. They are a physical representation of a line intergral. The potential between two points is not effected by the path taken to get between the two points. > ( unless you want to get into the topic of > nonlinear materials ). Bullshit. > So forget about everything in the scene except > that generator in the box. Then why in hell did you bring it up in the first place. I smell spin doctor bullshit coming.... > Shielding consists solely of preventing the > wave from getting out of the box into free space where it can be > detected. There is nothing special about *any* of the DC references. There is no wave with DC. If you want to make a wave you have to *move* the DC field generator or the measurement device. Now the charge that is *in* the box will leak to the outside of the shield *even if it's an insulator*, it's called charge tunneling. > Earth may be special ( source of women and beer ) but not to a wave. Depends on a wave of what. If we're talking electrostatics then yes Earth is special. I would direct you to many of Nikola Tesla's work on this exact topic but you probably wouldn't read it. It's special because the Earth itself has a charge and that interacts with the charge on the box. If the charges are opposite they attract and the box moves toward the Earth (the Earth moves toward the box as well but the delta rho is inconsequential so we usualy ignore it). If the charges are identical then the two move apart. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: Grounding (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 05 Nov 1998 15:25:21 -0800 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Re: Grounding > *** > Electricity runs from a high-potential point to ground. If it isn't > grounded > it radiates away into space where it can be detected. If the Faraday > Cage > isn't grounded it simply acts as a parasitic oscillator and re-emits the > signal from inside, though at a lower amplitude. Remember, charge rests > on > the *OUTSIDE* of a object so that any charge picked up internaly gets > passed > to the outside surface. > *** > > Consider a battery-powered spark gap inside a copper box. Lots of > beautiful wideband noise. I refuse to ground my copper box. I'm going to > suspend it from a weather balloon over Menwith Hill. And you'll build a hell of a charge on it which will travel down the connecting cable that you have pounded into the Earth. > The solutions to the wave equation inside the cavity have a real part ~0 > in the exponent. It's not a question of a Schroedingers Wave Equation, it's a question of Maxwell's Equations. > The boundary condition at the inside surface of the > copper box splices together the solutions in the cavity and inside the > conductor. What conductor? The shell is equipotential unless you're trying to play head games with me so there follows there can be no current flow through it except radialy to the outside of the sphere. Let's walk through it using your model.... The spark gap generates sparks and that builds up free electrons in the space inside the sphere (whether it is gas filled or a vacuum is irrelevant). As that charge builds up it will be all of one type, electrons. Now the electrons repel each other and therefor move in a circular motion with the spark gap as the center. They strike the surface of the sphere and tunnel through to the outside surface where they reside. The amount of charge at any one point is related to the curvature of the surface at that point. Since a sphere is constant curvature the charge will be evenly distributed. It will continue to build up so long as you supply power to the spark gap. In an ideal world it will get bigger and bigger. In the real world at some point insulation breaks down and normal current flow takes place. As to the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics, you should use Heinz Pagels (RIP) as they are much funnier and a lot easier to understand and apply: 1. You can't break even 2. You can't get ahead 3. You can't quit the game ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > From: Matthew James Gering <mgering(a)ecosystems.net> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone > (fwd) > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 13:52:14 -0800 > > Yes, they are. Can you say 'taxes'? > > Imposed by a gun. Don't try to change the subject. Just because you don't find taxes worthwhile doesn't mean others do as well. My bitch is about the amount and the way it's legislated, not about paying them. I'd sure as hell rather pay taxes for police, fire, ems, etc. than try to deal with that all myself. If that were the case we wouldn't have a very high level of society since nobody would have time to run businesses, write great books, make movies, develop computers, etc. They'd be too damn busy sneaking up on the deer or shooting/stealing their neighbors food/wife. > > Can you say 'interstate commerce'? > > What about it? It's one of the defining characteristics that allow a government to be a economic factor in the economic system, contrary to the original thesis. > > Can you say 'mint money'? Can you say 'federal reserve'? > > Can you say government fiat? Can you say fucked up non-working economy if there isn't some standardization of monetary systems? I can see it now if folks like you get your way. When I go to Louisiana I'll need a whole new currency that I can't trade my Texas money for. Yep, that's an optimal way to run an economy. > > Can you say 'FDIC'? > > Can you say banking regulation at the point of a gun? Don't change the subject (again). > The Soviet Union is a prime recent example. How? > British