December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Rwanda and "anarchy"
by Rich Graves 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > On Tue, May 13, 1997 at 08:21:13PM -0800, Tim May wrote: > > At 6:34 PM -0800 5/13/97, Kent Crispin wrote: > > > > >First of all, it neglects to consider that governments may have > > >prevented more murders than they caused. This is unknowable, since > > >we don't have any worthwhile control cases. (I suppose we > > >might examine a state of anarchic chaos (eg Rawanda) and compare the > > >percentage of murders...but such cases are symptoms of other human > > >ills, and cannot be used as a meaningful comparison, I believe.) > > > > Rwanda (or Ruwanda, or...) is a _very_ poor example to pick, as this was > > not any kind of anarchy such as any of us have ever advocated. Rather, > > Rwanda was a near-textbook example of one tribal faction (Hutus or > > Tutsis) coming to power and inititiating a pogrom against the rival > > faction (Tutsis or Hutus). > > > > Calling this an "anarchy" is comparable to calling the pogrom by the > > Third Reich against Jews, gypsies, cripples, and others an example of > > anarchy. > > Nonsense. > > "anarchy n. the absence of government or control, resulting in > lawlessness. 2. disorder, confusion" -- Oxford American Dictionary > > Which part of that would you say didn't apply to Rwanda? I would say "none." Tim is essentially correct. Ironically, we know he's correct thanks to the United Nations and Judge Goldstein's International Criminal Tribunal, which Tim would oppose. (The answer to bad government is more government?) Jean-Marie Higiro was Rwanda's Minister of Telecommunications. He saw the radio turn into a tool of totalitarian propaganda. The killings were encouraged and organized by the government. He was there. Lindsey Hilsum was the only English-speaking reporter in Rwanda when the killings started. She described the situation as "anarchy" because she did not understand the language or the political situation. She later retracted that story, and spent several more months in Rwanda and Burundi documenting what really happened. She eventually testified before the ICT on what she saw. I think she's a really cool person. Raymond Bonner joined Lindsey in Rwanda later. You might recognize his name -- he's the guy who was fired by the New York Times because the Reagan Administration didn't like his reporting on human rights violations in El Salvador. Gilles Peress is a French photojournalist who documented the genocide in Rwanda both for himself and for the ICT. I met these folks and browsed the relevant documentation, recordings, and photos on April 11th. I believe them when they say it was planned. Blaming it on "evil government," though, is ludicrous. There was quite a lot more going on. If you want to look at anarchic chaos, try, maybe, Albania, or Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict. But even in those cases, the violence had specific targets for specific reasons. It wasn't unstructured anarchy, and it didn't last long. For all the press, there were few deaths in either case. > In fact, the correlation between anarchy and war is very strong, for > obvious reasons. Perhaps that is why most intelligent people don't > consider anarchy a desirable state of affairs. There is no such thing as anarchy, and there never will be. -rich http://www.stanford.edu/~llurch/

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Problems at PGP?
by Steve 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hot Off The Press http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,10660,00.html Pretty Good Privacy CEO quits By Dawn Yoshitake May 14, 1997, 11:30 a.m. PT Security software firm Pretty Good Privacy announced today that its chief executive and president has resigned as the company mature from its start-up status. Thomas Steding, CEO, president, and a PGP founder, will now become a company adviser. The CEO position will be phased out, the company said. "This was a decision by the board and the executive staff. It seemed the right time," spokesman Mike Nelson said. "We're moving out of a start-up mode and into pursuit of the corporate marketplace. This was a minor adjustment to the staff." Nelson added that Steding will continue to advise the company on team-building and moving its operations quickly. Phillip Dunkelberger, former vice president of sales, will now become president and be responsible for the company's daily operations. Dunkelberger will also become a board member. Jonathan Seybold, a PGP founder, has been named chairman of the company. Nelson said the company is on target with its product development and sales and profitability targets, and will review where it stands financially and with its product lineup before setting a future course for an initial public offering. PGP, which has been in operation for a year, is scheduled to begin open beta testing for its Personal Privacy version 5.0 tomorrow. The commercial version is slated to be released later this month. Meanwhile, the crypto company has initiated a few acquisitions. One of its most recent was the March buyout of Zoomit, a directory technology that combines private intranets, pubic extranets, and the Internet. -- A picture tells a thousand words. Stego -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/IT/S d--() s+: a-- C++++(++)$ ULS+++@ P++@ L+(++)$ E- W+(+++)$ N++$ !o K-? w++(+++)$ !O+>++ !M !V PS+(+++)@ PE(++)@ Y++$ PGP@ t+@ 5++@ X++>$ R+++>$ tv+@ b+@ DI+++>$ D+++@>$ G@ e++@>++++ h r* y+ ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------

