December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

None Gary Burnore, Paul Pomes, and the DataBasix Gang (was: Re: Remailer hating Nazis)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

nobody(a)REPLAY.COM (Anonymous) wrote: > >I'm familiar with the role of Gary Burnore <gburnore(a)netcom.com> and that > >of his DataBasix associates Belinda Bryan <eridani(a)ix.netcom.com> and Billy > >McClatchie (aka "Wotan") <wmcclatc(a)primenet.com> in getting the Mailmasher > >and Huge Cajones remailers shut down. Jeff Burchell posted a public > >expose' of their harassment to Usenet back in June, apparently catching the > >DataBasix folks off-guard. But what's the story with Paul Pomes? What has > >he done? > > Paul Pomes was complaining about Jeff Burchell's huge cajones remailer to Jeff > Burchell's upstream and employers about the same time the rest of the Databasix > gang was doing it. Paul Pomes appears to be a part of the Databasix gang. It's sort of ironic that these anti-privacy, anti-anonymity Nazi wannabes complain about remailers which give their users privacy, then somehow expect that their own complaints will be kept hidden. I rather syspect that Gary Burnore, Belinda Bryan, and Paul Pomes were rather shocked when Jeff Burchell decided to tell the whole story (unfortunately AFTER shutting down the Huge Cajones remailer). Maybe the next time Gary, Linda, or Paul send a remailer operator a complaint, the operator will know what to expect next. I'm wondering if that's at least part of what's behind the faux spam-baiting that's underway, with messages to varios MMF, MLM, and alt.sex.* NGs whose title and body consist of randomly- chosen words, followed by a list of bogus e-mail addresses in the body. The thing that's not so random is the high percentage of words that are related to DataBasix, such as "DataBasix", "Burnore", and "Wotan". I'm almost waiting for Gary Burnore to give the remailer and mail2news operators a "helpful" suggestion that they could curb most of this "abuse" by simply blocking any anonymous posts containing any of those three keywords. <g> Or perhaps he's done so and politely been turned down. Perhaps the next wave of attacks on remailers will not consist of attempts to shut them down altogether but to progressively cripple them by getting certain features disabled, one by one. This seems to have already started. The strategy seems to be to fabricate a form of "abuse", anonymously through remailers, for which the seemingly "logical" solution is to disable a certain feature. This has already proven successful with header pasting, for example. Now you can't post to Usenet and set the From: address to that of your own 'nym. I'm not even certain that you can set a Reply-To: address any more. If the "camel" can get his nose under the tent and convince operators to start filtering on the *CONTENT* of the Subject: line or body of usenet posts, the anti-privacy nuts will have scored a major victory. In fact, from reading Jeff Burchell's posts, it looks like Gary and his DataBasux-ers had initially convinced Jeff to do exactly that. But, in a symbolic victory for freedom of speech, he removed those filters for a week before he finally shut down Huge Cajones altogether. > >Perhaps the best thing that can be done with people like Burnore is to put > >together an FAQ about their tactics, similar to what his "fans" have done > >for the "Rev." Steve Winter. Then when Burnore tries to stir up trouble by > >first fabricating anonymous "abuse" and then demanding that it either be > >stopped and the culprit(s) identified (knowing in advance that's > >impossible), or else that the remailer be shut down, someone can forward > >that FAQ to the remailer's upstream provider, or whoever is being pressured > >to pull the plug. And if Paul Pomes engages in the same dishonest tactics, > >that needs to be done with him as well. > > Gary Burnore had a mongo page at http://www.netscum.net/burnorg0.html. > So did Paul Pomes, Belinda Bryan, and the rest of the Databasix gang. > Too bad it's down for now, but it'll be back. It's already back, for the time being. The new URL is: http://www.spambusters.dyn.ml.org/www.netscum.net/burnorg0.htm I'll go look for Paul Pomes' page at that site. Thanks for the tip! Let's see how long that site stays in operation before the self-styled "Thought Police" attempt to shut it down. -- Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. -- General William Westmoreland

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Re: democracy?! (Re: Terrorism is a NON-THREAT
by mark＠unicorn.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate wrote: >If we as individuals can't make our own decisions about what is best for us, >what makes you think some stranger will do any better? Indeed. Yet in a democracy, any two other members are assumed to know better than me, and any 51% to know better than the other 49%. >Every form of government other than democracy assumes a >priori that noble oblige is prima facia. To paraphrase an old questions of >politics, who governs the governors? Or do you feel we have found angels in >the form of kings? Democracy is merely the scoundrel's last attempt to maintain the divine right of kings by coverting it into the divine right of the elected. >Which means we should have the lowest number of incarcerated individuals >instead of the most. Indeed, thereby proving that democracy *doesn't* work. >Doesn't work what way? Midnight raids, anti-drug laws, all the examples you just gave of the evils of democracy, etc, etc. >Consider, other than democracy, that every form of >government has an implicit assumption that there is some base sets of >activities that citizens should be permitted and they will be happy. Someone (Churchill?) once said that democracy is the best form of goverment. Amusingly he considered this a defence of democracy, not a damning indictment of the entire concept of government. >In a >democracy the people are given the opportunity to make up their mind what to >do with their lives and property without having to obtain permission from >some authority. Medical licensing, drivers licenses, pilots licenses, export restrictions, gun licenses (in various democracies), concealed weapons permits... do I have to go on? This doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to the reality of democracy. >Paying a government to keep the park clean and mowed and the lights on at >night or my streets well paved and de-iced in winter And a government does this better than a private corporation because? >is not quite the same >thing as having black-suited ninja wann-be's kicking my door in at 2AM >because I choose to smoke a joint or even grow my own weed; Again, this is a clear example of the failure of democracy. A big difference between democracy and anarcho-capitalism[1] is that in an anarcho-capitalist society the cops will be too busy making money to launch such raids on their customers, and most customers will be too self-interested to pay cops to raid their neighbors. >There is a reason behind the madness of "Congress shall make no law...". Indeed; such a shame they put all those other words into the Constitution. That phrase sounds like a pretty good conception of government to me. Mark [1] See, for example, 'The Machinery of Freedom', by David Friedman: excerpts on the Web at http://www.best.com/~ddfr/

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Please send me some info
by Chiu Ngan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I am a student of the University of New South Wales in Australia, as I am going to do a research about my informayion system assignment, I am mailing to request for some information. My assignment is regarding to the current examples of "use of computers to commit fraud; use of computer to commit sabotage; false advertising/ claims for computer products; degradation of work as a result of computerisation; failures in computerising the workplace" ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

