December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by owner-cypherpunks＠toad.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Excerpted from a message to fight-censorship. For the full thread, check out: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/fight-censorship/dl?thread =The+Leahy+Crypto+Bill+is+Rancid+Sausage&after=1795&type=short (On one line, of course.) -Declan ---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- From: Stanton McCandlish <mech(a)eff.org> Message-Id: <199603190315.TAA05777(a)eff.org> To: declan+(a)CMU.EDU (Declan B. McCullagh) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:15:09 -0800 (PST) Cc: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu, junger(a)pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu, tcmay(a)got.net [...] As our statement on the bill made clear, *EFF does not support the Leahy bill*, nor do we endorse it, like it, find it useful or any other synonym. We're happy to see the issues raise again, a la Cantwell, but we specifically recommended simple and complete deregulation. As our co-founder John Gilmore points out, the Leahy bill as written pre-supposes Congressional authority to legislate in this are, and Executive authority to regulate under that legislation. These are notions that we, and Phil Karn, are challenging in court with Constitutional tests we are throwing at the ITAR export regs. [...]

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A funny story
by Greg Kucharo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was driving on the Foothill Expressway in Palo Alto today when I came to a stop at a light. I glanced over at the car next to me and noticed that someone had left thier keys in the door lock. So being the good cypherpunk that I am I jumped out and grabbed the keys from the lock, then knocked on the window. The passenger rolled down the window and accepted the keys back. Much to my surprise the passenger was none other than Whitfield Diffie. Very goofily I exclaimed, "aren't you Whifield Diffie!?". "Yes, who are you", was the reply. "I'm a cypherpunk", I retorted. I'm not sure his exact reply by I think it was along the "excellent" lines. I got handshakes from he and his driver. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- "When they came for the Fourth Amendment I didn't say anything because I had nothing to hide. When they came for the Second Amendment I didn't say anything because I wasn't a gun owner. When they came for the Fifth and Sixth Amendments I didn't say anything because I had committed no crimes. When they came for the First Amendment I couldn't say anything." -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.2 mQCPAzEIa2wAAAEEALouE7MNxsG+QTOJSrMTygYWKblpI9MgOKaFA+5AICNelAw6 6Gj3B0EQr7bwLILk8EJULG+kYh/ND9Kn1EXBK+elXbwpFCLqoyEZrbHJnurhH/t6 VFEwhbN1V0e/bFOCTq8nykoJjZ/uq0mz8HouIbEt6BYWoKVSUIU/T+iDV3TVABEB AAG0DWdoa0Bzb3BoaS5jb20= =gwax -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

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Happy shiny censors holding hands
by Nobody 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

McPaper USA Editorial, March 21st, 10A: Racism on the Net Even in the wildest reaches of the Internet, where anything goes and most things have gone at least twice, the flow of free information is sometimes at risk. Take this ugly battle: on one side, a band of racists wants a formal place on the Net to discuss "white power" music. On the other, a cadre of Internet users believes white power deserves no such setting. At risk is the wondrous anarchy of the Internets newsgroups. These exist by the thousands in an Internet subject called Usenet, where they are divided in two. In the "alternative" category, newsgroups careen about essentially without limits. In the other, qualified newsgroups are organized into eight subject "hierarchies": politics, science, etc. Membership in these is preferred because, for the most part, these hierarchies are carried by the Internet's networks without question. In this case, a fan proposed that the "recereation" hierarchy, which includes music sections, add a white-power newsgroup. This would put the music -- and its central tenets -- smack in the middle of the Net. Then the fight commenced. Although the Usenet contains no real structure, it is self-regulating. Newsgroups proposed for a hierarchy are subject to a discussion period and then balloting by interested Netizens. In this case, opponents argued that white-power advocates should hold their discussions in one of the "alternative" newsgroups; that the hierarchies constituted a special garden in the Net's "village green"; and that white-power music deserved no bench there. To be sure, racism deserves neither respect nor credibility. But in this case, exclusion may have unintended results. If offensive ideas by themselves are a basis for exclusion, then who else should be locked out? Some would make the same argument against the hip-hop and music-poetry newsgroups, where harsh and violent rap lyrics may be discussed. Without their own newsgroup, the white-power devotees will only contaminate other newsgroups with their static. Give them a lair to call their own, and at least you know where not to tread. There are advantages to Usenet's ad hoc self-governance. It helps protect the system from outsiders seeking to control its carbonated anarchy. But if the system then turns against speech, the result is the same: Free exchange of ideas is constricted. Even in the ether -- especially in the ether -- that's something to beware. We Gungir Din