Mercantilism. How? > Governments are ultimately bound to economics in the sense of human behavior > and productivity -- the more they deny the nature of microeconomic actors, > the quicker they self-destruct. Economics *is* human behaviour, the science is the tools that we use to describe what happens *after* the fact and if we're right we might even be able to make some small usable predictions about what people in a gross level will do in the future. If you are trying to extend economics to the extent of trying to predict the micro-economic actions of individuals then you don't understand macro or micro economics very well. > History shows that every dynasty well eventually self-destruct, to think > ours won't is foolish. Everything self desctructs at one point or another. Besides this issue is irrelevant and immaterial to whether it is legitimate to consider a government as an economic partner in a economic system, and whether that model for government includes aspects normaly thought of as being a commercial enterprise. Again, stay on topic. > My point is we don't have competitive governments per > se You are lost in a dream world, all government are competitive. Ask Clinton, Hussein, Pinochet, Netanyahuh, etc. Why? Because people are competitive, it's the way biology works. >, you have a power void that is filled by new government that can be just > as hostile to those microeconomic actors. All our government failures have > yet to produce a sustainable government. It never happens that way. The *only* time you have a power void is when there are no governments in the first place. Once they are established other governments and systems move in to take over the territory. It's quite biological (which shouldn't surprise anyone) in its behaviour. Usualy a government ceases because another government (whether internal or external is irrelevant to the point at hand) moves in and destroys the base of the original government. It might be by force but the fall of the CCCP clearly indicates that we are seeing governments change their systems radicaly without the violence, destruction, and death that historicaly such changes have required. The fall of the CCCP is a watershed event because it indicates that government systems can in fact change without these effects, that is a very hopeful sign. > > False distinction. Politics is about control and power > > The fundamental laws of economics are supply and demand. As soon as you > through force into the equation, it is no longer economic, it is political. No, the fundamental law of economics is greed/desire/want/etc. Supply and demand is how we describe the consequences of the flow of goods and services. Now exactly why you're bringing up economics when the issue in this case was the base motivations of politics smacks of a strawman. > > in human society that breaks down to force and money. > > The essence of money has no political roots. The essence of money is human > productivity and trade. Oh baloney. There are two aspects of organized human society (ie politics). Self-defence and self-sufficiency. The first requires brute force and the second requires some mechanism of trade. For a society to get very large at all *requires* a generalization of the barter system to a symbolic one, that symbol is money. > Money is tied to politics currently because it is regulated by force of > government and the money *supply* is created by government fiat. First, the money supply was created by a popular vote, not a government fiat because there was no government to execute the fiat at the time. Now as to money being tied to politics, see the paragraph above. > > There you go again, confusing privacy with economics... > > The discussion *was* *privacy*, No, the discussion was the viability of modeling a government as a economic entity within the economic system of a geographic region and what that meant. There was also a side issue relating privacy and freedom to anarchy. > discussion? Privacy (as opposed to secrecy) is about discretionary > disclosure of information. No, that is respect for privacy. Secrecy is the intentional act of hiding information that one doesn't want others to discover, not the same horse at all. > To invade privacy is to remove or prevent that > discretion. No, to invade privacy is to disrespect it. Discretion is knowing when to do it and not get caught. > There is an economic cost of doing so, and an economic benefit. Not necessarily. I can invade my childrens privacy and there is no economic cost or benefit. My neighbor can rifle my mail and there is no cost one way or the other (unless they steal my paycheck and that's a whole nother issue). The government could tap my phone and there would be no economic impact. Privacy does not require the issue of economics to brought into it until we begin to discuss economic strategies. It is the issue of money that brings privacy into the discussion and not the other way around. > Corporations are bound by those economics, whereas government can mandate > transparency by whim and gun. No, it is clear that governments are bound by the will of their citizens, their economy, geography, and their technology. They are not omnipotent. > > True, but that isn't a function of regulation per se only the > > particular type of regulation that we have implimented. > > It is the *nature* of regulation. No it isn't. I regulate my dogs behavior and don't use force. Football games are regulated by rules and they aren't imposed by force. The way my company works is very regulated but there is no force involved. No, regulation does not automaticaly imply force. Where force comes into play