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RSA v. PGP Complaint Correction
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Due to a transmittal error the latter half of the RSA v. PGP complaint was omitted from our offering this morning. The full complaint is now available at: http://jya.com/rsavpgp.txt (21K)

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Information request
by DataET Research 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, If you are interested in having a high-quality, but extensively inexpensive, Web site designed for you, your résumé, or your company, visit http://www.dataet.com or contact info(a)dataet.com immediately, and request for additional information and/or a free cost and time estimation. Thanks for your time. We hope to hear from you soon. Regards, DataET Research Data Engineering Technologies info(a)dataet.com http://www.dataet.com

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DoJ on Bombmaking Info
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We offer: "Report on the Availability of Bombmaking Information, the Extent to Which Its Dissemination Is Controlled by Federal Law, and the Extent to Which Such Dissemination May Be Subject to Regulation Consistent with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution Prepared by the United States Department of Justice As Required by Section 709(a) of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Submitted to the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate April 1997" ----- http://jya.com/abi.htm (193K) This relates to the proposed "Feinstein Amendment" of the AEPDA. It covers in detail what kind of speech is permissable now and what language for the amendment should be to close gaps. A fine distinction is traced between "teaching" the use of terrorist and mass destruction weapons and "advocating" them. Or something like that -- I am a jailhouse laugher.

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DES challenge news (fwd)
by 3umoelle＠informatik.uni-hamburg.de 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Distributed key cracking efforts have been discussed in detail on cypherpunks and coderpunks for quite some time. A Swedish group trying to solve RSADSI's DES challenge chose to ignore the results. Here is what they got (from RISKS 19.14): >Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 17:56:54 +0200 (MET DST) >From: Thomas Koenig <ig25(a)mvmap66.ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de> >Subject: DES challenge news You may remember RISKS-19.09, in which I discussed the risks in a network-wide attack on the RSA DES challenge: The Swedish group at http://www.des.sollentuna.se/ didn't give out its source, so the client could, in fact, do anything, such as crack a master EC-card key. The reason given was client integrity. Well, a month after this, the promised source code release has not happened. Instead, it appears that somebody disassembled part of the client, made a version that reported fake "done" blocks, and then sent these to the servers. Moral? Don't ever think that nobody can read compiled code. Don't try to run a cooperative effort like this in a closed development model. Thomas Koenig, Thomas.Koenig(a)ciw.uni-karlsruhe.de, ig25(a)dkauni2.bitnet. ------------------------------