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DIO_fan
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Sciences, March/April, 1996: "Beyond the Last Theorem." On Diophantine equations, by mathematician Dorian Goldfeld. To mathematicians, the statement and proof of the STW conjecture were as revolutionary as the first mingling of waters in the Panama Canal. Until that point, the mathematics of elliptic functions and the mathematics of rigid motions had developed in isolation from each other and in strikingly different ways. The study of elliptic curves was a branch of number theory, small, specialized and provincial -- not unlike the study of Diophantine equations. In contrast, the study of rigid motions was a bustling, sophisticated suburb of topology, geometry and analysis, with many applications to engineering and physics. Mathematicians had been working on rigid motions intensely for a hundred years and had accumulated a vast armamentarium of powerful mathematical machinery. By suggesting that the two fields could be linked, Shimura, Taniyama and Weil delivered that heavy machinery to the construction site of elliptic curves; by proving that the link held, Wiles and Taylor started the engines. The result has been a frenzy of productive mathematical work that has benefited each field and is likely to lead to solutions of outstanding problems in other fields as well. ... If the ABC conjecture yields, mathematicians will find themselves staring into a cornucopia of solutions to long-standing problems. Some of those problems are of more than theoretical interest. Nowadays many methods of ensuring the security of electronic mail and other computerized transactions depend heavily on number theory, as programmers develop ciphers based on time-consuming problems in arithmetic. For example, a highly popular technique depends on the difficulty of determining all the large prime factors of a very large number. In principle, it should also be straightforward to create a cipher based on the difficulty of solving problems in Diophantine analysis. The major hurdle is the solvability barrier: the number of variables above which a Diophantine equation becomes impervious to attack. Any cipher based on an equation with that many variables should be absolutely secure. But where is the threshold? All anyone knows is that it probably lies between three and nine variables. At current or foreseeable processing speeds, a nine-variable cipher is impracticably slow, even for the fastest computers. A four-variable Diophantine cipher, however, would be both practical and extremely useful. DIO_fan (35 kb)

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Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 9:42 PM 3/21/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > I would like to remind people that the US judicial system, while not as >always mistaken as some believe, is not particularly noted for not making >serious errors in this area. For instance, regarding the forfeiture scheme, >quite a few competent lawyers have examined civil forfeiture - used for _any_ >crime - and found it to be a violation of the Bill of Rights. And yet civil forfeiture continues, in a big way, There are entire police departments who count on civil forfeiture to supply them with cars, boats, planes, helicopters, and who count on sales of seized assets to fund their departments. (From the yachts seized in Dade County to the killing of a retired doctor who had land in Malibu desired by the cops, the civil forfeiture situation is grim.) > Moreover, it is the contention of many lawyers - such as with the >ACLU - that the whole ITAR scheme should have been thrown out long ago as >unconstitutional. That it has not been so may be taken as an indication of how By the way, it was also the opinion of lawyers within the NSA that a real test of the ITARs in court should be avoided because they would likely be ruled unconstitutional. (Source: private conversation with Carl Nicolai, inventor of the PhaserPhone, suppressed by a Patent Secrecy Order, who was allowed, with his lawyer, to look through certain legal papers at NSA headquarters. He encounterd memoranda to the effect that an ITAR challenge would likely see the ITARs thrown out. I communicated this information to Phil Karn and the EFF a couple of years ago.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Cypherpunk Enquirer Request
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:13 PM 3/21/96, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: >Would some kind soul please forward to me a copy of the latest Cypherpunk >Enquirer? My filter mistakenly tossed the last copy and the archive at >hks.net is still down. I just did this. Hilarious stuff. Interesting that no one complains about this use of anonymity! (By the way, with 1000+ subscribers, a "would some kind soul" request is possibly a dangerous thing to request. Game theory has some advice about rolling dice, etc., but I doubt this works well.) >(who should probably rewire his filter to toss messages into a temporary >'holding tank') Indeed, with Eudora (for the Mac and Windows), I filter offending messages into a file I call "Kill," though it is persistent and can be perused at any time. With the traffic having gotten lighter these last couple of weeks, I confess to looking at it more often. Some messages I "delete," which Eudora moves to a Trash file...and STILL doesn't delete the messages until the Trash is explicitly emptied! Lots of layers of protection. (Though I confess there have been times when I got an insulting or infuriating item in the mail and decided to remove all temptation to reply by immediately trashing it and then giving the command "Empty Trash." At this point, only a determined effort with Norton Utilities or the like could have any hope of recovering the deleted stuff. A a post offends thee, pluck it out.) --Tim Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 - 1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Cypherpunks Key-Signing at Networld
by Chris Claborne 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Planning on attending Netoworld / Interop? Want to connect your PGP public key ring to San Diego? If so... Send me an e-mail before 3/29/96 and we will create a meeting place. Best time for me will be Monday night (4/1/96). I can be reached during the show (via my newton so don't mail bomb me) at 76340.2422(a)compuserve.com ... __o .. -\<, Chris.Claborne(a)SanDiegoCA.ATTGIS.Com ...(*)/(*). CI$: 76340.2422 http://bordeaux.sandiegoca.attgis.com/ PGP Pub Key fingerprint = A8 FA 55 92 23 20 72 69 52 AB 64 CC C7 D9 4F CA Avail on Pub Key server. Dreams. They're just screen savers for the brain.