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No Subject
by MIS Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dan, You have a .forward file here at mis that points to toad.com. Do you have a .forward there? I received several compalints from people who are getting your mail at cosmos(a)microserve.net. -Jeremy ~---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Abuse & Security Department MicroServe Information Systems, Inc. security(a)admin.microserve.net 100 North Wilkes-Barre Boulevard abuse(a)admin.microserve.net Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania 18702 http://www.naISPa.org (717)821-5964 FAX (717)821-5968 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Please Remove
by contest 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please remove setzer(a)wl.net from this mailing list

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Re: House National Security committee guts SAFE, worse than no b
by Lizard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:00 PM 9/9/97 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote: >Michael, you once again fail to note the important political issues here. >Sometimes civil liberties, freedom, and constitutional rights must be >ignored in favor of pragmatism. It is important at all costs to remain a >player in the game. > No, it isn't. You end up being more concerned with being in the game than with achieving your goals. Sometimes, you have to kick the board over. I think it is more important to make the laws unenforceable (and make such workarounds useful to the average netizen), than it is to try to keep the government from passing laws. The work of people like Jim Ray and Phillip Baker is crucial here. The government is unlikely to pass laws to limit its own authority, on any issue -- even those who might not want to use a particular power would still want to keep it around 'just in case'. We cannot count on government to protect our freedoms. Therefore, we must make it irrelevant to the exercise of those freedoms. >Instead of opposing bad crypto legislation, we should instead work inside >the process, to gain a seat at the table. That is why it is highly >significant that both Commerce and FBI want to rid us of our freedom but >would do it in subtly different ways. Not really, know. It's unlikely that a "Let's you and him fight" strategy would prove effective, since this isn't just an interdepartmental turf squabble. They will strip our freedoms first, and argue over who gets the thumbscrews second.

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New GAK Bill
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

5 September 1997, MSNBC: FBI Director Louis Freeh floats a new proposal at a congressional hearing to outlaw non-breakable crypto products. A radical shift in crypto debate Proposed bill outlaws non-crackable crypto products, restrict imports By Brock N. Meeks, MSNBC WASHINGTON -- The White House would likely be very sympathetic to a controversial new bill that would outlaw all encryption software that doesn't allow law enforcement agencies to immediately decode scrambled messages, an administration official told MSNBC. The new bill, still in draft form, is quietly circulating among members of the House and Senate. Although the administration hasn't formally endorsed any provisions of the bill, MSNBC has learned that the White House has been providing what is called technical drafting assistance to members of Congress writing the bill. William Reinsch, the Commerce Department undersecretary for export administration, confirmed the White House involvement for MSNBC on Thursday night. The draft bill was already in the hands of some members of the Senate's Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Regulation when FBI Director Louis Freeh outlined its basic provisions while testifying before the panel Wednesday. Freeh said "we would recommend" that legislation be written requiring all encryption software or services made in or imported to the United States to have a feature "which would allow for the immediate, lawful decryption" of any scrambled messages used for illegal purposes or in a national security matter. NATION AT RISK? The White House, FBI and intelligence agencies claim that the proliferation of unbreakable encryption products puts the nation at risk. Criminals and terrorists are increasingly using unbreakable encryption products, Freeh testified Wednesday. U.S. makers of encryption software claim that any government-mandated decoding features would make their products unacceptable to clients in the global marketplace. The new proposals outlined by Freeh also drew the ire of civil liberties groups, which fear that any government controls on encryption products raise serious First Amendment and privacy concerns. Placing such government-mandated controls on the domestic use and manufacture of encryption software, as well as on the import of encryption products, stands in marked contrast to current White House crypto policies. Currently, the United States places strict regulations on the export of any encryption products that do make decoding keys available to law enforcement agencies. However, the administration has steadfastly maintained throughout the often contentious public debate over encryption policies that it would not place any restrictions on the domestic use of encryption software, nor would it restrict the import of encryption products. Despite Freeh's testimony and the draft legislation written with White House assistance, Reinsch said the administration's policy on encryption hasn't changed. "I want to emphasize that [in providing drafting assistance] we are responding to committee requests," he said. "And those requests have been fairly directive, such as: 'Give us some examples of how we can better accommodate law enforcement needs.' " Currently, the White House is backing an encryption bill in the Senate called the Secure Public Networks Act, also known as S. 909. This bill would encourage the use of and set up guidelines for encryption software products with decoding keys. Under this plan, all coded messages would spin off a decoding key that would be stored with a government-approved third party. Law enforcement agencies, foreign or domestic, would be allowed access to those keys if they obtained a court-ordered warrant. The bill would not restrict or require any encryption software used in the United States, or restrict the import of any foreign crypto products. However, MSNBC has learned that the draft bill now circulating among members of the House and Senate specifically outlaws the "manufacture, distribution or import" of any encryption software product or communication device that does not "allow the immediate decryption" of all scrambled messages or communications "if used for illegal purposes." The bill also targets "network services," such as Internet Service Providers, that provide encryption capabilities to their clients. BAN WOULD GO INTO EFFECT IN 1999 Under this proposed bill, if such encryption services are offered by a company like ISP, the service provider must build in a provision to allow for immediate decryption of any scrambled messages, according to several sources that have seen the draft language. The software ban would go into effect in January 1999. Reinsch told MSNBC he wasn't sure that Freeh's testimony "accurately reflected" the language the White House offered in its technica drafting for congressional committees. However, he indicated the administration was interested in Freeh's proposal. "I'll be blunt about it," Reinsch said. If such a bill were approved by a congressional committee, the administration "would look very seriously at it and I imagine we would be very sympathetic to it," he said. Opponents of proposals to require key for all encryption software blanched at Freeh's statements. "This proposal crosses a line that hasn't been crossed before in the area of domestic controls on crypto," said Alan Davidson, policy analyst for the Center for Democracy and Technology. Davidson said a government mandate to provide immediate decryption capabilities would be like "forcing everyone to live in a glass house." It also "trashes the Fourth Amendment," which guarantees a right to be protected from unlawful search and seizure, Davidson said. Freeh told the Senate panel Wednesday that he isn't looking to expand law enforcement's investigative powers. Rather, he said, he is only looking for a "Fourth Amendment that works in the Information Age." ------

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Re: FBI calls for mandatory key escrow; Denning on export ctrls
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The on-line NYT's claim today that everyone except the administration is opposed to its crypto policy is daring hyperbole. What's your take on that? http://jya.com/crypto-tops.htm