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Re: Spam IS Free Speech
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 14 May 97 at 14:57, Rick Osborne wrote: > Ross Wright wrote: > > >You can not retaliate against free speech, Rick. That's a bad > >thing, plain and simple, black and white. > > with him on this. I've got only a minor problem with Sanford > sending spam (it being unsolicited and all), I'm just saying that I > should not be denied the right to spam him right back. You can spam him back, but with just as many megs as he sends you. Match him meg for meg, not 10,000 megs for 1 meg. I have a unique way of dealing with spammers. I set up a list of the e-mail addresses of the spammers. Each time a new spammer spams me, I send him a copy of the addresses, telling him "I am not interested in your product or service, but my associates will be. Here's their addresses." Then I add him to the list, and so on. This way the spammers are spamming each other. Poetic Justice. And no harm done. > Do you see my point? It's all in > whether or not it's *solicited*. > Simply having an email address, to me, is *not* an invitation for > everyone > in the world to send me mail to it. Well, if you publish it on a website it *is* free game. > >What's your problem with your 'delete' key? > > Nothing. Like I said: I've got filters. I'm just saying that I > shouldn't have to use them (in a perfect world), as all "spam" I get > should be solicited. No perfect world here. Hell the deep dark secret that everyone glosses over is the fact that advertisers are using years of behavioral analysis to better market to us. That's the real conspiracy. > > >By now, everyone knows that any of those things are as good as > >giving away your e-mail address [...] it's an open invitation for > >me to send you advertisements, just like the yellow pages. > > Nope, you're getting confused here. Giving my email address is akin > to the *white* pages, while asking for spam is the *yellow* pages. I agree that the gathering of e-mail address from usenet and from mailing lists is a bad thing. *But* if you have a web page, you have a yellowpages ad. > If I were to put my phone number in the white pages of the local > phone book (which I don't), it would be so that someone who has a > *need* to contact me could. If I wanted people calling me for no > reason, I'd put an ad in the yellow pages. See what I'm saying? Right, but you see what I am saying about a web page being a yellow pages ad, right? > >You have the right to make some snotty reply, but no right > >to intentionally harm. > > Aha! There's the rub! If I'm paying for my connect time, then spam > *is* harmful. Please, a few megs between cyber-clients? No harm no foul. You get more megs of crap just from this list! I'd bet real money on that! > >Rick, what if someone decided they did not like an opinion > >you expressed on this list and did the same thing to you? > > Did what? Set up a robot to flame me? I'd hope they at least had > the guts to not do it anonymously, but I can't fault them for not > liking me. Set up a robot to send you megs and megs of crap, just for one e-mail, that's what I am saying. You wouldn't like that very much! > >You, nor anyone else, has a right to lash out at > >someone for something they say or some ad they send you. > > So why then do I not have the right to lash out at them in return? You do. One for one. Mano a mano. No more, no less. > >No one has a right to retaliate, get it? First Amendment? I > >didn't read in there the right to get back at some poor > >advertisers, did you? > > So you're saying that if I came along and dropped a few billion > pamphlets for a campaign of mine on your house. > *intentionally* cause the problems, I am in the clear? Give me a > break. But, you see, they send the pamphlets to a few billion addresses, not just to your house. Apples and oranges. > >Free Speech : Good Mail Bombs : Bad > > Spam = Mail Bomb = Arp attack. No essential difference. Why isn't > a mail bomb or arp attack proctected by your idealized free speech? Spam is not equal to an arp attack or a mail bomb. One letter to one address is quite different than 10,000 letters to one address. > >Are you a self centred ass, who's personal feelings are more > >important that the Constitution? > > Yes, I am a self-centered ass. Me too, by the way. An opinionated one, as well. > No, my feelings are not more > important than the Constitution, my feelings help *make* the > Constitution, remember? It's moot, anyway, as I'm not advocating > removing free speech. No you are advocating harming others who are speeking freely. > >You could be doing so much more with your time. > > True. And I could be doing *more* with my time if I didn't have to > spend it setting up spam filters! > > >No war, no battles, no skirmishes, no need for "Anti-Spam Laws". > > I agree. I'm not asking for any laws, just the right to annoy > spammers just as much as they annoy me. Why can't I do that? If I > decide to spam them, not our of retribution, but as an exercise of > my right to free speech, then how is it any different? Again, I say: One Meg Per One Meg. Equal and fair. > >Just be nice, and everything will work out for the best. > > You're more optimistic than I. Well, I just hope that this dosen't get carried away, that's all. Match them meg for meg that you personally receive, and everything really will be OK. And if we keep the government out of it. > It must be nice to not be cynical. It's just an act. I am pretty jaded. =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

