December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

blacknet international offers DOSSIERS for SALE
by remail＠tamsun.tamu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

blacknet international is pleased to offer the following materials for sale: DOSSIERS: on the current participants in the Cypherpunks Mailing List Flame war PRICES: Prices and delivery terms upon request via encrypted anonymous return address. SUBJECTS: Perry Metzger <pmetzger(a)lehman.com> Duncan Frissell <frissell(a)panix.com> S. Boxx <an12070(a)anon.penet.fi> L. Detweiler<ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu> Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)netcom.com> Ray Cromwell <rjc(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu> David Sternlight <strnlght(a)netcom.com> These are available now via PGP encrypted return anonymous mail. To reply to I/We please use the enclosed public key to encrypt your message back to us. The anonymous remailer encrypted return block may be used for now but if current(known to be good) paths are needed look for the latest in cypherpunks(a)toad.com. Please encrypt ALL mail sent to us... -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.3a mQCNAizMFlcAAAEEALPYHDpT3OhTyO0qfEcqnbwY30pZb3ET6JUP70jfIQPiTrkA i7WJFYnDWv0FBk3aMxfH2DpI0fauCQKLnJJrc0/WHi5AgZVJh7KTwfCyAS+Zr2xM 7xjFZlwd9Q0Ow5k3hLfO4LQpTOW8IBMATV8or1g/+Zv3m87WjLgMmjAEwDypAAUR tDxibGluZHBpcGUgPHVzZSBjdXJyZW50IHJlbWFpbGVyIGJsb2NrIHBvc3RlZCB0 byBjeXBoZXJwdW5rcz4= =IHVG -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- --------8<--cut here-->8-------- :: Encrypted: PGP -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.3a hEwClqx1g6tk6KcBAf9Nly0MsbjTHys9iZwvkew2KEls/4T+4uXG+Ri8gtJnA9P0 5NvGZYIU0A40CHeHWttwE+cjwVyREWWcCPUVeMqcpgAAAYWHYP4OYPHDdUFKrs1i FW2F5lMQ1m4pU475xcLJH+NqQUYToSqmTlyH5dlOLmkC0s97n2OMQKJyDkUHkIbZ nqEg42KQkjAWotu85dBuXFjgLyShkACvah/VBXYcKHMsgfO41tCbCQiWVkg022/F TheZmlX5mPj0pgLFlpd+nYYIsGcH2memKLXWuhaY4yThRPYCu5OEYBlQEE1TtQTs glC6926Nu1RHvs4ivD3OabzeLdl2Kh2wZI2IcznUKOIKhH3nsXgI9ZvuHVkrKkmw 5ABXnhj2rgWW6/SxOT6XejUKH6WHu82HBjnEi6dDviB5pnGL8D2ayxw+ySwjNZ94 lJyrGVeq40XVG4HywxUbmrSbM/a6OOvH2f5zmXQAccoj2iwWa0khPJ0kjlndV/I9 FSLeIP8BZZSHU1tA9/genoDd3auQDAregfuzA10KjVr96+TcLdlh/7eM9TfQDaPz VtCrLR+X/n2J083WtmyzbZhpeI2qzjL7YqPXNlRsofenVucl3E1k0A== =WPI/ -----END PGP MESSAGE----- <To reply, save everything below the "cut here" marks above <into another file. Type your reply here (below the blank <line three lines above!) and mail to remailer(a)utter.dis.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: anti-social behavior
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

B >ASAR stands for "alt.sexual.abuse.recovery", a newsgroup I run an B >anonymous server for. This group actually has survivors of all B >sorts of abuse, including the verbal abuse that rjc perpetrated. "Sticks and stones" etc. --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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: a desperate please
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A >I can't come up with any good ones, except for "fun" and "just to see A >what it feels like to put out opinions not my own." Virago is a "feminist" publisher in the UK. A few years ago, they brought out (to wide critical praise) a collection of short stories about immigrant life in the UK by a new Asian (means from the Indian subcontinent in the UK) woman. They had never met her and were very embarrassed when "she" turned out to be a retired, male vicar. Seems like a good idea to use a pseudonym in this case. I guess that is the use you meant about "putting out opinions not my own." Whenever I want to do that I just switch to lawyer mode. Duncan Frissell --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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ADMIN: toad.com's mail hicups Tuesday morning...
by hugh＠ecotone.toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The list mailhost, toad.com, had massive problems today with sendmail queues, resulting in load averages over 90 (on a machine where 6 is high) and other unfun problems for me to chase. To my knowledge no mail was droped on the floor, but some mail did come out of the machine with headders missing. I have no idea what the mail software thought it was doing by droping headers, but I think we will live even so. I am looking at installing some newer software to deal with the problems of today, though the root causes are solved for now, better software (sendmail) is called for. On the other hand better software is ALLWAYS called for... Guess I had better get back to doing that sort of work... ||ugh Daniel Sysadmin of the month hugh(a)toad.com

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shut up, assmunch
by nobody＠cicada.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

don't make me slap you again, detwiler.