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Finally... a One-Time-Pad implementation that works!!!
by Geoffrey C. Grabow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- TriStrata has announced that is has a product that provides OTP without the pad distribution problem. The product also has a unique key-recovery system. Check out: http://www.tristrata.com for details. **************************************************************************** ************* PGP 5.5.3 Fingerprint: 15B3 DDC1 93BB 4BDF 4DFD 1B27 12A1 E0C4 **************************************************************************** ************* -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 5.5.3i for non-commercial use <http://www.pgpi.com> iQEVAwUBNZVo5dc2wHb8nZI1AQFqngf/bCJVbMQX/5sYb181CLONmqWjPzhQ66Ef HoyPqxRzEyq4FSWnIuQODH/YTeyyQROUqCZGhC19v8PCiZpI1ynSvn4i+Zcjv9I0 OZBThzKayNoMne7TkNr49Ah9BwDK6XuwS9bns1xM65zfKLpvKP2gboWkADD52K4w eUuJx/cTaR7PgdO/q6nrVRNq1jlaJsFBKGt2q5E1S12ZK1nA+mpKAS95XMgr2IMx 5/wJ+jsOIUTn2gWR64nhluOgmcACeIVsiRlsGqfUdL8gJHAl0gaQ7E1+HSOBx60K Ur5x5MzQKBKlWcoDaEXB1AsICW2enwdGVOxPBklq1CbcQxFXdBj1DQ== =vZmi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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What's up in SASEBO, or Don't Tug The Beard
by David Honig 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From: "George Martin" <gmartin(a)usonet.ne.jp> >To: "honig(a)otc.net" <honig(a)otc.net> >Date: Sat, 04 Apr 98 22:25:07 +0900 >Reply-To: "George D. Martin" <gmartin(a)usonet.ne.jp> >Priority: Normal >X-Mailer: PMMail 1.95a For OS/2 >Subject: > >>4)From: David Honig <honig(a)otc.net> >>Subject: Illegal export of pgp.zip by .mil > >>http://braggbbs.bragg.army.mil/libs/utils.htm >>has a link to ftp://bbs.bragg.army.mil/library/utils/pgp262.zip > >>Someone (from Europe, ideally) should clue these people >>in. Maybe cc the media. > >Maybe you should've checked out the url to see if it was >valid before you shot your mouth off in public... The file >was removed quite a few months ago and was never download >by anyone outside of the .mil domain. Take your >troublemaking somewhere else. I of course informed him that he was mininformed or uninformed. honig(a)alum.mit.edu ------------------ "Are we going after their tax returns? I can only hope that we are, frankly, doing a little persecuting" ---Nixon to Erlichman, on tax audits of wealthy Jewish contributors to the Democrats. -LA Times 1.4.98

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I was auto-outed by an IMG tag in HTML spam
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just had my on-line pseudonym outed to my company's VP of marketing, with potentially serious internecine political consequences. It didn't even take an AOL customer service rep to do the dirty deed. Here's how it happened. I have an account unconnected with work, for personal mail, on a machine run by a friend in my wife's department at the local college. From this account, I speak my mind about my political views, my employer's spamming of their rather loosely defined lists of "customers", etc. I don't do that from my work account because I don't want any confusion about whether I am speaking for the company or not. Evidently my mention of my displeasure with my company's spamming hit a nerve with marketing. They sent a message to my off-site address (along with those of other critics about whom they wanted to know more). It was an HTML message with an embedded IMG tag. Last night about midnight, I downloaded my off-site mail with Netscape. (I was still at work because our team is debugging some killer database problems.) When Netscape saw that IMG tag, it happily connected to marketing's "customer" tracking server, and downloaded the keyed graphic. My boss just let me see the log he got from the marketing VP, showing clearly that my workstation read the message. The log was attached to a strident call for my head from the VP. Luckily, my boss agrees with my attitude, as do all of my co-workers on the engineering side of the house, and thinks I was in the right to use an off-site account. But the political fallout could be interesting. Beware "live" message content. If you don't, you may end up having to get your company's entire marketing force fired to protect yourself. Use mail readers that don't automatically process HTML and connect to image servers, accept cookies, or run javascripts. You are being watched by tricky defective, er, detective types. es.