is when the issue being regulated effects many individuals and some of those individuals want the benefits but don't want to pay the costs. They want a free ride at others expense. > Government is a natural instrument of collective legalized force by any This is a non-sequetar, governments define legality they are not defined by it. There isn't some outside agency that defines what a government will do, it's internal to the government and its participants. > group that can influence it, and to think it can't and won't be influenced > denies human nature in regards to power. Yeah, so. I don't believe this is relevant since we all agree on this. It's a function of human nature to try to get in a position of special favor so at least some rules don't apply to you. It's a competitive advantage. > Every government is despotic by > nature, force corrupts. People are corruptable, governments are simply the framework they create to express it. > > No, they don't. It is perfectly legal for an individual to > > own a weapon. > > The legal monopoly on the *initiation* of force. I got news for you dude, I catch you in my truck after dark or running down the street with my property I'm perfectly within my rights to initiate force. > And in fact you have very > little freedom (eternally diminishing) to obtain potential force (arms) and > use it in a *reactionary* manner. You mean in an insiteful manner. You aren't talking about reacting to something you're veiled comment is to allow yourself for example to buy a weapon and kill me (for example) simply because you're pissed off about something. It surprises you that I and others won't give you that freedom? > You have absolutely *no* freedom to use it > reactionary against government (which is in the face of the 4th). ARTICLE IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. That in fact does allow you to shoot somebody if they enter your home illegaly, even a police officer. If you're being raped and shoot a cop it's perfectly legal. If he's beating the shit out of you it's perfectly legal to defend yourself, even to the point of killing the officer. The problem is your not wanting to use it in immediate self-defence, you're talking about going out and mowing people down simply because your pissed off at what they stand for and you can't get your way. Your pissed off, like all anarchist, that you can't take advantage of people with impunity. A childish and petulant view. I'm going to stop now since the rest of your email is more of the same. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

Re: Who Cares (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 11:00:10 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: Re: Who Cares (fwd) > While I won't deny that some of the people who don't vote are in > the position you claim they are, their not voting has nothing to do with > their economic position, it has to do with the facts that: Many of the people are in that situation. Most people don't vote for two reasons: 1. It won't significantly effect their lives one way or the other 2. They don't have time, or at least don't believe they have time. > 1) This is a mid-term election. Since it isn't a presidential > election, fewer really care to research the issues (which are fewer). Yeah, why? (hint: see 1.) > 2) We are currently in decent economic times, and as Terry Pratchet > noted on Men At Arms, (paraphrasing here) Most people don't really care > about democrazy, Equal Rights, or any of that, they just want tomorrow to > be exactly like today. Then Terry Pratchet is an idiot. People don't want it to stay the same, they want it to get better. They want more money, a bigger house, better clothes, a cooler car, etc. If you and Terry seriously don't believe folks understand democracy (though they may not act the way you want them to in expressing it) then you should spend some time talking to people and askign them how much they would take to get rid of the Constitution, allow cops to wander through their homes at will, etc. You're both in for a very rude surprise. > 3) As Jimmy notes, there usually isn't much of a difference between > one canidate and the other (outside of the Natural Law types), and those > canidates who _are_ different (Libertarians, Socialists &etc. ("reform" > types don't count, they really are for making tomorrow just like yesterday > & today, only they ADMIT it for the most part)) either don't get enough > votes to challenge the status quo, or if there is an issue that will > challenge the status quo, the number of voters tends to increase (to > varying degrees). True, though I'd say the reason that we don't have a more diverse political venue is because we don't have proportional seating in the various houses. That was a fundamental fault with the founding fathers, they misunderstood the homogeneity of peoples view. Of course they didn't have a clue about television and such causing a global homogeniety. But then again, that is our cross to bear in living up to 'a more perfect union'. The one unifying aspect that amazes me about many of you folks on this mailing list is your complete lack of understanding of your own duty and responsibilities in this government. You bitch and bitch and yammer about what's wrong but you have no desire to fix it, your so focused on initiating violence it's pathetic. When the Constitutuion was written the job was just begun, it wasn't finished as you seem to imply. ____________________________________________________________________ To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice. Confucius The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0