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microstock market
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ultimately what cyberspace does in many ways is decrease the "granularity" of economic transactions. you can imagine that an economic transaction has an overhead cost associatd with it needed to manage the bureacracy of the cash transfer. the army of people that have to support check passing, such as the mailman, bankers, etc., the people in the company that have to open envelopes and punch keys, etc. ad infinitum. these vast teams/roles of people are going to vaporize to move into other aspects of the economy. increasingly, the overhead of an economic transaction will move toward the infinitesmal. this radically changes many business models. consider the stock market for example. you have a situation where it doesn' t make sense for a company to be traded on the stock market except after some threshhold has been reached. I suspect this threshhold is due directly to economics that could radically change in the near future (say a decade). what I suspect this might mean is not merely new kinds of stock markets, but a massive plethora of new forums in which business can be transacted in cyberspace. I think we are going to see many new stock exchanges as the capital moves towards the ones that most efficiently handle it. and increasingly, I think you will see very small companies have stocks. you will also see a much better means by which an investor can judge the value of a company. the assets will be more open and thoroughly revealed on public web sites of the company. increasingly the outsider will be able to "peer into" a company for investment or business purposes. the companies with the most open policies are going to be those most favored by their customers. what would be neat is if one could invest in very small companies or ideas. I suspect our economy is moving in exactly this direction. also in addition to this, I suspect that regulations governing stock transactions are going to be challenged and increasingly melt away in the long run. the open market will find its own ways of guaranteeing the safety of its transactions that will make government interference only draining or damaging. so you can imagine that our economy of today is like moving around big boulders-- you need a lot of people and organization to create economic transactions. in the future, transactions are going to decrease in granularity and you will have a system more like the flow of electricity throughout an entire system. the revolutionary implications of cyberspace have barely begun to be uncovered. ultimately it will radically change the nature of our economics and government systems just as the introduction of the printing press did in its time.

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OTP
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy May's reheated, refurbished, and regurgitated cud is completely inappropriate for the mailing lists into which it is cross-ruminated. \|/ /~~~~~~~\ | O O | -ooo-----U-----ooo- Timmy May

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The E-Bomb
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Emery has pointed to an article, "The E-Bomb - a Weapon of Electrical Mass Destruction," which describes the work being done on EMP weapons. The piece is at Infowar.com, but we've borrowed a copy to put at: http://jya.com/ebomb.htm (93K + excellent diagrams) It may help explain that unearthly blast in the Aussie Outback discussed here a few weeks ago. Someone suggested HAARP as an explanation, and another hinted at other godawful research being done that similar to what the genius Tesla was doing early in the century to shatter the planet and fry the sky, and now, it seems, coming true.

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BXA Docs
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

BXA has published two short crypto-related docs, both dated May 8, 1997. William Reinsch's testimony on Goodlatte's bill: http://jya.com/bxa050897.htm Press release on Reinsch's ABA talk about the new regulations for financial transactions: http://jya.com/bxa050897-2.htm