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True Names and nyms
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Some people have argued that there is no way to prevent the use of multiple pseudonyms on the net, that it is possible today and that the new crypto technologies will provide even easier techniques tomorrow. This is an oversimplification, as Tim pointed out. "Is-a-person" credentials can be used to determine whether someone is a "True Name" or not, which is really what Larry wanted to know. Here is one way they might work. (To make this clearer, it is best to think in terms of the equation, pseudonym == public key. A pseudonym is a public key. We think of pseudonyms as being names, like "wonderer" or "sam hill", or perhaps as email addresses, like "hacker(a)univ.edu". But from the point of view of cryptography, these are just frills. The important thing is the key. With a public key, a pseudonym can sign his messages, so that nobody else can successfully pretend to be him. He can read messages sent to him, messages which no one else can read. If he has to switch email addresses he can do so and still maintain his identity by continuing to use the same key. It is his key which is his real identity on the net. OK, back to the is-a-person credential:) An is-a-person credential could be structured identically to the digital coins used in Chaum's simple digital cash proposal. You would go to the credentialling agency and provide some unique form of identification, something that no one else could forge. Today this might be a thumbprint, or in the future it could perhaps be a DNA scan. However, you do not have to identify yourself by name. They don't need to know who you are; they only know that you are a living, breathing human being, one whom they have not seen before. (There could be more than one credentialling agency, but they would all share a database of thumbprints or whatever.) You choose a special public key which you will use for all of your True Name activities on the net. This public key will be used to sign messages which you want to prove are from a real person. Any message sent with that signature is known to be from a True Name and not from a nym. Only one True Name exists per person. Note that this True Name doesn't have to be your real name. If you want to always post under John Q. Public and use this special key for that purposes, you can do so. But you won't be able to post under any other name, including your own, as a True Name, not unless you use that same key. And of course if you do, people will be able to know that you are the same as John Q. Public since you are using the same signature key. The way this is established is that you take your True Name key, which we'll call TN, and do as was done for Chaum's cash: pass it through a one-way function f, and blind with a random number r^3: f(TN)*r^3. You give this to the credentiallying agency when you come in with your thumbprint, and they sign it by taking the cube root. This is f(TN)^(1/3) * r. Back home, you divide by r, getting f(TN)^(1/3). This is your True Name certificate. You can submit it to a public key registry along with TN; anyone can calculate f(TN) and verify the credentialling agency's signature. People will therefore know that this key is the only one belonging to some real person which is signed in this way. Only one such key can exist for each person. So, if people claim to be posting under True Names, they can prove it very easily, by using their True Name key, signed by a credentialling agency. People can still post under as many nyms as they want, but only one gets to call itself True. Note that this solution doesn't reveal very much about the person. Because the certificates are blinded by r^3 when they are signed, even the credentialling agency has no way of knowing which thumbprints are associated with which True Name. (So, actually, it wouldn't be a problem if the agency got your name and address when you came in - this still couldn't be linked with your postings if you didn't want it to be.) Nobody is forced to even use a True Name when they post; they could use nothing but nyms. On the other hand, if people want to reserve certain conferences for True Names only, they can. There is tremendous flexibility to have as much or as little use of nyms as people want. So, people should not be so quick to claim that crypto can only be used to increase anonymity. It is a powerful technology that can be used to increase our control over information in many ways. Chaum's papers continue to amaze me with what is possible. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLM3dJ6gTA69YIUw3AQFmfAP/byAqRUt/R3tQBH5Zg+JYV4u6z2CeJ0eM YOrsvXAptTFjS4TpS177spfoDfGm9gtoL1wyEhwD6gsZ2JhssRXT/7w8MEEzPE2U 9CIOXeBZiL8lSPWBxHBr95jlkJjIZe+v5BWPsWdwmSInk0/vbTaQm4emjNNS9WgG H1jPeYECsjA= =sd2V -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Shocked at my reaction
by msattler＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following has nothing to do with writing code, but hopefully posting this will get me back on track.... I wrote this several weeks ago and have been sitting on it ever since. L. Detweiler's contributions of late have made me re-examine my feelings on a variety of email- and cyberspace-related issues. I very strongly believe that everyone has an inaliable right to express themselves, as long as that expression doesn't harm others or impede their ability to express *themselves*. Up to now the amount of trash-mail (as I determine it) has been less than ten percent of my mail, an amount I equate with the real-world equivalent of billboards and junk-mail. L. Detweiler's uncanny ability to craft flame-bait and get the CypherPunks to respond has increased the trash-mail percentage to the point where it's entered my awareness. Torn between respect for someone who has a reputation for having made contributions, worry about someone who seems to have a slim grasp on the reality I'm experiencing, and annoyance at getting scores of ranting incoherent messages, I've made a decision that I've never made before: to put someone (L. Detweiler) into my kill-file. This bothers me a great deal. But there it is. ---------------- To L. Detweiler: I'm sorry, but your style, content, and quantity values have gotten to the point where it seems unrewarding to deal with you. The decision to banish you bothers me a great deal, but not as much as reading your mail does. If you're sincere about the biblical amount of pain you are in, I gently suggest (in my capacity as an EMT with some crisis-intervention experience) that you talk about your pain to a qualified person, perhaps an MFCC. If you're doing all this to get a reaction (for maybe a book) like Don Novello's Lazlo character of the last three decades (and several books), then congratulations. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael S. Sattler msattler(a)netcom.com +1 (415) 621-2903 Digital Jungle Software Encrypt now; ask me how. (finger for PGP key) All that is required for evil to triumph is for {wo}men of good will to do nothing.

