December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

away from my mail
by prz＠columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I will not be reading my mail for a while. I am on travel until Monday, 29 August 94. This canned message was generated automatically by the "vacation" program, but I'm not on vacation. Your mail regarding "re: your previous email" will be read sometime after I return. I have been traveling a lot lately, and my email backlog is now bigger than it's ever been, so big that I cannot get through it all after a trip before leaving on my next trip. You should assume that your email to me will take at least a week after I get back to read. Maybe longer. And now I am replying to only the most urgent email, because of the volume of email these days. If you need to speak to me sooner, call me at 303 541-0140, and I will listen to your message as soon as I return. Also, in case you are still using my old email address, please update your records to use only my current email address, which is prz(a)acm.org. In case you haven't heard, MIT has released PGP version 2.6, available from an FTP site at MIT, for US noncommercial users only. It is a nice version of PGP, with all the strength and integrity of PGP 2.3a, with some bug fixes and improvements. You may get it by FTPing to net-dist.mit.edu and looking in directory pub/PGP. -Philip Zimmermann

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Governing an information society - 1/4
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jason W Solinsky <solman(a)MIT.EDU>: > > . What is to be done about non-conformists to the rules > > (without contradicting the rules?) > > They are fined. If this doesn't work their communication priveliges are > curtailed and if this doesn't work they are banished. As I have noted > before, in an information economy this is an extreme punishment. Yes, I can imagine heated debates on the moralities of such cyberspatial death penalties. I like to believe that the Internet model of society and indeed 'government' will eventually be adopted in the mainstream. What does one really need a 'government' for? A central source of power, Max Weber's monopoly of legitimate violence, is surely not the only method of ensuring a degree of fairness and order in society. Especially not in one based primarily on knowledge - or information. What do real world governments do? Broadly, two things. 'Social upliftment' - welfare and development programmes; and 'law enforcement' - ensuring that people stick to what they've agreed upon (idealized: in theory citizens have agreed to the social contract present in the constitution and laws). There is no specific evidence to show that the task of social upliftment is best performed by those with the weapons to enforce laws. Indeed, where welfare is _really_ needed (and I'm not talking about a Swede on unemployment benefits) much of it comes even today from independent organizations. Bangladesh, for instance, has what is almost a parallel government of several hundred local and international agencies that run numerous development projects, funded largely by private monies. Grameen Bank, a cooperative started on the premise that poor village women need small ($100) loans but invariably pay back, has a minute loan failure rate and makes a decent profit, unlike numerous government projects the world over. Development, the primary justification for taxation, is probably better accomplished by people outside the government, who are likely to be more efficient and dedicated. And if they manage with private donations now, they are sure to flourish when there is no compulsory taxation. Most cultures encourage generousity and most people would be willing to invest small parts of their income in organizations that do social work, where they could have far more control as investors than they do currently as taxpayers. Continued... Rishab ps. food for thought: there are seven countries on this planet that allow the death penalty for crimes committed by minors: Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States of America. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Cypherpunk U
by Nick West 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- What are some of the better colleges/universities to study Computer/Network security at? I know MIT is a good one. Any others that aren't quite so hard to get in to that still offer quality programs? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBM9Eu9MF7aWKjtgVVAQGQUAP+O1255PqXzWGixEcku+kOwxhSpiibilg5 GMnV/6KZ1uWLefyWhyclx0S8yogHhbDyaWs3jpJ32MNQk/hbpliotD3r7oJHgmux pCbv71pwBzPU0z1q5qtaBnU3kEuCQtnVVvYobSJWkcrVAnBMxQVIl4Pd8ccHGdmy kKvoKx5Z3YM= =B3mA -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Nick West http://members.tripod.com/~NWest/index.html