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Re: Kid Gloves or Megaphones
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 19:26 3/21/96, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: >From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 16-MAR-1996 01:55:32.07 > >>Depending on the details of Ian's method, I don't think the debate >>needs to be taken to the public, or even done - it may simply be a >>done deal once the technology's out there. If Mark Twain Bank or >>Merita Bank or the Federal <Exonive-Deleted> Reserve wants to offer >Digicash(tm) with Payee-Non-Anonymity, they can always make it a contractual >>requirement that their payees not use anonymity techniques in return for >>being paid. > > Wouldn't the viability of such a clause depend on the anonymizing >scheme in question? If the bank's cooperation isn't needed (i.e., going through >a proxy), then such a limit would be empty. It is true that the issuer is unable to discover that double blinding is being used. The real problem with the protocol is that it requires payor/payee collusion, which may make it difficult to execute. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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NT's C2 rating
by Ben Rothke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>>The fine print says its insecure as soon as its connected to a network. Try running the C2config.exe found in the 3.51 resource kit, Should NT detect that you have network connectivity during the C2 test, you will get the following error message: "C2 compliance requires that no networking software be installed on your system. One or more network services have been detected on your system. Select OK to use the Network Control Panel Applet to remove these services. If you click on Help, you will get the following bit of information: Windows NT networking services were not included in the NCSC C2 evaluated configuration. For your system to conform to the evaluated C2 configuration, the network services must be removed or disabled. Should you click on OK, if you are on a NT workstation, you have just disconnect yourself from the network. If you ran the test on a server, you have just shut down your network. ------------------------------------- Ben Rothke Citicorp Global Information Network NY, NY "Views expressed are exclusively my own & not of my employer" -------------------------------------