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My Views on the Detweiler Matter
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks, I. too, am weary of this thread...paranoia, death threats, "pseudospoofing," Satan's spawn, tentacles of Medusa, and on and on. I apologize for the length of this piece, which has reached detweilerian proportions, but I need to make some points. Sorry if many of you are fed up with this thread. I've tried to avoid comment, but I've been getting several rants every day from Detweiler, either posted to the List or in private e-mail (and the rants he sends to Eric Hughes and myself are even more tortured, as he rambles on and begs us to stop tormenting him, to call off our devils who are attacking him, then goes back to threats and insults....very sad). Several people have suggested we "lay off Detweiler," that he is clearly in pain and is disturbed in various ways. I agree, but getting several messages a day from him, filled with threats, taunts, insults, and religious paranoia tends to make this "laying-off" a bit more problematic. Especially when his posts prompt others on this List to try to defend his points. There is always the danger that repeating the Big Lie often enough will cause it to be accepted as the truth. In this case, apparently some are now beginning to believe that the List is in fact controlled by a cabal of plotters and that pseudospoofing is the tool they use to control the mood and agenda of the List. Utter nonsense. He has recently claimed we are a bunch of Ted Bundy's, plotting the murder of young women, that we are spawn of Satan, trying to pull society into the depths of Hell, that we are High Traitors which the government (his newfound ally) must suppress, and that the High Cabal is beaming radio waves into his brain to control his thoughts (only this last item is made up...a taste of what is to come in the next few weeks, I suspect). I consider the whole situation very sad, and even tragic. Lance Dettweiler did some nice work on the "Privacy and Anonymity on the Internet FAQ." Ironically, he now considers my helpful comments on these matters (I recall encouraging him to go ahead and write a FAQ on these matters, sometime last winter or so, so I may have been a prime motivator of his FAQ) to be some kind of evil trickery designed to do whatever it is he thinks is now being done to him. Be that as it may, his recent points require a response from me. And the whole Detweiler matter actually _does_ have some important connections to the Cypherpunks area of interest, so the topic is not as off-base as some might think. Certainly it's closer to our main themes than many of the recent debates about subliminal advertising and using thermite bombs to destroy safes are, to name but two topics. Back to the Detweiler situation. I tried to laugh it off, as my posts of last week or so showed--the one declaring there to be only four or five actually unique individuals on the List, with each of us using dozens of pseudonyms. Little did I suspect that Detweiler would use my joke about the "Wired" photo using hired actors as "proof" of our duplicity, Jeesh, that man needs a humor transplant! His alter ego S. Boxx is still making death threats, as he himself is, and is claiming the "evidence is being collected" for some some sort of formal charges. Right. (That Detweiler = S. Boxx is beyond doubt. Personal mail sent by Eric Hughes and myself to Detweiler showed up in the rants of S. Boxx, and the styles are nearly identical. Detweiler has rather transparently claimed that S. Boxx is "in communication" with him. Right.) Anyway, while I have been mostly just shrugging-off Detweiler's fantastical rants, saving them in my "Detweiler file," some of you are talking about how Detweiler may be ranting, but how he's basically *right* about some things. Some of you are apparently coming to believe that in fact a High Cabal exists to purge Detweiler and to use pseudospoofing to undermine him in public. Now I of course I can see validity in essays separate from the underlying mental sanity of the writer (think of Nietzsche), so I don't automatically dismiss LD's points just on the basis of his paranoid style. But he has presented no evidence for his assertions. I just think he's gone off the deep end with his paranoia about the number of pseudonyms on the List. I know for a fact that I write my stuff under my own name, that I am not any of the more colorful "nyms" on the List....I am not "Deadbeat," "S. Boxx," "Murdering Thug," or "Panzer Boy." (Actually, some of these may just be BBS handles....I'm not paying too much attention to the distinction, as I really don't care overmuch about the "actual" name of folks I haven't met.) To be sure, some people are using nyms, as they have for as long as the Net has existed...and for much longer, of course. Pen names, pseudonyms, whatever. But this is a much different thing than saying the List is dominated by pseudonyms, by clever false identities, by Satan-inspired demons who are adopting false identities specifically to torment good Christians like Lance Detweiler. His modus operandi seems to be to repeat his points over and over again and to to accuse others of Satanic or cabalistic motivations--usually in his inimitably florid prose style--and to claim that the "debate" is being skewed by dozens of phony identities. If Hal Finney is not 100% behind his latest idea, well, then obviously Hal is One of Them, a tentacle of the Medusa, a Nym from Hell that is bent on making LD a laughingstock on the List. In several cases, when Detweiler made some point and others didn't agree with him or actions weren't taken to his liking, he simply stamped his feet and used such effective debating tactics as "I am getting nauseatingly disgusted and TOTALLY angered by the completely traitorous and spectacularly cunning vipers who..." (Lance never met an adverb or adjective he didn't like. Neither did S. Boxx.) (When he was still soliciting my occasional advice in e-mail, which I sometimes gave, I urged him to not try to win arguments merely by repeating his points over and over again and then announcing what his _mental state_ was. His points would have to stand or fall on their own merits, not on his claims that he was going to hold his breath 'til he turned blue. "Blue Nyms"?) THE FACTS There's been a lot of innuendo that "pseudospoofing" is going on. Not just anonymous mail sent to Detweiler--something I can't speak to, not having sent him any and not having access to his incoming mail--but the use of pseudonyms like Jamie Dinkelacker, Nick Szabo, and (as of last night, apparently, according to Detweiler) Hal Finney to shape and slant arguments. Detweiler has argued that these pseudospoofers are criticizing his points and generally interfering with the democracy that would, he thinks, otherwise produce the proper decisions. Namely, his decisions. I've seen no situation where a "vote" of posters was taken, where these alleged pseudospoofers shaped an outcome. In fact, the Cypherpunks list is largely a "market anarchy," with very few real decisions *ever* being made...the several dozen active posters say their points, announce their projects and their progress on same, and generally follow the "coffee shop" model someone (sorry) eloquently described a week or so ago. Positive reputations matter. I've never met Doug Barnes or Karl Barrus before, and they may even be pseudonyms. But I value their comments, regardless. Even some of the recent obvious nyms, like "Sam Hill," I'm valuing more and more. To each their own. Use filters if you don't like nyms. I know for a fact that I haven't been sending Detweiler anonymous mail. And not much mail at all, in fact. About 5 or 6 weeks ago, after he went ballistic and called me a "traitor" and a "lackey of Eric Hughes" over my relatively mild defense of the EFF/Shari Steele advisory, I told him in e-mail I would no longer correspond with him. (My message to him was later quoted in its entirety in one of his rants.) Frankly, I was tired of his hot-and-cold mood swings, with death threats and floridly-written insults interspersed with requests for help in some area (pretty nervy!)