December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: A further thought on free markets & anarchy... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:40:33 -0800 > From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart(a)pobox.com> > Subject: Re: A further thought on free markets & anarchy... > If you begin by assuming that a free market will automagically acquire > someone with monopoly control who can prevent all competitors from acting, > you've got a rather different view of free markets than I do, First, it isn't magic. It is the realization that any market is limited by several factors (eg number of customers, limited raw resources, startup costs) and that even a small superiority in one businesses ability to produce their service or product over time will provide them with an increased share of those limited resources and the share in profits that acrue as a result. As their share, and hence their control over, those resources increases the competitors are faced with the prospect of having to go to the competitor to get what they need in order to compete. It is *not* a part of any free market theory that I am aware of that pre-supposes that a given business entity will, for whatever reason, of its own free will guarantee the continued existance of competition. If anything the long term goal of any business is to reduce competition. If we accept the commen view of free markets and the one you seem to be saying is the reality, we shouldn't worry about Microsoft. One morning they'll all wake and realize that if they don't keep HP, Sun, IBM, Apple in business they won't have competition. As a consequence of that realization they will in fact provide contracts or other forms of renumeration to their competitors to keep them in business and hence able to take potential sales away from Microsoft. What I am saying is given the environment and goals of operating a for-profit firm the supposition that a free market will somehow prevent monopolization is incorrect. I am saying that a free market economy when operating without outside 3rd party guidance or some form of economic bill of rights will by its very nature monopolize and reduce competition due to nothing more than minute superiorities of individual business models and the efficiency those businesses acrue over time as a result. > and you're basically assuming that anarchy is unmaintainable in economies, > from which the obvious conclusion is "so don't even try." But the free market model as currently understood is an anarchy, at least at the beginning. The reason that it falls into this category is that there is no governing body or bill of rights. Each business is left to its own ends and the consequences thereof. There are no externaly enforced limitations on business practices in this model. Further, regulation of unfair (whatever that means in a free market - personaly I thinks its a spin doctorism equivalent to saying you can have an anarchy without inherent use of violence) practices is completely abandoned other than the assumption that eventualy competitors and consumers will learn of those practicies and quite dealing with that business. The problem with that assumption is that by the time such practices become known there may be no competitors and the consumers only option might be to simply have to do without the item completely. In the case of a life sustaining resource this is no option at all. > There are people who believe the same about political anarchy. The point I am making is that the arguments that support political models of social activity are not mappable to the economic ones in a simple one-to-one method as the free market model (and many others) assume in a axiomatic manner. That in fact, because of the inherent limitations of a market which is not one-to-one mappable to the range of human expression (the field of social systems) which has no inherent limitations in resources or means such comparisons are flawed by this axiomatic assumption. > However, I don't see you presenting any reasoning for the belief > that a free market will become non-free and acquire a head. The history of economics is filled with examples of markets without regulation becoming monopolized. There was the example yesterday or the day before regarding some rail baron and how they cornered the oil market because they realized the efficiency advantage of using rail based oil carriers. Look at Microsoft, the airlines prior to federal regulation. The the long-haul trucking industry, the teamsters, etc., etc. > Rather the opposite appears to have been the case in most environments > where the economic actors don't have political actors supporting > their bids for monopoly. Microsoft certainly didn't have political supperiorty? And how can you in good faith sneak in this concept of 'political superiority' into a discussion of free markets which a priori and in an axiomatic manner require that such regulation and their inherent regulatory bodies do *not* exist and most certainly do not inhibit or otherwise limit the options available to a commerical enterprise in that market. Smacks of changing the rules in the middle of the game. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: Trust through anonymity; time vaults
by Antonomasia 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The time vault suggestion resembles one from Tim May in 1993. Rivest Shamir and Wagner also addressed time vaults by requiring a computation (resistant to parallel calculation and of reasonably well-defined length) to decrypt the message. under http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/ -- ############################################################## # Antonomasia ant(a)notatla.demon.co.uk # # See http://www.notatla.demon.co.uk/ # ##############################################################