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Re: IPG message
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Seymour, TX Snake Oilers just keep getting better all the time, now that they've left Houston, or was it Boulder! Goat-getting hype about "What is specially claimed as copyrighted and or patentable" (blatantly incorrectly using those terms, and forgetting to include trademarks), several amusing new product names, bombastic claims about speed and strength, anecdotes about things he heard Dr. Von Neumann Himself say, and a sum-of-Linear-Congruential generators algorithm which is not only breakable but far slower than RC4 or RC5 or OTPs about which he's said less recently than before. And hardware random number generators achieving multiple megabytes per second of random numbers on a simple serial port! >Note: The zipped files are considerably larger than the original > because they are random unzippable data files. UnAuTHorIZed ReproDUCTion and DIS-SEMINATION Are STRICTLY ProHIBiTeD! Yee-Hah! P.S. Ralph - you now owe us the keys to your company (Percy still gets his 10%), plus all your remarkably copious Slack! #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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Re: Electronic Frontiers Houston Cyber-Political Questionaire.
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE >Electronic Frontiers Houston Cyber-Political Questionnaire. I'm not currently a candidate, though I've had the pleasure of running for Congress as a Libertarian a couple of times, and I'd like to comment on some of the issues. >Please answer the questions on the reverse side. Attach additional pages if required. Hmmm - that'll be a bit tough on line. Got any spare anti-electrons? I could run it through rot-13 :-) >1. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to print media? >2. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to broadcast media? >3. Do you think that electronic publishing should enjoy the constitutional >protections that accrue to libraries? The Bill of Rights was a good start, but courts have seriously mishandled it over the past 200 years, whether to support the public mood on an upcoming war (as in the Schenk (sp?) case, which gave us the appallingly misused "fire in a public theater" dictum), or to permit censorship of speech that offends the popular morals, or to support oligopolies through restricting access to radio and TV broadcasting to government-approved companies. I tend to agree with Hugo Black's position that the people who wrote "Congress shall make no law...." meant what they said. In particular, even supposing, as Holmes did, that there are types of speech so offensive and valueless as to not be protected by the First Amendment, the Constitution also doesn't specifically empower them to ban it either. >4. Do you favor new laws to regulate the content of electronic media? Yes - there's a lot of old law and FCC regulation that needs to be repealed, and that takes new laws. >5. Do you think that the First Amendment rights of free speech protect >private use of encryption? First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Tenth >6. Do you favor laws to regulate the private use of encryption? Nope. >7. Do you agree with restrictions on the export of technology that >incorporates cryptography? No - nor of other technology, either. >9. Do you support the right of a private individual too publish printed >materials anonymously? Not only do _I_ favor it, the Supreme Court also supports it. Electronic materials as well. >10. Should the government play a role in providing access to computer >networks? Yes and No. Governments have a role to play in providing access to existing government-run systems that have public information. >11. Do you think that the government should guarantee universal >access to computer networks? No. Government-provided services are government-controlled services. And governments can't guarantee services - they can only force people to buy them (with their own recycled money) from pro-government providers, while interfering with competing technologies and services that the market would otherwise provide. From a Liberal perspective, Internet access is already available on the open market for less than the cost of cable TV, in most of the country - trading government control of the most important media of the next two decades for the cost of a half-pack of cigarettes a day per citizen would be a really bad choice. >12. Do you think that access to government computerized information >is a right? >13. Should all governmental records that are available to the public be >made available via computer resources? >14. Should access to computerized governmental records be free? Not strictly - the public does own most of the government's information, but providing subsidized access to it isn't an appropriate use of tax money. Providing at-cost access certainly is, for information that the government should be giving out, and restricting distribution of that information or giving monopoly access to rent-seeking private companies certainly is wrong. But there's a lot of information the government has today that it shouldn't - people's private data that they've been forced to provide to bureaucrats, or information that wasn't quite as forced such as census data. Most of that data should be destroyed. And there are difficult questions, such as how to reveal details on CIA/NSA/FBI abuses without violating the privacy of people they spied on or interefered with. >15. Should the government regulate electronic financial transactions >and require traceability? Of course not. (I do distinguish between banning fraud and embezzlement, which is arguably a reasonable government function, and regulating the communications often used in those activities.) >16. Do you approve or disapprove of the wiretap provisions in the >1994 Digital Telephony bill? Disapprove. >17. Do you favor expanding law enforcement access to telephonic >communications? Sure - cops need phones, too. And access to the communications of other government officials to investigate crime and corruption in government is mostly safe. But demanding access to citizens' private communications is not only _far_ outside the bounds of government's legitimate access and a bare-faced grab for political power by the folks who brought us COINTELPRO and J Edgar Hoover's files, but is a call to violate individuals' rights to use whatever tools they want to protect their privacy to support their power-grab. And they've been so _disingenuous_ about it... >In addition, candidates for national office will be asked the >following additional question: >18. Do you favor legislation which would require a national ID card? No - I favor legislation to eliminate the half-way measure we have, the single "Social Security" tax-id Number, and, until we eliminate privacy-invasive taxes altogether, give taxpayers a large group of numbers so they don't have to give everybody a universal identifier just to pay their taxes. >Candidates for state office will be asked the following question: >18. Should laws requiring fingerprints to acquire/renew drivers licences >be repealed? Yes, as should driver's licenses and other mandatory ID. >Electronic Frontiers Houston is a non-profit group that supports civil >liberties and the development of culture in cyberspace. While I don't live in Houston, I've been a member and usually a supporter of EFF. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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Re: Shameless
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy wrote: >Actually, I doubt Mr/Ms Anonymous is a provocateur. Reads more >like a paranoid schitzophrenic to me. Dollars to donuts says >it's Detweiler. Doesn't matter if it's Detweiler; what matters is whether it's detweiling.... #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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CDA Court Challenge: Day #1
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CDA Challenge, Day #1 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Declan McCullagh / declan(a)well.com / Redistribute freely ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 21, 1996 PHILADELPHIA -- In the shadow of the Liberty Bell in downtown Philadelphia, the future of online liberty is being decided. I arrived halfway through the first day of the hearing in our lawsuit challenging the Communications Decency Act. Overall, it went well, though there were a few surprises, like a series of computer crashes and the Department of Justice's embrace of the rhetoric of crusading anti-porn activist Catharine MacKinnon. But most importantly, the judges are engaged in the case. CDT installed a T1 line, which is the first time a courtroom has had a live net-connection -- judges tend to insist on paper. When Ann Duvall of SurfWatch demoed the web and her software this afternoon, the judges paid attention, asked questions, and were proud when they figured out the concept of a hierarchy of pages on a web site. Her demonstration wasn't without problems. The Macintosh laptop she used to demonstrate Netscape and SurfWatch crashed three times as Duvall tried to click on the Philadelphia Phillies web site. (A great idea, though -- at least one judge appeared interested in the team.) Jonah Seiger and the other CDTers fixed the problem quickly, but then net.latency prevented Duvall from accessing the Louvre or Playboy web sites. Penthouse worked properly, though: "Blocked by SurfWatch." As I'm typing this, I saw a mention that a local television station, WCAU News 10, is going to broadcast a special on the hearing early tomorrow morning. Today's press corps included CNN, CBS, NBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times Online, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Los Angeles Times, and plenty of local reporters. The most interesting witness might have been Dr. William R. Stayton, a psychologist and sex therapist who testified that minors were not necessarily harmed by sexually-explicit materials. Stayton is an American Baptist minister, and holds faculty appointments at LaSalle and the University of Pennsylvania. The DoJ's only female attorney present cross-examined Stayton, spinning her arguments around a twisted MacKinnon-esque logic that I've never heard even from honorary net.mascot Senator James Exon. Seems as though she wasn't just trying to establish that nekkid photos are *harmful to minors* -- she was trying to establish that they're *harmful to women.* She asked questions like: "Do these pictures depict a healthy view of women as sexual beings?" "Do you believe the pictures are a factor in leading minors to view women as sex objects?" "Do you believe that these pictures are part of a socialization process that depicts women as sex objects?" Stayton rallied, replying: "There's nothing inherently harmful about letting a six-year old view these images." Undaunted, DoJ counsel continued, quoting from the Attorney General's 1986 Commission on Pornography, page 343, entered into evidence as exhibit 80. Seems as though that section talks about how nonviolent and nondegrading sexual materials are still harmful to minors. Chris Hansen from the ACLU on redirect asked: "Why is it not harmful for minors to access sexual materials?" Stayton: "We are born sexual beings... Our children are bombarded with sexuality on all sides... 50% of kids are sexually active by 15-16 years old. 85% are active by 18." To illustrate their point, the DoJ showed the judges and Stayton examples of dirty pictures taken from the Internet, complete with URLs. The pictures were _not_ hardcore; they seemed to consist of solo naked women in various lewd and explicit poses. The DoJ did this to demonstrate the types of _nonobscene_ materials available online that they would be unable to prosecute without the CDA. I would report in more detail on the types of images, but as I and members of the press started to page through the exhibit book after the hearing, someone from the DoJ came over and told us we weren't allowed to look at them "since they weren't available to the public." I argued with him, and he maintained that since they weren't _entered into the record_ then the public had no right to see them. How odd that the Feds are unwilling to divulge the URLs of the dirty pix they use in their case! I also met Cathy Cleaver, who's the director of legal studies for the Family Research Council, and a strong supporter of the CDA. She says she thought the hearing went well for her side. I politely disagreed. By the end of the day, the judges might have been starting to "get it." When Kiyoshi Kuromiya testified about his Critical Path AIDS Project web site, which carries safe sex information, the judges grilled him about the number of minors in the USA with HIV. Later, one Patricia Warren from Wildcat Press: "Is it easier to create an ezine than a magazine?" Another asked her if "gay and lesbian information is likely to be censored?" Tomorrow morning Professor Donna Hoffman of Vanderbilt University will testify. (She was instrumental in debunking Marty Rimm's fraudulent cyberporn study. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~declan/rimm/>) Stay tuned for more reports. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The DoJ's case has been rescheduled to April 12th and April 15th. For more information and breaking updates, check out: http://fight-censorship.dementia.org/top/ Other relevant web sites: http://www.eff.org/ http://www.cdt.org/ http://www.aclu.org/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: A MODEST PROPOSAL
by frantz＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:03 AM 3/20/96 -0800, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >(Did I get the style right?) C'punks, if you feels as I do, >please take a few moments to sign up for the LIST OF SHAME? >Let's show Bill, Bruce, Matt and all the others what most >Cypherpunks really think about them and Mr/Ms Anonymous. Please add my name. I don't abandon my friends when I disagree with them. Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz(a)netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA