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Re: Fwd: Big Brother Sees through walls (from the spyking list)
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: sunder <sunder(a)brainlink.com> > > 1)From: "George Martin" <gmartin(a)kic.or.jp> > Subject: News Release: High-Tech Surveillance > > Here's a sampling of how state and federal agencies are using this > terrifying technology to spy on Americans: > > * In North Carolina, county governments use high-resolution spy satellite > photographs to search for property improvements that might increase > property tax assessments. Was this cost authorized by taxpayers? > * On the Mexican border, police use a "gamma ray scanner" to check > tanker trucks for contraband, scanning right through the vehicle's metal > sides. Good!!! CM excerpt: # Those rumor-level stories about our government encouraging # drugs to reach the inner cities were weird. # # Remember, we've been having a Drug War for four decades now. # # I guess there is a certain logic to it. Obviously the government is into # hysteria on the matter: it is then possible that they would want to continue # having a drug problem so they could continue the hysteria. # # Even the Attorney General was drooling over drug forfeiture dollars, to the # point of shunting aside other cases. # # # Recently... # # : CBS 60 Minutes, Steve Croft reporting. # : # : Remember that story of the hero customs agent snagging a tanker truck full # : of cocaine? There is a strange twist to the story. # : # : The Federal agent's manager repeatedly tried to interfere with him making # : the bust. # : # : The agent's dog had flagged the truck; the agent weighed it and found a # : discrepancy. His manager said it must be in the tires. You can only check # : the tires for drugs he was told. # : # : But the agent persisted, and made the bust. His manager let the driver # : of the truck leave. The driver literally fled on foot back to Mexico. # # What the hell was that about??? # # Was it a single corrupt Federal agent? # # : CBS 60 Minutes, Steve Croft reporting. # : # : Standing at a fence about a hundred feet from the U.S. Customs lanes, # : Steve Croft and an ex-agent with a walkie-talkie tuned to the right # : frequency began videotaping the border crossings. # : # : Truck after truck drove right through the individual Customs lanes, # : not even stopping. "Nafta express lanes" explained the ex-agent. # : # : Truck after truck drove straight into the U.S. unmonitored. # : # : Then a message came through the walkie-talkie: "We got some cameras # : watching, better get out there and cover traffic". # : # : Suddenly several Customs agents came out of the booths and started # : inspecting trucks. # # That makes at least five people at a minimum! # # What the hell is going on??? # # # IF the rumor is true, THIS looks like it would be the smoking gun. # # How did our country get so twisted around that they can invade our # bodies to drug test, yet allow truck after truck after truck to # just wander right in knowing HUGE drug shipment after HUGE drug # shipment is crossing? Gosh, there's no drug problem with Mexican # police, military and even their president. # # * The New York Times, February 19 1997 # * # * Brig. General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, Mexico's top Military Drug War # * point man, was arrested on charges of receiving payoffs from Jaurez # * cartel kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, Defense Minister Enrique Cervantes # * announced. # * # * U.S. Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey had weeks earlier called General # * Gutierrez "a guy of absolute unquestioned integrity." # # # And what if some terrorists wanted to sneak in an atom bomb? # # Put a NAFTA sticker on it and drive right on in, y'all. Welcome to the USA. # # If you want to really be certain, hide the A-bomb in a truck full of cocaine. # # If a terrorist nuclear bomb ever goes off in this country, # it drove in from Mexico. # # Meanwhile, Los Alamos National Laboratories developed technology that # allows an officer walking or driving down the street, as shown on MSNBC TV # 6/9/97 www.TheSite.com, to determine whether anyone on the sidewalk is # carrying a gun. # # The priorities are all out of whack. # # Apply Military technology towards securing the border, not by spending # billions and billions and billions each year to secure each and every # one of us. # # We don't put governing-monitors on all car engines to control speeding. # Get an Operations Research clue. # # # Is our government perpetuating the availability of drugs? # # The 60 Minutes report sure makes it look like it is. # # How could letting unchecked Mexican truck after unchecked Mexican truck # through not be? # # ! FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, Senate Judiciary Committee, June 4, 1997 # ! # ! NEW CORRIDORS HAVE OPENED TO CONTINUE THE FLOOD OF DRUGS INTO AMERICA. # # No shit, Sherlock! Ya don't nafta say another word. # # Every single truck can be checked using Military technology. # # But no, massive monitoring of people suspected of no crime is the # appropriate response. # # They were just warming us up for the CALEA telephone monitoring bill. # # ---- # # Here is part of the story on why we let trucks full of cocaine and # heroin just roll right into the United States. # # * "Diminished U.S. Role Below Border Plays Into Traffickers' Hands" # * # * By Molly Moore and John Ward Anderson # * Washington Post Foreign Service # * Sunday, September 8 1996; Page A01 # * The Washington Post # * # * Due to their new 'Mexicanization policy': # * Mexico became the main gateway into the United States for illegal # * narcotics, with the amount of cocaine making the journey climbing to # * an estimated 210 tons last year. # * # * Mexico's drug arrests plunged nearly 65 percent, from 27,369 the year # * before the policy changes to 9,728 last year, according to data that # * the Mexican government supplied to the State Department. # * # * Cocaine seizures in Mexico were cut in half, dropping from more than # * 50 tons in 1993 to slightly more than 24 tons in each of the last two # * years -- the smallest amounts since 1988, Mexican government figures # * show. # * # * The GAO report charges that Mexico's greatest problem is, in # * fact, the "widespread, endemic corruption" throughout its law # * enforcement agencies. Earlier this month, in an indictment of his own # * department, Attorney General Lozano fired 737 members of his federal # * police force -- 17 percent of his entire corps -- saying they did not # * have "the ethical profile" required for the job. In a recent meeting # * with foreign reporters, Lozano said it could take 15 years to clean up # * the force. # * # * In November 1993, President Clinton signed Presidential Decision Directive # * No. 14, shifting U.S. anti-drug efforts away from intercepting cocaine as # * it passed through Mexico and the Caribbean, and, instead, attacking the # * drug supply at its sources in Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. # # The President himself ordered them to stop checking!!! This is in the same # leadership vein as Reagan declaring himself a "Contra". # # And why did President Clinton change strategy? [snip] > * The Naval Surface Warfare Center has developed an "ion sniffer," > a metal box that analyzes the chemical makeup of the air -- and can detect, > for example, traces of cocaine through the skin days after drug use. Bad. > * In Georgia, the state's Department of Revenue will start using > NASA satellites to examine the state's 58,910 square miles for illegal > timber cutting. Good. > * In New Jersey, California, and other states, police use thermal > imaging devices to scan houses for unusual heat sources that could indicate > indoor marijuana growing operations. Houses can be scanned while police sit > in their cruisers on the street. Bad. CM excerpt: # Here is a more detailed example of how government expands surveillance # (and thus control) in a seemingly never-ending manner...consider this when # talking about a National ID Card: # # Is it okay for the government to look at your property while walking by and # if the officer spots marijuana plants growing to get a search warrant? # # Of course it is. # # * "The Right To Privacy", ISBN 0-679-74434-7, 1997 # * By Attorneys Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy # * # * ...then the Supreme Court ruled that if the yard was big enough that "An # * individual may not legitimately demand privacy for activities conducted # * out of doors in fields," the Court wrote, "except in the area immediately # * surrounding the home." # * # * ...then the Supreme Court ruled that a barn sixty yards from a farmhouse # * was too far away from a house to expect privacy. # * # * ...then the Supreme Court ruled that aerial surveillance did not constitute # * a Fourth Amendment search. # * # * ...then the Supreme Court ruled that a "precision aerial mapping camera" # * that was able to capture objects as small as one-half inch in diameter did # * not constitute a Fourth Amendment search. # # ...then courts ruled that infrared surveillance of homes was permissible. # # # What is this? # # * Subject: Re: Law Enforcement Aviation # * From: aufsj(a)imap2.asu.edu # * Date: 1996/12/27 # * Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military # * # * What interests me is how new technologies will be interpreted. I recently # * inquired at the local Law School about the courts views towards the use # * of impulse radar, and they said "Impulse what the heck?" # * # * Basically it is a radar that "sees through" things (like, say, your # * house). # * # * Their capabilities vary widely, but the feds are already using # * them and I know that Hughes corp. is designing a low-cost set up # * specifically for major police departments. # * # * They are driving towards a unit that can be mounted on a police helicopter. # * # * Will the police need a warrant? Who knows. Since they are allowed # * to do airborne infra-red analysis of your house, why not an take an # * airborne "x-ray" equivalent? # * # * --------------------------------------------------------------------- # * Steven J Forsberg at aufsj(a)imap2.asu.edu Wizard 87-01 > * And in Arizona, the state's Department of Water Resources uses > spy satellite photographs to monitor 750,000 acres of state farmland, and > compares the images to a database to discover which farmers don't have > irrigation permits. Good, I guess. > Even worse: The federal government will spend another $4.5 million > this year to develop even more intrusive surveillance equipment. Bad. > Currently under development by the Justice Department: A "super > x-ray" -- combining traditional x-ray technology, ultra-sound imaging, > and computer-aided metal detectors -- to reveal items hidden under clothes > from up to 60 feet away. Bad. > The courts are currently wrestling with the implications of the new > technology, debating the limits of the government's power to "search" > individuals from a distance with high-tech gadgets. Several contradictory > court decisions have already emerged, for example, about whether > thermal-imaging searches are Constitutional. > > Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic politicians continue to look > for new uses of the technology -- with some government officials already > talking about using satellite surveillance to track items as small as > backyard porches to check for zoning violations and construction permits. Smart cards are transponders. Never forget that. > "In the name of fighting crime, politicians seem eager to obliterate the > protections against unreasonable search, with equipment that Americans used > to only read about in Tom Clancy technothrillers," said Dasbach. "It's time > for the American public to wake up and realize that Big Brother is here > today -- and he's got a gamma ray scanner in his hand." No amount of control over the population is enough for the U.S. Government. ---guy