....I just got fed up with his obvious lack of social skills and his descent into paranoid schizophrenia. He is, as a former girlfriend would diagnose his condition, a "borderline personality." I've used remailers, though never for mail to him. Detweiler made a big thing about my open admission to him that I have in fact used anonymous mailers at times to post to the List. This is hardly a surprising announcement, as nearly all of you should know that in several instances I have used remailers to make a point, to demonstrate some capability. The three main examples that come to mind are: 1. "Information Liberation Front" (ILF). To illustrate the possibilities, and to also post some articles I had scanned, I began using this "nym" about a year ago. Others have since used it as well (anyone can...no sigs are involved), as I hoped. In no cases can you find the "ILF" doing the kind of "pseuodospoofing" Detweiler rails about. 2. The "A Patriot" (I think that was the name I used) posting supposedly blowing the whistle on F-117 Nighthawk (Stealth) fighter cost overruns. I posted material anonymously, got a bunch of "you are a traitor" messages (not from Detweiler, that I can recall), and then several days later I announced that I was the author and that the material came from widely available public articles. My point was not to make people look like fools--though at least one person did--but to provide a "trial run" for the Real Thing, when actual defense secrets get out on whistleblowers-type networks. It's gonna happen, and we need to think about this in advance. (This posting was made about 6 months ago, and it was hardly a secret that I was the author.) 3. "BlackNet." Ironically, someone else took my announcement of this from somewhere--perhaps from a nanotech meeting, where I used it to illustrate the difficulties in controlling nanotech developments--and forwarded it through a remailer to the Cypherpunks list. But I was of course the author. I've been using "BlackNet" as my generic example of a crypto-anarchic entity since late 1987, as I have already explained in an earlier posting. (The recent announcement that a Van Eyck radiation kit is available via a BlackNet-style "cutout" was not my doing, I hasten to add. I welcome such developments, though I doubt this one is completely serious.) In these three cases, which are my *only* uses of anonymity/pseudonyms that I can recall (I won't say there's never been another example, but I honestly can't recollect any other uses....), these were essentially "open secrets." I discussed all of them either on the List (as with the F-117 and BlackNet material) or it was a standing joke amongst physical meeting attendees that I was behind the ILF. I am not any of the pseudonyms you see on the List regularly. I guess I have too much ego and too little to fear (being retired, I have no fears about my "reputation" as a crypto-anarchist hurting me) to hide my views under a pseudonym. Enough on this, though. Robert Woodhead made some comments in Detweiler's behalf, and was promptly flamed for it, referred to as "another snake" or somesuch. Here are my comments on Robert's points: He writes: >Personally, I am getting a little tired of your ranting. I agreed with >most of your position and got flamed for it. Thanks a lot. It's chillingly >obvious you've read "How to Win Friends and Influence People." > >If you are willing to do the research and provide solid, verifyable >evidence of such nastiness as you are convinced is happening, then >do it. If you are willing to discuss the implications of dishonesty >in a universe of anonymity, then that is a topic of interest. If >all you are willing to do is rant about the boogieman under the >bed, then please do your mumbling somewhere else in cyberspace. > >I _still_ think the issue that concerns you is an important one. I >also think you are doing a very good job of ensuring that people >don't give it critical thought. Robert, Something you might want to think about is this: * I have never sent Detweiler--or S, Boxx, either--a message anonymously or pseudoanonymously. That is, *all* mail I have sent him (and that hasn't been much) has been from my one and only e-mail account, tcmay(a)netcom.com. (Obviously not counting any of the anonymous mail that appeared on the List as a whole, the aforementioned ILF, F-117, and BlackNet material.) * Somehow he became deluded--and that is literally his condition--that other List members, such as Jamie Dinkelacker and Nick Szabo--were pseudonyms of *me*. He ranted at me in e-mail, interspersed with "you sly devil!" congratulations for pulling off such a feat. He claimed I wrote the short story, "Master Key" (about 4-6 weeks ago), which I did not....I don't know who did. The political essays which have appeared under pseudonyms were definitely *not* written by me...some of them I'd like to claim credit for, but I just can't. * After many of these strange messages, I broke my silence with him and sent him a message setting him straight: that I was not Jamie or Nick, that I had not sent him any messages, and that I did not write any of the anonymous pieces he claimed I had. (Detweiler called me a liar for disavowing to him in e-mail that I had written these. He just won't take no for an answer. Denials are taken as further proof of a Grand Conspiracy to Confuse Him.) * This knocked him further over the edge, and he began sending me death threats (along the charming lines of "traitors like you will be hung by the neck until DEAD and then sent to HELL") and other weird messages. * What more can be said? He has taken his personal demon, "pseudospoofing," and blown it out of proportion. When Hal Finney tried to help (a misguided idea, in my opinion, as we are not psychotherapists), he is called another "tentacle of the Medusa" and LD says he now realizes "Hal" is just a pseudonym of his tormenters! When Phil Zimmermann gets fed up with LD's paranoia, he is deemed to be part of the conspiracy! It seems tragicomic that Detweiler has now gone almost completely over to the side long-expressed by David Sternlight (no, I am not making any paranoid assertions) that law enforcement needs require restrictions on anonymity tools, that registries of True Names and identities are needed, and that the Cypherpunks goals are dangerous. He even mixes in fundatmentalist religious paranoia, talking about Satan-inspired Cypherpunks and "black poison" from the depths of Hell. One has to wonder how Detweiler could so demonize Dorothy Denning and David Sternlight and now have so thoroughly taken an even more extreme position on their side of the issues. As someone said to me recently, Detweiler should be regarded as one of the casualties. It's sad. --Tim May. whose identity is all-too-public and can be easily confirmed by looking at photos in past issues of journals like "Transactions on Electron Devices" (January, 1979, paper on "Alpha Particle-Induced Soft Errors in Dynamic Memories") and so forth. I am also known to about 40-60 of you, by my rough estimate. It's sad that Detweiler will not trust the evidence of his senses, and contacts with others, and instead has plunged head-long into paranoid schizophrenia. -- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: by arrangement Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

