December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: GAK cracking?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:45 AM 2/3/97 -0500, tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com wrote: >But under a controversial new Clinton administration policy that took >effect Jan. 1, companies may receive permission to export stronger >programs. > >"I'm happy that we've been able to do this within the first month >without rancor or difficulty," Under Secretary of Commerce for Export >Administration William Reinsch told Reuters in a telephone interview. > >To export stronger programs immediately, companies must agree to >incorporate features within two years allowing the government to >decode encrypted messages by recovering the software keys, however. This ought to be challengeable. (equal-protection violation?) And while the government's actions are normally phrased in this way, another way to describe them is to argue that the government is: 1. Wanting a product or service to be developed. 2. Wants private companies to do this. 3. Wants to do so without Congress appropriating the money. (And they're doing it by, in effect, "paying" for it by allowing certain companies to export freely, with the requirement that the company does the work "gratis".) 4. Wants to do so without any sort of competitive bidding process. (The terms of the contract have not gone through any of the normal procedures.) I assume there are laws and/or rules which prohibit exactly this kind of behavior. Would it be possible to file a lawsuit, and then file for an injunction to prevent this de-facto deal from going through? Might this constitute an anti-trust violation, because multiple companies are acting in concert to restrict access to the foreign crypto market by agreeing to develop ONLY A CERTAIN KIND OF ENCRYPTION, namely GAKked encryption? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I agree with two of Tim's points. I express no opinion about the others, except that I think these are the two most important. (1) I agree with Tim that as a matter of principle, it would be preferable to create a new moderated list, with a similar but distinguishable name, and leave the existing list as it was. I happen to think less turns on this than does Tim, given the opportunity to exercise truth-in-labeling, but it seems to me that because the cost of this approach is zero, and it has real benefits in the eyes of some, it's a no-brainer. I expect that I would subscribe to the filtered version. If someone is really worried that the new list will be too low traffic (please, G*d), they can send an automatic ballot to all subscribers, USENET style,asking what list(s) they want to be on. My own view is that if you are not ready, willing or able to read and follow a periodic posting explaining how to sign on/off various lists (and I assume there should and would be one), I am willing to take the risk of missing your input. (2) Much to my surprise, so far moderation is a failure. I think it is a failure because it achieves neither of the moderation "sweet spots". No moderation is one "sweet spot". Strict moderation -- the kind you get on RISKS, where you know nearly every post is on-topic or at least worth your time -- is another. This is neither. My clumsy procmail filters are almost as busy as ever. What slips through is largely duplicative of what I get from other lists, or is not to my taste. (NB *my taste*.) And it gets here slower. It's true that the venom from anonymous remailers is gone, and that is a plus, but even so little of what slips through is of interest modulo other lists. I happen to think that *stricter* moderation might lure back some of the better content-providers, but it would help to set it up in a manner that offends the smallest possible number. As Oscar Wilde either said, or should have said, the worst crime is to be boring. PS. New members of the list may justly ask, where does he get off calling the posters he doesn't killfile bores? I stopped posting a lot to the list some time ago, back when I decided my energies were better spent writing long stuff (see my web page) and playing with my kids. I kept reading the list primarily to read the work of about six people -- and Tim was one of them. A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But (at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) would take a much longer time to return. (I'm working on a message re moderation and the list which will better explain what I think about that - but I'm not trying to argue, above, that we *must* have moderation for a long time - simply that it's too early to call it a failure for failing to significantly increase the number of useful messages.) >There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does >not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. No, that is a silly lesson to draw from this experiment. There are lots of useful and interesting "moderated" (on paper, it's called "editing") publications/lists/digests where the content is intentionally controlled for content and style. This particular implementation is imperfect. However, just as it would be overreaching to conclude from the relative uselessness of the pre-moderation list that "every list must be moderated, unmoderated lists cannot succeed", it overreaches to conclude from the current results that moderated lists cannot succeed. >Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in >terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's >replace it. > >What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A >message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each >machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of >these machines should be across borders. > >The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing >the message IDs. I think you misspelled "Usenet". Hope this helps. Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" message distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust software exists for clients and servers, and it's already supported worldwide on many operating systems. No need to write more software to graft that functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to turn into Usenet (we've already got most of Usenet's better kooks), we might as well just move the damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks and be done with it. (Anyone care to guess who founded alt.* as a way to route around censorship?) (Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for failing to mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, anything-goes forum for discussion.) -- 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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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, in his Ruskie disguise: hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. ...................................... LD, when you say "community" it means something else than when others do. When the cpunks said "community" they meant the camaraderie which develops in the company of people with similar interests. When you say it, it means a group of people stuck to each other by rules of order and socialization, with boundary lines predetermining the limits of their arena. The cpunks had intended that everyone would self-determine the extent or limits of their interactions, thus arriving at a sense of "community" from the decision to do so, rather than from being squeezed along through "proper" channels. == one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. ............................... Typically, people who yell for LEADERSHIP are those who either need it themselves or are eager to supply it for others - i.e., to determine the course of events. Which one of these categories do you yourself fall into? == <<* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. ........................................ I would more precisely say that the solution to bad speech is better speech, thus eliminating the need for 5 messages when 1 will do. YMMV. Do you think this would hold up in reality? == quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? ................................ You're starting to sound like Ayn Rand. (heh) .. Blanc