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Governing an information society - 2/4
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Another thing that governments do that is not quite the same 'social upliftment' as welfare - build roads, bridges and so on - is already done in many countries by private, profitable ventures with little loss to society. Law enforcement: there are instances where you break your contract, that form the basis of most crimes from non-payment to larceny to even theft, which can be seen as a violation of a social contract to 'pay for what you take'; then there are things which even the most radical would consider plain wrong, such as murder or rape. This distinction is partially acknowledged in the difference between civil and criminal cases. The former, 'civil' cases are best sorted out by an independent and trusted judiciary; a 'government' doesn't, or shouldn't, interfere. In the latter, 'criminal' cases, there may be a need for some sort of 'authorised violence' such as a police force. This is the only part of government that might necessarily require a universally accepted power. The alternative is the utopian, where people are (or are conditioned to be?) too 'good' to become murderers; or the dystopian (as in cyberpunk fiction, or the Wild West for that matter) ruled by the law of the jungle - might is right. Note that this differs from the present situation where while it is true that the power of authority rests in its right to violence, this is in theory approved of by the people - a sort of 'right is might'. Continued... Rishab ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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No Subject
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 16 Jul 1997 frissell(a)panix.com wrote: > What ever happened to "de minimus non curat lex." The social damage from a > misrated website is too trivial to be believed. Punishing it is like > executing you for farting. In some cases that may not be a bad idea :). But getting back to the original point, if I'm going to be subject to jail for mislabeling my pages (and how do you tell, given that some systems use a numeric rating? count the nipples and add the size of any erections?) then that would seem to be a good reason to move my Web site out of America. Idependent rating systems are a good thing, and we've talked about them here many times in the past (e.g. 'repuation markets'). A mandatory requirement for web authors to rate their own pages is a hideous idea which will simply move more of the Web overseas, helping to destroy the US economy. WebMonger

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Governing an information society - 4/4
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Real crime on cyberspace? The analogy to violence of action, such as murder, is violence of data, the fabric of cyberspace. This may have many forms: belief or opinions, knowledge, information and data crime. Violence of belief (thoughtcrime) - while some people feel that to discuss rape is to perform it, and discussing crimes is subject to a range of conspiracy and riot-control laws worldwide, this really can't be a crime in any free society. Then there is the knowledge crime - theft of intellectual property. This is in my view the single biggest issue in an information economy, but it can be addressed by a combination of encryption technologies, to prevent 'unauthorised' access, and the decentralized, non-governmental civil system discussed previously.Intellectual property can in any case not be treated quite as land and bonds are, and there are practical and moral issues involved in just what it is, which I may talk about in the future. Information crime - 'unauthorised' access of other information such as mail, unreleased memoirs etc, is basically an issue of privacy and can only be practically addressed through technology. Data crime - 'cracking', 'phreaking' etc usually reflect a total lack of responsibility on the part of _administrators_. "Officer, I left my wallet on the kerb 10 minutes ago, and now it's gone!" Better security and greater awareness will prevent most of it. If you do happen to catch a cracker, go through the same old _civil_ system. It is not really practical for a central Thought Police to actually find data criminals, without huge and non-specific violations of privacy. And data criminals don't need to be put in jail, they are probably the most affected by 'cyberdeath' - disconnection, digicash accounts cancelled, reputations muddied. I wouldn't want to do that to _anyone_ actually ;^) A thread I started months ago ('Cyberspace is by nature crime free' / 'Crime and punishment in cyberspace') led to similar Tim May-ist conclusion - let the police (and the minimalist government) attend to murders in brickspace, we cybercitizens will look after ourselves. Concluded. Rishab ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Governing an information society - 3/4
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Violence of action requires the protection and violence of action in return. Violence of belief requires the freedom to believe differently. It definitely should not require violence or protection of _action_ in return. Having dispensed with the role of traditional government in the area of social development and civil law :-} what remains is the need for a police force to tackle murders. If I'm murdered (or raped or have my arm minced or whatever), it is physically damaging. I suppose I'd say the same of my house being bombed. I need protection from such things, and the sort of socially accepted protection that won't lead to riots or the law of the jungle. Barricading myself, carrying a Kalashnikov and learning aikido is not enough, not for a civilized society. So I concede the existence of the police. (There is another reason - it is usually practical for the police to trace murderers or arsonists). In cyberspace, there is a 'social upliftment' role. Though initially paid for by various governments, there are a number of organizations that manage to distribute costs efficiently and provide huge service and infrastructure for low rates. There may also be 'civil' suits in cyberspace. Due to digitally signed, undeniable contracts, these should be reduced to only those that involve a breach of contract, rather than a suspicion of invalidity. 'Civil' cases can be sorted out by a cyberjudiciary, and punishment efficiently enforced by a society without any central control. While there have probably been no civil cases on the Net in the traditional sense, there have been situations where the power of distributed control was apparent. For instance, when Richard Depew's ARMM went out and cancelled anon posts on USENET, there was universal outrage. His punishment required no central 'law enforcer' - it was just the threat of posts from his site being cancelled that did it. And this would not have been possible without general, widespread agreement with the 'verdict' - as anyone not enforcing it would risk similar punishment from the large majority. Continued... Rishab ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Jim Bell Docket 2
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We've put the latest court docket for Jim Bell at: http://jya.com/jimbell-dock2.htm As noted earlier, it shows that the case has been assigned to a new judge and the last entry is dated July 9 for filing "felony information" by the US Attorney. No listing of the alleged plea bargain.