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Description of the RC2(r) Encryption Algorithm
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ron Rivest MIT Laboratory for Computer Science and RSA Data Security, Inc. November 1997 Request for Comments: Category: Informational A Description of the RC2(r) Encryption Algorithm Status of this Memo This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. This document is an Internet-Draft. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the "1id-abstracts.txt" listing contained in the Internet-Drafts Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast). 1. Introduction This draft is an RSA Laboratories Technical Note. It is meant for informational use by the Internet community. This memo describes a conventional (secret-key) block encryption algorithm, called RC2, which may be considered as a proposal for a DES replacement. The input and output block sizes are 64 bits each. The key size is variable, from one byte up to 128 bytes, although the current implementation uses eight bytes. The algorithm is designed to be easy to implement on 16-bit microprocessors. On an IBM AT, the encryption runs about twice as fast as DES (assuming that key expansion has been done). 1.1 Algorithm description We use the term "word" to denote a 16-bit quantity. The symbol + will denote twos-complement addition. The symbol & will denote the bitwise "and" operation. The term XOR will denote the bitwise "exclusive-or" operation. The symbol ~ will denote bitwise complement. The symbol ^ will denote the exponentiation operation. The term MOD will denote the modulo operation. There are three separate algorithms involved: Key expansion. This takes a (variable-length) input key and produces an expanded key consisting of 64 words K[0],...,K[63]. Encryption. This takes a 64-bit input quantity stored in words R[0], ..., R[3] and encrypts it "in place" (the result is left in R[0], ..., R[3]). Decryption. The inverse operation to encryption. 2. Key expansion Since we will be dealing with eight-bit byte operations as well as 16-bit word operations, we will use two alternative notations for referring to the key buffer: For word operations, we will refer to the positions of the buffer as K[0], ..., K[63]; each K[i] is a 16-bit word. For byte operations, we will refer to the key buffer as L[0], ..., L[127]; each L[i] is an eight-bit byte. These are alternative views of the same data buffer. At all times it will be true that K[i] = L[2*i] + 256*L[2*i+1]. (Note that the low-order byte of each K word is given before the high-order byte.) We will assume that exactly T bytes of key are supplied, for some T in the range 1 <= T <= 128. (Our current implementation uses T = 8.) However, regardless of T, the algorithm has a maximum effective key length in bits, denoted T1. That is, the search space is 2^(8*T), or 2^T1, whichever is smaller. The purpose of the key-expansion algorithm is to modify the key buffer so that each bit of the expanded key depends in a complicated way on every bit of the supplied input key. The key expansion algorithm begins by placing the supplied T-byte key into bytes L[0], ..., L[T-1] of the key buffer. The key expansion algorithm then computes the effective key length in bytes T8 and a mask TM based on the effective key length in bits T1. It uses the following operations: T8 = (T1+7)/8; TM = 255 MOD 2^(8 + T1 - 8*T8); Thus TM has its 8 - (8*T8 - T1) least significant bits set. For example, with an effective key length of 64 bits, T1 = 64, T8 = 8 and TM = 0xff. With an effective key length of 63 bits, T1 = 63, T8 = 8 and TM = 0x7f. Here PITABLE[0], ..., PITABLE[255] is an array of "random" bytes based on the digits of PI = 3.14159... . More precisely, the array PITABLE is a random permutation of the values 0, ..., 255. Here is the PITABLE in hexadecimal notation: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f 00: d9 78 f9 c4 19 dd b5 ed 28 e9 fd 79 4a a0 d8 9d 10: c6 7e 37 83 2b 76 53 8e 62 4c 64 88 44 8b fb a2 20: 17 9a 59 f5 87 b3 4f 13 61 45 6d 8d 09 81 7d 32 30: bd 8f 40 eb 86 b7 7b 0b f0 95 21 22 5c 6b 4e 82 40: 54 d6 65 93 ce 60 b2 1c 73 56 c0 14 a7 8c f1 dc 50: 12 75 ca 1f 3b be e4 d1 42 3d d4 30 a3 3c b6 26 60: 6f bf 0e da 46 69 07 57 27 f2 1d 9b bc 94 43 03 70: f8 11 c7 f6 90 ef 3e e7 06 c3 d5 2f c8 66 1e d7 80: 08 e8 ea de 80 52 ee f7 84 aa 72 ac 35 4d 6a 2a 90: 96 1a d2 71 5a 15 49 74 4b 9f d0 5e 04 18 a4 ec a0: c2 e0 41 6e 0f 51 cb cc 24 91 af 50 a1 f4 70 39 b0: 99 7c 3a 85 23 b8 b4 7a fc 02 36 5b 25 55 97 31 c0: 2d 5d fa 98 e3 8a 92 ae 05 df 29 10 67 6c ba c9 d0: d3 00 e6 cf e1 9e a8 2c 63 16 01 3f 58 e2 89 a9 e0: 0d 38 34 1b ab 33 ff b0 bb 48 0c 5f b9 b1 cd 2e f0: c5 f3 db 47 e5 a5 9c 77 0a a6 20 68 fe 7f c1 ad The key expansion operation consists of the following two loops and intermediate step: for i = T, T+1, ..., 127 do L[i] = PITABLE[L[i-1] + L[i-T]]; L[128-T8] = PITABLE[L[128-T8] & TM]; for i = 127-T8, ..., 0 do L[i] = PITABLE[L[i+1] XOR L[i+T8]]; (In the first loop, the addition of L[i-1] and L[i-T] is performed modulo 256.) The "effective key" consists of the values L[128-T8],..., L[127]. The intermediate step's bitwise "and" operation reduces the search space for L[128-T8] so that the effective number of key bits is T1. The expanded key depends only on the effective key bits, regardless of the supplied key K. Since the expanded key is not itself modified during encryption or decryption, as a pragmatic matter one can expand the key just once when encrypting or decrypting a large block of data. 3. Encryption algorithm The encryption operation is defined in terms of primitive "mix" and "mash" operations. Here the expression "x rol k" denotes the 16-bit word x rotated left by k bits, with the bits shifted out the top end entering the bottom end. 3.1 Mix up R[i] The primitive "Mix up R[i]" operation is defined as follows, where s[0] is 1, s[1] is 2, s[2] is 3, and s[3] is 5, and where the indices of the array R are always to be considered "modulo 4," so that R[i-1] refers to R[3] if i is 0 (these values are "wrapped around" so that R always has a subscript in the range 0 to 3 inclusive): R[i] = R[i] + K[j] + (R[i-1] & R[i-2]) + ((~R[i-1]) & R[i-3]); j = j + 1; R[i] = R[i] rol s[i]; In words: The next key word K[j] is added to R[i], and j is advanced. Then R[i-1] is used to create a "composite" word which is added to R[i]. The composite word is identical with R[i-2] in those positions where R[i-1] is one, and identical to R[i-3] in those positions where R[i-1] is zero. Then R[i] is rotated left by s[i] bits (bits rotated out the left end of R[i] are brought back in at the right). Here j is a "global" variable so that K[j] is always the first key word in the expanded key which has not yet been used in a "mix" operation. 3.2 Mixing round A "mixing round" consists of the following operations: Mix up R[0] Mix up R[1] Mix up R[2] Mix up R[3] 3.3 Mash R[i] The primitive "Mash R[i]" operation is defined as follows (using the previous conventions regarding subscripts for R): R[i] = R[i] + K[R[i-1] & 63]; In words: R[i] is "mashed" by adding to it one of the words of the expanded key. The key word to be used is determined by looking at the low-order six bits of R[i-1], and using that as an index into the key array K. 3.4 Mashing round A "mashing round" consists of: Mash R[0] Mash R[1] Mash R[2] Mash R[3] 3.5 Encryption operation The entire encryption operation can now be described as follows. Here j is a global integer variable which is affected by the mixing operations. 1. Initialize words R[0], ..., R[3] to contain the 64-bit input value. 2. Expand the key, so that words K[0], ..., K[63] become defined. 3. Initialize j to zero. 4. Perform five mixing rounds. 5. Perform one mashing round. 6. Perform six mixing rounds. 7. Perform one mashing round. 8. Perform five mixing rounds. Note that each mixing round uses four key words, and that there are 16 mixing rounds altogether, so that each key word is used exactly once in a mixing round. The mashing rounds will refer to up to eight of the key words in a data-dependent manner. (There may be repetitions, and the actual set of words referred to will vary from encryption to encryption.) 4. Decryption algorithm The decryption operation is defined in terms of primitive operations that undo the "mix" and "mash" operations of the encryption algorithm. They are named "r-mix" and "r-mash" (r- denotes the reverse operation). Here the expression "x ror k" denotes the 16-bit word x rotated right by k bits, with the bits shifted out the bottom end entering the top end. 4.1 R-Mix up R[i] The primitive "R-Mix up R[i]" operation is defined as follows, where s[0] is 1, s[1] is 2, s[2] is 3, and s[3] is 5, and where the indices of the array R are always to be considered "modulo 4," so that R[i-1] refers to R[3] if i is 0 (these values are "wrapped around" so that R always has a subscript in the range 0 to 3 inclusive): R[i] = R[i] ror s[i]; R[i] = R[i] - K[j] - (R[i-1] & R[i-2]) - ((~R[i-1]) & R[i-3]); j = j - 1; In words: R[i] is rotated right by s[i] bits (bits rotated out the right end of R[i] are brought back in at the left). Here j is a "global" variable so that K[j] is always the key word with greatest index in the expanded key which has not yet been used in a "r-mix" operation. The key word K[j] is subtracted from R[i], and j is decremented. R[i-1] is used to create a "composite" word which is subtracted from R[i]. The composite word is identical with R[i-2] in those positions where R[i-1] is one, and identical to R[i-3] in those positions where R[i-1] is zero. 4.2 R-Mixing round An "r-mixing round" consists of the following operations: R-Mix up R[3] R-Mix up R[2] R-Mix up R[1] R-Mix up R[0] 4.3 R-Mash R[i] The primitive "R-Mash R[i]" operation is defined as follows (using the previous conventions regarding subscripts for R): R[i] = R[i] - K[R[i-1] & 63]; In words: R[i] is "r-mashed" by subtracting from it one of the words of the expanded key. The key word to be used is determined by looking at the low-order six bits of R[i-1], and using that as an index into the key array K. 4.4 R-Mashing round An "r-mashing round" consists of: R-Mash R[3] R-Mash R[2] R-Mash R[1] R-Mash R[0] 4.5 Decryption operation The entire decryption operation can now be described as follows. Here j is a global integer variable which is affected by the mixing operations. 1. Initialize words R[0], ..., R[3] to contain the 64-bit ciphertext value. 2. Expand the key, so that words K[0], ..., K[63] become defined. 3. Initialize j to 63. 4. Perform five r-mixing rounds. 5. Perform one r-mashing round. 6. Perform six r-mixing rounds. 7. Perform one r-mashing round. 8. Perform five r-mixing rounds. 5. Test vectors Test vectors for encryption with RC2 are provided below. All quantities are given in hexadecimal notation. Key length (bytes) = 8 Effective key length (bits) = 63 Key = 00000000 00000000 Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = ebb773f9 93278eff Key length (bytes) = 8 Effective key length (bits) = 64 Key = ffffffff ffffffff Plaintext = ffffffff ffffffff Ciphertext = 278b27e4 2e2f0d49 Key length (bytes) = 8 Effective key length (bits) = 64 Key = 30000000 00000000 Plaintext = 10000000 00000001 Ciphertext = 30649edf 9be7d2c2 Key length (bytes) = 1 Effective key length (bits) = 64 Key = 88 Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = 61a8a244 adacccf0 Key length (bytes) = 7 Effective key length (bits) = 64 Key = 88bca90e 90875a Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = 6ccf4308 974c267f Key length (bytes) = 16 Effective key length (bits) = 64 Key = 88bca90e 90875a7f 0f79c384 627bafb2 Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = 1a807d27 2bbe5db1 Key length (bytes) = 16 Effective key length (bits) = 128 Key = 88bca90e 90875a7f 0f79c384 627bafb2 Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = 2269552a b0f85ca6 Key length (bytes) = 33 Effective key length (bits) = 129 Key = 88bca90e 90875a7f 0f79c384 627bafb2 16f80a6f 85920584 c42fceb0 be255daf 1e Plaintext = 00000000 00000000 Ciphertext = 5b78d3a4 3dfff1f1 6. RC2 Algorithm Object Identifier The Object Identifier for RC2 in cipher block chaining mode is rc2CBC OBJECT IDENTIFIER ::= {iso(1) member-body(2) US(840) rsadsi(113549) encryptionAlgorithm(3) 2} RC2-CBC takes parameters RC2-CBCParameter ::= CHOICE { iv IV, params SEQUENCE { version RC2Version, iv IV } } where IV ::= OCTET STRING -- 8 octets RC2Version ::= INTEGER -- 1-1024 RC2 in CBC mode has two parameters: an 8-byte initialization vector (IV) and a version number in the range 1-1024 which specifies in a roundabout manner the number of effective key bits to be used for the RC2 encryption/decryption. The correspondence between effective key bits and version number is as follows: 1. If the number EKB of effective key bits is in the range 1-255, then the version number is given by Table[EKB], where the 256-byte translation table Table[] is specified below. Table[] specifies a permutation on the numbers 0-255; note that it is not the same table that appears in the key expansion phase of RC2. 2. If the number EKB of effective key bits is in the range 256-1024, then the version number is simply EKB. The default number of effective key bits for RC2 is 32. If RC2-CBC is being performed with 32 effective key bits, the parameters should be supplied as a simple IV, rather than as a SEQUENCE containing a version and an IV. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f 00: bd 56 ea f2 a2 f1 ac 2a b0 93 d1 9c 1b 33 fd d0 10: 30 04 b6 dc 7d df 32 4b f7 cb 45 9b 31 bb 21 5a 20: 41 9f e1 d9 4a 4d 9e da a0 68 2c c3 27 5f 80 36 30: 3e ee fb 95 1a fe ce a8 34 a9 13 f0 a6 3f d8 0c 40: 78 24 af 23 52 c1 67 17 f5 66 90 e7 e8 07 b8 60 50: 48 e6 1e 53 f3 92 a4 72 8c 08 15 6e 86 00 84 fa 60: f4 7f 8a 42 19 f6 db cd 14 8d 50 12 ba 3c 06 4e 70: ec b3 35 11 a1 88 8e 2b 94 99 b7 71 74 d3 e4 bf 80: 3a de 96 0e bc 0a ed 77 fc 37 6b 03 79 89 62 c6 90: d7 c0 d2 7c 6a 8b 22 a3 5b 05 5d 02 75 d5 61 e3 a0: 18 8f 55 51 ad 1f 0b 5e 85 e5 c2 57 63 ca 3d 6c b0: b4 c5 cc 70 b2 91 59 0d 47 20 c8 4f 58 e0 01 e2 c0: 16 38 c4 6f 3b 0f 65 46 be 7e 2d 7b 82 f9 40 b5 d0: 1d 73 f8 eb 26 c7 87 97 25 54 b1 28 aa 98 9d a5 e0: 64 6d 7a d4 10 81 44 ef 49 d6 ae 2e dd 76 5c 2f f0: a7 1c c9 09 69 9a 83 cf 29 39 b9 e9 4c ff 43 ab A. Intellectual Property Notice RC2 is a registered trademark of RSA Data Security, Inc. RSA's copyrighted RC2 software is available under license from RSA Data Security, Inc. B. Author's Address Ron Rivest RSA Laboratories 100 Marine Parkway, #500 Redwood City, CA 94065 USA (650) 595-7703 rsa-labs(a)rsa.com

