December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

You've got to be kidding....
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Someone forwarded this item to me. As he didn't cc: the list on it, I'll protect his identity. Could be he's understandably worried about who's reading the list. This item indicates that the same team that busted this "gang" could indict several of us as "co-conspirators" (isn't this a redundancy?) along with Bell. Lock and load. --Tim >Date: Sat, 31 May 1997 21:23:20 -0700 >To: tcmay(a)got.net >From: xxxxx >Subject: You've got to be kidding.... > >Tim -- > >For your grist of stupid, selectively enforced laws: >(from comp.risks 19.20) > >>Date: Fri, 30 May 1997 03:45:10 -0400 >>From: David Kennedy <76702.3557(a)compuserve.com> >>Subject: Florida "Computer Gang" Members Arrested >> >>Courtesy of United Press International via CompuServe's Executive News >>Service: >> >>> Florida computer gang members arrested >> >>> LECANTO, Fla., 22 May 1997 (UPI) -- Florida authorities have arrested two >>> alleged leaders of a so-called computer "gang" they say set up a Web site >>> that accused a teacher of having a homosexual affair with a student. The >>> Web site displayed a photograph of the student's prom picture with the >>> teacher's head superimposed onto the head of the boy's female date. >> >>:: Two 19 year olds were charged with "publication of material that exposes >>a person to hatred, contempt or ridicule." Because they worked together, >>anti-gang laws apply upgrading the charges from misdemeanors to felonies. >> >>:: The victim-teacher has been the target of harassment before, another >>former student was sentenced to 6 months' probation last December. >> >>Dave Kennedy [CISSP] Research Team Chief, National Computer Security Assoc. > There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Economist on Net.Auctions
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 00:04:02 -0700 To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: Economist on Net.Auctions From: nobody(a)huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer) Comments: Please report misuse of this automated remailing service to <remailer-admin(a)cajones.com> Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: nobody(a)huge.cajones.com (Huge Cajones Remailer) no earth-shattering revelations, but tuesday's audience should do their class reading for the pop quiz.. Going, going . . . THE Internet may have been the playground of the geeks for the past few decades, but its future belongs to an even more child-like tribe: economists. The network is becoming the ideal marketplace, where legions of buyers and sellers, both armed to the teeth with relevant information, can set prices as efficiently as any trading floor. As a result, market theories that have long been confined to business-school computer simulations can now have their day of reckoning as real people exchange real goods and money on-line. Nowhere is this better seen than with the economists' favourite sort of market: auctions. More than 150 auction sites are now open on the Web, selling everything from industrial machinery to rare stamps. Airlines such as Cathay Pacific and American have auctioned spare seats on their Web sites. AuctionWeb, which is a mixture of a classified-ad service and an auction room for people selling everything from rare Barbie dolls to barbecue grills, conducted 330,000 auctions on-line in the first quarter of this year alone. Onsale, the largest on-line auction service and one of the few profitable ones, sells $6m worth of computer equipment and electronic goods a month. Last month it became the first on-line auction firm to hit the stockmarket, going public at a valuation of nearly $100m. The Internet's chief advantage for auctioneers is the size of its audience. Its global reach brings a critical mass of buyers and sellers to the most popular auction sites, avoiding the problem of insufficient trading that bedevils many of their cousins in the physical world. Indeed, quick, easy virtual auctions carry a hint of the sort of hyper-efficient capitalism that Internet fans have long been promised. read the rest at http://www.economist.com/issue/31-05-97/wb8772.html For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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Tell the Fans, Not the Players / Was--Re: Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:27 PM -0700 5/31/97, Marc Rotenberg wrote: >I don't mind the criticism if you think we're saying or >doing something that really is bad for privacy, but >a bunch of political rhetoric isn't worth much. And if >you don't think we're not busting our butt to protect >the rights of people to use strong crypto, you have no >idea what's going on. I think it would be more appropriate to say that you are *selling* your ass. Excuse me all to hell if my heart doesn't bleed purple piss for your heroic efforts for the "rights of people" but I would prefer for all of the time, money and effort people are putting into trying to get the government *not* to fuck me, when they are going to do so anyway, be put instead into developing technology to enable myself and others to route around the damage caused by government. If the same amount of money that is spent on lobbying to get the "least-bad law possible" passed was put into cypherpunk projects, then before the President proposed crypto regulations he would have to decide if it was really important enough to him to put up with the whithouse.gov site receiving 10 billion emails with "Fuck Clinton" in the subject header. Most of the "rights" lobbyists are like hostage negotiators who tell the hostage taker, "We'll let you kill two people without charging you if you let the rest go." Don't hold your breath waiting for me to join in the applause for your support of legislation compromising my privacy and freedom. As far as I am concerned, most organizations with the word "Freedom" in their name are a worse scourge than the politicians. They end up becoming self-important whores that the government uses to get a showcase stamp of approval on bad legislation. In short, "Tell the fans, not the players." I am certain that you can find a forum which will proclaim your sainthood for "almost" accomplishing something useful, but the cypherpunks list is not it. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. TruthMonger

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$8,900 in 24 Hours
by Ron Franklin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Curl up and dye
by Shift Control 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This week, in the Hair issue of Shift Control... "To be fair, I've never left a hairdresser's happy. In fact, I don't know anyone who hasn't fled from a hairdresser's in search of the nearest reflective surface (I chose the window of an Iranian rug importer on Piccadilly) to try and rub away the salon-induced feeling of idiocy. But on this day I was particularly woeful. The haircut was nothing a five-year-old boy would have been ashamed of. But I'm a bit older than that. My own mother, who I saw later that day for the first time in two years, said I looked like a 'dork'." - Paul Robinson on getting a high-class haircut. "'And the new world champion for imperial whiskers is... Jurgen Burkhardt!' When it dawned on the short German dressed in the Kaiser outfit that he'd won his event, the loops at either end of his huge moustache began to twitch maniacally. The dimensions of the new world champion's imperial growth were staggering. From left to right, including the loops, it