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Changing to Moderated Cypherpunks -- How?
by James F. Marshall 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Too much noise in the unedited list. How does one change to the moderated list? - -- James F. Marshall, Esq., Pasadena, California Subject "JFM Public Key" for PGP Public Key - -- OS/2 is to Windows as Stradivarius is to Yamaha -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNNf8UjbjGennrhqZAQETXgP/WFshRowrhi7qMnUZHUIADA7cCV0fEYFA WiAlynovwU9dyvc/gygz9N6aeJO/ghqiQl2/NqCSsKn5H1nTr1MHbK2iYJwt6AXh ZhMSfz5p1QzVWwm9lIFETipPayuJ+WzCkaakMZP3PPZXG8XUT/48NZG5hJgjfIM7 vqzMkCcHr+A= =2N5t -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Article V - an analysis
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ARTICLE V. [Constitution: how amended; proviso.] The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions of the three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which shall be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of it's equal Suffrage in the Senate. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Congress can propose amendments if 2/3 of both houses agree Or when Congress is directed by 2/3 of the state legislatures a convention can be called for *proposing* amendments Irrespective of which of the above two processes causes an amendment to be considered a part of the Constitution when 3/4 of the state legislatures vote for it, or by the constitutional conventions called in 3/4 of the state agree on it. The decision of which method to use may be *proposed* by Congress. It's after 1808 and we're not considering state representation in the Senate so I'll skip the last two phrases. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The only sticky wicket I see is the ...proposed by Congress. Does this mean that Congress can decide which of the two it will recognize? Or does it mean that Congress can merely express its desire? Or does this apply only to the bills that were developed in the Congress? There's no time line for Congress to decide, could this be used to hinder such a process? Note that it's important to recognize that we're talking about 3/4n conventions and not a single convention attended by 3/4n representatives of the states. The tense of the sentence leaves no doubt. ____________________________________________________________________ Technology cannot make us other than what we are. James P. Hogan The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: ANON: mail concerns
by nobody＠alumni.cco.caltech.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >:: >Request-Encryption-To: X > >If user ID X is on the remailer's pubkey ring, the outgoing message is >encrypted to X. This could be usefull for anonymous return-address blocks. Encryption should be the default. Err on the side of caution. Eternal!Optimist(a)anon.penet.fi (copyright 1993, Eternal Optimist [Ha Ha Ha]) 0) 0) =:()]-< <na26436(a)anon.penet.fi> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLNgXzIjvfLxJbYYtAQEK4AP9HrSaMSOnlsxzEjgLbAgvsCSw3vMxLJ4u 856ZbKI2cZTNLoPzyWLNW68gZ7kcNeaF7MHKzWbI9tLEDePpWN34sB11wBlpfzcf WzcYVLI6JBLVERq2seyKU3cqAhWuxldSDeAlsKkMsrzI0tGgOaLkxCxhxn9weZf8 58mZeANd3sg= =8F9u -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Problems of anonymous posts
by nobody＠soda.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- (This is from Hal; I still can't post from Portal.) After going to enormous efforts to create a network of anonymous remailers, we are hoist by our own petard, as our list receives strange, irrelevant, and argumentative posts through our own anonymous remailers. (Not all anonymous posts are like this, but there have been quite a few in the last few weeks which fall into these categories.) This should challenge us to reconsider the value of anonymity and remailers. Are we working only to make the net safe for the immature and incoherent? I would say not, but these posts should remind us of how incomplete is the infrastructure needed for successful use of anonymity. A brief recap of the benefits of anonymous mail: presently, on the net, all mail is tagged with the sender and destination. This means that not only the recipient, but any net snoopers and sysops at systems through which the mail passes, may be able to know that person A is sending mail to person B. This kind of information can be used to build up dossiers of who talks to whom. Worse, as we move into an era of electronic commerce, more and more of our lives may begin to take place on the net. We may shop, find entertainment, do business, even work for a living across the network. This will open up even more opportunities for collecting data about how we live our lives. In my opinion, the best way to preserve our privacy is to make it impossible to collect this data. Anonymous remailers, and their cousins, IP bouncers (which perform an analogous function for telnet-type connections), can prevent the collection of this kind of information by hiding exactly who is communicating with whom. These services can serve as the basis for the other privacy-protecting technologies we've been discussing, such as digital cash. There's not much point in using digital cash to prevent tieing customers to vendors if monitoring the net will provide that information anyway. This isn't just a futuristic concern, either. Already today the government is taking steps which could, under some not-so-far-fetched extrapolations, get people on the list in trouble. Many people on this list have communicated with Phil Zimmermann, for example. What if email logs were used to track all those people down, and they became suspects in this criminal investigation that the government seems to be pursuing? It's not even impossible that the government could someday try to paint the cypherpunks themselves as a subversive organization. Think how much more difficult any such diabolical attack would be if people subscribed to the list via remailers, under digital pseudonyms. These days, with the shaky legal status of cryptography, we of all people should be able to see the benefits of anonymous communication. The problem is, then, how to gain the benefits of anonymity, while avoiding the abuses. One solution which we have long discussed is reputations and pseudonyms; another is making people pay to use remailers. The way reputations work is that people would digitally sign their anonymous postings. This way someone could post anonymously and build up a reputation by means of a series of postings signed under the same name. As time went on, they would no more want to damage the reputation of their pseudonym than they would want to damage their reputation under non-anonymous posting. To make this work, people need to be able to easily filter their mail on the basis of the pseudonym it came from, rather than the (irrelevant) anonymous remailer which sent it. Then they can choose to accept and read mail from anonymous posters who have built up a good reputation while ignoring that from those who have ruined their good (pseudo) name. Karl Barrus has done some experiments along these lines. He described some time back a system he had for working with the elm mail reader, one of the most common Unix-based mail agents. The software will display the true originator of PGP-signed posts (anonymous or not). This allows readers to apply the same standards to signed anonymous mail as to regular mail. It raises anonymous posters to the same level, and holds them to the same standards, as other posters. This software could allow anonymous posters to build up their reputations, encouraging more responsibility on their part. The other solution, pay-for-use remailers, has also been pioneered by Karl. His idea is to make the remailer a little harder to use by forcing the user to include some digital postage (based, I think, on what Tim May called "poor man's postage stamps"). This could help reduce the volume of anonymous mail and make it less likely that joke or trivial messages would be posted. (We could even consider applying Karl's approach to the list as a whole; people would have to apply ahead of time for posting tokens in order to post. This might force people to take a little more care and time in their postings.) I don't think Karl's efforts have been sufficiently appreciated here. He is quietly working to create the tools needed to allow anonymity to be a useful and important part of the net architecture rather than the annoying sideshow that it sometimes seems to be becoming. We need to support Karl, work to bring his innovations into other remailers and other mail agents, if we want to gain the benefits from what we have done so far. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLMFf3qgTA69YIUw3AQEp9QP/UyEvuQgM6GKiKdkZtHJw4/NhMwQDihrs 2D8weSeUQpKHPpxEnXiDEG6qswI0B4auq+hK3EDYIzccA6c6/+0Xa7SzESsujtjs VDRY7BNphAQ8ix6vd4Ti2vuk8sWa7IHasuAF+UytJrUXPaMbJgH1u/84M9HstA4t kNQ3venrgh4= =CFWw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[ISN] Need help keeping your company's mail respectable? (fwd)
by Jukka E Isosaari 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thought some people might be in need of a tool like this... ++ J ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 13:32:59 -0700 (MST) From: mea culpa <jericho(a)dimensional.com> To: InfoSec News <isn(a)repsec.com> Subject: [ISN] Need help keeping your company's mail respectable? Need help keeping your company's mail respectable? http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,364134,00.html By Christy Walker, PC Week Online October 26, 1998 9:00 AM ET IT managers looking to clean up their companies' e-mail and enforce corporate e-mail policies can get help from several software developers. New releases due soon from Worldtalk Corp., SRA International Inc. and Content Technologies Inc. will augment the basic management capabilities found in mainstream e-mail packages such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange, adding features such as content control, archiving, security and virus scanning. Worldtalk, of Santa Clara, Calif., early next year will roll out an upgrade of its WorldSecure Server that will allow users to control e-mail content, scan for viruses and enforce archive policies on internal messages as well as messages moving between the company and the public Internet. The new release, Version 4.0, will monitor mail moving across the internal network. The current version, 3.2, sits at the gateway level and only scans messages between the company and the Internet. Another tool, Assentor, from SRA, uses a natural language search engine to automate the scanning of e-mail messages for inappropriate content. Assentor 1.2, which is due by early next year, will include the ability to route messages based on the word patterns found in an e-mail message. Version 1.2 will also be able to look for specific word patterns based on the requirements of individual groups, said officials of the Fairfax, Va., company. Assentor is widely used by securities companies that are required by the Securities and Exchange Commission to closely monitor e-mail and other client communications. The product helps reduce the numbers of messages that branch managers and compliance officers must review, SRA officials said. Assentor uses MIMEsweeper, e-mail scanning software from Content Technologies. Content Technologies, meanwhile, plans to boost MIMEsweeper with the ability to deal with encryption. Version 4.0, due early next year, will support message decryption so that MIMEsweeper can scan encrypted messages for content such as viruses, said officials at the Kirkland, Wash., company. In addition, Content Technologies will roll out a MIMEsweeper add-on module next month that scans both inbound and outbound messages for offensive language. -o- Subscribe: mail majordomo(a)repsec.com with "subscribe isn". Today's ISN Sponsor: Repent Security Incorporated [www.repsec.com]