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DAZ_zle
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Foreign Affairs, March/April, 1996, features two policy essays on "The Information Edge: A technological change is transforming the nature of power and the United States is clearly in the lead." In "America's Information Edge," Joseph S. Nye, Jr. former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense, and Admiral William A. Owen, former Vice Chairman of the JCS, argue that information technology is transforming knowledge, and thereby power. They write of a "system of systems, an integration of ISR, C4I and precision force, which represents a qualitative change in U.S. military capabilities." They envision informational "soft power" -- the ability to achieve outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion -- as reinforcing the "information umbrella" shielding allies in lieu of the nuclear option. In "A Revolution in Warfare," Eliot A. Cohen, Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins, takes issue with Nye and Owen on the radical impact of information technology, and argues that its revolutionary dazzle may distort historical understanding of the more general political and economic forces that are reshaping international and military affairs. He observes that misunderstanding of revolutionary technology all too often has had unexpected, disastrous, consequences: "A revolution in military affairs is under way. It will require changes of a magnitude that military people still do not completely grasp and political leaders do not fully imagine." DAZ_zle

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Re: Minneapolis Star Tribune this morning (fwd)
by gimonca＠skypoint.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > > Charles Gimon wrote: > > Mpls. Strib did a piece this morning, front page, about AltaVista, > > Dejanews, etc. Well-worn territory to readers of this list. Your > > words can come back to haunt you, all that stuff. One paragraph that > > deserves rebuttal from those of you who are better-informed: > > > > "Of course, technology is working on solutions to itself, but > > mechanisms that would hide the name of a message's author, such as > > cryptography and anonymous remailers, are convoluted and incomplete." > > Rebuttal? Why? Remailers generally are. There aren't enough penet.fi > type remailers, which people prefer not only because there is a mapping > but because it's easier to use. (It's also a bit more secure if there > are c2-nym remailers mapped to penet.fi type remailers in various > countries). > > Not everyone is on a system that is PGP-friendly. Handling PGP-messages > from commercial services or even most mailer apps is awkward at best, > and the commands for mixmaster/c'punk remailers are not as standard as > they could be. (A PGP3 DLL would improve the use of crypto and anon- > remailers quite a bit.) > > From the excerpt you posted, it doesn't seem as if they were criticizing > remailers... which is a pretty good thing. > I'd rate the whole article as neither good nor bad. It was on the front page of the paper edition, so I was a little unhappy at an offhand remark that might discourage people from using remailers. I'm planning on doing the letters-to-the-editor thing, emphasis on saying good things about remailers. The whole article is online at the site mentioned. > > > > Author was Jonathan Gaw; no e-mail address given. Star Tribune Online > > is at http://www.startribune.com >