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No Subject
by Ian Turton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Authur Chandler writes: > > Isn't it tough enough to build up a rep under our real names? What is > the point to using a pseudonym? I can think of some bad reasons; but I > can't come up with any good ones, except for "fun" and "just to see what > it feels like to put out opinions not my own." I'm sure I'm missing the > point; so, before you jump on me as a Clueless Newbie, can you run by > the reasons why you want to have alternate personas on the NET? Well the one case that comes to mind for me is a friend I knew at a previous university where I worked. There was a member of the support staff who was responsible for introducing the net/email to new users (amongst other things). He had two personas one for dealing with official things and the other obvoiusly an alias (FoFP) for ranting about the government etc. However new users still regualarly reported this alias to Mike (in his official role) for bringing the university in to disrepute. I'm fairly sure he owned up to them at this point :-). However I'd contend that it was important for him to distinguish official posts from unofficial posts more strongly than just by sticking a disclaimer on the end of unoficial messages - since who really reads them anyway. > Ian Turton - School of Geography, Leeds University 0532 -333309

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Re: Net Requlation
by kwaldman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Say the best way to go is to become a perpetual tourist. That is you don't have US citzenship and thus are not subject to it's taxes and other nosy laws. [Not that other government's don't have nosier laws]. Anyway 1. If you don't have US citzenship, how do you get a passport? (Buy it on sale from the Czech republic or what?) 2. Where do you live? I mean I love to travel but after 3 or 4 weeks of it I'm ready to settle down and hibernate for a long while. [Especially now with a wife and 2 sons, I'd last about 2 days traveling :-)] Somewhere were I don't have to get thrown in jail for thinking the wrong thoughts. [Which given the nature of this list most of us do, except of course our NSA monitors :-)] 3. Are the TELECOM connections there yet? I saw this weeks Economist and it looks promising but last time I was in Europe some of my phone connections were less than perfect. [Even parts of the US leave something to be desired]. I personally need a good phone line (especially if I'm hundreds of miles from my customer), and a minimum of 56kbaud link for my computer. 4. Customer interaction. This is a problem, if you work on computer systems that are unique or program custom software for these systems, customer interaction is very important ( and in other areas I'm sure). Yes email, video conferencing (expensive!) help but you either need to be there or have very good VR (which I have yet to see, this doesn't mean much as I haven't seen bad VR yet either). The one plus is that I believe there is still time (5-10) years before the costs outweigh the benifits of living in the US and thus there is time to plan things like what country to live in, which bank to use in the channel isles and let technological advance solve some of the bandwidth problems. Karl Waldman BTW The above shouldn't imply I disagree with Ducan's premise. In fact I have enjoyed his posts and agree with most of what he says, so I guess I should shut up and buy some DUCAN (or whatever) on HEX. P.S. Ducan please post your talk after you get back from London. I will transfer 1000 thornes to your HEX account (if you have one)