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list
by simya m�hendislik 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

thanks! _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com

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distribution scheme
by FitugMix 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'd like to request your comments on the following idea. code for this is ready, awaiting yours and some other people's comments regarding some of the non-coding issues. for example, I'd like a lawyer or someone else familiar with the law to comment on the legal aspects. also, cryptologic expertise would be great. however, this is NOT an encryption scheme. the goals are different ones, I'll talk about that in a second. the basic idea is to take a piece of information and chop it into a number of pieces. this is basically the reverse process of "take the first letter of every word". digital information, however, can be divided at an even lower level, the bit level. imagine to chop a file into 8 parts, with the top bit of every byte going into the first file, the second bit into the second and so on. as you can imagine, the first 8 top-bits will again form a byte in the first file. now imagine the same principle, with an *arbitrary* number of files. the goal of this is not a new encryption scheme. cryptological, my limited knowledge tells me this is not too bad, but far from "secure". the nice things are that the files themselves contain no information about how many total files there are and in which order they have to be re-assembled, and without that knowledge you are in for some work of cryptoanalysis. the idea is to provide for a channel of distribution of arbitrary material, even copyrighted, patented or illegal in your country (e.g. china) in a "legal" way. that's why I'd like legal advice on this - is the idea correct? I cannot be sued for distributing a couple hundred E's and A's because they are part of a copyrighted book. can I be sued for distributing a couple of bits from a copyrighted image file? a trademarked or patented document? are there any legal precedents? I know that in the case of encryption, courts have at least once ruled that distribution of the key that unlocks this is equivalent to distribution of the copyrighted material, but in this case there is no key, no single piece of information that contains anything "central". tell me what you think. I can post code or details if you want. Falcon