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Re: Rwanda and "anarchy"
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:48 5/14/97 -0700, Rich Graves wrote: >Kent Crispin wrote: >> In fact, the correlation between anarchy and war is very strong, for >> obvious reasons. Perhaps that is why most intelligent people don't >> consider anarchy a desirable state of affairs. > >There is no such thing as anarchy, and there never will be. I think it's at least a little tacky for you to ignore recent work which may have already shown your claim to be false. For the rest of you out there, I suggest that you check out AP part 9. There are excellent reasons that people considered true anarchy to be unattainable, because it was considered fundamentally unstable. Even I believed that, before 1995. Now, I've changed my opinion, and for good reason. Anarchy becomes stable if the population can anonymously target those who threaten danger to the rest. AP will do exactly this, so anarchy will become stable. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: The Inducement of Rapid Oxidation of Certain Materials....
by jimbell＠pacifier.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 14:27 5/14/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote: >On Wed, May 14, 1997 at 03:07:43PM -0400, Tom Allard wrote: >> How pedantic. Webster's New World Dictionary (also reputable, I might add), >> has THIS to say about "Anarchy": >> >> anarchy n. [Gr. an- without + archos, leader] 1. the absence of government >> 2. political disorder and violence 3. disorder; confusion >> >> Note the etymology. Taken to its roots, the word simply means "no leader". > >Note the second definition. A definition which it included because of years of misuse. It is said that language is a living thing, which it is, which means that if an error is made frequently enough it becomes the truth. Most of us understand this concept. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 21:11:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary You get a sense of the inevitable when you're handed a stack of press releases congratulating a committee for passing a bill -- an hour before the vote happens. That's what happened this afternoon when the House Judiciary committee unanimously approved SAFE, a bill that generally loosens export controls on crypto. Now, today's vote doesn't mean that the bill will move to the floor unmolested, and it doesn't mean that all its problems have been fixed. The Judiciary Committee doesn't have jurisdiction over export relaxations, and the bill's opponents pledged to fight when the measure moves to the International Relations committee. Then there's that portion about using crypto in a crime: it's been modified, cleaned up, but not removed. High and low points of today's hearing. I'll keep these short since I've got to get to sleep: * In another blow to the White House, the New Democrat Coalition is demanding that the White House change its crypto-policy. A letter the group of centrist Dems sent to Clinton today said: "We are deeply concerned that current policy restricting exports of cryptography technology poses a real threat to U.S. dominance..." * The heinous section of the law that would create broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly and willfully encrypts incriminating information relating to that felony with the intent to conceal such information for the purposes of avoiding detection by law enforcement agencies or prosecution..." It's a solid improvement, but this language still has no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the amendment "could have a chilling effect on the development and use of encryption." He added: "I recognize that some supporters of this amendment would like that this section be removed altogether." But it doesn't seem likely. * The word on the streets is compromise. Hyde, chair of House Judiciary, brokered a meeting in his offices yesterday bringing together spooks, law enforcement, Goodlatte, and staffers. He says they're "very close to resolving any difficulties." Rep. McCollum chimed in: "It's just a matter of time before we work something out." Rep. Buyer said, and I am not making this up: "We should be good listeners to the NSA." Rep. Berman: "I hope there would be some way to bridge the differences between the administration and Goodlatte." More on this later... * Rep. Hutchinson introduced an amendment that passed unanimously: (a) The Attorney General shall compile, and maintain in classified form, data on the instances in which encryption (as defined in section 2801 of title 18 USC) has interfered with, impeded, or obstructed the ability of the Department of Justice to enforce the criminal laws of the United States. (b) The information compiled under subsection (a), including an unclassified summary thereof, shall be made available, upon request, to any Member of Congress. Problem is, a similar provision is *ALREADY LAW*. (It passed last year as part of an omnibus spending bill.) Brock Meeks wrote about it in his last Muckraker column: http://www.muckraker.com/ And this is bad news: we already know that piss-poor crypto -- we're talking Brian Milburn-style, or WordPerfect strength -- has interfered with investigations. But with the NSA's help, cops were able to tunnel through it. That's why the Feds should be looking not at whether it *interferes* with an investigation, but whether it has *derailed* one. At least when the NRC report came out last year, not one investigation was derailed through the use of crypto. But even if it has derailed an investigation -- well, that may be the price of freedom... * Rep. McCollum (R-Fl), a real Big Brother type of guy, added an amendment to page 4, line 14 that passed unanimously. Addition is in caps: Subsection (a) shall not afect the authority of any investigative or law enforcement officer OR ANY MEMBER OF THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY acting under any law in effect on the effective date of this chapter, to gain access to encrypted information. Now what the hell does this mean? Says McCollum: ""it is truly a technical amendment." * Rep. Rothman was the only one who pointed out how government access to keys reduces freedom: "It raises civil libertarian and totalitarian issues for me." He recounted how at a recent hearing he asked the administration: "Let's cut to the chase: do you want to mandate this access?" The reply: "No, no, no." I've said it before and I'll say it again: Congress desperately wants to compromise. They're aching to split the difference, cut a deal, and screw the pooch in the process. Just watch for the backroom scheming over the next few months. And if the worst features of all the crypto-bills are combined into one package that's attached to a huge spending bill that "just has to go through" -- well, don't say I didn't warn you... -Declan

