December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

info
by Scott Kimmel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: Please post Eudora PGP plugin URL
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:31 PM 12/7/96 -0500, Alec wrote: >At 04:57 PM 12/6/96 -0800, you wrote: >:Or Email it to me >: >: >:Thanks in advance >: >You're welcome > >----------------------------------------------------- >Eudora/PGP Plug-In [...] >If you want to be automatically notified of new versions, send e-mail to >gt6525c(a)prism.gatech.edu with the subject of "eppi news", and the following >message body: Just FYI, while the plugin is still available, email to this address has been bouncing for weeks. It is therefore impossible to submit bug reports or subscribe to the EPPI mailing list. If somebody on this list knows the current address of the EPPI author, please post it. Thanks, -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:15 PM 12/7/96 -0800, Thaddeus J. Beier wrote: >I don't think that PICS will be mandated any more than those two standards >are mandated, perhaps I'm naive, but I think that the social conventions >will work in this case. Let's put the question if something like PICS will be mandated aside for the moment. Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be considered truly voluntary. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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take me off the list
by Bryondp＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

take me off the list

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Re: The Science Generations
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Bill Frantz wrote: > At 10:10 AM -0800 12/8/96, Dale Thorn wrote: > >The phrase "your beloved HPs" gives your hand away. > What hand? You appeared by your statements to be a lover of HP stuff. > I now find it was only from that era. > My of my hand is only to say that people DID use them other things for > real business uses. Your posts appeared to say that was impossible. > However, as Bob Hettinger says, "Reality is not optional." First, let me apologize for something I try never to do. When someone sends private email, if I put it to the list I should remove the sender's name (if no permission given). I still use HP personal computers, since (despite their problems) they are still the most effective at running for a long time and processing a lot of data. As far as showing your hand, I find it interesting how many erstwhile serious users will nonetheless wave away any discussion of the specific problems computers have (particularly the early ones), which I can only relate to denial. In the words of Consumer Reports back in the early-mid 1980s, "These electronic items are the least reliable and most problematic things we've ever tested" (quote approximate). I never said it was impossible to use an Apple (or early IBM) for serious work of *some* kind, i.e., simple spreadsheet work. What I said and I hope it came through is this: If you were using an IBM mainframe in the period 1980-1982 or thereabouts, you would have what I call unreliable equipment, but, you would probably also have IBM person(s) on site to keep the stuff running. On the other hand, IBM PC users (outside of large corporate sites) didn't necessarily have that luxury, therefore, if they tried to do what I could easily do with HP personal computer equipment, their IBM PCs would die and have to be fixed "by the dealer", with more consequent unreliability added. How many people have you heard of who could run databases on an IBM or Apple II floppy system, entering data with fairly large files and several indexes, and searching and printing the data almost continuously? Those people who know what I'm talking about should have a good laugh on that one.

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:52 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >Let's put the question if something like PICS will be mandated aside for >the moment. Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their >content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be >considered truly voluntary. Self-labeling is useless without regulation and punishment - there's too much incentive to treat the label like a marketing tool. My hunch is that courts will never allow compulsory labeling at the level that most people would want - my bet is that labeling re visual depictions of nudity/sex can be mandated, but that labeling re editorial/political content can't be. (I'm not saying I think a fair reading of the Constitution says that, I'm saying I think that's the compromise that judges will come up with.) And labeling that keeps kids from seeing female breasts but lets them find out about where to get abortions, or how to do their own at home*, or that lets kids see home pages about how it's OK to be gay or a nazi or a nerd or a creationist or a Republican or whatever isn't going to serve the needs of the people who want to impose a strict content-control regime on their kids, or on the net. And while my faith in the judiciary is pretty weak, I just don't think they'll go so far as to say that the Constitution allows the government to force people to put subject labels on their web pages. *(circa 1991, there was a videotape circulating in keep-abortion-legal activist circles which described and showed how to perform an early-term abortion using relatively simple technology (e.g., suction) - I can't seem to remember the medical term for the procedure, but the tape was intended, a la PGP, to make the technology available while it was still legal to discuss it. Someone must have ported this video to Quicktime by now.) Third party labeling/rating is a much superior solution because it allows the labelers to examine data with a mindset compatible with the mindset of the customer, which source-labeling, nor automated filtering, will never do. Here's to hoping that regulators/legislators won't get around to imposing a source-labeling scheme before experience is able to show them that it's neither necessary nor sufficient to reach their goals. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Mykotronx update
by stewarts＠ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Remember Mykotronx, makers of the Clipper Chip? Apparently, they were bought in 1995 by Rainbow Technologies, http://www.rnbo.com/, who make dongles and crypto accelerator boards. Some quotes from their web page: http://www.rnbo.com/mykoweb/geninfo.htm Headquarted in Torrance, California, Mykotronx employs approximately 110 people. The company was founded in 1979 as Myko Enterprises; it incorporated and became Mykotronx, Inc. in 1987. In 1995, Mykotronx became a part of Rainbow Technologies Inc. (NASDAQ: RNBO), a world leader for intellectual property protection. .... Anticipating higher production volumes, in October 1995, Mykotronx opened a new facility that has dramatically enhanced its capacity for testing and programming cryptographic microprocessors. The facility expands annual programming and test capability to more than 1.2 million devices, with potential expansion to 5 million units. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk # (If this is posted to cypherpunks, I'm currently lurking from fcpunx, # so please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