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RSA encryption
by Christopher Kotze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone know anything about RSA encryption, if so, please tell me about it ! cheers, chris

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help writing code
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've spent the summer working on a SMTP/POP client that runs under MS-Windows. There are two ideas behind it. First, widespread acceptance of global communication will require that mass market user don't have to learn vi/emacs/... and Second, once the email composing and reading is done on a local, controlled PC, we can trivially pipe messages in and out of PGP, RIPEM, or your favorite encryption algorithm. This second part will allow folks to send all their mail encrypted, which will not only spread the word, but hurt traffic analysis. But, I need help. I've got all the front-end stuff working, and can handle the SMTP/POP protocols. But I can't get Windows to talk reliably with a raw async link. (I don't want to require SLIP or PPP, as lots of sites are too clueless to offer it.) I need a robust communications library. It has to do as well as possible given an inherantly inreliable link. I've bought three commercial sibraries, and none work. Cypherpunks write code. I've been trying. If someone wants to help, please reply, and we can work out detailed specs of the API I have in mind. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)netcom.com Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: More signs that key escrow is coming
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim wrote: >Things seem awfully quiet on the list the past 24 hours.... > >Lucky Green wrote: > >> This RFP contains the final specs for a new multimedia architecture the >> cable companies intend to deploy. >... >> ".c4.11.7.1.1 Security System Objectives: >> The Offeror shall specify [..] whether it is possible to hide information >> in the digital signature number of which the signer would be unaware, which >> could conceal information. " >> >> Such as parts of the key? > >This sounds like it's a concern about subliminal channels in the >DSS/DSA signatures, a la the concerns raised by Gus Simmons last year. >I don't know what the use would be, unless it's concern (by whom?) >that viewing preferences could be back-propagated. > The RFP is not just for a system that sends Multimedia to the subscriber. The specs call for Homeshopping, private financial transactions, encrypted credit card transaction, etc. Just what info do they intend to conceal that the "the signer would be unaware" of? Just wondering, -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP public key by finger