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Jim Bell defense fund
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone talked to Jim to find out what he wants? I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to represent himself without the assistance/interference of an attorney. (I think that'd be a big mistake, but he's an adult and should be allowed to make his own choices.) Is he currently represented by a court-appointed attorney? Are they working out of the federal public defender's office, or are they in private practice? I'm not familiar with the Tacoma federal PD's office (nor am I sure that one exists) but the federal public defenders in Oregon typically did a pretty good job for their clients, frequently better than that available from the cheaper/less experienced end of the spectrum in the private bar. A court-appointed attorney may also be more familiar with/comfortable with clients who want to take an active part in their defense. (Sometimes, defendants will choose to represent themseves, but with the aid of an attorney to help them understand courtroom protocol/procedure, and to give help/advice with the trickier issues.) It's also possible that organizing only a small defense fund will turn out to be worse than no defense fund, if it eliminates his eligibility for an appointed attorney but fails to generate enough money to attract a good private attorney. If the government really wants to screw him, forcing him to represent himself or be represented by someone inexperienced or uninterested or underfunded seems like a good way to do that. My hunch is that an attorney from the private bar will want somewhere between $15K and $30K to take this to trial, could be higher. Someone who asks for a lot less probably doesn't intend to do very much work, unless they're doing it on a pro bono basis. If people are serious about this, I suggest getting in touch with Jim or his family to see if it's actually helpful/useful, and setting it up such that any money raised goes directly to the attorney, not to Jim or his family. (not because I don't think they're trustworthy, but because gaining extra cash/assets may make him ineligible for a court-appointed attorney - but if the cash/assets aren't available to him because they're being held by some unconnected cypherpunk, it'd be much harder/impossible to deny him appointed counsel.) Also, given Jim's tax status, it's possible that the IRS will try to seize/levy against any funds that come into Jim's control, which would turn the "defense fund" into the "pay Jim's taxes fund". -- 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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A Spam Experiment
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Over the past two weeks I ran a little, completely non-scientific, experiment to examine the propgation of spam. First, I created a bogus mailing address that forwarded to my normal address, allowing me to see the different "to" headers. I then posted a single "test" message to six usenet newsgroups to act as catalyst. These were: alt.tv.nypd-blue comp.org.eff.talk comp.os.ms-windows.apps.utilities.win95 comp.sys.mac.portables misc.legal rec.arts.sf.tv Over the next 72 hours, I received 28 pieces of spam, which I catagorize as an unsolicited email attempting to sell me a product or service. 12 of these messages had an address indicating I could respond to have my name removed from future mailings. I responded carefully to each address, but 4 of them bounced as an invalid address, no such domain, or other problem (no route to host, probably because it was physcially diconnected). I also notied that the "reply-to" field had no relationship with the address to request removal on all 12 of them. The other 14 pieces of spam were replied to the "Reply-to:" field. All were bounced as "no such user" or "no such domain". One postmaster wrote with a canned form letter saying their domain had been put in as the reply-to field unknown to them. Over the next 72 hours, I received an additional 49 pieces of spam, including one that was 850k in size and another that was 421k. This batch was NOT replied to in any way, although 17 of them did include an address to reply to request removal. Since the initial six days, there have been a total of 4 spam messages, all of them were also ignored. The last 72 hours have had zero spam. - --- I need to do more tests with a new address, but I am curious as to if the spike in activity during the second 72 hours wasn't caused by the fact that I replied to messages requesting removal. While it is possible that it was caused by slow usenet propogation, it seems to have happened much slower than propogation usually takes (about 12-18 hours on average in the states, last I heard.) This test wasted 3MB of mail space and total of about 75 minutes to download and reply to (requesting removal). Not that at no time did this mail address reqest any mail be sent to them. The only crime committed was to post to usenet. Just my numbers, FYI. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: PGP Signed with PineSign 2.2 iQCVAwUBM5ICSDokqlyVGmCFAQHMegP/U9jLlTR3gtT1fNqqPx2dnWGhGhRl/18W k4nzWHLsDGE08UxJ8xILJ1jkV9UJOhUpHqzZuy6Hr6zUE5duoAEWGBL4tY8xrzty cG2lDXnrXjfkvtDUf7Ixo49aSHz2mQUT/ia6JbLCFPNKby+16LteSQa7w/O0h9aF +u5WonQvCAc= =A18d -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Robert A. Hayden hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu __ -=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=- \/_ http://krypton.mankato.msus.edu/~hayden/Welcome.html \/