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To all IETF attendees
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Any Cypherpunks attending this weeks IETF meeting in San Jose are encouraged to send me some email if you want to get together. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by thad＠hammerhead.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.netcom.com> says: > ..Do you agree that sites that deliberately mislabel their > content, will eventually face legal action? If so, then PICS should not be > considered truly voluntary. I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect to be sued by them. These companies should create a cryptographic signature for their labels, I'm really surprised that RSACi doesn't do that yet; I don't know if other PICS labelers do. If you just make up your own PICS label, then I can't believe that you would have any problems saying whatever you want. Of course, it's likely that most of the Surfwatch type programs will have options to block all pages without a well-known label attached to it, and this will probably be the default in a couple of years. If this is the way it works out, then I'd consider this voluntary. I think that this is the way it will work out, too. thad -- Thaddeus Beier thad(a)hammerhead.com Visual Effects Supervisor 408) 287-6770 Hammerhead Productions http://www.got.net/people/thad

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:18 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Thaddeus J. Beier wrote: >I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those >generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) >These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their >questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect >to be sued by them. So what is going to happen if I generate one of their tags from scratch without filling out their questionnaire? Are they going to sue me, claiming that they own an html tag? Can one own an html tag? -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: PICS is not censorship
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:37 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >>>> At 07:18 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Thaddeus J. Beier wrote: >I think that most of the PICS labels that are on web pages will be those >generated by scripts from groups like RSACi. (http://www.rsac.org) >These groups have contracts that require you to not lie when you fill out their >questionnaires, and if you do lie, you are in breach of contract and should expect >to be sued by them. So what is going to happen if I generate one of their tags from scratch without filling out their questionnaire? Are they going to sue me, claiming that they own an html tag? Can one own an html tag? "Owning" an html tag is oversimplifying things; but claiming that you've been rated a certain way by a certain group (if you haven't) could potentially create fraud, trademark, and (maybe) copyright problems - an easy analogy is to the "UL" and "Good Housekeeping" symbols displayed on some consumer goods. -- Greg Broiles | US crypto export control policy in a nutshell: gbroiles(a)netbox.com | http://www.io.com/~gbroiles | Export jobs, not crypto. |

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Protect against physical theft of the harddisk ??
by Pavel Korensky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I have one problem which I would like to consult with you. I need to protect the data on the computer harddisk against physical theft. Current situation: Computer with several harddisks - approx. 9 GB. On this computer, the following OS are used: Linux, DOS, Windows NT. The data on this computer must be accessible from all operating systems. Encryption of files must be transparent to user and encryption algorithm must be "strong". Because I am not able to find any disk encryption software which is able to run on all these platforms, I decided to use the following temporary solution: Add one more computer with Linux OS. On this computer, there will be only a small root partition with necessary Linux components. All other disk space will be encrypted with IDEA, using the /dev/loop. This machine will be some kind of secure file server. On the second machine, where the user works, there will be partitions with operating systems, necessary utilities and the TCP/IP stack for DOS/Windows, NT and Linux. The data and application disks will be mounted via NFS and user will work with files from file server. The computers will be interconnected with Fast Ethernet. This mini-network is NOT connected to the Internet, so the NFS (in)security should not be a problem. Also, both computers will be placed in the same room (distance approx. 3 m), so there should be no problem with tapping/data capturing on the Fast Ethernet connection. I have the following questions. Can anybody see some major security hole in this system ? How fast will be this system ? Anybody has any idea if there is some more sophisticated solution for this problem ? Anybody heard about some strong disk encryption which is able to rund under Windows NT, Linux and DOS ? It seems that the Win NT are the major problem. I am not able to find any disk encryption for NT. Anybody is able to port Secure File System to Windows NT ? I am trying to port this program under Linux, but I am not the NT system programmer. Thanx for any comments, help, ideas etc. Best regards PavelK -- **************************************************************************** * Pavel Korensky (pavelk(a)dator3.anet.cz) * * DATOR3 Ltd., Modranska 1895/17, 143 00 Prague 4, Czech Republic * * PGP key fingerprint: 00 65 5A B3 70 20 F1 54 D3 B3 E4 3E F8 A3 5E 7C * ****************************************************************************