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Re: Tim's friend's mildly retarded son
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"asgaard(a)sos.sll.se" "Asgaard" 15-MAR-1996 14:06:44.11 >The reason FDA has not approved this drug is most probably because >it does not make mildly retarded boys less retarded. But of course, Actually, there is some evidence that nootropics do work. I've been doing a literature review on the subject (soon to be a full meta-analytic review if I can find the proper statistics for combining multiple results from the same study), and there is some evidence for them working... slightly. The lack of FDA approval can be described as being due to a combination of three factors: A. Most sucessful studies of such drugs have been on healthy individuals. (For instance, vasopressin only appears to work on those whose brains are reasonably intact in the portion that deals with memory; I find this unsurprising). However, the FDA refuses to approve drugs for the purpose of enhancement of normal humans. (They have the excuse that it's against their charter). They even include the decline of IQ with aging in this category, unless it's profound or associated with other problems. B. Most of the known to work nootropics, etcetera are beyond the patent period. Thus, the well-researched ones tend not to be profitable for a company to work on getting through the FDA. Instead, they're developing new ones... often with a concentration (as with hydergine) on drugs to treat senile dementia or other categories that the FDA _will_ approve. C. The FDA is notoriously conservative. I'm generally willing to trust anything they pass as safe and (at least marginally) effective, but that's because they're completely anal-retentive about the whole business. Anything they're willing to pass without serious political pressure (of the types mentioned in another post) is OK... it's just that they don't pass a lot of stuff that is OK. This topic's relevance to Cypherpunks, aside from the confirmations that you mentioned, is low... aside from that it's of interest to Extropians such as myself and Tim May. -Allen

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Re: ASN.1 Tools/Compilers
by tim＠dierks.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:29 AM 3/21/96, Frederick Zarndt wrote: >Does anyone know of reliable ASN.1 tools/compilers suitable for use on a >wide range >platforms? > >I already know about the following tools/compilers, but I would appreciate >comments >anyone cares to make: > > ISODE (who to contact for the DE?) > Snacc > >Thanks. > >Frederick Zarndt >Senior Software Engineer >Novell, Inc >122 East 1700 South >Provo UT 84606 >USA > >Tel 801 429-3348 >Fax. 801 429-3500 I've recently been looking into this as well. I haven't looked at ISODE yet. Snacc looks reasonable, but can't handle big integers (> 2^32), which may make it hard to use for certificates, due to embedded RSA keys; I haven't yet checked to see what could be done about this. It's free; the compiler is under the GNU license, but the runtime is redistributable without fee or onerous restriction. I also spoke to a company in NJ, Open Systems Solutions (609.987.9073), but their licensing terms were too expensive for my purposes. Their product runs on a lot of platforms and sounds very complete, but requires a licensed run-time environment. They currently support C and Pascal; C++ is coming. Their development environment starts at $11,500. I'm also searching for an ASN.1 product. We can afford to pay for a compiler, but we need unrestrained distribution of the runtime in source form. Any information would be greatly appreciated. You may wish to examine the ASN.1 homepage @: http://www.inria.fr/rodeo/personnel/hoschka/asn1.html Best, - Tim Tim Dierks - Software Haruspex - tim(a)dierks.org Hastening the heat-death of the universe since 1968.

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PGP key spoofing
by christopher＠nescio.zerberus.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, everybody, (Please note that I sent this to several mailinglists at once. I am not subscribed to cypherpunks any longer, so I won't see any replies there.) I think I have realized a serious flaw in PGPs key-handling. This may lead to people using and signing bogus keys despite the usual security measures. The problem is that PGP fails to differentiate between two keys sharing the same 64-bit-Key-ID. It is not a real problem to generate a key with a given key-ID (just take a prime, invert the desired key-ID modulo this prime and look for another prime whose lower bits are the same as in the number you just calculated), so the following attack would be possible: - Get the real key you wish to mimic. - Generate a fake key with the correct IDs. - Send your bogus key to a person of which you know that - This person does not have the correct key yet. - This person is going to meet the correct key's owner. If the owner of the correct key does not give a fingerprint, but rather a disk with the correct key to the person you are trying to fool, his or her pgp won't ring alarm bells when reading the key (apart from possibly a failed signature), but rather will tell him the key is already there. He will then, most probably, sign the bogus key without any further thought. Therefore, you should *always* check the fingerprint, even if you got the real key, at least if it has no valid signature from its alleged owner. -- Christopher Creutzig # Im Samtfelde 19 # D-33098 Paderborn # V+49-5251-71873 # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Sammele Vorschläge zur Rettung vom Genitiv.

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Re: NT's C2 rating
by David Loysen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:54 PM 3/21/96 EST, you wrote: >> configuration can be certified as C2 compliant. The way I read the orange >> book, no system with a network connection can ever be C2. For that matter a >> system can't get C2 unless it is in an area where you can control and >> monitor physical access to the system. > >This is incorrect -- you can have a C2 system which has a network >connection. Indeed, you can get a B2 rating with a networked system, >c.f. Multics. > >-derek > > > Well, I never argue with anyone from MIT..... But. I don't see any reason a C2 or B2 system can't be networked to another system(s) with the same classification. But that isn't really what I meant. Can you make a firewall system that is C2 compliant? Isn't this what you would need in order to connect a C2 system or network to another non secure network, (i.e. the internet)? I do agree that there is no place in the orange book that says "thou shall not speak ethernet" but can you network a system and be able to "require that ADP systems that process, store, or use classified data and produce classified information will, with reasonable dependability, prevent delibrate or inadvertent access to classified material by unauthorized persons, and unauthorized manipulation of the computer and its associated peripheral devices." Which the orange book does say. I guess "reasonable dependability" is a pretty broad term. Pardon a newbie here if I am being unusally obtuse, but you can't learn if you don't ask. dwl(a)hnc.com David Loysen 619-546-8877 x245