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Re: Just Say "No" to Congress
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:25 AM 5/15/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Tim wrote: > >> We're basically under assault from all directions. The bozos in Congress >> and state governments are spinning out new laws and obscure regulations >> faster than we can react...and of course they're using our money to >> generate these laws and lobby for them. Further, a mostly-brainwashed >> Washington media population is surprising uncritical of these blizzard >> drifts of new laws. > >Hmmm... Do I get counted in the "mostly-brainwashed" category? I am sure that Tim knows by now that you don't fall into that category. Still, most members of the Washington media population seem brainwashed. At least judging by the stuff they publicize. >FYI, here are two bills that Feinstein introduced recently: Sigh. She is my Senator. [Don't blame me. I voted against her. But she hits the feelings of the Bay Area head on. "Big brother will bring you multi-cultural happiness." She is such a hypocrite. Even carried a gun after Moscone and Milk were shot and she thought herself in danger. Once she felt safe again, she went on TV and said that if she could get the votes in the Senate for total confiscation she would push for it. What's good for the goose...] -- 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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Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals"
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:00:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Response to "SAFE bill and cutting crypto-deals" ******* Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 01:56:20 -0400 From: Jason Gull <jgull(a)UMICH.EDU> While I don't particularly like this segment of the proposed bill either, I think Declan is engaging in some minor hyperbole when he says "this language has no business becoming law." We already have federal laws which make the use of a telephone or the mails to commit a felony into an additional offense, so this provision -- quite similar to obstruction of evidence, from the look of it -- doesn't seem at odds with precedent. With so many "hurdles," as Declan puts it, the language seems tailored to the specific case where incriminating information is encrypted solely to evade law enforcement and (like the passing of incriminating information to one's attorney in an attempt to make it "privileged") it doesn't seem outlandish to think that such conduct ought to be criminalized. Granted, there's the danger of the "slippery slope" -- that allowing any restrictions on crypto will lead to a gradual encroachment of government into other uses of cryptography. However, whether or not it is a good idea or not, politics and previosu law seem to firmly support such a provision. -Jason Gull jgull(a)umich.edu

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Re: Just Say "No" to Congress
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:13 AM 5/14/97 -0800, Tim May wrote: >We're basically under assault from all directions. The bozos in Congress >and state governments are spinning out new laws and obscure regulations >faster than we can react...and of course they're using our money to >generate these laws and lobby for them. Further, a mostly-brainwashed >Washington media population is surprising uncritical of these blizzard >drifts of new laws. ... >The "there ought to be a law" crowd is in high gear. I seem to recall a proposal from the late 19th century suggesting that the Patent Office be closed because there was nothing left to invent. In a similar, but more serious vein, I think Congress should be shut down, because there are no new laws that we need. Excepting, of course, my earlier anonymous suggestion that children be kept from "soft targets". I'm not a TruthMonger, but I play one on T.V.

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Re: Spam IS Free Speech
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On or About 14 May 97 at 3:46, lucifer Anonymous Remailer wrote: > Ross Wright wrote: > > > > You can not retaliate against free > > speech, Rick. That's a bad thing, plain and simple, black and > > white. > > Crock of shit, Ross. No shit, you just can't send 10,000 megs of info in retaliation for a few bits. Really, there's no call for that. It's wrong. > It costs me money to download unwanted spam. What's this "free" > bullshit? What? Like 80 cents per gig? Please a bit here and a byte there isn't going to break anyone. Could someone do the math? > > Free speech is a right. You have the right to make some snotty > > reply, but no right to intentionally harm. > > Spammers neither know nor care if they are causing harm to the > finances or mental well-being of others. One message in your in box is no excuse for terror tactics. Mail bombs, arp atacks, calls for regulations: aren't you over reacting? Just a little? I think your mental well being is in question anyway. > If a spammer declares their right to cause me financial loss and > denial of service for the time it takes me to rid myself of their > unwanted intrusion What, like 5 seconds a week? Less? Please. It just isn't as bad as you make it seem. Shit I love this, the spammers love this. There is no such thing as *bad* publicity. The more you screem the better it is for the "bad spammers". > then they can have no expectation that I, in > turn, will not declare what level of financial loss and denial of > service I will cause them. You have no right to deny them more than the few seconds of service that you lost. Any more than that is terror tactics, and a waste of time. You should be working on better projects than "Let's fuck over the spammers". Wow, that's productive. Shit, man write some useful code. > > You, nor anyone else, has a right to lash out at > > someone for something they say or some ad they send you. > > So spammers have no right to lash out at my sending them a > gigabyte of email regarding the evils of spamming. A gig for a few bytes. Why? That's so lame. Such a watse of talented code writing. And why are you escalating this? > > > It makes > > > *me* feel better. > > > > Ahhh, at last the point. Are you a self centred ass, who's > > personal feelings are more important that the Constitution? > > Ross has failed to explain just how the Constitution promotes the > spammer's right to intrude upon the spammer's life and cause them > financial loss while denying that right to the spammee. Well I've tried to describe that you lose about a dime per year. > Ross' personal feelings seem to be important enough to him to cast > slurs on those who disagree with his black-and-white opinions > regarding his right to spam others without them having a > corresponding right to reply in kind. You can feel free to send me twice as many bytes as I send to you, OK? Feel beter? No! You must fuck me over because I sent you my latest MLM scam. Yeah that's so mature! Come out from behind your remailer and state your opinions, wrong as they are. > Gander. Goose. Right. If I send you a gig, you send me a gig. If I send you a meg you send me a meg. A few bytes for a few bytes. Are you following what has upset me about this issue, yet? Like for Like, Goose, Gander. You said it, but you don't mean it. Right? You are saying if I send you one message, you have the right to mail bomb me? There's no parity there. It's very distressing how much of a hot button this issue is. >TruthMonger Lier. Ross =-=-=-=-=-=- Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: (408) 259-2795