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Re: Spam
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matthew L Bennett <lord_buttmonkey(a)juno.com> wrote: >>I'm hoping you guys would know where I could find out >>more about this individual -- I'm hoping that he does >>in fact buy his service from someone else, and if so, >>I'm not sure how to find that out. If he doesn't, is >>there anything I can do? > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >Yeah, there is. > >Delete the friggin e-mail like a sensible person. > >I get a lot of spam every day, but I just delete it and go on with my >life. Since even many of the major sites these days seem to be run by a bunch of idiots who don't care that they destroy the network so long as they make a buck. 1) Trash mail from throwaway account providers like Juno (which I notice you're using), Hotmail, AOL, Prodigy, MSN, and anybody who offers something like a "fifty hours free spamming" policy. 2) Trash mail from chronic problem sites like AGIS, Earthlink, Worldnet, and their ilk. 3) If you get a flame for a civilized spam complaint (zippo.com did this to me) trash the mail from the site on the grounds that they're idiots. 4) If you get an incredibly stupid set of responses like I got from IBM today kill mail from them on the grounds that they have no idea what they're doing. 5) If it comes in with an obviously forged address then trash it. This has the possibly beneficial side effect of killing mail from "legitimate" users who purposefully use invalid addresses. 6) If it uses a relay site in one domain but comes from another trash it. A good example would be spam mail which is relayed off of someplace.com.au but has a "From" header which points to someplace.edu.tw, and has some other received lines which point to a dialup at MCI. 7) If it overuses punctuation in the subject line such as "!!!!!" then trash it. 8) If it comes in with a bunch of bogus IP addresses in the header then trash it. 9) If it's in HTML then trash it. 10) If it has lines over 80 characters nuke it. 11) If it comes in more than twice nuke it.

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unit1.html
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Unit 1: The Scope and Method of Economics [INLINE] UNDER CONSTRUCTION Read "Case and Fair": Chapter 1 - pages 1-20. _________________________________________________________________ A. Definition of Economics Economics is the study of how individuals and societies choose to use the scarce resources that nature and previous generations have provided. The key word in this definition is "choose". Economics is a behavioral science. In large measure it is the study of how people make choices. _________________________________________________________________ B. Why study economics? 1. To learn a way of thinking: This summer we are going to learn to think like economists - to use tools that will help us analyze complex situations in the real world of economics. 2. To understand society: Past and present economic decisions have an influence on the character of life in a society. 3. To understand global affairs: Understanding international relations begins with knowledge of the economic links among countries. 4. To be an informed voter: When you participate in the political process, you are voting on issues that require a basic understanding of economics. _________________________________________________________________ C. The difference between micro and macro economics Microeconomics deals with the functioning of individual industries and the behavior of individual economic decision-making units - business firms and households. It explores the decisions that individual businesses and consumers make - firms' choices about what to produce and how much to charge, and households' choices about what and how much to buy. Macro economics looks at the economy as a whole. Instead of trying to understand what determines the output of a single firm or industry, or the consumption patterns of a single household or group of house holds, it examines the factors that determine national output and income. While micro economics focuses on individual product prices, macro economics looks at the overall price level and its behavior over time. Micro economics questions how many people will be hired or laid off in a particular industry and the factors that determine how much labor a firm or industry will hire. Macro economics deals with aggregate employment and unemployment: how many jobs exist in the economy as a whole, and how many people are willing to work but unable to find jobs.. We are going to be using this word "aggregate" a lot. It refers to the behavior of firms and households taken together. For example, aggregate consumption refers to the consumption of all the households in the economy; aggregate investment refers to the total investment made by all firms in the economy. There are some topics which micro and macro economics share. For example, the study of how government policy affects the economy. However, again micro economics looks at these effects on the level of the individual firm or household, macro economics considers the effects of policy on the economy as a whole.. The micro economic foundations of macro economics. There is also another important relationship between the two branches of economics and this is what is called the micro economic foundations of macro economics. This is a fairly new development and one which is trying to reconcile the assumptions and principles of micro economic analysis with efforts to understand the economy as a whole. For example, in efforts to understand inflation, macro economists are now trying to include micro economic ideas about the way that prices adjust to changes in supply and demand.. _________________________________________________________________ D. The relationship between economics and social philosophy. One of the first economists was an Englishman by the name of Adam Smith. (Some would say he was the first economist.) Born in the early part of the 18th century, Smith developed the idea of the "invisible hand" and was the first to describe the relationship between supply and demand in a free market economy. He described himself as a "social philosopher". Social philosophy is concerned with fairness. It deals with questions such as: Why are some people rich and others poor? Is it fair that 90% of the country's wealth is controlled by 5% of the population? Is the progressive income tax, which taxes a higher proportion of the income of the wealthy, fair? These questions are still relevant and are the subject of economic policy. _________________________________________________________________ E. Economic Policy A policy is a plan that guides action. An example of an economic policy would be the Federal government's plan to keep the economy working at full employment. Anyone can recommend macro economic policies but it is up to governments to implement them. In general we judge the outcomes of any policy according to four criteria: 1. Efficiency: In economics we say that a policy is efficient if it leads to outcomes that help the economy produce what people want at the least possible cost. 2. Equity or fairness: This is obviously hard to define because fairness like beauty depends on who's looking, but in general terms we could say that an economic policy is fair if it leads to outcomes in which the costs and benefits are shared in a way that is proportional to a person's participation. 3. Growth: At the present time economic policies are also judged according to whether or not they lead to increases in output. I say "at present" because some economists are beginning to question the assumption that economic growth is always a good thing. 4. Stability: In economics stability is defined as the condition of the economy in which output is growing at a steady rate, with low inflation and full employment. Currently, the Federal Reserve is defining stability as a growth rate of about 3%, with inflation between 2% and 3% and unemployment between 5% and 6%. _________________________________________________________________ F. What economists do. In addition to making policy recommendations, economists spend a lot of time formulating theories and developing models. These two words have more or less the same meaning in economics that they do in other academic disciplines. A theory is a coherent set of hypotheses which make statements about the way the world works. To illustrate this idea of theory, the text refers to what is known as "the law of demand". This so-called law is really just a well-tested hypothesis which states that when prices fall, people tend to buy more, and vice versa. A theory is said to be "good" if its hypotheses turn out to valid statements about the real world and if it has predictive power. I should say at this point that very few economic theories, particularly in macro economics, have predictive power. A model is just a formal statement of the theory, usually a mathematical statement. Several institutions have built huge models of the US economy and how it works that have hundreds of equations linked together. These big models usually run on computers. When we visit the Federal Reserve in San Francisco we will see one of these models in action. We will also be working with a number of smaller models and a large number of pictures of models. The text points out two common errors that are made when people develop theories or build models. These are: 1. The post hoc fallacy: This mistake is made when someone mistakes an association between two variables for a cause and effect relationship. My favorite example of this is taken from a study done in Holland at the end of WWII which showed a positive relationship between the number of storks inhabiting a certain city and the number of babies born. 2. The fallacy of composition: This has to do with the belief that what is true for the part is also true for the whole. There are many examples of this kind of thinking in economics. For example, we have seen over a very long period of time the benefits of free markets - the efficiencies in individual markets that are created whenever people are free to pursue their own self-interest. However, it might be a mistake to assume that pursuit of one's own self interest was the best thing for society as a whole. You cannot prove a theory. It is important to note that neither theories nor models can ever be proved beyond the shadow of a doubt. The best we can say of a theory is that it is consistent with the facts as currently observed and that it is seems to have predictive power. Another fact about theories is that they are always based on certain assumptions which have to be accepted for the theory to work. For example, in economic theory two of the most important assumptions are (1) that people make rational choices based on analyzing costs and benefits and (2) that people try to maximize utility. Another important assumption that is rarely discussed is that the world of economics can be understood by understanding the behavior of discrete variables. All of these assumptions are now under attack. _________________________________________________________________ G. Other Important Concepts Introduced in Chapter 1 1. Opportunity Cost: This can be understood as the cost of lost opportunities. An example would be the opportunity cost of coming to Skyline this summer. This cost is measured by the wages I could have been earning if I had decided to work instead. The reason that opportunity costs exist is because resources are scarce; it is an especially important concept in economics where we are often trying to measure the costs and benefits of different economic choices, policies, etc. 2. Marginal: This refers to the "last unit" and is also an important factor in making economic choices. For example, suppose the publisher of our textbook is trying to calculate the costs of producing more books. In making this calculation, Prentice Hall would only consider the marginal or additional costs of just these new books. The money they have already spent would be irrelevant. These are the sunk costs and even though they would be included in a calculation of average costs, they wouldn't influence the decision to produce additional books. 3. Markets - free and regulated, efficient and inefficient: Markets can be free or regulated, efficient or inefficient. Most markets in the real economy represent some combination of these qualities. A market is said to be free if buyers and sellers are free to come together and make deals without government interference. A regulated market is one where the government sets at least some of the rules. For example, the stock market is relatively free - people can buy and sell shares of stock without much interference from the government. However, the Securities and Exchange Commission establishes many rules in this market, particularly for companies who wish to sell their stock. An efficient market is one in which there is a very rapid circulation of information and in which profit opportunities are grabbed up almost as soon as they appear. Inefficiencies arise wherever the flow of information is restricted and where people are not free to take advantage of profit opportunities. 4. Ceteris Paribus: This is a Latin phrase which mean "all else equal" and refers to the difficulty of analyzing more than two variables at a time. It is trotted out by economists when they want to emphasize the fact that they are looking at a single relationship, holding everything else constant. For example, "The amount of a good or service that people want is inversely related to the price, ceteris paribus." The things that are held constant in this example are the tastes and preferences of consumers, the availability of substitutes etc. [LINK] Return to Econ 100 Home page [LINK] Problem Set for Unit 1