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A Message From Sue
by sue1968＠ix17.ix.netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Please excuse this intrusion into your mailbox, but I would like to tell you about something which will be of interest to you. About a year ago, I purchased two personalized children's books for my kids and they have been such an incredible hit with them that the parents of several of their friends have gone out and purchased the books for their own kids. I've also ended up buying several more as gifts. This gave me the idea of becoming a distributor for these great books. The books are all made with highly durable, hard cover bindings and have tons of full color illustrations. Your child's name and the names of their friends are woven into the story and appear on every page. They not only hear the story, they're actually a part of it and no other book has inspired my children to want to read more than these books have. Whether it's for your own child or for another child you care about, these books make the perfect gift, especially with the holiday season approaching. It's impossible for me to describe these books well enough to do them justice, so instead, I would like to invite you to visit my web site at: http://www.steppingstones.com <A HREF="http://www.steppingstones.com">Click here to go to the website www.steppingstones.com</A> There you will find pictures of each of the books I offer and a more complete description. I'm so sure you'll love these books as much as I do, that I'm offering a 100% money back guarantee if you're not completely satisfied. We are currently offering a Holiday Special: For every book you order at the regular price of only $12.95 you can order another for 1/2 price!!! In order to claim this special offer, you must include Invitation # 192 on your order form. Note: All orders for Christmas must be placed by Wednesday December 18th in order to ensure on time delivery!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you are not interested, please pass it on to a friend who might be, or simply hit delete. Have a great day!!! Sue :-)

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Re: Please post Eudora PGP plugin URL
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 03:52 PM 12/8/96 -0800, Lucky Green wrote: >>If you want to be automatically notified of new versions, send e-mail to >>gt6525c(a)prism.gatech.edu with the subject of "eppi news", and the following >>message body: > >Just FYI, while the plugin is still available, email to this address has >been bouncing for weeks. It is therefore impossible to submit bug reports >or subscribe to the EPPI mailing list. If somebody on this list knows the >current address of the EPPI author, please post it. The current address of the author of the Eudora plug-in is Damon Gallaty <dgal(a)cad.gatech.edu>. I have been coorisponding with him on a couple of odd problems with the software. (Implemenation issues more than bugs.) He has been very responsive. (In fact, I need to send him another bug report tonight about failing to deal with line wrap in signatures.) So far the set of plug-ins have been very useful. I have been pretty happy with it so far. (It does have the problem of not word wrapping before applying the PGP sig and defaulting to the last key if you do not set one in config.txt.) All in all, worth the download. --- | "Spam is the Devil's toothpaste!" - stuart(a)teleport.com | |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.ctrl-alt-del.com/~alan/ |alan(a)ctrl-alt-del.com|