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Another Denning's view
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Pat Farrell, quoting Peter Denning: "..... Now the strength of the country depends not only on its government but on its corporations. . . . . A new policy aligned with the new clearing would be for the National Security Agency to make its expertise available to the private sector, enabling markets to flourish in a worldwide information medium." ................................................................. ..... What an amazing difference between Dennings. What a great idea for the NSA were to become allies and start working for us, instead of for 'them'. The perception of it (NSA) would change in everyone's eyes; even pencil-toting nerds could learn to like them. Blanc

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Jim Bell on Seattle TV
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

KING-TV, channel 5, here in Seattle just had a blurb about James Dalton Bell. 8 years was mentioned, as were obstruction and the use of false social security numbers. I didn't hear the whole thing clearly as I was doing something else at the time. Sentencing to follow at a later date. They showed a picture of a very rotund individual while the story was rolling. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ enoch(a)zipcon.com $ via Finger $ {Free Cypherpunk Political Prisoner Jim Bell}

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Re: Voluntary Governments? (Oh, Poleece!)
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some hidden, subliminal messages which were missed in the reply to thoughts about the concept of governance (delete if you don't find this exciting): > . Who or what is to be governed? i.e.: Is it a 'what' which needs to be governed, or is it a 'who'? Is it 'crime' which needs to be governed, or any and all of the members of that association who generally require regulation? To simply enter into an association with strangers for the purpose of being governed is a strange thing to agree to do; it's like an admission of personal deficiency ("SomeBody Stop Me!"). But of course, most people think that it will be 'others' who wil be governed, rather than themselves. > . What is inimical/destructive and to be regulated/prevented, > or what is sacred which is to be upheld? i.e.: Can the members of the association distinguish accurately between the good, the bad, and the merely ugly? In the U.S. it is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which are to be upheld, but who can say that these are truly appreciated & successfully defended? The values are listed in the precious original documents, but the education and the behavior of the citizens contradicts them. > . Who is to do all the work of preventing or upholding > (how do they qualify for the job)? i.e.: What are the victims going to be doing while their values are being encroached upon, or ignored? If the job of self-defense is given up to someone else, their ability to distinguish 'criminal' behavior from otherwise innocent/ignorant mistakes, must be established - and who will be the best judge of this, besides oneself? There is a danger in that an individual could become intellectually flabby, their ability to be of practical use in their own regard atrophying from inactivity. And then who would know who is qualified to reason on the matter? They could be fooled; they could be led down to the river to leap in. > . What is to be done about non-conformists to the rules > (without contradicting the rules?) i.e.: People who ask for rules (there oughta be a law) are the ones most inclided to break them. Rules often substitute for active intelligence, for the need to think about what one is doing and the evaluation of the outcome. But it really becomes absurd to speak of non-conformism in a voluntary system. If it's voluntary, anybody who doesn't want to follow the rules can simply leave, they don't have to hang around waiting for the administration of a 'punishment' of any kind (anybody who stays doesn't have any self-esteem). The most important question was overlooked: . What makes you such an authority on government? i.e.: What makes someone think that it is alright to put any one person as an authority over the mind of another? Authority should be earned through admiration. It is Reality which should govern one's decisions, not the overshadowing or overwhelming of one's mental functions by another; it is what should be recognized as 'the' authority by which to regulate one's behavior. Blanc