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RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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[PCS] Fighting the cyber-censors
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dumbbell Vindictive styles his facial hair to look more like pubic hair. D\___/\ (0_o) Dumbbell Vindictive (V) ---oOo--U--oOo---

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

pdh(a)best.com (Peter Hendrickson) writes: > What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A > message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each > machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of > these machines should be across borders. Ever heard of Usenet? It works exactly like that...

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: > Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> writes: > > I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day > > Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the > > cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go > > to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. > > What about the leaks? (rc4.c, Mykotronics dumpster contents, etc) > Where do they go? How about sci.crypt, where they usually go before being forwarded to cypherpunks?

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Re: concerning Ben Franklin
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Farber allegedly said: > > My favorate Ben Franklin quote is > > "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary > safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Ben Franklin, ~1784 In the constitutional convention a property requirement for voting was discussed. Franklin said "A man owns an ass; he can vote. The ass dies; he cannot vote. Who owns the vote?" (I may not have quoted it precisely.) -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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Re: what's in a name?
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Wei Dai allegedly said: > > I've stayed out of the debate about list moderation so far, but a recent > post from tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com reminds me of something I've been > thinking about. An interesting way to look at what happened is that John > Gilmore owns the name "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" and has chosen to exercise > that ownership. Even though those of us who disagree with the way he has > done so are free to leave and set up our own mailing list, it is costly to > do so, and the problem of central name ownership remains. List > subscribers have made investments that are specific to the name > "cypherpunks(a)toad.com", and most of the cost of switching to a new list is > in the new investments they would have to (re)make. The fact is that a > promise of no censorship is not enough incentive for us to do so. > > I suspect that the hierarchical nature of name ownership on the Internet > today will be an important technological barrier for the establishment of > truly anarchic virtual communities. Unless this problem is solved, the > closest we'll come is pseudo-anarchies that exist with the tolerance of > beneficent dictators. While the name hierarchy may have some effect similar to what you suggest, I think the real issue is more likely economic hierarchy -- toad.com is a name of some value, true, but toad.com is also a T1 connection and some compute power that many people simply can't afford. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, in his Ruskie disguise: hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. ...................................... LD, when you say "community" it means something else than when others do. When the cpunks said "community" they meant the camaraderie which develops in the company of people with similar interests. When you say it, it means a group of people stuck to each other by rules of order and socialization, with boundary lines predetermining the limits of their arena. The cpunks had intended that everyone would self-determine the extent or limits of their interactions, thus arriving at a sense of "community" from the decision to do so, rather than from being squeezed along through "proper" channels. == one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. ............................... Typically, people who yell for LEADERSHIP are those who either need it themselves or are eager to supply it for others - i.e., to determine the course of events. Which one of these categories do you yourself fall into? == <<* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. ........................................ I would more precisely say that the solution to bad speech is better speech, thus eliminating the need for 5 messages when 1 will do. YMMV. Do you think this would hold up in reality? == quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? ................................ You're starting to sound like Ayn Rand. (heh) .. Blanc