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CyberTects/SSZ status (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From ravage(a)ssz.com Sun Jun 1 22:33:10 1997 From: Jim Choate <ravage(a)ssz.com> Message-Id: <199706020333.WAA10315(a)einstein.ssz.com> Subject: CyberTects/SSZ status To: users(a)einstein.ssz.com Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 22:33:08 -0500 (CDT) Cc: consulting(a)einstein.ssz.com, pwright(a)einstein.ssz.com, toddm(a)tivoli.com X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 2928 Hi, We had our business planning meeting tonite and the following was dediced: * CyberTects will be no more by the end of the week. In its place is a new Commercial Web Service firm called (tadah).. The Armadillo Group There will be specific instructions in a day or so about where to send your payments for outstanding service bills. * Update of service fee's: Monthly webpage $25.00 Customer Server Hosting, monthly $100.00 SLIP/PPP, dial-in, monthly $20.00 SLIP/PPP, dedicated, monthly, 1 IP $100.00 IP Sets, 10 IP's (initial 1 & 9 more), annual $100.00 Shell access, w/ other account only $10.00 Labor charges, hourly, rounded up $80.00 Sales Tax NOT included, 8.25% in Texas * We will be focusing on a limited set of services: - expansion of services provided outside the SOHO sector into the general business community. - various flavors of dial-in and dedicated connectivity options including a move to ISDN availablity with the increase in our primary feed to the Internet. - webpage hosting w/ in-house development as required by the customer. - hosting of customers servers in-house providing a level of technical support previously available only to large firms. * The current Real/Time ISDN contract expires at the end of September. At this point we plan to have either a T1 or ADSL in place with additional servers. * It looks like the current plan is to NOT have onsite service, training, and other services available through CyberTects in the past propogate through this change over. There will be a clearer mailing later in the week better detailing exactly what will be available and what we will be dropping. Note: Even if the firm as a whole ceases to host mailing lists I will continue to host them using my own resources. I will continue to do some onsite service and such on my own. * The future of the Elgin site expansion to fully mirror SSZ and provide 100% backup may not be implimented because of the drop of other services. I have not decided if this will be something that I take on personaly if it is dropped. If you have any further questions or would like to express your views on these changes, please don't send email to me. Instead send it to 'consulting(a)ssz.com' so that the whole group may discuss the issues. Our goal as always is to provide you with professional service & support. Jim Choate The Armadillo Group ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Rotenberg as the Uber Enemy
by TruthMonger.tm＠dev.null 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert A. Costner wrote: > If EFGA has a > position, it is that first the current laws should be tested against spam. No > new laws should be proposed until today's laws can be shown to be useless > against the problem. Regardless, you are already preparing to participate in the process of new laws being implemented. > DATA GATHERING > While there is nothing wrong with data > harvesting in it's self, what one does with the info may be called into > question. The data is going to be misused. Future legislation will be nothing more than a fight over who gets to misuse it. > Data Collection procedures may be less restrictive than identification > requirements, or content bans. > The reason the TCPA is carefully considered is that once the law allowed for > the promulgation of rules, the FCC had a series of public comment periods and > promoted rules that highly favored privacy while trying to balance the fair > practices of telemarketers. Unfortunately, with spam, most spammers do not > have "fair practices". This can be translated to mean that the little guys can do the same thing that large companies do, only without having to hire high-priced legal help to tell them how to route around the "rules." > If is highly likely that the spam question could be quickly addressed and more > clearly defined without new laws simply by a comment period and the > promulgation of new rules. No new laws, just new rules. Doublespeak? > SPAM vs TELEMARKETING > In 1990, more than 30,000 telemarketing operations employed over 18 million > Americans. Easily we could see over 300K spam operators in business, > employing less than one million people. Each of these individual spammers > could be sending out daily spams. Many of them would be able to reach a > significant portion of the internet users on a daily basis. Right. I'm going to receive 300,000 spams a day without taking steps to stop it, because I'm stupid. And nobody in the free market is going to figure out that they can make a shitload of money by providing a product that solves the problem. And enough people are going to sort through 300,000 emails a day and send people money to keep all the spammers operating. Since we're all so stupid and incompetent, I guess we'd better count on the government and the EFGA-type organizations to do what is necessary to "save" us. Robert's immediate solution is to take a law that doesn't work and promulgate "new rules" so that it does. Right. The "new rules" are going to be decided on by the same lame bunch of actors who made the "old rules" which don't work. And all of those people who aren't paying attention to the old rules are going to have a vision from heaven which tells them to follow the new rules. Question: "With all of the organizations 'busting their ass' for our benefit, when do we start seeing the *good* legislation?" I can use strong crypto to keep my communications private and I can maintain control over my private key. The government wants to pass legislation to change that. What's to debate? I need groups of self-appointed saviors to negotiate the method and timing of how my privacy and freedom are going to be taken away? I don't think so! These "saviors" of our rights are doing nothing more than serving as a buffer for the government as what we already have is being stolen from us. They have taken it upon themselves to negotiate our retreat in the face of loss of our privacy and freedom. They are providing the government with a stamp of approval for "reasonable compromise" of our freedom and privacy via "acceptable legislation." If these organizations are so concerned about my rights, then why do I never see the words "Nazi Ratfuckers!" in their press releases? No more free buffets? No more power lunches with the power mongers? No more nights in the Lincoln bedroom? (OK. I'll calm down and be "reasonable." How about the word, "Bullshit!" I've read the government press releases, I've heard the speeches. It's bullshit, but all I hear coming out of the mouths of the "saviors" of my rights is replies in kind--politispeak.) I keep hearing how these organizations that haven't kept us from getting fucked in the past are working for the future, when one of our own is in jail *now*. Want to impress me? Do something for Jim Bell, because tomorrow it's Tim May, and Adam Back a week later (they got Noriega, and they can get Adam, too.) You don't have time to aide Jim Bell, but you have time to give me dire warnings about getting 300,000 emails a day? You have time to tell me that the "solution" is to have the people who wrote rules that don't work write *new* rules? Horseshit! TruthMonger

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Economist: The disappearing taxpayer
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Cypherpunks views of the future in mainstream media. Kind of fun. The following is from: http://www.economist.com/issue/31-05-97/ld4660row.html -- Vince http://www.offshore.com.ai/vince/ [The Economist] The disappearing taxpayer "THE art of taxation", advised Louis XIV's treasurer, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, "consists in so plucking the goose to obtain the largest amount of feathers, with the least possible amount of hissing." His observation remains true, except for one big change. Unlike geese, people in the 17th century did not know how to fly. Now they can. In the coming decades electronic commerce -- combined with the growing ease with which firms can shift their operations from one part of the world to another -- will make it ever easier for people to flee countries where taxes are high, or to evade tax altogether by doing their business in cyberspace. The hole this will leave behind is already worrying many governments (see ). Some argue that it is "unfair" for others to lure their firms away by levying lower taxes, and are pushing for the harmonisation of taxes. Another new idea is to impose a tax on electronic transactions. But although governments everywhere will have to start thinking -- and soon -- about how to raise taxes in the newly weightless global economy, both remedies are flawed. A question of sovereignty . . . Those who advocate harmonisation say that the alternative is a "race to the bottom", as governments sacrifice social spending on the altar of competitiveness. But different countries have different spending needs and make different judgments about the proportion of income to devote to transfers and public services. Indeed -- remember "no taxation without representation" -- such decisions lie at the heart of modern politics. That is why even in the EU, a relentless prober of the boundaries of national sovereignty, proposals to harmonise taxes have made little progress so far. A recent proposal from a panel of economists to make up for the tax losses caused by electronic commerce by introducing a "bit tax" on flows of electronic information is similarly defective. It is hard to see how a single country or even a group might impose such a tax without simply forcing on-line transactions offshore. But in so far as it succeeded, such a tax might just hamper the adoption of information technology, depriving people and businesses of its great productivity benefits. So if neither of these ideas is any good, why not do nothing? It is true that the full impact of electronic commerce and globalisation on governments' taxation powers is still some way off. The fact that tax levels vary from 60% of GDP in Sweden to 32% in America suggests that even in a globalising economy governments are still able to make distinctive fiscal choices. However, every so often a big Swedish company -- Ericsson most recently -- threatens to decamp because egregious income taxes make it difficult to recruit skilled employees. America's corporate taxes have withered to insignificance because of the mobility of firms. At present these are merely straws in the wind, and hardly new ones, but there is no doubt which way the wind is blowing. Some competition between tax regimes may be a good thing, if it encourages governments to show more discipline in their tax and spending policies. But one day globalisation and electronic commerce could make a sizeable dent in a country's total tax revenues. And these forces have already made a big impact on the way the burden of taxes falls on a population. This is what rules out the option of inaction. . . . and of equity Not all firms, workers and products are equally mobile. Entrepreneurs, scientists, tennis players and film stars may be able to uproot themselves in search of lower taxes, but the average worker is still unlikely to become a tax refugee. Although this may reassure governments, it implies that governments will eventually have to cut taxes on the most mobile factors of production, notably skilled workers, while taxes on less mobile unskilled workers will have to rise. Over the past decade or so taxes on capital have already fallen sharply while those on labour have risen. In future it will be harder to tax firms or high-earners at high rates because they are the most mobile. The implication is that unskilled labour will have to bear a greater burden. If they are to mitigate this change while maintaining their tax revenues, governments need to speed up tax reforms that are needed anyway to improve economic efficiency. In most countries at present, exemptions and loopholes distort the allocation of resources. Broadening the tax base by scrapping exemptions such as mortgage interest relief and zero rates of VAT on certain goods and services would allow a much lower rate of tax and therefore reduce the incentive for both tax evasion and migration. Less complex reporting requirements would reduce another incentive to hide from the taxman. A second needed change is to shift the tax base from income towards consumption and property, which is both immobile and hard to hide. Even consumption is becoming more mobile. But a consumption tax would both remove the present disincentive to save and help to collect taxes from tax dodgers (even those whose income comes from invisible Internet sales have to spend it). Having changed so much else in the world economy, globalisation and information technology will inevitably undermine the way governments raise taxes. Reforming the tax system to plug the hole is going to be hard. Not reforming it would be even worse. The Economist Home Page - Search - Contents - Next article © Copyright 1997 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All Rights Reserved