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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{"extropia"} = "<remail(a)miron.vip.best.com> cpunk pgp special"; $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{'alpha'} = '<alias(a)alpha.c2.org> alpha pgp'; $remailer{'nymrod'} = '<nymrod(a)nym.jpunix.com> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"lead"} = "<mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"exon"} = "<remailer(a)remailer.nl.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"haystack"} = "<haystack(a)holy.cow.net> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"lucifer"} = "<lucifer(a)dhp.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"jam"} = "<remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca> cpunk mix pgp hash 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{"balls"} = "<remailer(a)huge.cajones.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"squirrel"} = "<mix(a)squirrel.owl.de> cpunk mix pgp pgponly hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"middle"} = "<middleman(a)jpunix.com> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{'cyber'} = '<alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net> alpha pgp'; $remailer{"dustbin"} = "<dustman(a)athensnet.com> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek mix reord middle ?"; $remailer{'weasel'} = '<config(a)weasel.owl.de> newnym pgp'; $remailer{"death"} = "<x(a)deathsdoor.com> cpunk pgp hash latent post"; $remailer{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; 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) (weasel squirrel) The alpha and nymrod nymservers are down due to abuse. However, you can use the nym or weasel (newnym style) nymservers. The cyber nymserver is quite reliable for outgoing mail (which is what's measured here), but is exhibiting serious reliability problems for incoming mail. The squirrel and winsock remailers accept PGP encrypted mail only. 403 Permission denied errors have been caused by a flaky disk on the Berkeley WWW server. This seems to be fixed now. The penet remailer is closed. Last update: Mon 9 Dec 96 6:45:04 PST remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net +***+**+*+** 32:58 99.98% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca ************ 14:36 99.97% nym config(a)nym.alias.net ####***#*### :48 99.97% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com ++++++++++++ 38:32 99.96% lead mix(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu +++*+++-++-+ 1:00:18 99.93% middle middleman(a)jpunix.com -.---------- 4:01:26 99.93% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net -.--------- 3:15:16 99.74% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de --+++-+++++ 1:40:17 99.68% dustbin dustman(a)athensnet.com __.-+++-++++ 7:14:49 99.66% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de --+++-+++-+ 1:39:24 99.50% haystack haystack(a)holy.cow.net #** **#*#**+ 4:58 99.42% replay remailer(a)replay.com +**** *-- -* 1:22:47 99.41% exon remailer(a)remailer.nl.com #*#***#+#### 6:25 99.29% extropia remail(a)miron.vip.best.com -- -- .. -- 9:05:48 94.66% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net - - ----- 3:43:35 93.66% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com #**** 1:37:33 74.17% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com ._.--++-. 8:37:03 71.73% 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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OECD crypto policy draft guidelines
by Robin Whittle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is an ad-hoc group of government representatives (called an "expert group" actually) working on an OECD set of cryptography policy guidelines. They have a big five day meeting coming up starting 12 December in Paris. A September draft of their guidelines was leaked and put on a WWW site in Austria: http://www.quintessenz.at/Netzteil/OECD/index.html as a Word 6 file. I got it, turned it into HTML and put it on my site with comments. http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr Recently, someone from the OECD crypto secretariat emailed me indicating they had read my comments and found them reasonably constructive. I have since added more comments, which I emailed to the secretariate person. If anyone has something constructive to convey to them, email me and I will put you in touch with them. I understand there will be an article on the debate in the next weekly edition of The European newspaper. The people at Quintessenz apparently have a later draft which they are scanning and will put up on their site ASAP. - Robin . Robin Whittle . . http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr firstpr(a)ozemail.com.au . . 11 Miller St. Heidelberg Heights 3081 Melbourne Australia . . Ph +61-3-9459-2889 Fax +61-3-9458-1736 . . Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, especially privacy . . . . First Principles - Research and expression - music, . . music industry, telecommunications . . human factors in technology adoption. . . . Real World Interfaces - Hardware and software, especially . . for music .

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[Fwd: take me off the list]
by Rosario Family 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

me too samiam(a)coqui.net To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Subject: take me off the list From: Bryondp(a)aol.com Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 19:47:48 -0500 Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com take me off the list