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Digital cash market
by Jim Hart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

L. Todd Masco: > The american people keep claiming in polls that they want better privacy > protection, but the fact is that most aren't willing to do anything > about it: it's just a preference, not a solid imperative. Most customers want more privacy, but when you think about it, there is not a whole hell of a lot they can do about it right now. If they want to get the status and flexibility of a credit card, they need to give up their privacy. Nobody has tried to give them a private alternative. For that matter, no one has shown people at a gut level, as a good ad could do, what the consequences of loss of privacy are. At this point Duncan Frissel will regail us with some wonderful scheme, understandable only to lawyers, that can be used to get credit cards under aliases, perfectly legal if you use a doubly nested corporate structure going through Aruba and the Caymans, and the IRS and FBI don't decide to get to get you on some technicality Duncan failed to mention. I won't comment on why most consumers have neglected that option. What I'm talking about is a digital cash system that is as easy for the consumer as an identified debit card. We can do that with today's technology. The traffic level on this list is proof that there are plenty of people who care about privacy. The surprisingly large number of folks who actually do go to Frissell style lengths is proof that there are plenty of peope who care about privacy. Once we have learned what the problems and solutions are, we are willing to go to a significant amount of effort or inconvenience to get it. The real problem is, these polls are not well publicized, are geared towards political rather than business solutions, and haven't sunk through to the people in the product R&D and marketing departments. Exacerbating this, some organizations (such as American Express) make a lot of money off their free treasure trove of transaction information, and are using lots of FUD to keep privacy enhanced alternatives off the market. A dramatic, Apple-style ad portraying Visa and MasterCard as Big Brother may be what is needed to get over the apathy hurdle. There are plenty of credit card privacy horror stories we could publicize. Think of what could be accomplished these days with an infomercial. But this takes at least one excited organization with marketing clout to do it. Meanwhile, smart card based digital cash trials, supported by a large bank, are going on in Britain. There are major markets for both customers and vendors that don't have access to the credit card system, as well as customers who care about privacy. This is not a fringe technology; its possibilities just haven't sunk in yet. Jim Hart hart(a)chaos.bsu.edu