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Scott V. McGuire allegedly said: [...] > I didn't change my subscription from the filtered to > the unfiltered list because I expected this to end in a month and I was > willing to participate in the experiment. You can't ask someone to try > something for a month to see if they like it and call there use of it in > that month evidence that they like it. I agree. But there is more. As much as anything else, I didn't change lists because of inertia and laziness. I suspect that most people are like me in this regard. I suspect that if the tactic had been to require people to subscribe to the moderated list we would see just the reverse of the current numbers. In fact, in the interests of fairness, integrity, and adherence to the scientific method, I suggest that after this month trial has passed that we reverse the lists, and see how many change to the moderated list. [snip] > Sandy, you said that you thought the list had improved since you began > moderating. How could you think otherwise? When you send an article to > the flames list its because you think the list would have been worse > otherwise. I don't think the moderators opinion should be considered in > determining if moderation is a good thing. I think there is a conflict of > interest there. Absolutely no doubt that there is a conflict of interest. In Sandy's shoes a saint couldn't be objective. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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RE: Filling Power Vacuums
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Vladimir Z. Nuri, filling in for Mother Theresa: timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. ................................................. Well, thank you, Master Yoda ! :>) Not speaking for Tim (I doubt he will answer you, anyway), but he *has* supplied leadership. Leaders can lead by example, and also by the clarity of thought & ideas which they present. I think he has quite often supplied such qualities in his posts, and this has contributed greatly to the atmosphere of anarchic "community". Speaking of leadeship, though, to "lead" implies that there is a place to go, and that the leader is the one at the head of the pack, indicating the proper direction (this would be the opposite of what anarchists want, since they would be going not toward, but away from, something). If leadership is defined to mean setting a course for people who lack direction, this implies the existence of followers who are willing to be led into places and to adopt methodologies when they don't know what else to do; that they will follow a leader who will supply structure and purpose to their indecisive condition. This does place a lot of responsibility upon a leader, then, for setting the goal, the course, and the methodology. That's a lot of formality to impose; too much, when you're only exchanging ideas rather than formally setting out to accomplish something specific (like by a particular time & date). Is it Time for the Revolution? .. Blanc

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Re: [PICS] Credentials without Identity--Race Bits
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment does NOT eat pussy. He only eats asshole if it's got a big dick up in front. Whoever calls him bisexual is a fucking liar. He likes to suck cocks in front of an audience. _ O O _ \-|-\_/-|-/ Deflated Volcano K[rust] Of The Moment /^\ /^\ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:59 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >>Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >>can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > >I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 >weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But >(at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad >posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, >and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) >would take a much longer time to return. Many good authors have already left the list and *nothing* will get them back. The only solution is to move traffic to a different list. [Ever wondered why it is called a "TAZ" and not a "PAZ"? Though, in all fairness, I there is a "SPAZ". <Hi to Dave Synthesis and all the folks from SPAZ>.] -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu" "Sean Roach" 4-FEB-1997 00:47:40.30 >On your idea for fast implementation, this could be hacked by would-be >censors. A message comes into the list, the censor sees that the post is >from a regular enemy. The censor then copies the header information onto a >new message, one containing garbage, or snippets from old posts, reads the >new post to see if it is acceptable, and if it is, adds a new header, >probably only the time would be changed, and transmits it out. If the would >be censor was the sysop of a machine near the origin of the message, and if >the censor operated the censorship either by bots, or monitored the feed 24 >hours a day, (not likely), then the actual message would get to few. I would suggest that the cure for this problem is to have what is examined be a cryptographically secure hash instead of (or as well as) the message ID. The hash should be over the body of the message, and possibly the sender and Subject line. Unless Lance has driven up the prices at Infonex a lot, I'd be willing to support such a server on an Infonex account. I'd _greatly_ appreciate help getting the thing started, preferably as a group endeavour (to spread the load (i.e., keep infonex from being overwhelmed), keep me from temptation, and make it less likely that a legally troublesome message would go through an account that I might be blamed for). -Allen

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:59 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Greg Broiles wrote: >At 10:55 AM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: > >>Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I >>can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > >I don't think it's reasonable to expect an increase in signal within 2 1/2 >weeks of the start of moderation. Improvement in the s/n ratio, yes. But >(at least if my speculation is correct), the good posts driven away by bad >posts (because some good authors are too busy to wade through lots of crap, >and some good authors are reluctant to publish their work amidst crap) >would take a much longer time to return. Many good authors have already left the list and *nothing* will get them back. The only solution is to move traffic to a different list. [Ever wondered why it is called a "TAZ" and not a "PAZ"? Though, in all fairness, I there is a "SPAZ". <Hi to Dave Synthesis and all the folks from SPAZ>.] -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu" "Sean Roach" 4-FEB-1997 00:47:40.30 >On your idea for fast implementation, this could be hacked by would-be >censors. A message comes into the list, the censor sees that the post is >from a regular enemy. The censor then copies the header information onto a >new message, one containing garbage, or snippets from old posts, reads the >new post to see if it is acceptable, and if it is, adds a new header, >probably only the time would be changed, and transmits it out. If the would >be censor was the sysop of a machine near the origin of the message, and if >the censor operated the censorship either by bots, or monitored the feed 24 >hours a day, (not likely), then the actual message would get to few. I would suggest that the cure for this problem is to have what is examined be a cryptographically secure hash instead of (or as well as) the message ID. The hash should be over the body of the message, and possibly the sender and Subject line. Unless Lance has driven up the prices at Infonex a lot, I'd be willing to support such a server on an Infonex account. I'd _greatly_ appreciate help getting the thing started, preferably as a group endeavour (to spread the load (i.e., keep infonex from being overwhelmed), keep me from temptation, and make it less likely that a legally troublesome message would go through an account that I might be blamed for). -Allen