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Malaysian Netropolis and Net-regs, from The Netly News
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 09:15:12 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Malaysian Netropolis and Net-regs, from The Netly News The Netly News December 9, 1996 http://netlynews.com/ The Malaysian Solution By Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) My first thought when I arrived in Kuala Lumpur was that it was dirty, at least compared to whisper-clean Singapore, where I had just been. Yet the city was fully alive -- not just with hawker stalls but with a newfound sense of optimism. That's because Malaysia, long a sleepy jungle backwater, is carefully preparing an area just south of the capital to be the Asian technology center, a no-taxes-here free trade zone, the place to be for all things cyber. It will be patterned after Penang, an island off Malaysia's northwest coast that's home to one of the largest collections of chip manufacturers in the world. The way Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad describes it, fiber will line the streets of the $8 billion "Multimedia Super Corridor" and dollars will flow into the coffers of Western businesses that settle here. Malaysia is busy crafting a Netropolis. Dr. Tommi Chen, the CEO of asiapac.net, explains the government's plan to me over satay and bowls of chee cheong fun. We're waiting out the monsoon rain in one of the countless Malay-Chinese eateries in Petaling Jaya, a town about 15 miles from the capital, Kuala Lumpur. "This region is exploding," he says. "Everyone is competing to be the information-technology hub. The government is trying to attract the best to create another Silicon Valley." Sun Microsystems, Ernst & Young and Microsoft have already announced plans to shift Asian operations to this tropical city. That influx will doubtless be hastened in February when intellectual property and digital signature laws are set to be introduced. To attract firms, the government is unabashedly pro-business. "I think Malaysia will leapfrog other countries in the region as a business center," Chen says. "The prime minister and the deputy prime minister championed the Internet themselves." Yet just like everywhere else that embraces rapid datafication, a Net connection brings with it overseas ideas and values that alarm authorities in this strict Islamic state, which still refuses to sign the International Declaration of Human Rights and has a police force that can indefinitely detain individuals deemed a threat to national security. In a country where chaste kisses -- a tepid buss on the cheek! -- are chopped out of television broadcasts, what's a poor government censor to do when images from alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pornstar flow through Malaysian cyberspace? The answer may lie in the history books. North of Singapore, south of Thailand, straddling the South China Sea, Malaysia was settled by the British in 1795. The country won its independence in 1957, but an internal Communist uprising quickly destablized the young government. Then, on May 13, 1969, members of a Chinese political party took to the streets of Kuala Lumpur to celebrate a strong showing in a parliamentary election. Malay-Chinese riots flared for four days and hundreds died. The government responded by taking extreme measures to reduce ethnic friction, echoes of which exist today in draconian laws punishing people (such as newspaper editors) who "incite" racial tension. In this atmosphere, Prime Minister Mahathir prospered. Once a critic of autocratic government, he dismantled the formerly independent judiciary after a court threatened his grip on power in 1987. His other censor-happy feats include once banning the Wall Street Journal and the Far East Economic Review. No viable opposition party exists. Lim Guan Eng, an opposition leader, is being tried for sedition. Local newspapers are uniformly pro-government. Issues of Western magazines with articles critical of Mahathir somehow never make it to newsstands. Malaysian netizens have a ready answer for these criticisms of their country. To them, Malaysia may not be ready for the kind of freedoms the West enjoys. "Most Asians see Westerners as being too liberal with too many things," a Chinese manager at a technology firm told me. The country's perception of liberty, I begin to understand, is seen through the lens of communist threats and the May 13 racial riots. With freedom, perhaps, comes instability, uncertainty... chaos. That's why Mahathir is faced with an exquisitely delicate balancing act: providing enough freedom to attract Western companies and American-educated workers accustomed to it, while meeting the demands of powerful Islamic fundamentalists who would put Senator Exon to shame. "The pornography laws exist. They will just extend these laws to the Net," says Chen. The rain has slowed to a light patter. We're almost ready to return to his office, across the street, where a score of 20-somethings work late into the night. He concludes: "Malaysia is Muslim. They have to do it -- they have no choice. They know there is no foolproof control, but they have to do it anyway." My next visit is to the office of Dr. Mohamed Awang Lah, the head of Jaring, the only other licensed and government-approved Internet provider in Malaysia. Like asiapac.net, Jaring is owned by the state. (Three illicit providers, however, apparently exist.) "We block about a hundred web sites, otherwise people complain," Awang Lah tells me. This, then, is the balancing act: "If we are too open, people complain. If we are too closed, people complain." This is an epiphany for me: the Notorious 100, presumably the same web sites blocked by the government of Singapore! It's a token gesture, not too much, not too little. In a lot of ways, it's a far better solution than the U.S. Congress's ham-handed Communications Decency Act, now on the Supreme Court's calendar. "The government will not regulate the Internet," Awang Lah says. "The only part we don't like, that is not acceptable to the culture, to the religion, is pornography... There are also some restrictions on religious content. But there is no intention to regulate the free flow of discussion." (Except for anti-Islam or anti-Mahathir criticisms, I'd wager.) Still, Malaysia seems to follow a pattern of strict laws and lax enforcement. Sure, sexually explicit materials may be banned by law. But just a block from my hotel in downtown Kuala Lumpur, I was able to buy three porn videos -- two American, one Japanese -- for 50 ringgit, or U.S. $7 each, from a sidewalk vendor. Perhaps there's some hope for the Net after all. ###