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Firewalls
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy C[retin] May prefers to have sex with little kids because his own penis is like that of a three-year-old. ____ _(____)_ _ooO_(_o__o_)_Ooo_ Timmy C[retin] May

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Re: Creating a unique ID number for a dollar
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Death rays from Mars made Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> write: >There's a way to generate a number for any person which is unique. It is not >shared by anyone else on the planet. It's not guaranteed unique. First, the dollar you use may be a forgery (why forge a dollar? I don't know, maybe they're practicing on low-denomination notes which noone ever looks at closely so they can get the twenties and hundreds perfect. I have a vague memory of someone doing this with either US dollars or UK pound notes some time ago, motivated by the "noone would ever bother forging a dollar/pound, so it has to be genuine" mentality). In addition you'd have to specify "US dollar" rather than just "dollar" because, apart from the different serial number formats, some countries will reissue banknotes if the originals are damaged in printing, which leads to the possibility of two (legitimate) notes with the same serial number being in circulation if the original isn't destroyed as required (I have some of these replacement notes for now-defunct NZ dollar and two-dollar notes stashed away somewhere). Does the US Treasury issue replacement notes if the originals are damaged in printing, or does it just destroy the notes and leave it at that? Peter.

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New SSN Law
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Robert A. Costner wrote: > Why does the store need my social security number for me to purchase soft > drinks and eggs? (40 cents off on eggs this week) I see no reason for it. > If I provide a false number, I have probably committed some crime. > > Yes, I would support a law that forbids private companies to ask for social > security numbers except for tax purposes. Am I missing something? Didn't we used to have one of those? Wasn't that changed so that government and corporate interests could put us all in more efficient boxes to control us and make money off of us? Some states already use the SSN on the driver's licenses. More will follow. The SSN is our National Identity Card and there is no going back. The tattoo is history and the Identity Chip is the future.

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Australian explosion explained...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > S P A C E V I E W S > Volume Year 1997, Issue 6 > June 1997 > http://www.seds.org/spaceviews/9706/ <snip> > Things That Go Boom in the Night: Scientists working for the National > Science Foundation have concluded that a peculiar, loud explosion heard > in the Australian outback in September 1993 was just a meteorite, and > not evidence of terrorist activity. The explosion seemed to be located > near a ranch owned by Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult linked to the > gassing of the Tokyo subway system in 1995 that injured thousands of > morning commuters. The cult was reported interested in developing > nuclear weapons and was mining uranium in the area. However, seismic > data recorded during the event are better explained by a small iron > meteorite crashing to Earth. The meteorite explanation also fits well > with reports of a bright streak seen in the sky at the time of the > explosion. ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.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{"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 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{"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 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{"reno"} = "<middleman(a)cyberpass.net> cpunk mix pgp hash middle latent cut ek reord ?"; $remailer{"wazoo"} = "<remailer(a)wazoo.com> cpunk mix pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"shaman"} = "<remailer(a)lycaeum.org> cpunk pgp hash latent cut ek"; $remailer{"hidden"} = "<remailer(a)hidden.net> cpunk pgp hash latent cut"; 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 2 Jun 97 6:45:35 PDT remailer email address history latency uptime ----------------------------------------------------------------------- hidden remailer(a)hidden.net ########-##* 27:13 100.00% jam remailer(a)cypherpunks.ca ************ 10:49 99.96% winsock winsock(a)rigel.cyberpass.net -+------+--- 4:03:03 99.93% weasel config(a)weasel.owl.de ++-++++++++ 1:51:36 99.91% squirrel mix(a)squirrel.owl.de ++-+++++-++ 1:52:02 99.87% cyber alias(a)alias.cyberpass.net +* *++****** 13:57 99.86% replay remailer(a)replay.com ****** ***** 11:57 99.75% mix mixmaster(a)remail.obscura.com -.---***.- 7:32:07 96.99% lucifer lucifer(a)dhp.com ++-+++++++ 49:21 95.54% reno middleman(a)cyberpass.net ++- --+--+ 1:44:06 90.54% balls remailer(a)huge.cajones.com #*####*### 1:27 82.42% nym config(a)nym.alias.net *#*** 3:02 37.19% 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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Re: May's Banal Rant
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Froomkin wrote: >I don't understand this. Of all the alphabet soup privacy groups out >there, EPIC is the one I consider most pro-privacy and anonymity other >than the ACLU itself. And EPIC knows the tech better, on the whole >(although the ACLU is quite clued-up too). It is true that EPIC is not >absolutist on SAFE -- and I'm not quite sure that they are right to give >even the inch they gave to get a mile -- but they're awfully good. > >Rotenburg should be a near-hero to most readers of this list. Instead, >canabalism. Weird. Very weird. What most of us think is very weird is Rotenburg's apparent inability to carry on a coherent dialogue. Tim May raised several solid and specific points. We've got back ad hominem attacks on "libertarians". Instead of name calling, Rotenburg would have done well to simply justify (or change) his position. At this point, Mr. Rotenburg and his supporters should explain exactly what it is they do for us and how we can verify it. "We arrived at a compromise with the Senate" is not persuasive to most of the people on this list. When you believe that privacy will be promoted by hiring more bureacrats the level of trust warranted is not high. So, if EPIC is doing any good, it had better be the kind of good we can monitor. As for the ACLU, they are notoriously inconsistent when it comes to the Constitution. They seem to be pretty good with the First Amendment, but that's about it. They undermine the Second Amendment. They campaign for welfare on the basis that it is a prerequisite for the exercise of civil rights. They sue aspirin manufacturers for labelling their products in English. They push "fair" credit laws. Etc. Etc. We don't need friends like the ACLU or, it appears, EPIC. Dr. Roberts