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The V chip
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dr.Demented Vomit was born when his mother was on the toilet. \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Dr.Demented Vomit

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Re: [DSS] PGP Signatures
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute's family tree goes straight up. All of his ancestors were siblings, too dumb to recognize each other in the dark. |\_/| (0_0) Decoy Vilus K)ankersore( Of The Minute ==(Y)== ---(u)---(u)---

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"gbroiles(a)netbox.com" "Greg Broiles" 4-FEB-1997 01:26:13.34 >(I'm working on a message re moderation and the list which will better >explain what I think about that - but I'm not trying to argue, above, that >we *must* have moderation for a long time - simply that it's too early to >call it a failure for failing to significantly increase the number of >useful messages.) I'll be interested in that message. I have problems with the takeover of the original list name, personally. While it is certainly John Gilmore's right to do whatever he wants with the mailing list software/hardware (I believe we've settled that, right?), I'd prefer for the cypherpunks _name_ not be associated with a moderated/censored list. (I mean no insult to either Sandy or John in this, BTW... I simply think that they've gone about this the wrong way. For instance, if John was getting an email overload for toad.com and was trying to indirectly reduce the load via reducing responses to flames, there are other ways to solve the problem - such as the distributed mailing list idea. I do think that Sandy's filtered list could provide a valuable service - most of the other filtered lists seem to filter out a bit too much, judging by the "cc any replies to this message directly to me, I'm on the [insert name of filtered list]" messages I see. If the list switches to cypherpunks and cypherpunks-edited, I might go with cypherpunks-edited (or with some combo of cypherpunks-edited and cypherpunks-flames, the latter more filtered by procmail). My objection is mainly due to the principle of the thing.) Incidentally, I checked the cyberpass.net services, and it does list mailing lists - including a 10$ per month charge per 100 subscribers. At that rate, I can afford about 100 subscribers on a local distributed list, given the 10% discount. (Depending on how it goes, I might be able to afford more... I haven't looked at my personal finances in detail recently.) >I think you misspelled "Usenet". Hope this helps. >Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" message >distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust software exists >for clients and servers, and it's already supported worldwide on many >operating systems. No need to write more software to graft that >functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to turn into Usenet (we've >already got most of Usenet's better kooks), we might as well just move the >damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks and be done with it. (Anyone care to >guess who founded alt.* as a way to route around censorship?) I'd point out that we _know_ every list member can get email, but not that they can get Usenet. I can't conveniently get it, for instance - I'd have to read it via HTTP and respond via email to a news-to-mail server. Sure, I can get an account at infonex or wherever and pick up the news groups there... but I'd prefer not to be forced to, and I suspect the same is true of many people. >(Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, >content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for failing to >mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, anything-goes forum for >discussion.) Usenet also has easy crossposting, has been discovered by just about every spam artist known to humankind, and doesn't have very good filtering software (IMO, the last time I checked). Limited propagation, especially for a new alt group, especially for a _controversial_ alt group, is also a problem. Sure, Usenet has its advantages. (Under allens(a)earlham.edu and allens(a)yang.earlham.edu, I was the second or third highest poster on it for a few weeks a few years back. I'm familiar with Usenet.) But it also has its problems. -Allen