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Re: Leahy bill nightmare scenario?
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I believe the debate about the Leaky bill can essentially be summarized as: A. If the bill is interpreted in light of the Bill of Rights, et al, then we don't have anything to worry about, and it's a good bill. B. If it's not, then it's a bad bill. I would like to remind people that the US judicial system, while not as always mistaken as some believe, is not particularly noted for not making serious errors in this area. For instance, regarding the forfeiture scheme, quite a few competent lawyers have examined civil forfeiture - used for _any_ crime - and found it to be a violation of the Bill of Rights. Moreover, it is the contention of many lawyers - such as with the ACLU - that the whole ITAR scheme should have been thrown out long ago as unconstitutional. That it has not been so may be taken as an indication of how the _politically appointed_ judges on the Supreme Court, et al, are likely to make mistakes. I would also remind you of the ratings given by the American Bar Association to quite a few current judges on the Supreme Court, which may be taken as a reflection of their competency. -Allen

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C2 rating of NT
by Mark Aldrich 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 08:09:14 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Aldrich <maldrich(a)grctechs.va.grci.com> To: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: Re: your mail On Wed, 20 Mar 1996 owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com wrote: <snip> > > Basically, I'm now questioning the C2 rating of Windows NT. The > entire security layer is modular to the Kernel. As a modular > driver, it can be removed, rewritten, and replaced. > > So, what makes it secure? What gives it the C2 Rating? How would > one go about getting a C2 rating? Politics make it C2. The DoD mandated, years ago, that all their OSs had to go to the C2 level of trust. Further, they had also mandated POSIX compliance in just about every procurement that they had to publish in CBD. Well, they then proceeded to ignore their own policy and they bought MS DOS all over the damn place because everyone wanted the stuff just like they have at home. You can't play DOOM on SCO UNIX, ya know... So, in order to not look like a bunch of incoherent IRM loosers, they effectively forced the C2 and POSIX compliance stickers onto Windows NT even though everyone (including some nameless NCSC personnel with whom I've spoken) clearly state that C2/POSIX and MS Windows NT is an oxymoron. Now everyone can claim to be running C2 and POSIX systems, even though, by admission of MS, you can't have NT configured for both at the same time. Duhhhhhh... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Liberty is truly dead |Mark Aldrich | | when the slaves are willing |GRCI INFOSEC Engineering | | to forge their own chains. |maldrich(a)grci.com | | STOP THE CDA NOW! |MAldrich(a)dockmaster.ncsc.mil | |_______________________________________________________________________| |The author is PGP Empowered. Public key at: finger maldrich(a)grci.com | | The opinions expressed herein are strictly those of the author | | and my employer gets no credit for them whatsoever. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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protection on IoMega ZIP drives
by Joseph L. Moll 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is in regard to the now popular ZIP disks, the removable 100MB cartridge for PC's/MAC's. Anyone have any idea how secure the ZIP disk is once it is "protected?" I know that the disk will refuse to be mounted without the passkey, but what is really happening here? Best Regards, --- Joseph (Joe) L. Moll mailto:jmoll@acquion.com Network/Communications Engineering http://www.acquion.com phone:864-281-4108 fax:864-281-4576 Acquion, Inc. Greenville, SC USA -- Specialists in Electronic Commerce