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The long, strong arm of the NSA (fwd)
by Jukka E Isosaari 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://cnn.com/TECH/computing/9807/27/security.idg/index.html The long, strong arm of the NSA July 27, 1998 Web posted at: 4:15 PM EDT by Ellen Messmer FORT MEADE, Maryland (IDG) -- Back in the days of the cold war, Washington insiders used to joke that NSA stood for "No Such Agency." The government denied the very existence of this group, which is dedicated to intercepting and decoding foreign communications. That was then. Today the National Security Agency is well known, and spends a lot of time leaning on software, switch and router vendors, pushing them to re-tool their products. The agency's goal: to ensure that the government has access to encrypted data. The industry is facing a year-end deadline to add a government-approved back door into network gear. Vendors that don't provide this access risk losing export privileges. Cruising up and down Silicon Valley, NSA spooks from the agency's Fort Meade headquarters have been making pit stops at companies ranging from industry leaders Netscape Communications Corp. and Sun Microsystems, Inc. to start-ups such as VPNet Technologies, Inc. in order to get a peek at products still on the drawing board. The NSA wants software vendors to make sure that any product with strong encryption have some way for the government to tap into the data. And because practically every commercial network application, router or switch these days includes encryption or an option for it, almost every vendor now has to answer to the NSA if it wants to export. Hot line to the NSA It's gotten to the point where no vendor hip to the NSA's power will even start building products without checking in with Fort Meade first. This includes even that supposed ruler of the software universe, Microsoft Corp. "It's inevitable that you design products with specific [encryption] algorithms and key lengths in mind," said Ira Rubenstein, Microsoft attorney and a top lieutenant to Bill Gates. By his own account, Rubenstein acts as a "filter" between the NSA and Microsoft's design teams in Redmond, Wash. "Any time that you're developing a new product, you will be working closely with the NSA," he noted. When it comes to encryption, it's widely known that a 40-bit encryption key is easily breakable and hence rather useless. Until not long ago, this is what the U.S. government allowed for the export of software. But the Clinton administration a year and a half ago said it would allow the export of products with stronger encryption keys by any vendor that agreed to add a "key-recovery" feature to its products by year-end - giving the government access to encrypted data without the end user's knowledge. According to Bill Reinsche, Department of Commerce undersecretary for the Bureau of Export Controls, about 50 vendors have submitted plans for government-approved key-recovery, also called data-recovery. These companies, which include IBM, were rewarded with Key Management Infrastructure (KMI) export licenses to export products with 56-bit or stronger encryption until year-end. But some companies are discovering that dealing with the Commerce Department for a KMI license means more involvement with the NSA. The Bureau of Export Control is actually just a front for the NSA, said Alison Giacomelli, director of export compliance at VPNet Technologies, Inc., a San Jose, Calif.-based vendor of IP-based encryption gateways. "The NSA has sign-off authority on these KMI licenses," Giacomelli said. In return for the KMI license, VPNet opened itself up for an NSA audit. "They've already come out once, and they'll be coming out again," Giacomelli said. VPNet remains committed to meeting the deadline for adding key-recovery to its product but has one major problem: uncertainty about what the NSA really wants. The confusion means "there's a lot of risk . . . in terms of engineering and resources," Giacomelli said. Clearly wary of granting the government supervision over its products, Microsoft has stubbornly refused to submit a data-recovery plan, even though the Redmond giant already includes a data-recovery feature in its Exchange Server. "The Exchange Server can only be used when this feature is present," Rubenstein said. "Because we haven't filed a product plan, it's harder for us to export this than for companies that have filed plans." But in an odd-couple sort of joint-partner arrangement, Microsoft and the NSA did work together to build what's called Server Gated Cryptography. Primarily intended to help banks use Web servers to do business internationally, the technology lets a server with a special digital certificate provide 128-bit encryption support to a Web browser outside the U.S. Sybase, Inc., which also submitted a plan to add key-recovery to its products, found it hard to satisfy the government's demands. "They approved our technological approach but disapproved each of our applications with it," said Sybase President and CEO Mitchell Kertzman. "It's been frustrating." Documents recently obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the Washington, D.C.-based Electronic Privacy Information Center contain the data-recovery plan Netscape filed at the Commerce Department last year. Netscape's plan explains that the "escrow of private encryption keys" could be achieved by developing client and server products that can only issue an X.509 digital certificate after the private key has been escrowed. The key can only be held by an entity chosen by the intranet administrator who handles security policy. The Netscape plan called for introducing a certificate server with recovery capabilities in the first quarter of this year, with the introduction of S/MIME clients with basic recovery features in the second quarter. Netscape hasn't actually carried out this plan, and the company declined to discuss it. Netscape attorney Peter Harter would only say officially, "We had no choice but to submit the plan, no matter how much we opposed key-escrow, in order to be part of the ongoing dialog." Other FOIA documents show that Netscape was regularly briefing the NSA on its product plans since 1996 and that then NSA Deputy Director William Crowell took a special interest in trying to dissuade Netscape from using strong encryption. Crowell, now vice president for product marketing and strategy at Cylink Corp., said he had frequent discussions with Netscape, especially concerning changes to Netscape Navigator. "Their product didn't have a separate signature key, so if the government used the product for key-escrow later, you'd have to store the signature key with a third party, which we thought was a bad idea," Crowell said. He added that Netscape Navigator 3.0 adopted the changes the NSA wanted. According to Crowell, the NSA has a great deal of expertise in securing communications, and it wants to ensure that products bought by the Defense Department meet NSA standards. "In addition, as part of the NSA's intelligence mission, [the agency needs] to have a thorough understanding of where commercial products are headed." Taher Elgamal, author of the Netscape data-recovery plan, who recently left Netscape to start his own venture, said Netscape had no choice but to maintain constant contact with the NSA. "They're costing the industry a lot of money," Elgamal said. Others agree. "Everyone in Silicon Valley, including us, has to have specific staff - highly paid experts - to deal with them," said Chris Tolles, security group product manager at Sun. "Their job is to wrangle this from a policy standpoint." Sun has had run-ins with the NSA in the past. Two years ago, the NSA objected to Sun including encryption in the exportable version of Java 1.1. The end result was that Sun stripped encryption out of Java 1.1 and the software was delayed by about six months. Related stories: Hole in Internet security discovered - June 30, 1998 Government restrictions on encryption pose obstacles for Internet security - May 18, 1998

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[humor] Fwd: Computer News
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

==================BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE================== >Subject: Computer News >Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1998 20:11:42 -0800 Microsoft announced this week that due to Y2K problems, Windows 2000 will be delayed until Jan, 1901. ===================END FORWARDED MESSAGE===================

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MCI hit with encryption virus [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > X-within-URL: http://cnnfn.com/digitaljam/9812/21/virus_pkg/ > From Correspondent Bruce Francis > December 21, 1998: 7:56 p.m. ET > July 30, 1998 Network Associates MCI WorldCom More Quotes.... Network > Associates Anti-virus Research Center NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Employees > at MCI WorldCom were confronted with a science fiction scenario made > cold fact on Monday when a computer virus struck the company's > sprawling network, encrypting and destroying files. > [INLINE] To make things worse, virus consultants Network Associates > (NETA) say that the virus -- called "Remote Explorer" -- is unlike > any other and may be the smartest, most dangerous computer bug to > date. [text deleted] ____________________________________________________________________ What raises the standard of living may well diminish the quality of life. The Club of Rome The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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This one spl. for anonymous (X-mas puzzle)
by Rajiv Malik 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi there I remember u posted a nice puzzle long back this one spl. for u : --> There are two persons. A pair of no is written on each's face. They can see the no (pair of no) written on the other's face and they have to tell the no written on their face. They start one by one. Lets say one person starts he can see the no written on his opponents face , its (13,17). After 3 tries he tells the correct answer. The nos exhibit the following properties: 1> All the nos are prime. 2> Any three no taken ( from the set of 4 nos, two no on each's face) together form a triangle and the perimeter of the triangle is prime. Now you have tell the no written on that persons face and why it took him three tries. The conversation between the two persons is as follows Let p1 and p2 be the persons and p1 starts and p1 saw the no (13,17) written in p2. p1> I don't know p2> I don't know p1> I don't know p2> I don't know p1> Tells the right no. enjoy (Happy X-mas) Rajiv PS : I'm off till 28th So u have enough time.