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From - Tue Jun 24 09:59:29 1997
by n/a 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PLEASE, Read This Twice!! Dear friend, ================================================ ================================================ This is a "ONE-TIME MESSAGE" you were randomly selected to receive this. There is no need to reply to remove, you will receive no further mailings from us. If you have interest in this GREAT INFORMATION, please do not click reply, use the contact information in this message. Thank You! :-) ================================================ ================================================ *** Print This Now For Future Reference *** The following income opportunity is one you may be interested in taking a look at. It can be started with VERY LITTLE investment and the income return is TREMENDOUS!!! $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ You are about to make at least $50,000 in less than 90 days! 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The economy was taking a toll on my business and I just couldn't seem to make ends meet. I had to refinance and borrow against my home to support my family and struggling business. AT THAT MOMENT something significant happend in my life and I am writing to share the experience in hopes that this will change your life FOREVER FINANCIALLY!!! In mid December, I received this program via e-mail. Six month's prior to receiving this program I had been sending away for information on various business opportunities. All of the programs I received, in my opinion, were not cost effective. They were either too difficult for me to comprehend or the initial investment was too much for me to risk to see if they would work or not. One claimed that I would make a million dollars in one year...it didn't tell me I'd have to write a book to make it! But like I was saying, in December of 1995 I received this program. I didn't send for it, or ask for it, they just got my name off a mailing list. THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT!!! After reading it several times, to make sure I was reading it correctly, I couldn't believe my eyes. Here was a MONEY MAKING PHENOMENON. I could invest as much as I wanted to start, without putting me further into debt. After I got a pencil and paper and figured it out, I would at least get my money back. After determining the program was LEGAL and NOT A CHAIN LETTER, I decided "WHY NOT." Initially I sent out 10,000 e-mails. It cost me about $15.00 for my time on-line. The great thing about e-mail is that I don't need any money for printing to send out the program, only the cost to fulfill my orders. I am telling you like it is, I hope it doesn't turn you off, but I promised myself that I would not "rip-off" anyone, no matter how much money it cost me! A good program to help do this is Ready Aim Fire, an e-mail extracting and mass mail program. At http://microsyssolutions.com In less than one week, I was starting to receive orders for REPORT #1. 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A PERSONAL NOTE FROM THE ORGINATOR OF THIS PROGRAM: By the time you have read the enclosed program and reports, you should have concluded that such a program, and one that is legal, could not have been created by an amateur. Let me tell you a little about myself. I had a profitable business for 10 years. Then in 1979 my business began falling off. I was doing the same things that were previously successfull for me, but it wasn't working. Finally, I figured it out. It wasn't me, it was the economy. Inflation and recession had replaced the stable economy that had been with us since 1945. I don't have to tell you what happend to the unemployment rate... because many of you know from first hand experience. There were more failures and bankruptcies than ever before. The middle class was vanishing. Those who knew what they were doing invested wisely and moved up. Those who did not, including those who never had anything to save or invest, were moving down into the ranks of the poor. 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Your total income in this example is $50 + $500 + $5,000 + $50,000 for a total of $55,550!!! REMEMBER FRIEND, THIS IS ASSUMING 1,990 OUT OF THE 2,000 PEOPLE YOU MAIL TO WILL DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AND TRASH THIS PROGRAM! DARE TO THINK FOR A MOMENT WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF EVERYONE, OR HALF SENT OUT 100,000 PROGRAMS INSTEAD OF 2,000. Believe me, many people will do just that, and more! By the way, your cost to participate in this is practically nothing. You obviously already have an internet connection and e-mail is FREE!!! REPORT #3 will show you the best methods for bulk e-mailing and obtaining e-mail lists. INSTRUCTIONS: We at Erris Mail Order Marketing Businesses, have a method of raising capital that REALLY WORKS 100% EVERYTIME. I am sure that you could use $50,000 to $125,000 in the next 20-90 days. Before you say "BULL... ", please read this program carefully. This is not a chain letter, but a perfectly legal money making opportunity. Basically, this is what you do: As with all multi-level business, we build our business by recruiting new partners and selling our products. Every state in the USA allows you to recruit new multi-level business partners, and we offer a product for EVERY dollar sent. YOUR ORDERS COME AND ARE FILLED THROUGH THE MAIL, so you are not involved in personal selling. You