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(X:x)e$ 's other use
by Gary Lee Jeffers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(X=:x)e$ 's other use. My dear fellow Cypherpunks, I believe that secret e$'s other use has been overlooked: That is, e$ would be a sound money replacement for the corrupt currency that every large state in the world currently pushes. Especially if e$ can be redeemed in something of real value on demand. As some of us know, the U.S. Fed State's Federal Reserve Notes are corrupt currency. The corruption is at 5 different levels: 1. They are DEBT currency - they are lent into existence and it is mathematically impossible to pay off this debt. If you borrow $100, then where do you get the interest - say 8% since all FRN's are borrowed into existence?. This turns the great majority of Americans into victims. If you want freedom for your citizens, you do NOT allow monopoly DEBT currency. Note: bankruptcies & good counterfeiting are the only ways. 2. Fractional Reserve Banking. That means that the bank can lend out several times the money that it actually has. I believe that that is currently 8 times but that is a rough estimation. 3. Fiat money. That means that FRN's are backed by nothing more than the willingness of banks to redeem them with other FRN's. 4. Private banks with monopoloy privledges issue the currency. The Federal Reserve is a private (non-U.S. State) institution with the mono- poly on U.S. currency manufacture. The U.S. Treasury prints the currency for the Federal Reserve. Other major states have similar arrangements. These major banks are properly called Central Banks. To turn your currency ownership over to a private Central Bank is monstrous! If the people knew what was going on, the U.S. Federal State would be destroyed along with the hidden ruling class. 5. The Legal Tender Laws. These laws force the acceptance of FRN's in the U.S.. "This money good for all debts public and private". Note that the book DREAMS COME DUE made the distinction between money and currency. The author used the word money for real money and the word currency for false money. It may be the author's private distinction. I suggest that Iran did us a good turn in making and passing billions of dollars worth of uncatchable hundred dollar bills: they allowed the retirement of billions of dollars of debt for the American people without forcing Americans into bankruptcy. In a debt currency economy, good count- terfeiting is GOOD! It adds superior counterfeit to the mass of "legiti- mate" counterfeit. kind of improves the pool :-) Secret e$ offers the possibility of ridding ourselves of the slavery of private monopoly money issue. It would also give us a choice in what currency that we would like to use. Another possibility is that due to its high quality, it would be used during depressions and would possibly even break depressions. Its extremely FLUID nature might also be a pro- tection against depressions. It would be a TRUE MONEY and would give the people the advantages of true money. Let me emphasize: we do not current- ly have REAL money nor do the people of the other major States. We do not know what real money is like. Another possibility exists with secret e$: that several different kinds could exist. They would all be convertible into each other, of course. Major differences?: Different redeemablity schemes, etc.. Secret e$ offers more that just the freedom of private transactions (as great as that is). It also offers us the power and freedom of true money! Central power is stolen freedom. THE UNITED STATES "FEDERAL" GOVERNMENT HAS NO LEGITIMACY. The United States "Federal" Government - We'll be even more American without it. PUSH EM BACK! PUSH EM BACK! WWWAAAYYYY BBBAAACCCCK! BBBEEEAAATTTT STATE! Gary Jeffers

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Re: NT's C2 rating
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:30 PM 3/21/96 -0800, David Loysen <dwl(a)hnc.com> wrote: >I don't see any reason a C2 or B2 system can't be networked to another >system(s) with the same classification. But that isn't really what I meant. >Can you make a firewall system that is C2 compliant? Isn't this what you >would need in order to connect a C2 system or network to another non secure >network, (i.e. the internet)? Leaving out Red Book details (since back when I last read the Red Book, nobody really had any general solutions to the problems), the problem is that the Orange Book demands that for C-level and above, the operating system must know the identity of all the users so it can track file, process, and authentication accesses, and for B1 and up, it also needs to know what users are allowed to use what security levels and what levels they're actually operating at. 1) It's difficult to do that - you have to trust the messages coming over a wire from the other machine to tell you who they're from, unless you can be sure there's only one user per wire. That means you need a mechanism for trusting the other machine, a mechanism for communicating that trust, a shared or mappable mechanism for identifying users, etc. That takes a certain amount of work even when you control all the machines that your machine can talk to, which you often can't (e.g. on an outer firewall.) 2) To _certify_ a system for general use (as opposed to certifying a specific instantiation of a system), you need to be sure that it will be installed and maintained in a way that will provide that identification and assurance. That's even harder, because you either need cryptographic authentication and session control, or else you need a way to guarantee that the system you're certifying only talk to machines that are administered in coordination with it, in spite of being installed by some Army grunt or military contractor who may RTFM but isn't a security wizard. And in the C2-certification biz, "cryptographic" means "something you got from the NSA", because they're the ones who do military crypto, and they tend not to trust software. Fortezza cards may do this stuff ok.... 3) The networking code becomes part of the Trusted Comptuting Base, which means you have to be able to verify that it can't mess with anything that you don't want it messing with, and if it supports more than one simultaneous user, it's got to be able to keep track of sessions and communicate them reliably to the OS and TCB. That works relatively well for serial-port user logins and maybe uucp. TCP/IP, on the other hand, is typically implemented down in the guts of the OS, partly because IP needs to talk to hardware a lot, partly because it's often easier to do the TCP and IP together, partly for "speed", and partly because it's much more efficient to hand stuff to multiple users from kernel space than to hand it up to a user-space application which then IPCs things back through the kernel to their destination user processes. It also tends to have various pieces running as root, either to access hardware or protected parts of the software, or to make it easier to transfer ownership of information to processes owned by different users. (Yes, this is a Unix-centric view, but other systems tend to do similar stuff.) This makes it difficult to verify that it's clean (hey, parts of it are tough enough to get working really well, much less bug-free), and it's even tougher at higher levels like B2 that want Least Privilege rather than having a SuperUser root that can do everything. Root stuff is just basically dangerous anyway. And B1-level OSs often run the TCB (including root) at System Low to make sure no regular user can mess with it, which makes it hard for root-owned processes to write up to users. #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com, +1-415-442-2215 pager 408-787-1281 # "At year's end, however, new government limits on Internet access threatened # to halt the growth of Internet use. [...] Government control of news media # generally continues to depend on self-censorship to regulate political and # social content, but the authorities also consistently penalize those who # exceed the permissible." - US government statement on China... "SigFiles of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist!"

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