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Re: alternative b-money creation
by Ian Grigg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> What about near money, e.g., S&H Green Stamps, > frequent flier miles, Toys R Us Bucks, or anything > else that can only be used reflexively with the > issuer? Near money is something that many people hold out hope for, and you may all be right, in that it may be the way forward through the morass of difficulties. I personally don't think so, not for any killer reason, but for a whole host of little reasons. I'll see if I can't enunciate them, and no doubt within the session you are running, we'll have some lively discussions. > In the Depression, many southern manufacturing > firms and, so far as my relatives tell, 100% of > the coal mining outfits, paid in scrip which was > redeemable only at the company store. Some of my > Mother's people worked at the phone company and > converted their scrip to stock since they judged > it worthless otherwise. This is the Hiawatha Hours, as I rudely called them (I keep forgetting the name, sorry). Now, these are working systems. They are more or less the same as the LETS systems, which are sort of successful in many hundreds of places. Where they work is generally an indication of some shortage. With the above systems, and as far as I can tell, with all systems, there is a shortage of cash. It is not just that everyone is poor, but that the cycle of money in its journey from entity to entity throughout the economy is broken. In contrast to this shortage and cyclic failure, demand and supply for goods and services remain high, at least in many sectors. In this case, anything that is injected can conceivably bootstrap the cycle again, and this is why, IMHO, the many different range of instruments all appear to have been successful. It is not the instrument, but the presence of an instrument. One thing to remember is that the local economy is generally the larger proportion of the total economy. I have empirically noted that in most towns with identifiable export industries, there are 3 people employed elsewhere for every one within the direct export sector - this is a reflection that most people are actually supporting the rest. (However, this doesn't take into account the import side of the equation.) Under such circumstances, it is no real wonder that a shortage of money will cause an economy to grind to a halt, and an injection of money will start it up again - to the extent that import/export permits. But bear in mind that this is a competitive scenario, and the scrip money tends to work well when the statal currency disappeared as in the Depression. When the statal money comes back in, the scrip fails to entice, because it is only useful by definition for local products, not imported products. In that scenario it is dominated (to use the term) by statal currency. > You can buy FF miles at > 2c/mile at both the Delta and AA websites and US > Air FF miles now exchange 1-for-1 with AA FF > miles. Every affinity program in the country > offers dollar denominated discounts at the home > issuing location. Yes, one of the huge barriers to any money system is the border to any other money system. At this border, the change costs are a very important limiter on the success of the system. Remember that a merchant must convert to useful money in order to pay his costs, so a small system cannot really work without an internal method of spending money, to offset that. This is the real reason why countries have money, because they have a border that defines a naturally sized unit. With MTB ecash, this became very apparent when merchants had to extract their cash at somewhere between 2 and 5 percent, thus putting the lie to the notion of cash. With FF miles, they alleviate this somewhat by recasting the situation as a loyalty programme, and thus you use the internal goods. So it only works when you are a regular user. Adding convertability makes it closer to money. But there is one killer that will never make it be accepted as a dominating form of money. All loyalty programmes are calculated on the basis of this actually accruing value to the provider, rather than the other way around. Necessarily, this means the user is paying for the priviledge of being loyal. This is done three ways. Firstly, most successful loyalty programmes such as FF miles are based on goods with a low marginal cost but high ticket cost. To the airline, it costs the price of a seat which is somewhere around $30. To you, you believe that you are getting, say, $200 value (for points marked as $200 for example). Within that range, the airline wins. Secondly, on average, FF miles are not actually used up beyond a benchmark figure of 30%. Airlines also have a number of tricks that use up or block the use of points. Thirdly, FF miles work best when the individual is consuming, but the company is paying. What FF miles are is essentially a bribe to the business traveller to insist on using their airline, when the traveller doesn't otherwise care. This separation of user from payer is cunning marketing, something that is employed by all the best companies (IBM were the past masters, now the crown has passed to M$. Odd that computing displays this domination amongst all industries...). Now, regardless of all this, you are right that these systems take on the nature of money if people suffer all these things and then continue to participate. What can stop these becoming real useful is several things: people working out that they are regularly over paying, taxation departments working out that the business traveller is taking an untaxed benefit, and various other hurdles. If you can manage to navigate that particular river stretch of crocs and snakes, then you might make money, to stretch a pun. However, if you are going to all that trouble, why not just start a real money? That's my real thesis. > I can get a tax deduction for > turning in some of these sorts of things to, say, > the Make A Wish Foundation. Well, not sure what to say about giving away your overpaid loyalty points. That makes for two charities, the Foundation and the Airline. > My university co-op > gives rebates based on purchase volume and in > cash, but there is no attempt to verify that the > purchaser is really the account holder if that > holder pays in cash. Oh, anonymity/untraceability/bearer status might be useful features, but that is only what they are, features. If our objective is to invent one with those features as requirement, then I think you will find a single purpose, centralised registry, poor convertability system as a really bad starting point. > For the longest time, > stamps could be used in place of coin for small > denomination mail order. Single system. Why did they stop? > Until security worries > required a named passenger, shuttle tickets > between Boston and NYC might as well have been > cash. We know why these have been stopped. For precisely reasons similar to the elimination of unknown activity, including monetary activity. Add this to the list of disadvantages of near money. > The Mass State Legislature only this past > week considered a bill that would make used > (non-winning) lottery tickets have a residual > cash value useful only at lottery agents (this as > an anti-litter thing). Ah, so this will be very interesting. So will there be an arbitrary limit placed on there to stop them being used as cash? Remember that cash itself dominates if you can more easily use cash rather than a handful of used lottery tickets. > My thinking -- enough near money and it will tend > to convertibility... Yes, that I agree with. But I fall short of saying that it reaches a useful level of convertibility. Looking forward to our loyalty systems session in March! Actually, I should mention that whilst I do not favour these systems for the above reasons, I do believe that in the study of them, we better understand how money works, much more so than if we were to simply study money, which is so completely lost in statal marketing these days as to be unfathomable in isolation. iang

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Trust in Cyberspace
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We offer the National Academy of Sciences September 1998 report, "Trust in Cyberspace," a 243-page survey of all security issues and technologies associated with the Internet and computer networks: http://jya.com/tic-intro.htm (Introduction only, 58K) http://jya.com/tic.htm (Full report, 882K) http://jya.com/tic.zip (Full report zipped, 302K) The report reviews prior studies such as the CRISIS report on cryptography, the PCCIP report on protecting US infrastructure, the DoD report on Information Warfare - Defense, and several others, assesses those findings in greater depth, looks at technology and research needed, and recommends what government (NSA and DARPA) and private industry/eduation should do to assure security. NSA is upbraided for its opposition to strong cryptography and culture of overcontrolling secrecy. NSA's R2 research unit is singled out as needing to find ways to compete with industry for the best talent so that the agency's skills and tools do not lag the world market.

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