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Security of PGP private keys
by jrk＠sys.uea.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PGP secret keys are protected by a password. Yet people have said that one should not keep one's secret keyring on an insecure machine. Why? -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

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Re: Security of PGP private keys
by dmandl＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) > > PGP secret keys are protected by a password. Yet people have said that one > should not keep one's secret keyring on an insecure machine. Why? > > -- ____ > Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems > Internet: jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia > uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K. 1. Why take chances? Once the evil intruder has the file, she can throw test passwords at it from now till doomsday and might be able to crack it. 2. On shared machines, there are ways for users with the appropriate access to read your keystrokes (like, for example, when you type in your pass phrase). Anyone with that access should also be able to grab your secring.pgp with no problem, and that's that. --Dave.

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CASH: crosspost
by Karl Lui Barrus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At risk of irritating some folks who already saw this, a crosspost: > Medvinsky, Gennady and B. Clifford Neuman. "NetCash: A Design > for Practical Electronic Currency on the Internet" Proceedings > of the First ACM Conference on Computer Communications Security > (November 1993) [available via anonymous FTP, > <URL=ftp://prospero.isi.edu/pub/papers/security/netcash-cccs93.ps.Z>]. > Addressing the pressing problem of how to conduct fiduciary > business on the Internet, Medvinsky and Neuman describe a > system that allows clients, merchants, and currency servers to > interact in a secure fashion over an insecure medium. The > framework presented here addresses, to varying degrees, the > following issues: security, anonymity, scalability, > acceptability, off-line operation, transferability, and > hardware independence. The authors readily admit that this > scheme does not solve all of these problems perfectly, but it > does allow for the integration of other protocols when utmost > anonymity and offline capabilities are required. - DR

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Re: a desperate plea
by lefty＠apple.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> No, I wasn't complaining about his personal attacks per se but his long term >behavior on this list and Extropians which is mainly "hit-and-run" >attack posts about once a month which usually generate massive flame wars. >(the last of which ended up with Tim May leaving the extropians list) Let me make sure I understand this: are you claiming that _I_ caused Tim to leave the Extropians list? -- Lefty (lefty(a)apple.com) C:.M:.C:., D:.O:.D:.

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Re: Help writing code
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Let me quickly try to clear up some confusion. I've gotten several replies (real quick response) that are answering a different question. I'm not trying to reimplement TCP/IP. I'm trying to provide a Windows version of NUpop, which is a DOS program that works fine over a simple serial line. Most folks automatically associate SMTP/POP with TCP/IP, but there is no connection. Admittedly they work better with a robust, end to end protocol. But I've been using NUpop for a year over a non-TCP/IP line. I get hundreds of messages a day. It works. But there are no sources available to NUpop, it is a DOS program, and it doesn't support piping messages thru PGP/RIPEM/... I have lots of DOS libraries that do exactly the simple things I need. I don't want to use DOS, I want native Windows code. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)netcom.com Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: help writing code
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message Wed, 27 Oct 1993 10:10:04 -0600 (MDT), mpjohnso(a)nyx.cs.du.edu (Michael Johnson) writes: > The only way to communicate reliably over the serial port in Windows is > to upgrade the UART in your serial port to a 16550AFN or equivalent. The > standard UART (16450 in AT class machines) has no buffer and suffers from > frequent dropouts due to data overwrite on receive. If you can't do that, > then an error correcting protocol such as SLIP or PPP is required. A 16550 is clearly a big help, but Microsoft admits that their comm.drv fails often when you are using speeds greater than 4800. I have 16550's in my PC. A step in the right direction is TurboComm, a replacement driver, but that is expensive. A hardware solution is to use an intellegent serial card, like Hayes ESP or Telcor's T/Port. An O/S solution is to use a real operating system, :-) I want a no cost, MS-Windows solution. But I think folks read too much into my use of "robust" NUpop works fine as a DOS program without end-to-end. I simply want that functionality in a Windows program. No more, no less. I'm aiming low end, the mass market with a 386sx and a 2400 modem. Folks like me with a network of PCs in their house and even cypherpunks are not my market. The English majors, history and art majors are the folks I envision when I see a "user" Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)netcom.com Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: Net Regs.
by kwaldman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to my reply to Duncan's *"Net Regulation" Perry wrote: >To: kwaldman <kwaldman(a)BBN.COM> >Subject: Re: Net Requlation >Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 09:53:47 -0400 >From: "Perry E. Metzger" <pmetzger(a)lehman.com> >You do realize that cypherpunks is not extropians... >kwaldman says: >> Say the best way to go is to become a perpetual tourist. That is >> you don't have US citzenship and thus are not subject to it's taxes and >> other nosy laws. [Not that other government's don't have nosier laws]. >> Anyway Yes I realize it, and perhaps Perry's right we should move this to extropians. Karl * BTW I spelled Duncan's name wrong twice in 1 paragraph in my last post. Sorry.