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Re: The Science Generations
by Ryan Russell/SYBASE 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If I may offer another opinion... I ran a BBS for about three years straight off of floppies on an Apple ][+, without any hardware failures or disk problems. Ryan ---------- Previous Message ---------- To: frantz cc: cypherpunks From: dthorn @ gte.net (Dale Thorn) @ smtp Date: 12/06/96 07:48:16 PM Subject: Re: The Science Generations Bill Frantz wrote: > At 1:12 AM 12/6/96 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote: > >I would guess that those who became and remained successful technically > >(as opposed to becoming "business people") were using HP computers and > >such in the 1970s. I for one was a heavy user then, and PETs, Apples, > >Radio Shack, etc. computers weren't reliable enough for serious work. > I guess those people using VisiCalc on the Apple ][ weren't doing serious > work :-). (Also the many small businesses using these early machines for > AR, Accounting etc.) Me, I was doing OS programming on IBM 370s. Let's talk about some real data processing. dBase II on CP/M computers (or certain proprietary hardware with adaptor cards), circa 1980-1982, would be a good example. If you had the right stuff, say, an HP-120 or HP-125, or even an 80 series with the adaptor, and HP floppy drives, you could process all day long for (years?) with scarcely a hitch. You try to put something like that on an Apple II with Apple floppies (using whatever software was available), and you couldn't do the job. The machine and/or drives would quit in a few days, if not the first day, and might even erase your diskettes in the process (a common occurrence in those days). In early 1985, just for fun, I had an HP-71 pocket computer hooked up to a LaserJet printer and a couple of HP portable floppies, and printed my store's databases on it. Multiple indexes, thousands of records, each index printed complete every day in separate copies for each salesman. I wouldn't dream of trying that with an IBM or Apple floppy system. Hard disks? I *never* heard of an HP microcomputer hard disk crash in those days, short of dropping the computer onto the floor while writing a file. We used to pull the wall plugs on our HP's while writing to a file, with no bad effect. Try that on an IBM or Apple circa <= 1985. Computer hardware? One thing I enjoyed doing for customers was pulling a RAM card out of an HP-86 while it was running a program, then forcing the card back into the slot. Usually pulling the card had no effect, then, putting it back in would generally reset the program. Surge protectors? Never sold one. Not needed with HP's then. An Apple II (like the other toy computers from 1975 to 1982) was a hobbyist computer, which required frequent cleaning and scrubbing internally to keep it running. A pencil eraser was a common tool... And let's not forget Apple and IBM attitudes: When I had HP's, if I ever needed service, HP did it themselves, professionally (using static mats etc.) and promptly. You wouldn't find Apple or IBM offering to repair their own microcomputers in those days (or ever). For good reason! Cost of service? HP's contracts were usually 3% to 5% of the item cost per year, compared to the "industry standard" of 15%. Not a bad deal.

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Baran on Net Security
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

RAND has put on it Web site eleven "classics" on distributed communications, most of them by Paul Baran. They offer good background to current debate on secrecy, security and cryptography. Here are the contents of No. 9 on security. http://www.rand.org/publications/RM/RM3765/ Memorandum RM-3765-PR August 1964 On Distributed Communications: IX Security, Secrecy, and Tamper-Free Considerations Paul Baran Contents, Preface, Summary, Foreword I. Introduction II. The Paradox of the Secrecy About Secrecy The Assumption of a Clear Dichotomy Between Classified and Unclassified Subject Matter Cost and Result of Present-Day Cryptographic Equipment On Secrecy of Secrecy III. Some Fundamentals of Cryptography Digital Transmission Layers of Encryption IV. Implications for the Distributed Network System Link-by-Link Cryptography in the Distributed Network End-to-End Cryptography in the Distributed Network Genealogy of the Keys Generation and Distribution of Keys Protection Offered by Semi-Random Path Choice V. A "Devil's Advocate" Examination Appendix Use of a Function of N-Boolean Variables as a Second-Order Modifier for "Next-Key" Generation