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Guilty Verdict in Denver Show Trial
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Guilty on all 11 counts, of course. Of course, once you eliminate the testimony coerced by holding witnesses for days and threatening them with the death penalty, the "bomb residue" invented by the FBI Crime Lab, and numerous other things, nothing even places the defendent at the site of the explosion, much less proves he was responsible for it. Of course, to have the correct psychological effect on the Sheeple, it is not necessary that the government convict and execute the prepetrator. Killing any government-hating militia-friendly scapegoat will do. For extra credit, let's have a pool to predict the number of federal buildings which will blow up on the day of the execution. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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May-Rotenberg Are Not the Uber Enemy
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

To escalate the May-Rotenberg debate by reminding that there are deadly enemies to be exposed and fought together rather than apart: To: deleuze-guattari(a)jefferson.village.Virginia.edu> Date: Sun, 1 Jun 1997 18:15:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom Maria Blancato <tblan(a)telerama.lm.com> Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt Umberto Eco, New York Review of Books, excerpted with permission in the Utne Reader, Nov./Dec. 1995, no. 72, pps. 57-59 In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I wold like to call Ur-Fascism, or eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it. 1. The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the *cult of tradition*. Traditionalism is of course much older than fascism. Not only was it typical of counterrevolutionary Catholic thought after the French revolution, but it was born in the late Hellenistic era, as a reaction to classical Greek rationalism. In the Mediterranean basin, people of different religions (most of the faiths indulgently accepted by the Roman pantheon) started dreaming of a reelation received at the dawn of human history. This reelation, according to the traditionalist mystique, had remained for a long time concealed under the veil of forgotten languages -- in Egyptian hieroglyphs, in the Celtic runes, in the scrolls of the little-known religions of Asia. This new culture had to be *syncretistic*. Syncreticism is not only , as the dictionary says, "the combination of different forms of belief or practice"; such a combination must tolerate contradictions. Each of the original messages contains a sliver of wisdom, and although they seem to say different or incompatible things, they all are nevertheless alluding, allegorically, to the same primeval truth. As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message. If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism. 2. Traditionalism implies the *rejection of modernism*. Both Fascist and Nazis worshiped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (*Blut und Boden*). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as *irrationalism*. 3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of *action for action's sake*. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur_Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligensia for having betrayed traditional values. 4. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. for Ur-Fascism, *disagreement is treason*. 5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity. Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural *fear of difference*. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition. 6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration. that is why one of the most typical features of this historical fascism was the *appeal to a frustrated middle class*, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority. 7. To people who feel deprived of a clear social identity, Ur-Fascism says that their only privilege is the most common one, to be born in the same country. This is the origin of nationalism. Besides, the only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur_fascist psychology there is the *obsession with a plot*, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is to appeal to xenophobia. But the plot must come from he inside. Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside. In the United States, a prominent instance of the plot obsession is to be found in Pat Robertson's *The New World Order*, but, as we have recently seen, there are many others. 8. The followers must feel *humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies*. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur_Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy. 9. For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle. Thus *pacifism is trafficking with the enemy*. This is bad because *life is permanent warfare*. This, however, brings about an Armageddon complex. Since enemies have to be defeated, there must be a final battle, after which the movement will have control of the world. But such a "final solution" implies a further era of peace, a Golden Age, which contradicts the principle of permanent war. No fascist leader has ever succeeded in solving this predicament. 10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies *contempt for the weak*. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism. Every citizen belongs to the best people of the world, the member of the party are the best among the citizens, every citizen can (or ought to) become a member of the party. But there cannot be patricians without plebeians. In fact, the Leader, knowing that his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler. 11. In such a perspective *everybody is educated to become a hero*. In every mythology the hero is an exceptional being, but in Ur-Fascist ideology heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death. It is not by chance that a motto of the Spanish Falangist was *Viva la Muerte* ("Long Live Death!"). In nonfascist societies, the lay public is told that death is unpleasant but must be faced with dignity; believers are told that it is the painful way to reach a supernatural happiness. By contrast, the Ur-Fascist hero craves heroic death, advertised as the best reward for a heroic life. The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death. 12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, *the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters*. This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur_Fascist hero tends to play with the weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise. 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a *selective populism*, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, the individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. there is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional responses of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be *against "rotten" parliamentary governments*. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism. 14. *Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak*. Newspeak was invented by Orwell, in _1984_, as the official language of what he called Insoc, English Socialism. But elements of Ur-Fascism are common to different forms of dictatorship. All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning. But we must be ready to identify other kinds of Newspeak, even if they take the apparently innocent form of a popular talk show. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances -- ever day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt's words on November 4, 1938, are worth recalling: "If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, facism will grow in strength in our land." Freedom and liberation are an unending task.