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blacknet international offers DOSSIERS for SALE
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <9310270231.AA02958(a)tamsun.tamu.edu> remail(a)tamsun.tamu.edu writes: > blacknet international is pleased to offer the following materials for sale: > > DOSSIERS: on the current participants in the Cypherpunks Mailing List Flame war > > PRICES: Prices and delivery terms upon request via encrypted anonymous return > address. > > SUBJECTS: > Perry Metzger <pmetzger(a)lehman.com> > Duncan Frissell <frissell(a)panix.com> > S. Boxx <an12070(a)anon.penet.fi> > L. Detweiler<ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu> > Timothy C. May <tcmay(a)netcom.com> > Ray Cromwell <rjc(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu> > David Sternlight <strnlght(a)netcom.com> > > These are available now via PGP encrypted return anonymous mail. Yes yes, very droll. What's not so funny is that the moderator of comp.dcom.telecom appears to have taken the BlackNet joke idea for his very own, and *is* selling dossiers on people for the purposes of doing nasty things to them (as he says himself in a footnote some way down this post) Of course, I'd like to discuss this in comp.dcom.telecom, but I'm persona non grata there nowadays...

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My key
by an41418＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As Hal Finney suggests, a pseudonym is a key. Others have also inquired about my key, so I made one. However, posting it to the group makes no sense because if this message were a forgery, then someone could pose as me. Strange, the idea of someone posing as someone else's pseudonym. Anyway, send me e-mail if you want my public key, and I'll send it to you. Wonderer P.S. Silly pgp question: When I type pgp -sa file -u wonderer I produce an entire pgp message. How do I make a shorter signature that is a hash of my message? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: My Views on the Detweiler Matter
by jamie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypheroids and Cypherettes, The eventual recognition that names are symbol strings and not their referents is akin to the realization that the map not being the terrrtory. Yep, sometimes we just keep learning the same old lesson. The Detweiler/Boxx rants have the flavor of a reformed alcoholic distrupting the champagne toast at a wedding, selfishly driven by their world view and utterly unaware of the social dynamics around them. But aside from the rantings, pleas for TrueNameUtopia in CypherSociety, and threats, I sense something else. Take your pick of remark -- "thou doth protesteth too much," or "where there's smoke there's fire," or ... . Seems to me that the essential raison d'etre of L.Detweiler and S.Boxx (and even sometimes The SternLight himself) is purposive to distract c'punks from "writing code" or essays or having fun. This is basic motivated deception used in sports, business and the military ... get the opponent to do something else ... Here's one interpretation: if c'punks weren't pushing the envelope in creating both tools and understanding for things like cryptography, anonymous remailers and digital cash, nor pushing the social bounds through BlackNet, Nyms, Sam Hill, and May's CryptoAnarchy, the Detweiler nonsense wouldn't have emerged. A nerve has been struck; and this seems, in the big picture, to be A Good Thing. I've no doubt that to the true statists, fascists and communists, we are their vision of hell. On the other side of this, they will no longer be the only ones to hide behind anomynity, pull their secret strings, and pronounce agents of change as Evil Incarnate. We stand at the threshold of a new world, in large part to be enabled by cryptography. As "The Net" expands, dark fiber becomes illuminated, online markets flourish and the like, cryptography will be key for economic survival, and it will be in the hands (or machines) of The People, not The State. If such great progress wasn't being made toward providing for personal privacy, the L.Detweiler-Boxxs of the Net would be ranting about something else. So each rant underscores how significant the progress in cryptography is becoming; and it will become more so. In a nutshell, three cheers for c'punks. -- ................................ Jamie Dinkelacker Palo Alto CA Jamie(a)netcom.com 415.941.4782

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Re: Net Regs.
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

K > Yes I realize it, and perhaps Perry's right we should move this K >to extropians. No one has complained to *me* yet. I thought this a cpherpunks issue because it deals with the *Physical* Layer which is just as important a part of the ISO reference model as any other. We have to deal with questions of the interface between some of our technology and the world. Duncan Frissell Free Reference Model mnemonic. Read from the bottom up: Anarchists Communists or Socialists <--- I know they've renamed this but that's the way Trust I first saw it. Never Departments Police Applications Communications System Transport Network Data Link Physical --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

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subscribe
by jc138696＠longs.lance.colostate.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How do I subscribe? thank you.

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