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BlackNet
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone just asked me for an explanation of "BlackNet," as he hadn't heard of it before. There are several places to look: --a Web search on the term, along with "cypherpunks" or "cryptography" or my name so as to narrow down the search somewhat (apparently some persons of color decided to use BlackNet as their group's name, thus leading to some collisions_ --archives of the list, partially available at http://infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks/ --my Cyphernomicon, available at http://www.oberlin.edu/~brchkind/cyphernomicon/ --another article, available at http://www.powergrid.com/1.01/cryptoanarchy.html --or, the item below, part of a chapter called "True Nyms and Crypto Anarchy," which may or may not appear in the forthcoming edition of Vernor Vinge's "True Names." This section discusses data havens, and the BlackNet experiment in 1993: DATA HAVENS AND INFORMATION MARKETS Another science fiction writer, Bruce Sterling, popularized "data havens" in his 1988 novel, "Islands in the Net." He focussed on _physical_ data havens, but cyberspace data havens are more interesting, and to likely to be more important. That they are distributed in many legal jurisdictions, and may not even be traceable to any particular jurisdiction, is crucial. A data haven is a place, physical or virtual, where information may be stored or accessed. The usual connotation is that the data are illegal in some jurisdictions, but not in the haven. Data havens and information markets are already springing up, using the methods described to make information retrievable anonymously and untraceably. Using networks of remailers and, of course, encryption, messages may be posted in public forums like the Usenet, and read by anyone in the world with access, sort of like a cyberspatial "Democracy Wall" where controversial messages may be posted. These "message pools" are the main way cyberspatial data havens are implemented. Offers may be in plaintext, so as to be readable to humans, with instructions on how to reply (and with a public key to be used). This allows fully-untraceable markets to develop. It is likely that services will soon arise which archive articles for fees, to ensure that a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is "persistent" over a period of many years. Ross Anderson's "Eternity Service" provides a means of distributing the publication of something so that even later attempts to withdraw all copies are thwarted...this has obvious value in fighting censorship, but will also have implications when other types of publication occur (for example, a pirated work would not be withdrawable from the system, leaving it permanently liberated) Examples of likely data haven markets are: credit data bases, doctor and lawyer data bases, and other heavily-regulated (or even unallowed) data bases. Information on explosives, drug cultivation and processing, methods for suicide, and other such contraband info. Data havens may also carry copyrighted material, sans payment to holders, and various national and trade secrets. As one example, the "Fair Credit Reporting Act" in the U.S. limits the length of time credit records may be kept (to 7 or 8 years) and places various restrictions on what may be collected or reported. What if Alice "remembers" that Bob, applying for credit from her, declared bankruptcy ten years earlier, and ran out on various debts? Should she be banned from taking this into account? What if she accesses a data base which is _not_ bound by the FCRA, perhaps one in a data haven accessible over the Net? Can Alice "sell" her remembrances to others? (Apparently not, unless she agrees to the various terms of the FCRA. So much for her First Amendment rights.) This is the kind of data haven application I expect will develop over the next several years. It could be in a jurisdiction which ignores such things as the FCRA, such as a Caribbean island nation, or it could be in cyberspace, using various cryptographic protocols, Web proxies, and remailers for access. Imagine the market for access to data bases on "bad doctors" and "rip-off lawyers." There are many interesting issues involved in such data bases: inaccurate information, responses by those charges, the basis for making judgements, etc. Some will make malicious, false charges. (This is ostensibly why such data bases are banned, or heavily regulated. Governments reserve the rights to make such data available. Of course, these are the same governments which falsify credit records for government agents, which give the professional guilds like the American Medical Association and the American Bar Association the power to stop competitors from entering their markets, so what else can be expected?) Information markets match potential buyers and sellers of information. One experimental "information market" is BlackNet, a system I devised in 1993 as an example of what could be done, as an exercise in guerilla ontology. It allowed fully-anonymous, two-way exchanges of information of all sorts. The basic idea was to use a "message pool," a publicly readable place for messages. By using chains of remailers, messages could be untraceably and anonymously deposited in such pools, and then read anonymously by others (because the message pool was broadcast widely, a la Usenet). By including public keys for later communications, two-way unreadable (to others) communication could be established, all within the message pool. Such an information market also acts as a distributed data haven. As Paul Leyland succinctly described the experiment: "Tim May showed how mutually anonymous secure information trading could be implemented with a public forum such as Usenet and with public key cryptography. Each information purchaser wishing to take part posts a sales pitch and a public key to Usenet. Information to be traded would then have a public key appended so that a reply can be posted and the whole encrypted in the public key of the other party. For anonymity, the keys should contain no information that links it to an identifiable person. May posted a 1024-bit PGP key supposedly belonging to "Blacknet". As May's purpose was only educational, he soon admitted authorship." An example of an item offered for sale early on, in plaintext, was proof that African diplomats were being blackmailed by the CIA in Washington and New York. A public key for later communications was included. This is just one example. There are reports that U.S. authorities have investigated this market because of its presence on networks at Defense Department research labs. Not much they can do about it, of course, and more such entities are expected. The implications for espionage are profound, and largely unstoppable. Anyone with a home computer and access to the Net or Web, in various forms, can use these methods to communicate securely, anonymously or pseudonymously, and with little fear of detection. "Digital dead drops" can be used to post information obtained, far more securely than the old physical dead drops...no more messages left in Coke cans at the bases of trees on remote roads. Payments can also be made untraceably; this of course opens up the possibility that anyone in any government agency may act as a part-time spy. Matching buyers and sellers of organs is another example of such a market, although one that clearly involves some real-world transfers (and so it cannot be as untraceable as purely cyberspatial transactions can be). A huge demand (life and death), but there are various laws tightly controlling such markets, thus forcing them into Third World nations. Fortunately, strong cryptography allows market needs to be met without interference by governments. (Those who are repelled by such markets are of course free not to patronize them.) Whistleblowing is another growing use of anonymous remailers, with those fearing retaliation using remailers to publicly post their incriminating information. The Usenet newsgroups "alt.whistleblowing" and "alt.anonymous.messages" are places where anonymously remailed messages blowing the whistle have appeared. Of course, there's a fine line between whistleblowing, revenge, and espionage. Ditto for "leaks" from highly-placed sources. "Digital Deep Throats" will multiply, and anyone in Washington, or Paris, or wherever, can make his case safely and anonymously by digitally leaking material to the press. Gibson foresaw a similar situation in "Count Zero," where employees of high tech corporations agree to be ensconced in remote labs, disconnected from the Nets and other leakage paths. We may see a time when those with security clearances are explicitly forbidden from using the Net except through firewalled machines, with monitoring programs running. Information selling by employees may even take whimsical forms, such as the selling of topless images of women who flashed for the video cameras on "Splash Mountain" at Disneyland (now called "Flash Mountain" by some). Employees of the ride swiped copies of the digital images and uploaded them anonymously to various Web sites. Ditto for medical records of famous persons. DMV records have also been stolen by state employees with access, and sold to information broker, private investigators, and even curious fans (the DMV records of notoriously reclusive author Thomas Pynchon showed up on the Net). Rumors are that information brokers are prepared to pay handsomely for a CD-ROM containing the U.S. government's "key escrow" data base. The larger issue is that mere laws are not adequate to deal with these kinds of sales of personal information, corporate information, etc. The bottom line is this: if one wants something kept secret, it must be kept secret. In a free society, few personal secrets are compelled. Unfortunately, we have for too long been in a situation where governments insist that people give out their true names, their various government identification numbers, their medical situations, and so on. "And who shall guard the guardians?" The technology of privacy protection can change this balance of power. Cryptography provides for "personal empowerment," to use the current phrasing.