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Re: May's Banal Rant
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is the second in the series of articles I am forwarding from the "sublist" discussion I mentioned. Again, I am excising all pointers to the identity of the person who wished his views not be publicized. This is the longest of the articles. --Tim >Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:07:48 -0700 >To: xxxxx >From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> >Subject: Re: May's Banal Rant >Cc: xxxxxx >At 11:00 AM -0700 6/2/97, xxxxx wrote: (Thanks me for not being venomous, as he had been expecting, and says he was not on the Cypherpunks list in 1993 so he doesn't recall what it was like back then.) >I can tell you that much of the discussion back then was about the precise >things I have had in my .sig all these years (the core part). And this >was during the incidents at Ruby Ridge and Waco. > >Is calling for a bounty in untraceable cash to be placed on the head of >the shooter at Ruby Ridge, one Lon Horiuchi, radical enough for you? (The >BATFags consider such threats seriously enough that Horiuchi apparently >now has a new identity, accoding to my militia friends, who say no >"Horiuchi" can be found in any current records they have searched...and >one of their sources in the Empire confirmed this.) (Says the tone of the list and of Libertarian politics is more strident than it has ever been.) >Actually, I was around during the anti-Viet Nam war days--I voted for John >Hospers of the LP in 1972, and participated in various anti-war events at >UC Santa Barbara, including a notable evening when Highway 101 was shut >down for several hours by protestors. The level of rancor between >government and others (including Libertarians) was vastly greater. > >And in 1993 the Clipper announcement was met with incredible venom on the >list. You really need to go back and read what was said about Denning, >Freeh, Kallstrom, and Herr Clinton. We even had a couple of emergency >physical meetings, and the level of sabotage discussed was far greater >than anything recently. > >Also, those "radical days" saw some very radical stuff indeed. The >anonymous posting of the corporate secrets of the traitorous company >Mykotronx helped to nuke that company. Ditto for the Clipper internal >memoranda posted to the list via remailers. > >(Nowadays we'd have a list member working for Mykotronx and urging us to >be "more reasonable.") > >Also, 1993-4 was the heyday of the Zimmermann imbroglio, and there was >much heated discussion of this. > >(Nowadays, Zimmermann wants Cypherpunks to rally behind his company's GAK >system, and he is aghast at the "anarchy" discussed on the list. He was >opposed to the libertarian ideology of the list back in '93-94 of course, >but then it suited him to have the Cypherpunks defending him. Now he views >us as impediments to his business prospects, and employees of PGP, Inc. >are now _very_ circumspect about what they write on the list.) > >I agree that there is a sense of "enough is enough" in the Cypherpunk >community these days. Everytime we turn around there are new restrictions, >new calls for censorship, new clamorings for controlling the Net, and even >new arrests. > >I disagree that the posts of today are significantly more strident than >they were in the Clipper days, or the Waco days, etc. Maybe a few comments >have sounded especially angry, but these are angry times. Again, if you >don't like the threads, start some of your own. > >I believe I'm under a fair risk of being named as a co-conspirator of >Bell's...some of my e-mail to him is probably what the cops are referring >to when they speak about using cryptography to facillitate markets in >various acts. Yes, this has made me prepare for a raid on my home, and, >yes, I have bought a couple of cases of ammunition and made sure my stuff >is ready. I don't intend to be shot in the middle of the night in the dark >as i reach for a handgun to defend myself when the "entry team" ignores >the Fourth Amendment and simply bursts into my room. > >(Lost in the modern debate about rights is how we got to this stage, to >where it is _expected_ that cops will dress in paramilitary garb (Nomex >ski masks, black clothing, carrying suppressed MP-5s) and launch raids on >the homes of suspects. No knocks on the doors, no presentation of >duly-authorized search warrants, no punishment for those who kill >innocents or others on such searches.... what a fucked up country we have >become.) (He says that many influential posters to Cypherpunks no longer post.) >I still post. That so many others don't is not my problem. (Hint: Analyze >the archives to see who used to post a lot. Many of them--in fact, >essentially _all_ of them--decreased their posting volumes long before the >comments of mine in the last few months that you seeem to think drove them >away. Look at the actual numbers.) > >For various and sundry reasons. I won't catalog them again here, even >though I've thought of some additional important reasons I left out >earlier. Maybe I'll write a new essay on how the list has changed and how >the membership taxonomy works out. (He says that I am more provocatively violent-sounding in my posts the past few months than before.) >In a few instances, yes. So? People have various views at various times. >And I'd say calling for an anonymous murder contract on Horiuchi was >pretty violent-sounding. (Such calls were not made by me, though I've >recently said the killers of Donald Scott, the Malibu doctor raided by >BATF/LA officers should be given a fair trial and if found guilty, >executed. What's "violent" about expecting the same justice for cops that >we see being applied to McVeigh, Kaczinski, and so on?) (He claims that atttention from the media and from law enforcment in the Cyphepunks list is probably greater now than in the past. Note from my comments below that I disagree with him.) >This is part of the "taxonomy of membership" I'm talking about. We get all >kinds of subscribers. Some just hit-and-run, some clueless, some seeking >support for their pet programs or products, some loonies. (If you think >TruthMonger or that Circle of Eunuchs guy is any crazier than Detweiler >was in '93-94, go back and read his stuff.) > >And in fact the media fascination with Cypherpunks was provably greater in >'92-94 than today. Think of those big cover stories in Wired, Whole Earth >Review, The Village Voice, etc. This is so for various reasons, and I >won't bemoan or applaud our current relative obscurity. (He claims that for these various reasons my voice is probably more dominant or influential than ever before--given the low volumes of posts, I might agree--and says it is too bad I am so strident.) >I am not writing that much differently than I did in earlier years, if you >check the archives. I have made very few "shoot the pigs" comments. > >(And, by the way, the period surrounding Waco and Ruby Ridge was filled >with discussions of armaments, calibers, etc. Some of the Bay Area CPs >even started a shooting club....I have not gone to any of their shoots, as >I live 100 miles south of San Francisco....plus, I have my own favorite >ranges nearby and I'm not much on teaching newbies to shoot.) > >It is true that Eric Hughes is off doing other things. John Gilmore was >never much a writer of essays, and he's now distanced himself from the >list (for obvious reasons). Hal Finney still writes, but the reasons he >writes less are obvious (job, and he's said things several times). And so >on. > >Others have left the list. Peter Wayner is gone. Carl Ellison is gone. So? >No one expected a perpetual level of interest. When I talk to Eric >(Hughes), we both shake our heads in amazement that a group we started >five years ago is still rolling along; we never set out to create a >permanent group. > >And, unlike some groups which are almost explicity centered around a >public spokesman or small cadre, the Cypherpunks group has never had a >spokesman, never had a public charter, never had a policy analysis group, >never had most of the things the alphabet soupers have had. > >We're just a virtual coffeehouse, or pub, or even Munich beerhall. Anyone >is free to comment on anything. The only attempt at censoship--the recent >one by Sandfort and Gilmore--failed miserably (and predictably) and in >fact scattered the nexus of the group to multiple sites. (The role of that >event, and the subsequent shrinkage of the list from 1200 subscribers to >just about 200 subscribers, as best I can tell, is the subject of another >essay. In my view, the attempted censorship of the list did grievous >damage to the list, and inasmuch as we don't "recruit" for new members, it >may be a long time before the list ever gets as active as it used to be, >if ever. The low posting volume tends to magnify the significance of the >posts which do appear...this is not something I see as my problem or my >responsibility to try to change.) >And it's a pity this entire discussion is not happening on the main list! > >You, xxxxx, choose to...<excised to protect his identity>... and to keep >your comments off the list. I know ...<excised>.... but you really should >be making your comments about the list and its topics ON THE LIST! > >Isn't this obvious? You can hardly complain about my "radical" views when >you hold your counsel, can you? > >In fact, I'll respect your wish not to have your comments distributed >beyond the list you have chosen, but I plan to take my own comments, sans >your quotes, and use them as the basis of an essay to the list on these >and related topics. > >In this regard, I thank you for catalyzing some thoughts. > >--Tim May > > There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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any off-line client for DES crack?
by Bryce 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd like to train a couple of off-the-net computers to crack DES. Unfortunately there appears to be no off-line client which uses files, so I can sneakernet a big batch of "try this keyspace" requests, leave it running for a few weeks, and then sneakernet the results back. Yeah, I could hack it myself, but I thought I'd recommend the idea to the people who are actually coordinating the searches. (Of course the user should be able to tell if the client has scored the key. Some users may well decide not to bother sneakernetting "not found" results back to the Net, but will check to see if their client won.) (In case you are worried, I am good net.citizen who trims Newsgroups: lines, is careful not to take the name of Kibo in vain, and who never trolls for newbies by posting "follow-up to this article to get free nude picture of Sandra Bullock!". So _I_, therefore, would faithfully sneakernet my "key not found" results back to the Net.) Regards, Zooko Journeyman Disclaimers follow: I am not a crook. NOT speaking for DigiCash or any other person or organization. No PGP sig follows.