do it privately in your own home, store or office. This is the GREATEST Multi-Level Mail Order Marketing anywhere: Step (1) Order all four (4) REPORTS listed by NAME AND NUMBER. Do this by ordering the REPORT from each of the four (4) names listed on the next page. For each REPORT, send $5 CASH and a SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED envelope (BUSINESS SIZE #10) to the person listed for the SPECIFIC REPORT. International orders should also include $1 extra for postage. It is essential that you specify the NAME and NUMBER of the REPORT requested to the person you are ordering it from. You will need ALL FOUR (4) REPORTS because you will be REPRINTING and RESELLING them. DO NOT alter the names or sequence other than what the instructions say. IMPORTANT: Always provide same-day service on all orders. Step (2) Replace the name and address under REPORT #1 with your's, moving the one that was there down to REPORT #2. Drop the name and address under REPORT #2 TO REPORT #3, moving the one that was there to REPORT #4. The name and the address that was under REPORT #4 is dropped from the list and this party is no doubt on the way to the bank. When doing this, make certain you type the names and addresses ACCURATELY!!! DO NOT MIX UP MOVING PRODUCT/REPORT POSITIONS!!! Step (3) Having made the requested changes in the NAME list, save it as text (.txt) file in it's own directory to be used with whatever e-mail program you like. Again, REPORT #3 will tell you the best methods of bulk e-mailing and acquiring e-mail lists. Step (4) E-mail a copy of the entire program (all of this is very important) to everyone whose address you can get your hands on. Start with friends and relatives since you can encourage them to take advantage of this fabulous money-making opportunity. That's what I did. And they love me now, more than ever. Then, e-mail to anyone and everyone! Use your imagination! You can get e-mail addresses from companies on the internet who specialize in e-mail mailing lists. These are very cheap, 100,000 addresses for around $35. IMPORTANT: You won't get a good response if you use an old list, so always request a FRESH, NEW list. You will find out where to purchase these lists when you order the four (4) REPORTS. ALWAYS PROVIDE SAME-DAY SERVICE ON ALL ORDERS!!! REQUIRED REPORTS: ***Order each REPORT by NUMBER and NAME*** ALWAYS SEND A SELF-ADDRESSED, STAMPED ENVELOPE AND $5 CASH FOR EACH ORDER REQUESTING THE SPECIFIC REPORT BY NAME AND NUMBER. ____________________________________________________ REPORT #1 "HOW TO MAKE $250,000 THROUGH MULTI-LEVEL SALES" ORDER REPORT #1 FROM: T.T. 226 Commissary Rd. Box 3453 Abilene, Tx 79607 ____________________________________________________ REPORT #2 "MAJOR CORPORATIONS AND MULTI-LEVEL SALES" ORDER REPORT #2 FROM: GC Internet Services 4343 Chandler San Antonio, TX 78222-4812 ____________________________________________________ REPORT #3 "SOURCES FOR THE BEST MAILING LISTS" ORDER REPORT #3 FROM: Somruthai Hayashi 2168 S. Atlantic Blvd. #101 Monterey Park, CA 91754 ____________________________________________________ REPORT #4 "EVALUATING MULTI-LEVEL SALES PLANS" ORDER REPORT #4 FROM: Kal Inc. P.O. Box 2433 Glenview, IL. 60025-2433 _____________________________________________________ CONCLUSION: I am enjoying my fortune that I made by sending out this program. You too, will be making money in 20-90 days, if you follow the SIMPLE STEPS outlined in this mailing. To be financially independent is to be FREE. Free to make financial decisions as never before. Go into business, get into investments, retire or take a vacation. No longer will a lack of money hold you back. However, very few people reach financial independence, because when opportunity knocks, they choose to ignore it. It is much easier to say "NO" than "YES", and this the question that you must answer. Will YOU ignore this amazing opportunity or will you take advantage of it? If you do nothing, you have indeed missed something and nothing will change. Please re-read this material, this is a special opportunity. If you have any questions, please feel free to write to the sender of this information. You will get a prompt and informative reply. My method is simple. I sell thousands of people a product for $5 that cost me pennies to produce and e-mail. I should also point out that this program is LEGAL and everyone who participates WILL make money. This is not a chain letter or a pyramid scam. At times you probably received chain letters, asking you to send money, on faith, but getting NOTHING in return, NO product what-so-ever! Not only are chain lettters illegal, but the risk of someone breaking the chain makes them quite unattractive. You are offering a legitimate product to your people. After they purchase the product from you, they reproduce more and resell them. It's simple free enterprise. As you learned from the enclosed material, the PRODUCT is a series of four (4) FINANCIAL AND BUSINESS REPORTS. The information contained in these REPORTS will not only help you in making your participation in this program more rewarding, but will be useful to you in any other business decisions you make in the years ahead. You are also buying the rights to reprint all of the REPORTS, which will be ordered from you by those to whom you mail this program. The concise one and two page REPORTS you will be buying can easily be reproduced at a local copy center for a cost of about 3 cents a copy. Best wishes with the program and Good Luck!