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Re: Freedom Forum report on the State of the First Amendment (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 16:40:11 -0400 > From: The Sheriff <sheriff(a)speakeasy.org> > Subject: Re: Freedom Forum report on the State of the First Amendment > Sam Adams (as it may or may not have been mentioned on this list) > himself had a problem with our constitution -- he didn't think that > it was right for the people to ratify the bill of rights, thereby > protecting certain rights under the constitution. Why? Simple. > > He was of the mind that setting our rights, such as the right to > free speech, in concrete meant that anything NOT set in concrete > wasn't a right -- he felt that by ratifying the bill of rights, > rather than using logic as I did above, we were actually LIMITING > our rights as freely roaming human beings. Which is the reason they put the 9th and 10th in there. > America should be about not taking any shit from anybody -- not > because you can sue, but because you have enough attitude to realize > when the other guy's being an idiot, and because you have enough > balls to tell him so. Actualy it should be because people realize you don't owe that other person an explanation for your actions and you further don't need their permission. Of course this assumes you *aren't* using anything that belongs to them. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Crypto Jokes
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Inspired by "Crypto Kong," contributions of crypto jokes are requested, to enliven our Web site, which is pretty gray these days without congressional buffoonery. Thigh-slappers are preferred, but since one person's humor is another's pain, any bizarre tales of woe, stupidity and vanity are welcomed. Short as possible, like Adam's three swines of pearl. Sure, anonymous zingers are great. No pay, no apologies for missing the point.

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Crypto Jokes
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Inspired by "Crypto Kong," contributions of crypto jokes are requested, to enliven our Web site, which is pretty gray these days without congressional buffoonery. Thigh-slappers are preferred, but since one person's humor is another's pain, any bizarre tales of woe, stupidity and vanity are welcomed. Short as possible, like Adam's three swines of pearl. Sure, anonymous zingers are great. No pay, no apologies for missing the point.

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No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If man were meant to clone, he'd have twins. - Anon

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Just Released! 16 Million!
by Friend＠public.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

IT WAS JUST RELEASED!! INTRODUCING...MILLIONS VOL. 1 We took a total of over 92 million email addresses from many of the touted CD's that are out there (bought them all - some were $300+)! We added the millions we had in storage to those. When we combined them all, we had in excess of 100+ million addresses in one huge file. We then ran a super "sort/de-dupe" program against this huge list. It cut the file down to less than 25 million!!! Can you believe that? It seems that most people that are selling CD's are duping the public by putting numerous files of addresses in the CD over and over. This created many duplicate addresses. They also had many program "generated" email addresses like Compuserve, MCI, ANON's, etc. This causes a tremendous amount of undeliverables, and for those that use Stealth programs, clogs up servers quickly with trash, etc. We then ran a program that contained 150+ keywords to remove addresses with vulgarity, profanity, sex-related names, postmaster, webmaster, flamer, abuse, spam, etc., etc. Also eliminated all .edu, .mil, .org, .gov, etc. After that list was run against the remaining list, it reduced it down to near 16 million addresses! So, you see, our list will save people hundreds of dollars buying all others that are out there on CD and otherwise. Using ours will be like using the 100+ million that we started with, but a lot less money and alot less time!! We also purchased Cyber-Promos ($995.00) CD. We received it just prior to finishing production work on the new CD. We had our people take a random sample of 300,000 addresses from the touted 2.9 that they advertised. We used a program that allows us to take a random sample of addresses from any list. We were able to have the program take every 9th address, thus giving us a 300,000 list of Cyber's email addresses from top to bottom. We did not clean these, but we did create 3 seperate files named cyber1.txt, cyber2.txt, & cyber3.txt of 100,000 addresses each. This will give all people that use the list a opportunity to send mail to the list before deciding if their CD is all it's hyped to be. We also included a 2+ million "Remove/Flamer" file broke into seperate files for ease of extracting and adding to your own database of removes. "You can buy from the REST or you can buy from the BEST. Your choice. _____________________________ What others are saying: "I received the CD on Friday evening. Like a kid with a new toy, I immediately started bulking out using the new email addresses. Over the course of the weekend, I emailed out over 500,000 emails and I received less than TWENTY undeliverables!! I am totally satisfied with my purchase!! Thanks Premier!!" Dave Buckley Houston, TX "This list is worth it's weight in gold!! I sent out 100,000 emails for my product and received over 55 orders! Ann Colby New Orleans, LA **************************************** HERE'S THE BOTTOM LINE Here is what you get when you order today! >> 16 Million Email Addresses... 1 per line in simple text format on a CD. Files are in lots of 100,000 (no codes needed to open files). All files are separated by domain name for your convenience. PLUS you receive a tremendous REMOVE list! AND the a sampling of CyberPromo's HOT list. >>> NOW ONLY $149.00! This price is effective for the next seven days, thereafter the price will be $199.00 so ORDER NOW! All lists are completely free of any Duplicates. We also on a continual basis, add New Names and Remove Undeliverables and Remove Requests. The result is the Cleanest Email Addresses Available Anywhere to use over and over again, for a FRACTION of the cost that other companies charge. Typical rates for acquiring email lists are from 1 cent to as high as 3 cents per email address - that's "INFORMATION HIGHWAY" ROBBERY!. Don't even hesitate on this one or you will miss out on the most effective way to market anywhere..PERIOD! If you have any further questions or to place an order by phone, please do not hesitate to call us at: 908-245-1143 To order our email package, simply print out the EZ ORDER FORM below and fax or mail it to our office today. We accept Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Checks by Fax and Mail. _________________ EZ Order Form _____Yes! I would like to order MILLIONS Vol. 1 email addresses for only $149.00. *Please select one of the following for shipping.. ____I would like to receive my package OVERNIGHT. I'm including $15 for shipping. (outside US add an additional $25 for shipping) ____I would like to receive my package 2 DAY delivery. I'm including $10 for shipping. (outside US add an additional $25 for shipping) DATE_____________________________________________________ NAME____________________________________________________ COMPANY NAME___________________________________________ ADDRESS_________________________________________________ CITY, STATE, ZIP___________________________________________ PHONE NUMBERS__________________________________________ FAX NUMBERS_____________________________________________ EMAIL ADDRESS___________________________________________ TYPE OF CREDIT CARD: ______VISA _____MASTERCARD CREDIT CARD# __________________________________________ EXPIRATION DATE________________________________________ NAME ON CARD___________________________________________ AMOUNT $____________________ (Required) SIGNATURE:x________________________ DATE:x__________________ You may fax your order to us at: 1-908-245-3119 CHECK BY FAX SERVICES! If you would like to fax a check, paste your check below and fax it to our office along with all forms to: 1-908-245-3119 ****************************************************** ***24 HOUR FAX SERVICES*** PLEASE PASTE YOUR CHECK HERE AND FAX IT TO US AT 1-908-245-3119 ******************************************************* If You fax a check, there is no need for you to send the original check. We will draft up a new check, with the exact information from your original check. All checks will be held for bank clearance. If you feel more comfortable sending payment through the mail, please send all forms and Check or Money Order to: Rapture Marketing Inc. P.O. Box 616 Kenilworth, NJ 07033