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Re: Comments on the Macintosh
by Vinnie Moscaritolo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>And I could see no significant changes in going from System 7.1.3 to >7.5.3.. > >Vinnie M. tells me I should do the upgrade to System 7.6...I think I'll >pass on this for now. I agree,It's mostly bugfixes, But Tim, why can't you get it... Apple's MacOS team grew from 6 people in the 7.5.3 days to about 100 in the 7.6 8.0 release.. there are many bugfixes and performace enhancements in the 7.6 release.. and yes you should use Opentranport (at least 1.1.1 or 1.2) >.the Mac OS is of course still missing basic OS features such as... memory >>protection.) Tim,.I am suprised to hear you whining with such a liberals voice.. I always thought that demanding memory protection in an OS is a lot like demanding that the government is responsible for protecting you from anything that might go bad.. If applications are well written, then you really dont need the memory partitions in a personal computer. That is if application writers would take responsibility for thier own apps... But I guess you are right. "something must be done about those badly written applications" ..maybe we should pass a new law, it can be called the "Fineswine-May Memory Protection Act" ... maybe you should start drafting it now.. But until then Tim, you can always run mkLinux.. but I think you just really like to complain. Vinnie Moscaritolo http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/ Fingerprint: 4FA3298150E404F2782501876EA2146A ------------------ "And someone said Hey man did ya see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.. I wonder if he knew what he was getting into... Or was he just lost in the flood?"

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Meet-in-the-middle attack
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy C. May sexually molests little children, farm animals, and inanimate objects. ,,, ($ $) -ooO-(_)-Ooo- Timmy C. May