1 0

Re: NSA Spy Machine and DES
by Ian Farquhar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 18, 8:13pm, Jim Dixon wrote: >In message <9408190809.ZM4528(a)simple.sydney.sgi.com> Ian Farquhar writes: >>Actually, I would be surprised if the "SIMD" processors were not a huge >>array of reprogrammable FPGA's, quite possibly Xilinx's. The possibilities >>of a large array of these chips, each with local memory, is quite >>interesting. I have personally seen an array of 64 Xilinx chips in a DEC PeRL >>box doing RSA, at speeds similar or better to almost all available custom >>hardware implementations of the cipher. >The delays in getting data on and off the chip are too large and the amount >of space wasted in redundant functions is too great. That is a rather sweeping statement. Want to back this up with some facts and figures from real FPGA implementations? Certainly the early bit-slice designs you mention later on did suffer from these problems, but FPGA's bear little relationship to those rather venerable devices. >You might prototype >it using FPGAs, but even this is unlikely. Why not just buy one of the >existing SIMD processors and simulate your target system? Because the FPGA solution is obviously less flexible, but a hell of a lot faster than software simulation of another architecture. In this application speed will win every time. > People used to build fast processors out of separate chips (bit slices). > They don't do that any more because it's too slow and too expensive if you > are building in volume. But this application is NOT building in volume. And yes, people do still built multichip CPU's: most traditional supercomputing and mainframe vendors for a start. Indeed, I would be surprised if this application didn't design it's own FPGA (for ease of interfacing with the comms network for a start), but I'd argue that a SIMD configuration of reconfigurable FPGA arrays (ie. a fixed array of reconfigurable arrays) would be an awesome system for many problems that the NSA would deal with. Ian.

1 0

PICS recipes
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dimitri the KOTM has asked how to rate one's Web site as being very "nasty". Add the following META tags between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags: <HEAD> ... <META NAME="rating" CONTENT="adults only"><META HTTP-EQUIV="PICS-Label" CONTENT='(PICS-1.1 "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l r (n 4 s 4 v 4 l 4) "http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" l r (SS~~000 9 SS~~001 9 SS~~002 9 SS~~003 9 SS~~004 9 SS~~005 9 SS~~006 9 SS~~007 9 SS~~008 9 SS~~009 9 SS~~00A 9) "http://www.weburbia.com/safe/ratings.htm" l r (s 2) "http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWP1.0/" l r (P 4 S 7 SF 2 V 5 Tol 4 Com 3 Env 2 MC 2 Gam 3 Can 0 Edu 1 ))'> ... </HEAD> (The stuff between the single quotes ' ' should probably be all on one line!) Add the following RFC822-style header to your e-mail and Usenet articles: PICS-Label: (PICS-1.1 "http://www.rsac.org/ratingsv01.html" l r (n 4 s 4 v 4 l 4) "http://www.classify.org/safesurf/" l r (SS~~000 9 SS~~001 9 SS~~002 9 SS~~003 9 SS~~004 9 SS~~005 9 SS~~006 9 SS~~007 9 SS~~008 9 SS~~009 9 SS~~00A 9) "http://www.weburbia.com/safe/ratings.htm" l r (s 2) "http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWP1.0/" l r (P 4 S 7 SF 2 V 5 Tol 4 Com 3 Env 2 MC 2 Gam 3 Can 0 Edu 1 )) /\ /\ ((ovo)) RatingsMonger ():::() VVV