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Future War on TDC this Sunday
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Just saw an add for Future War on The Discovery Channel this Sunday evening. It is supposed to discuss the impact of global television as the primary weapon in the warfare of tomorrow. ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Email your AD to 57 MILLION People ONLY $99
by 93157112＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

57 MILLION EMAILS FOR ONLY $99 INCLUDES STEALTH MAILER That's right, I have 57 Million Fresh email addresses that I will sell for only $99. These are all fresh addresses that include almost every person on the internet today, with no duplications. They are all sorted and ready to be mailed. That is the best deal anywhere today ! Imagine selling a product for only $5 and getting only a 1/10% response. That's $2,850,000 in your pocket !!! Don't believe it? People are making that kind of money right now by doing the same thing, that is why you get so much email from people selling you their product....it works ! I will even tell you how to mail them with easy to follow step-by-step instruction I include with every order. These 57 Million email addresses are yours to keep, so you can use them over and over and they come on 1 CD. I will also include the stealth mailer - this is a full version of the incredibly fast mailing program that hides your email address when you send mail so no one will find out where it came from and you won't lose your dial up account. The stealth mailer is an incredible program and absolutly FREE with your order ! If you are not making at least $50,000 a month, then ORDER NOW. ORDER NOW BY FAX: Simply print out this order form and fax it to us along with your check made payable to: Future WT for only $99. Our Fax # is: 602 348 2955 We will confirm your order by email and then mail your cd out the same day via priority mail. Name:_____________________________ Street Address:______________________________ City:_____________________ State:________________ZipCode:_____________ Phone number:__________________________ Email:_______________________________ Tape your check here. Returned checks are subject to $25 NSF Fee. Fax it to 602 348 2955 Or You can mail a check or money order to: FutureWT 15560 N. Frank Lloyd Wright #b-4187 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 If you want to be removed from our mailing list just send a email here 57 million plus mailing program for only $99

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Global market going to the bears? [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Managers worldwide say they are losing confidence in equities, buying > bonds > > January 12, 1998: 1:48 p.m. ET > > Mutual Funds Guide > More related sites... LONDON (Reuters) - Fund managers worldwide are > increasingly pessimistic about economic and corporate earnings growth, > according to investment bank Merrill Lynch's monthly Gallup Global > Survey released on Monday. > [INLINE] "Managers are downgrading their forecasts for earnings per > share and at the same time this bearishness for equities makes them > want to buy bonds," Merrill Lynch global strategist Bijal Shah told > Reuters Financial Television. "They are saying this weakness in > activity means that inflation is not going to pick up and bond prices > should rise." [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ | | | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make | | violent revolution inevitable. | | | | John F. Kennedy | | | | | | _____ The Armadillo Group | | ,::////;::-. Austin, Tx. USA | | /:'///// ``::>/|/ http://www.ssz.com/ | | .', |||| `/( e\ | | -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- Jim Choate | | ravage(a)ssz.com | | 512-451-7087 | |____________________________________________________________________|

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Re: (eternity) mailing list and activity
by phelix＠vallnet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 11 Jan 1998 18:48:24 -0600, Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote: >Wei Dai suggested that documents should be secret split in a redundant >fashion so that say 2 of 5 shares are required to reconstruct the >document. If the shares are distributed across different servers, >this ensures that one server does not directly hold the information. What prevents the operator of such a server from being charged with "conspiracy to provide child porn" or whatever? If he is holding a portion of such contraband, isn't he as liable as if he was holding the whole article(s)? -- Phelix

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Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: >You're missing my point. If the society would benefit from a certain behavior, >it should not rely on coercion, but use economic motivation to encourage it. >Clearly NSF doesn't work any better than NEA. ........................................................................ Nah, I saw your point, but just forgot to mention it. I do agree with you, except a bit with the part about the source of encouragement (of course, I would agree against bringing coercion into the picture, banish the thought). To be even more precise about this, it is the ones in society whom you might imagine should provide 'encouragement', or 'incentivization', who need to develop an appreciation and recognition for certain values, since they're aiming for real benefits. Creative, inventive people don't really need that much motivation, but it's their potential market who could stand to 'graduate towards the light', so to speak. Then there would exist more educated, seeking, paying, clients/investors. In any case the creative types still have to, like most all other enterprises, search for the right market, the willing investor, the interested customer/client. It's a great thing that the net can now bring these two more easily together, helping each to find the other. Even if they still can't trust each other, but must resort to lawyers to keep things clear & clean and moral. (smiley) .. Blanc