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Civil Disobediance
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"All that matters is how we die: shall we offer our bodies helplessly, like cattle, to the knife, or, refusing passively to await the end shall we turn the strength of our anger to one last battle, til, daring and doing, we fall, drenched with their blood, amongst the heaped bodies and weapons of our dying enemies?" -- Livy Book XXV We've seen many sentiments like this one on the list lately. Such sentiments are understandable and have a certain visceral appeal. And it is good that people who are thinking along these lines are also telling their friends on the list instead of censoring themselves. But, these strategies are not the best we can choose to achieve our true goals. Few of us wish to be martyrs. The years long discussion of "crypto policy" has had the unfortunate and intended effect that it has caused us to become accustomed to restrictions on sharing ideas. That doesn't mean we like it, but it does mean that we consider the control of mathematical ideas to be expected and somewhat inevitable. (The same mechanisms we use to train animals are at work here.) Many of us have, perhaps, lost our youthful rage at the complete absurdity of a law which makes it highly illegal to invent some math, express it in code, and distribute it for free to the world. Perhaps there is a way to turn the training on the trainers? Civil disobediance is the best way to do this. Were a relatively small number of people, a thousand for instance, to post the "RSA in 3 lines" code to the world, it would be highly unlikely that anybody at all would be prosecuted, particularly if a sizeable number of these people were professors, graduate students, professionals at well known companies, journalists, politicians?, or otherwise prominent people. The whole situation would be so absurd they would never dare take it to court. If no response results from the first release of code, more people will feel comfortable jumping in when it becomes clear that they have a chance to change the world. The longer somebody waits, the less opportunity they have to tell their grandkids "I was the 500th person to publically export RSA back in the late 20th century. The government was actually trying to make math illegal!" Best of all, anybody "fortunate" enough to be a U.S. citizen can participate, even if they don't write code themselves. Having established beyond any doubt that the export of RSA was possible without repercussions, the lesson will be driven home by group releases of successively longer mathematical works expressed in source code. The first release will be the most challenging. In no time at all everybody - including everybody in the government - will find themselves accustomed to the idea that laws against mathematics are absurd. (Even Senators will be able to grasp this unchallenging concept.) It is not hard for the government and the newspapers to discredit militia type activities involving large weapons collections and chemistry experiments. But, no matter how much spin is put on it, it is extremely hard to persuade the public that sending a few lines of source code is terrorism, especially when they can download it off the web and see for themselves that it is just, well, source code, and maybe export it themselves. The way to get started is for people to pledge to post "RSA in 3 lines" if certain conditions are met. For instance, "I will post 'RSA in 3 lines' if 500 people promise to do it as well, among them being Michel Foucault, Jacob Bernoulli, and Blaise Pascal." No risk need be taken without allies! Dr. Roberts

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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Sweeps Week in Portland
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

News from the Beirut of the West: The FBI, in cooperation with the Portland police and the TV show "Cops" is ending a six month survelence project of downtown Portland. Tonight, armed with large books containing pictures of suspects, they have congregated in the center of town arresting all of those caught in their video web. Over the last 6-8 hours they have been arresting hundreds of suspects in the downtown area. The arrests are a "show of force" in the downtown area. The police used to watch over the people. Now they are watching the people. Expect to see similar activity in the town where you live. "Be seeing you!" DonutMonger #666