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The Advent of Netwar
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A RAND publication relates to the administration's focus on borderless crime and/or dissent as national security threats: The Advent of Netwar. J. Arquilla, D.F. Ronfeldt 118 pp, 1996. $15.00 ISBN: 0833024140 Key concepts: Cybernetics -- Military aspects; Electronic intelligence; Military art and science -- Technological innovations; Communications, Military -- Technological aspects; Electronic countermeasures Abstract: The information revolution is leading to the rise of network forms of organization, with unusual implications for how societies are organized and conflicts are conducted. "Netwar" is an emerging consequence. The term refers to societal conflict and crime, short of war, in which the protagonists are organized more as sprawling "leaderless" networks than as tight-knit hierarchies. Many terrorists, criminals, fundamentalists, and ethno-nationalists are developing netwar capabilities. A new generation of revolutionaries and militant radicals is also emerging, with new doctrines, strategies, and technologies that support their reliance on network forms of organization. Netwar may be the dominant mode of societal conflict in the 21st century. These conclusions are implied by the evolution of societies, according to a framework presented in this RAND study. The emergence of netwar raises the need to rethink strategy and doctrine to conduct counternetwar. Traditional notions of war and low-intensity conflict as a sequential process based on massing, maneuvering, and fighting will likely prove inadequate to cope with nonlinear, swarm-like, information-age conflicts in which societal and military elements are closely intermingled. ----- There is a summary of this document and ordering info at: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR789.html

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Chaum to Step Aside
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.msnbc.com/news/45558.asp According to knowledgeable sources, Digicash b.v., the Dutch-based privately held Internet payment company that was founded and is chaired by Chaum, is in the market for a new top executive. The 6-year-old company plans to make Chaum, the ponytailed inventor of Digicash's innovative payment system, chief technology officer and to hire a new CEO to run the company.

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[ADMINISTRATIVIUM] One-time pads
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Many forgeries are traceable with mathematical certainty to feebleminded Timmy C[ocksucker] Mayflower's poison keyboard. /\ /..\ Timmy C[ocksucker] Mayflower /_\/_\

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What OS/2 software?
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi! I am off from the list nowadays so please reply directly. Can anybody point me to the most accepted crypto softwares running under OS/2? I already have PGP 2.6.3i Here is my shopping list: - - file encryption utility other than PGP, *if advisable* - - GUI shell (Aegis Shell style, if possible) - - hard drive on-the-fly encryption (I used CryptDisk in DOS) - - swap deleter - - file wiper - - any other program that would take care of a security issue the I still ignore about OS/2 (I'm absolutely new to it) - - any must-read OS/2 specific security-related document(s) I am looking for software that has been peer-reviewed and that is widely accepted among Cypher/Coder Punks. As a result of thoses replies, I will create a web page dedicated to OS/2 security applications. Regards jfa - -- Jean-Francois Avon, Pierrefonds(Montreal) QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee: Fine Limoges porcelain and Crystal JFA Technologies: R&D Physicists, Eng, Techies, LabView stuff, etc PGP encryption keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon and: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891 ID# 5B51964D : 152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQEVAgUBMqv/bciycyXFit0NAQFqcAgAh2e3qveaBXyAhAwm4P35cM8Ho6PnW2i8 pfqpHOzKtYyoACgWT40Q/L9Rv7Zq2S7YTY07+Ges56nwczKQdCFigH8PTUas5TOJ WC+sddxZCWT57XxEA2NGW/DBH90lrRJ+0Yq2e42So1KzQ/5RWcpZPIL60fEusrc0 I1E+qCcGkxFtm/1ISwIHwtpx3E7u4l8jMZy71dX+/Wp1LfSinbudjkTWYkCYTifW XL5q/wHTQ3/+UetoczQL7k6o1teOBJA1NIjZ5BRlvDfAYwhz1W1f8IbV8l/2tP0q r3sNaDN0hBdMzvz4tWXdMYObkr5tE7XSl5EJLUkRb3O15+8UK4XB6g== =lzne -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Secure Erase for PCs?
by foodie＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all - I know this has been discussed multiple times, but archive searching has turned up nothing. What freely available tools are there for securely erasing a disk under DOS and Windows? Ideally I'd like a tool for each, but pointers to either are much appreciated. Thanks, -j

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