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Trust through anonymity; time vaults
by Kay Ping 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Trust and anonymity may seem to be in contradiction but I intend to show how anonymity can be used to achieve trust. At the base of any cryptographic system is a trust model and it can only be as strong as the assumptions made by the trust model. Of special interest to us are distributed trust models. This posting was sent through a chain of remailers. I do not need to trust any of them completely, just assume that the chances that all of them are colluding or have been compromised by an attacker are low. Other types of services requiring a server infrastructure can be implemented using distributed trust models. For example, I can submit a document to be timestamped by several servers. Someone checking the validity of the combined timestamps can have higher assurance that the timestamp has not been generated by collusion between the document owner and the timestamping service or by a compromised timestamper key. Another type of service which can use a distributed trust model is a digital time vault which will be described later. One of the problems with distributed trust is reliability. A service can be interrupted by any of the servers going down. The overall reliability goes down exponentially with the number of servers. This can be solved for some types of services by using a secret-splitting algorithm requiring a minimum of N out of M parts. A user can select values of N and M that satisfy both his reliability requirements and his paranoia. But some are more paranoid than that. It may take a very large number of unrelated servers around the world to earn their trust and an even larger number to get acceptable reliability. To those I propose the following idea: Some of the servers will be anonymous. If they don't know each other, they can't collude. If they are anonymous it will be hard for an attacker to know which machine to break into. One of the problem with this approach is that an opponent with sufficient resources can set up a large number of anonymous servers and hope that a user chooses a set of servers of which at least N are under his control. If the user chooses a combination of anonymous and well-known servers he gets good protection against this scenario. Even if all the anonymous servers are run by <pick your favorite three letter acronym agency> it is unlikely that they will collude with servers run by, let's say, well-known remailer operators in other countries. Anonymous server operators may try to collude but selfishness will stand in their way: even if N-1 servers revealed their parts of the secret, the last one can always refuse to cooperate and use the information, so none of them has an incentive to reveal his part in the first place. Simultaneous secret trading protocols will not help- they cannot guarantee that a valid secret is contained in the message. The only way to get selfish operators to cooperate is using zero-knowledge proofs of their secrets. Zero-knowledge proofs work only for specific types of secrets. It may be possible to use secrets for which zero-knowledge proofs do not work. The specific service I had in mind for this distributed trust model is a digital time vault. It allows a sender to encrypt a message which can only be decrypted after a certain date. This is done by having a server generate secret/public key pairs for future dates, publish all public keys at once and publish the private key for each date at that date. Only after that date the message can be decrypted. For reliability and security the message (or the session key) can be split and encrypted it to the public keys of "next Friday" published by several different servers. This service can be used to send a public message that can only be read after a certain date, without any action required by the sender at that date. This may be useful if the sender suspects that he may be under arrest, dead or otherwise uncapable of getting online at the target date. Another possible use for this service is to destroy information to protect yourself against threats or court orders and still be able to recover it at a later date. Even if you don't actually do it, the existence of the service gives you plausible deniability. Many types of secret information are only secret for a limited time - until an announcement is made or a deal is signed. Encrypting a message to a future date as well as the intended recipient allows storing the message in an unsecured archive for later reference. This service can be implemented using existing software like PGP without secret splitting algorithms: a conventional encryption passphrase is encrypted to several different chains of public keys of the same date on different servers, using combinations that create the same N out of M result. Since the time servers do not receive any information or participate in the process in any way they will not generate any significant load except during initial key generation. They can also be kept anonymous very easily and cannot be held accountable for anyone's use of the service. The servers will still attract attacks. Anonymous servers will get some protection against this since their location is not known. Public servers can protect themselves by encrypting future private keys to future date keys on other servers and keep encrypted backups off-site. This should be done carefully to ensure that future keys will not be lost because of loops or servers going down. Anyone wants to run such a service? You can run either an anonymous or public server. You should run a public server only if you think your reputation is good and you public key is trusted by many people. If you want to run an anonymous server generate a new key without email or any other identification except a pseudonym for the server. You must commit to maintaining the service for a minimum period and publish all the private keys for which you published the initial public keys, but never before their time. The trial period for this service will be three months and the interval will be one week, posted at midnight on the beginning of the week, GMT. Date keys must be signed by the server key. Date private keys must have an empty passphrase so they can be used by anyone after they are published. Until then they should be secured for storage. Date Key IDs consists of a date in YYYYMMDD format followed by the server name. The name may be followed by an optional email address of the maintainer. For the trial period keys should be published to alt.privacy.anon-server and the list. Lists of public keys and past private keys should be available through http, ftp or finger. If you run an anonymous server you may ask someone, preferably a maintainer of a public server, to get your lists and make them available. The trial will let us experiment with this trust model and see if anyone thinks of interesting ways to use the service. - ----------------- Kay Ping nop 'til you drop finger kping(a)nym.alias.net for key DF 6D 91 18 A6 59 41 96 - 89 01 69 B7 9D0 4 AE 53 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: cp850 iQEPAwUBNLnGZRHPAso8Qp7tAQHnkwfQ9BpL82R1Mw1WY9EnOaFuXme+2y+OZZ60 Cb41fVtlSDC9EmAjAuV9K1dDP7FVGwFzGQ5j04IjgLocMbUgEyZDkKoFhe2Hgasw XU2ick5adCsvA8I0USfMVeQj2L6tkzc+hr4l9NXH7AGEQQGZu2iZTlDNn72FNBeo 7gPjxj8/a/T2+zKMyJbS2ujYa4ZBuypXpQg2UaQ42m1uKUz/ymJFXcm51X1Do3hJ TC2tvIST+v/cfYesblhAR1kRVAiKL+YUagLeWMU1I5X64E2MKVctOiPWBSHCLgQ0 LKtrwIHIvrIP2z0FMquR5GricvrLdFid89vtZFb1n8quQg== =uVxx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: (eternity) mailing list and activity
by Robert A. Costner 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:52 AM 1/12/98 GMT, phelix(a)vallnet.com wrote: >What prevents the operator of such a server from being charged with >"conspiracy to provide child porn" or whatever? If he is holding a portion >of such contraband, isn't he as liable as if he was holding the whole >article(s)? In the US, the remaining provisions of the CDA would shield an ISP from prosecution concerning child porn. In fact most everything but intellectual property cases, which may be shielded by other means. If the eternity server acts merely as a pipeline, without the operators participating or encouraging illegal activities, then there is a good chance that the eternity server could be treated as a service provider in the same fashion and be immune from prosecution directly. -- Robert Costner Phone: (770) 512-8746 Electronic Frontiers Georgia mailto:pooh@efga.org http://www.efga.org/ run PGP 5.0 for my public key

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Eureka! Mon Jan 12 '98
by eureka＠eureka.abc-web.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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confidential report
by 34er5dd＠ameritech.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Win Property! (just like Spitfire Grill!) Win a 16-ROOM MOTEL on the OREGON COAST! --or-- Win a Tavern/Town in Austin, OREGON (see below)
by westcomm＠teleport.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Contests of the Century Remember SpitFire Grill? Well, David Persha, owner of House on the Hill Motel in Oceanside, Oregon, is giving away his 16-room motel in a very unique contest! Each guest room has a wonderful view of the ocean, and 8 rooms feature full kitchens. There is also a large conference room, as well as other quality amenities! The motel sits on over 45,000 square feet of land, with the main building's having been constructed in 1990. The motel is a turnkey operation in beautiful shape, with an approximate Market Value of $1.5 Million according to an appraisal performed 4 years ago. Mr. Persha is 71 years old and is looking for new blood to take over his motel! The contest conforms fully to all national,international, and Oregon law, thereby making it open to anybody in the world over 18 years of age. The Motel WILL BE yours debt-free if you submit a valid entry and the winning 250 word essay, which will be judged for originality and wit, inspiration, creativity, expression of thought, human interest, and "the conveyance of a genuine desire to run a motel on the (Oregon) coast." For complete rules and and entry form, please send $10 to cover the cost of handling to Contest Guidelines, West Coast Communications, P.O. Box 7434 Salem, OR 97303. For quickest response please include email address. DEADLINE FOR COMPLETED ENTRIES IS FEBRUARY 20. 1998, so ACT NOW! Please make checks payable to West Coast Communications. West Coast Communications P.O. Box 7434 Salem, OR 97303 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEE BELOW FOR SPECIAL RATE on BOTH contests! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "WIN-A-TOWN" IN AUSTIN, OREGON!! Another great contest! Like SpitFire Grill and Persha's Motel Contest (above), Leonard West is giving away his tavern in Austin, Oregon! Eastern Oregon . . . closely knit families, neighbors down the road. . . a great place to raise a family! And, "WIN-a-TOWN!" (The Austin House, 225 miles east of Portland, Oregon, consists of a tavern, restaurant, grocery store, post office, garage and gas pumps.) This is the REAL WEST. So ruggedly picturesque, that a Marlboro ad was shot nearby. The property WILL BE yours if you submit the winning 250 word essay, whichwill be judged for appreciation of the establishment and its charms, "plus a willingness to honor its. . .traditions." For complete rules and and entry form, please send $10 to cover the cost of postage to West Coast Communications, P.O. Box 7434 Salem, OR 97303. you may send questions and comments to mailto: westcomm(a)teleport.com for a very short time. We are changing servers on January 10, so address will change. For quickest response please include email address. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IF YOU WOULD LIKE INFORMATION ABOUT **both** CONTESTS, THE TOTAL CHARGE IS ONLY 15.00! PLEASE SEND CHECK FOR 15.00 for information about ENTRY, RULES, and DEADLINES FOR BOTH CONTESTS! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ GGGG OOO OOO DDDD LL UU UU CCCC K K !! GG OO OO OO OO DD DD LL UU UU CC K K !! GG GGG OO OO OO OO DD DD LL UU UU CC K K !! GGGG OOO OOO DDDD LLLLL UUU CCCC K K !! West Coast Communications does not own property which is involved in these contests. West Coast Communications is not a judge in these contests, nor are we responsible in any way for the contents of, or the contest rules.

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Re: More on the DES II contest.
by Thomas Womack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>My greatest fear with DES II is that if d.n finds the key >early in the search, they may decide to sit on it until >just before the 540 hour deadline. If they are the only >group with a credible chance of finding the key (as far as >I know, this is the case), then their payback is maximized >by by this tactic, since the time limits for the June >contest are determined by the speed with which the key is >found in January. But the question is one of how fast the key-search can be made, not of when the key would be found - and I though the d.n website displayed a figure for keys-per-second. That it takes the network not very long to find the DES key 0x0809182395f8ee isn't a very interesting piece of data; the keys-per-second figure is more useful. Tom