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Re: May's Banal Rant
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A member of the Cypherpunks list, who sometimes contributes articles to the list, engaged several of us in a discussion of some topics. He requested that we respect his desire not to have his opinions published, which I am honoring. However, some interesting topics were raised, and I spent a couple of hours responding. Rather than letting the points drop into the black hole of such sublists, I will post my responses here, editing out all references to his identity. Things would be so much easier if he'd just post his views to the list. I surmise that his reasons for not posting have less to do with not wanting to be associated with my views, as if that is possible in a free society, and more to do with paranoia about what his employer will think. --Tim This is my article: >Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 10:03:56 -0700 >To: xxxx >Subject: Re: May's Banal Rant >Cc: xxxx (He commented that I am marginalizing myself and my compatriots by my angry views. I replied:) >The list was just as "intense" in 1993, for example. Any reading of the >traffic after the Waco incident in April of that year will show this >clearly. And 1994 was also intense, what with the heated discussion of >anonymous assassination contracts, use of crypto by some associates in >White Aryan Resistance and other politically incorrect groups, and so on. > >(There was even Froomkin-described "cannibalism" that year, as the list >_exploded_ in condemnation of Jerry Berman's EFF-led sellout on the >Wiretap Bill (aka Digital Telephony, aka CALEA, etc.). In fact, this >"cannibalism" was practiced by nearly everyone outside the specific axis >which made the Grand Compromise. It is widely believed that this event led >to the flight from D.C. of EFF and its current marginal status as a mover >and shaker. (Other reasons, too, I've heard from those who were present. >I'm not claiming to be "ahead of the curve," to use Marc's >characterization, on this one. He was there, I was not. But clearly the >support of DT/CALEA had a major, traumatizing effect on EFF. ) > (He predicts that "moderate" list members will leave the list because of my articles. He says he stopped posting months ago because he saw the general trend getting worse. ) >I hadn't seen essays from you in a long time, xxxxx, nor from yyyyy. It >seems that a lot of folks have "been there, done that" on writing essays, >regardless of their ideological points of view. Even Detweiler writes very >few essays. > >Many of the former active contributors are now with crypto companies or >Internet companies in one form or another. Hal Finney is with PGP, a bunch >of folks (Barnes, Parekh, Green, Sandfort...) are with C2, some were with >xxxxxx (as you know), and so on. A bunch of others are doing security or >crypto work at the various companies, including Netscape, Intuit, >Microsoft, Excite, Qualcomm, etc. > >(There are also reasons for them to "tone down" their rhetoric. Some of >them have sent me e-mail saying they agree with my points (or disagree, as >the case may be) but do not feel comfortable posting publically, given >their present employment with these companies. This is a natural >development. Go back and read the rhetoric in 1992-5 about controversial >issues....many of the essayists of even the most controversial pieces then >are now at companies and are understandably less vocal. So?) > >Plus there have been the usual spin-off lists. Lewis McCarthy decided, I >presume, that he had internalized the political message of Cypherpunks and >wanted only a C and C++ forum, so he created "coderpunks." Perry Metzger, >certainly no stranger to libertarian ranting, decided apparently that he >wanted to control which rants got distributed so he created "cryptography." > >This is also natural. If you don't like who is left on Cypherpunks, and >who is posting, then either leave it or post the kind of stuff you'd like >to see. > >Those who never post anymore are in a poor position to criticize others >for what they post. (He claims I have marginalized myself and says he expects either no reply from me or a venomous one.) >Well, this is a response. I don't think it's venomous. It's what I think. > >It's true that there are relatively few "primer" essays on Cypherpunks >these days; the time for that was in the early years, especially the first >year. Many of those essay writers who wrote long articles on public key >systems, signatures, etc., are now in the companies mentioned above. Plus, >having already done it there is little incentive to do it again. > >So? This is the natural evolution of any community. > >I'll stop now. > >All I can say is that if you find the Cypherpunks list no longer to your >liking, the choice is obvious. Or, if you want to stay but want the >discussions moved in other directions, write articles in these directions. >You can hardly complain if you're silent. > >--Tim May > > There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: May's Banal Rant
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And this is the third, and hopefully final for now, article forwarded from that sublist discussion this morning. As before, the comments of the other person are paraphrased. --Tim >Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 12:30:57 -0700 >To: xxxxx >From: Tim May <tcmay(a)got.net> >Subject: Re: May's Banal Rant >Cc: xxxxx (Expresses the view that I am smarter than Bell--damning with faint praise?--and probably will not be arrested for the sorts of activities Bell is alleged to have engaged in.) > >It depends on whether Bell is hit with "conspiracy" charges. It the >charges are limited to (alleged) Social Security Number fraud, related tax >charges, and (alleged) stink bomb charges, then I don't expect any visit >from the Federales. But, one might ask, why is Bell being held without >bail and why does the affidavit (or whatever) refer to the various other >conspiracies he is said to have been involved in? > >As for my "nuke DC" rhetoric, this is classic protected speech. In fact, >most of my comments about "50 megatons of nuclear disinfectant" and >suchlike are recognizable to anyone with any acumen as being classic "hang >the bastards" sentiment. > >(I've written more serious comments about "soft targets," expressing the >quite accurate point of view that in these perilous times, with nerve >gases being released in Tokyo subways, with truck bombs used or >almost-used, with train derailments in the West, etc., that the best >protection is to avoid living in soft targets, the "Schelling points" any >terrorist or antigovernment group would be more likely to target. In >classsic "kill the messenger" tradition, these comments are taken by some >to mean I advocate bombings of these soft targets.) (Speaks of what he views as the "discrediting" of Cypherpunks amonst businessmen, the media, crypto programmers, politiicians, lobbyists, and the general Net community.) >"Businessmen" have never liked the crypto anarchist message we have >traditionally discussed. Not since Day One. Some have tried to _use_ us, >to enlist our support, but none have liked our message. > >The "discrediting" of the Cypherpunks, now that the media knows we exist, >is unavoidable. The NRA has similarly been "discredited." (And even >factions within the NRA, notably the faction led by Charlton Heston, is >denouncing factions which argue for a strong interpretation of the Second >Amendment as "crazies." This is always the way it goes.) > (He thinks this "discrediting" will affect important projects and "good work.") >As I've said in my past messages, you should write the essays you want to >see and start the threads you want to read. > >--Tim May > My final comment. I am tempted to write up a long article analyzing how the Cypherpunks list has changed over the past 5 years, and who has been on it and off it. Maybe later. Suffice it to say for now that many people have been on the list, and then dropped off. For lots of reasons. And their reasons are not something I feel I need to worry about. They'll do what they want to do. Some graduated from school, some got crypto jobs, some decided they'd had enough, some agreed with the basic views but were ready to move on, some despised our basic outlook, some were told by their employers their subversive activities were a career impediment, some disliked the yahoos and lunatics, some wanted censorship and left when they didn't get it, some never bothered to resubscribe after being dropped for one reason or another, and so on. Life goes on. I don't worry that we "lost" Peter Wayner, or that we "lost" David Sternlight, and so on. Life goes on. --Tim May There's something wrong when I'm a felon under an increasing number of laws. Only one response to the key grabbers is warranted: "Death to Tyrants!" ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Guilty Verdict in Denver Show Trial
by William H. Geiger III 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <199706021939.MAA09926(a)netcom18.netcom.com>, on 06/02/97 at 12:39 PM, mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) said: >Guilty on all 11 counts, of course. >Of course, once you eliminate the testimony coerced by holding witnesses >for days and threatening them with the death penalty, the "bomb residue" >invented by the FBI Crime Lab, and numerous other things, nothing even >places the defendent at the site of the explosion, much less proves he >was responsible for it. >Of course, to have the correct psychological effect on the Sheeple, it is >not necessary that the government convict and execute the prepetrator. >Killing any government-hating militia-friendly scapegoat will do. >For extra credit, let's have a pool to predict the number of federal >buildings which will blow up on the day of the execution. Is that how many will blow up or how many we would like to see blow up. :) - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 2.6.3a at: http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii/pgpmr2.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBM5Mx149Co1n+aLhhAQGCaAP/SIuUCoEQyBojm5jwRdLJKqU708tCgiuc Ydu3umODusRD4AMwfW4NH8k6y30gcT8bi7Yyb8MDtqf/jrzrKJrwD3gA/RSUVV5V m5o7k7vzxs4v7eIuuaReCNCi4wc4dBdm0/9YscZ092ugT7q4b74sOj4VGqkG75M/ UkqHZDFyZ68= =m7lF -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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