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NIST Crypto Notices
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Two May 13 Federal Register notices by NIST: NIST is planning to develop a FIPS for Public-Key Based Cryptographic Key Agreement and Exchange. This notice solicits comments regarding techniques for consideration specifically including RSA, Diffie-Hellman, and Elliptic Curve techniques. This standard will be for use in designing and implementing public-key based key agreement and exchange systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. More than one algorithm may be specified, consistent with sound security practices, to enable Federal departments and agencies enhanced flexibility in the design, implementation, and use of cryptographic systems. http://jya.com/nist051397.txt (6K) NIST is planning to develop a proposed revision to Federal Information Processing Standard 186, Digital Signature Standard. This revision would specify additional public-key based digital signature algorithms (in addition to the Digital Signature Algorithm [DSA]) for use in designing and implementing public-key based signature systems which Federal departments and agencies operate or which are operated for them under contract. The purpose of the revision will be to enable Federal departments and agencies greater flexibility, consistent with sound security practices, in the design, implementation, and use of public-key based digital signature systems. http://jya.com/dss-rev.txt (6K)

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Re: Pedophile Russ Allberry continues to flame Steve Boursy
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

kibo <kibo(a)thecia.net> writes: > > [DrG - if you want to follow up, please dig up the original article, not > > my repose - thank you] > > > O.K., I will chop all of the header befor I post it, but this Russ Allbery Thanks!! > is becoming the biggest problem on usenet, since he supports Tim Skirvin. > I think it is time for Russ to grow up and deal with the Net like a man. > > Time for him to become a child molester. Well - if you want to say you heard that he's a child molester or that he sounds like one, no decent ISP will have a problem. :-) I think it would be fun to get Russ back on this list. > > By the way, has anyone had a chance to verify whether Stan Kalisch who work > > for the educational testing services is our net.acquaintance? Thanks. > > > > Yes, I called them at that number, and and boss called me back. Great - is he or isn't he the same person as skalisch@crl?? Thanks > All Russ has to do is say the word, and Tim Skirvin will stop his > shit. Russ Allbery is just as responsible for the Skirvin shit as > Timmy boy himself is. > > Time to rip Russ Allbery a new asshole... Maybe we should get Tim Skirvin on this list. :-) --- Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

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(rumor) US TV host canned over comments
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone confirm for me that a US talk show host was canned for airing her thoughts on the aid package for Iran's earthquake victims? I heard "Only bad people and terrorists live there. If I had my way I'd drop an atomic bomb on Tehran." Anyone?

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Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 10:16:06 -0400 From: "Shabbir J. Safdar" <shabbir(a)vtw.org> To: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com>, fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Re: SAFE vote and cutting crypto-deals, report from House Judiciary At 9:11 PM -0700 5/14/97, Declan McCullagh wrote: >* The heinous section of the law that would create > broad new Federal felonies for some uses of crypto was > replaced. The amendment, offered by Rep. Delahunt > and adopted unanimously includes eight hurdles: > > "Any person who, in the commission of a felony under > a criminal statute of the United States, knowingly > and willfully encrypts incriminating information > relating to that felony with the intent to conceal > such information for the purposes of avoiding > detection by law enforcement agencies or > prosecution..." > > It's a solid improvement, but this language still has > no business becoming law. Problem is, nobody seems to > have the balls to stand up and yank it. Delahunt, > the amendment's sponsor, said the bill without the > amendment "could have a chilling effect on the > development and use of encryption." He added: "I > recognize that some supporters of this amendment would > like that this section be removed altogether." But it > doesn't seem likely. I'm more than a little surprised at your take on this amendment. This exact language wasn't created by Representatives who don't know better, it was created, shopped, and marketed to the hill by the folks at the ACLU (Don Haines) and EPIC. In response to concerns from the net, they coordinated the letter from many groups to Goodlatte about the criminal provision which just about everyone signed onto. Then, EPIC and the ACLU worked out the language above, and got it passed verbatim in response to the concerns of the net community. They did a great job here and really deserve a lot of kudos. Why are you slighting their work? -S

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