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Re: Eternity Services
by Brian B. Riley 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 1/11/98 6:35 PM, David Miller (dm0(a)avana.net) passed this wisdom: >There is one thing that comes to mind that was just a topic covered >on this list and that is the use of cellular/wireless/RF/ham for >connections to said machines. > >Obviously, this would make seizure more difficult (and perhaps >increase the likelyhood of prior warning, if for example, cellular >service was suddenly cut off). > >I am currently studying some parallels between the established FCC >tolerance of ham radio self-regulation vis-a-vis anonymous >remailers. I haven't yetdrawn up my opinions, as they are still >being formed. I think that this might be one avenue to look down as >there is obviously a type of legal precident in what is >allowed/tolerated under obvious FCC jursidiction, whereas the >jurisdiction over IP is obviously still ambiguous. On the surface there would appear to be some parallels worth thinking upon with regard to ham/FCC. but the ham radio community for the most part qualifies under the category of 'sheeple'. Separate out the hotheads and idiots and you have a handful of forward thinkers who want to try to push the envelope held back by the vast majority of reactionaries. Even when the forward thinkers want to push the envelope within the rules, not even asking for relaxed or waived rules, they react with 'this is not the way we have always done it.' The FCC and the Washington establishment is well aware of this and that is why they more or less leave hams alone to regulate their own quiet little tea party. I cannot see the FCC looking kindly on the use by hams or establishment of a Citizen's Radio Data Service (as has been proposed several times through the years) to establish a secured delibrately obscured data network. As far as hams are concerned they are limited, right off the bat, by regulations prohibiting use of 'codes or encipherment whose purpose is to obscure the meaning of the message(data).' The ham self-regulation may be a precedent, but I don't think it would provide any leverage on this matter. Of course, there is always steganograpy ... one man's GIF is another mans data. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNLokrj7r4fUXwraZAQFbWAf9GtQyI1PSRO8H4Iyb5Wp4xrWzMKbZuIHx rdQtM3wEjL0l64u5gCFb082GDZWYJcj0wcehaLMn9BOp8QrooiGv9XstHqlHNYjL /0dLTS4CT/qKkUl/68yqjB5i1KbDip1cO74dCcBVt/8G1S3IcjAGYP1V3nJtxwJ6 GlLjel9qQW4zzvnBOtQiD7HzU6V2FK5lIMa87zfuNvcREdlfyHG1L169sSq5CZEU XT7HGxrXsmfnolgFPMqVrcIYlccc+m6vx6MmPY8XIM7vU1ybDk9wDC75Eg2aSZVw 5fQn6CogpnootVHczSog3xg3RDZkgmm0xhArbBdBNjopxScEUvIjFg== =m+3f -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Brian B. Riley --> http://members.macconnect.com/~brianbr For PGP Keys <mailto:brianbr@together.net?subject=Get%20PGP%20Key> "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler

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List of reliable remailers
by Raph Levien 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I operate a remailer pinging service which collects detailed information about remailer features and reliability. To use it, just finger remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu There is also a Web version of the same information, plus lots of interesting links to remailer-related resources, at: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~raph/remailer-list.html This information is used by premail, a remailer chaining and PGP encrypting client for outgoing mail. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/~raph/premail.html For the PGP public keys of the remailers, finger pgpkeys(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu This is the current info: REMAILER LIST This is an automatically generated listing of remailers. The first part of the listing shows the remailers along with configuration options and special features for each of the remailers. The second part shows the 12-day history, and average latency and uptime for each remailer. You can also get this list by fingering remailer-list(a)kiwi.cs.berkeley.edu. $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"mix"} = "<mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek ksub reord ?"; $remailer{"replay"} = "<remailer(a)replay.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut post ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek"; $remailer{"winsock"} = "<winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub reord ?"; $remailer{'nym'} = '<config(a)nym.alias.net> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"cracker"} = "<remailer(a)anon.efga.org> cpunk mix remix pgp hash ksub esub latent cut ek reord post"; $remailer{'redneck'} = '<config(a)anon.efga.org> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"bureau42"} = "<remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org> cpunk mix pgp ksub hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"neva"} = "<remailer(a)neva.org> cpunk pgp pgponly hash cut ksub ?"; $remailer{"lcs"} = "<mix(a)anon.lcs.mit.edu> mix"; $remailer{"medusa"} = "<medusa(a)weasel.owl.de> mix middle" $remailer{"McCain"} = "<mccain(a)notatla.demon.co.uk> mix middle"; $remailer{"valdeez"} = "<valdeez(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"arrid"} = "<arrid(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"hera"} = "<goddesshera(a)juno.com> cpunk pgp pgponly hash ek"; $remailer{"htuttle"} = "<h_tuttle(a)rigel.cyberpass.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut post ek"; catalyst(a)netcom.com is _not_ a remailer. lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu is _not_ a remailer. usura(a)replay.com is _not_ a remailer. remailer(a)crynwr.com is _not_ a remailer. There is no remailer at relay.com. Groups of remailers sharing a machine or operator: (cyber mix reno winsock) (weasel squirrel medusa) (cracker redneck) (nym lcs) (valdeez arrid hera) This remailer list is somewhat phooey. Go check out http://www.publius.net/rlist.html for a good one. Last update: Thu 23 Oct 97 15:48:06 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- hera goddesshera(a)juno.com ------------ 5:03:45 99.86% nym config(a)nym.alias.net +*#**#**### :34 95.82% redneck config(a)anon.efga.org #*##*+#**** 2:00 95.44% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com +++ ++++++* 19:18 95.27% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de -- ---+--- 2:34:19 95.16% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net *++***+ ++ 11:26 95.11% replay remailer(a)replay.com **** *** 10:06 94.93% arrid arrid(a)juno.com ----.------ 8:50:34 94.41% bureau42 remailer(a)bureau42.ml.org --------- 3:38:29 93.53% cracker remailer(a)anon.efga.org + +*+*+*+ 16:32 92.80% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca + +*-++++ 24:14 92.79% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -..-..---- 9:59:18 92.22% neva remailer(a)neva.org ------****+ 1:03:02 90.39% valdeez valdeez(a)juno.com 4:58:22 -36.97% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net 1:01:28 -2.65% History key * # response in less than 5 minutes. * * response in less than 1 hour. * + response in less than 4 hours. * - response in less than 24 hours. * . response in more than 1 day. * _ response came back too late (more than 2 days). cpunk A major class of remailers. Supports Request-Remailing-To: field. eric A variant of the cpunk style. Uses Anon-Send-To: instead. penet The third class of remailers (at least for right now). Uses X-Anon-To: in the header. pgp Remailer supports encryption with PGP. A period after the keyword means that the short name, rather than the full email address, should be used as the encryption key ID. hash Supports ## pasting, so anything can be put into the headers of outgoing messages. ksub Remailer always kills subject header, even in non-pgp mode. nsub Remailer always preserves subject header, even in pgp mode. latent Supports Matt Ghio's Latent-Time: option. cut Supports Matt Ghio's Cutmarks: option. post Post to Usenet using Post-To: or Anon-Post-To: header. ek Encrypt responses in reply blocks using Encrypt-Key: header. special Accepts only pgp encrypted messages. mix Can accept messages in Mixmaster format. reord Attempts to foil traffic analysis by reordering messages. Note: I'm relying on the word of the remailer operator here, and haven't verified the reord info myself. mon Remailer has been known to monitor contents of private email. filter Remailer has been known to filter messages based on content. If not listed in conjunction with mon, then only messages destined for public forums are subject to filtering. Raph Levien

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Service denial attacks on Eternity
by Ross Anderson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May wrote: > It is also likely in the extreme that a working Eternity service will > quickly be hit with attackers of various sorts who want to test the limits > of the service, or who want such services shut down. Exactly. When I first talked about Eternity, which was at either the 1994 or 1995 protocols workshop, I was walking back to my seat when Bob Morris (then at the NSA) said, from behind his hand in a stage whisper, `Kiddyporn!' Adam Back added: > the spooks / feds have a history of posting their own child porn if > none is available to seize Indeed, and a decade or so ago there was a scandal when it turned out that the spooks were using the Kincora Boys' Home in Belfast as a pedo brothel in order to entrap various local politicians. For them to say now that they need key escrow to suppress Kiddyporn is a bit rich! However the main threat is the court order - Anton Pillar or whatever - and the best weapon against court orders is anonymity. If they don't know your address they can't serve you the order or arrest you for contempt. Tom Womack: > I can imagine *use* of the service becoming a felony I mentioned in the paper that Mossad might deny Eternity service to the Muslim world by posting something rude about the Prophet Mohammed. One must of course create a lawful excuse for people to have Eternity software mounted on their system. Maybe in addition to the `public' Eternity service we should have many corporate or even private services, many of which have escrow capabilities and are thus clearly law-abiding and accountable :-) There are many other possibilities. One topic that oozes into my consciousness from time to time is that one might integrate covert communications and storage with an anti-spam mail program - maybe a natural way forward if Adam hides Eternity traffic in spam! Tim again: > Great idea, but where are the customers? Some 90% of security research effort is on confidentiality, 9% on authenticity and 1% on availability. Corporate infosec expenditures are exactly the other way round, and tools to enable disaster recovery databases to be spread holographically over a company's PCs could save a fortune compared with the cost of some current arrangements. If a few of these backup resources have hidden directories that mount the public Eternity service, then who can tell? At the Info Hiding Workshop at Portland in April, I will present a new idea which may facilitate such implementations of Eternity. This is the Steganographic File System - designed to provide you with any file whose name and password you know. If you don't know this combination, then you can't even tell that the file is there. We do not need to make any assumptions about tamper resistance; it can be done using suitable mathematics. (This is joint work with Roger Needham and Adi Shamir.) Ross PS: we need a better word for `eternityspace', and Bell Labs have already trademarked `Inferno'. So what - Nirvana? Valhalla?

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