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Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones (fwd)
by Dave Emery 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From die Tue Feb 4 00:30:04 1997 Subject: Re: FCPUNX:ecure Phones To: eli(a)gs160.sp.cs.cmu.edu (Eli Brandt) Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 00:30:04 -0500 (EST) From: "Dave Emery" <die(a)pig.die.com> Reply-To: die(a)die.com In-Reply-To: <199702040425.UAA08359(a)blacklodge.c2.net> from "Eli Brandt" at Feb 3, 97 11:24:03 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24alpha3] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1404 Don't think I will bore the list with it, But a slightly more complex version of this scheme was one of the major tactical medium security voice scrambling systems used by the US in the 70's and 80's and even to a slight extent into the 90's on military radio circuits. The military version is called Parkhill and the crypto gear is the KY-65 and KY-75. At one time (in the 70's) it was used for at least secret traffic. It was downgraded a couple of times since and is now considered obselete and compromised. A Parkhill crypto box can be seen in the NSA museum... The NSA version used time inversion (playing voice samples backwards) and faster shuffling than this one does, and possibly a more secure key generator. But it is rumored to have been broken by more than one opponent, perhaps including drug cartels. Its appeal and why it was so extensively used for a while is that it interfaces to normal voice radio gear at the audio input and output level rather than requiring different modulations and complex digital modems integrated into the radio. It also gives pretty good speech quality and speaker recognition. Its primary replacement is the ANDVT digital voice terminal which takes advantage of modern DSP technology to implement modems usable over radio links and vocoders which can produce acceptable speech at 1200 or 2400 baud. Dave Emery die(a)die.com

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Re: what's in a name?
by Secret Squirrel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Without answering any of the points raised by Wei Dai, let me address the subject line. I have been a long time reader of and occasional contributor to the cypherpunks list. Since it is high volume, I prefer not to have it show up in my mailbox, but read it from either nntp.hks.net or infinity.nus.sg/cypherpunks. With the recent change in status of the list, what I get at those two places is the edited list. The same would apply to other sublists subscribed to cypherpunks(a)toad.com too. If hks and infinity started archiving the unedited list, this wouldn't bother me so much. Other than that, I am saddened, as much as a Tim is enraged, that a supposedly libertarian and anarchistic group of people has decided that censorship is the right solution to their problems. Btw, what is with nntp.hks.net? Seems to have been down for couple of days.

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[STEGO] Degausser
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM has been fired for masturbating in front of his boss. o/ Decoy L[esbian] Vitriol K[ancer]OTM <| / >

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Mailing Lists vs. Usenet
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 2/3/1997, Greg Broiles wrote: > Seriously, if you want a distributed no-choke-points "flooding" > message distribution system, you're talking about Usenet. Robust > software exists for clients and servers, and it's already supported > worldwide on many operating systems. No need to write more software > to graft that functionality onto E-mail. If the list is going to > turn into Usenet (we've already got most of Usenet's better kooks), > we might as well just move the damn thing over to alt.cypherpunks > and be done with it. (Anyone care to guess who founded alt.* as a > way to route around censorship?) > (Of course, Usenet is a technical success and a spectacular failure, > content-wise. So opponents of moderation will be forgiven for > failing to mention this sparkling example of an unmoderated, > anything-goes forum for discussion.) Several people have brought up this point and it is worth discussing. There are some differences. I don't like Usenet's architecture. It is silly to duplicate vast amounts of traffic everywhere. It was a fine idea when there were 100 groups with lots of overlap in what people read. The horse and buggy was a good idea once too. Performance is a problem with Usenet. The system I envision (nearly identical to Igor's) would have about ten mail servers, each of which sends articles to all the others. Even in situations where something is wrong, articles will be nearly instantly transmitted along an alternate path. I think this is harder to arrange with Usenet. Competition among Cypherpunks providers works the right way. If you are getting your mail on a system which is slow and isn't up all the time, you have good reasons to switch to another provider. This is easy - just subscribe yourself to one mailing list and unsubscribe from the other. It's harder for most people to do this with Usenet. You may not want to switch your ISP to get a better Cypherpunks feed. In my opinion, Usenet is less conducive to filtering than is mail. It is true that there are lots of Usenet readers which can do things like kill whole threads and the like, but mail just screams "run me through a perl script!" This is mostly subjective, of course. More subjective opinions: I don't like being associated with Usenet. It is seen as an international bulletin board. Many people believe that it is "public" space and should be subject to zoning. I like the idea of keeping the cypherpunks list "private". I like being able to say "if what's on the list upsets you so much, why did you subscribe?" This is more effective than "so tell your child not look at Usenet". I don't like the whole Usenet cabal and all of the voting to decide which lists to canonize. Less of an issue with alt.cypherpunks, but the association is still there. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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