4 3

Bean IRS for Another $250,000
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Four of the IRS messages on Jim Bell came here (see below), two via cypherpunks(a)toad.com and two directly. (Oddly, none were forwarded from cyberpass.net as usual for messages to cypherpunks(a)toad.com.) There are four messsage IDs, one of which matches that of Alan Olsen (Number 2 below at 12:29). These seem to indicate that the sender was using several lists of addresses, held 18 hours for vetting by the Treasury mail beagles. Perhaps others could check their message IDs, inquire around listdom in order to assemble a list of targeted lists. Then a stink might be made for the spam, get that Denver judge to hit "IRS Inspection" for another $250,000 to pay recipients for IRS's lack of proper public humility, if not for Jim's undue imprisonment, isolation by federal defender, coercion of witnesses, distortion of literature, and railroading Jim Bell to warn outlaws to not fuck with Sam's Gang and Roy Bean. Note: Jim's Roy Bean docket shows that USA v. Bell was assigned to Judge Franklin D. Burgess on July 9, with new case number 97-CR-5270. The US Attorney filed "Felony Information" on that date. That's the final entry, no listing for the alleged plea bargain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IRS MESSAGE 1 -- Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:28:11 -0400 Message-Id: <199707171628.MAA02724(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> [via cypherpunks-unedited] Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> Received: from toad.com (toad.com [140.174.2.1]) by sieve0.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA04118 for <jya(a)pipeline.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:50:08 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA00409 for cypherpunks-unedited-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:47:16 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (tcs-gateway1.treas.gov [204.151.245.2]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA00402 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:46:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov id AA19652 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for cypherpunks(a)toad.com) Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:45:59 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-2); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:45:59 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-1); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:45:59 -0400 Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:28:11 -0400 From: IRS Inspection <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Message-Id: <199707171628.MAA02724(a)net.insp.irs.gov> To: Interested-Parties(a)net.insp.irs.gov Subject: Something of Interest Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Precedence: bulk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IRS MESSAGE 2 -- Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:29:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199707171629.MAA02733(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> [via cypherpunks-unedited] Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> Received: from toad.com (toad.com [140.174.2.1]) by sieve0.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id SAA04851 for <jya(a)pipeline.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:53:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from majordom@localhost) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) id PAA00487 for cypherpunks-unedited-outgoing; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:51:19 -0700 (PDT) Received: from tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (tcs-gateway1.treas.gov [204.151.245.2]) by toad.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA00468 for <cypherpunks(a)toad.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 15:50:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov id AA19658 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for cypherpunks(a)toad.com) Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:00 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-2); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:00 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-1); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:47:00 -0400 Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:29:08 -0400 From: IRS Inspection <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Message-Id: <199707171629.MAA02733(a)net.insp.irs.gov> To: Interested-Parties(a)net.insp.irs.gov Subject: Something of Interest Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Precedence: bulk ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IRS MESSAGE 3 -- Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:31:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199707171631.MAA02749(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Return-Path: <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> [direct to jya(a)pipeline.com] Return-Path: <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Received: from tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (tcs-gateway1.treas.gov [204.151.245.2]) by sieve0.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA04273 for <jya(a)pipeline.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:50:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov id AA19680 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for jya(a)pipeline.com) Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:49:06 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-2); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:49:06 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-1); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:49:06 -0400 Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:31:08 -0400 From: IRS Inspection <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Message-Id: <199707171631.MAA02749(a)net.insp.irs.gov> To: Interested-Parties(a)net.insp.irs.gov Subject: Something of Interest ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ IRS MESSAGE 4 -- Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:33:43 -0400 Message-Id: <199707171633.MAA02778(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Return-Path: <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> [direct to jya(a)pipeline.com] Return-Path: <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Received: from tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (tcs-gateway1.treas.gov [204.151.245.2]) by sieve0.mindspring.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA04536 for <jya(a)pipeline.com>; Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:52:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov id AA19746 (InterLock SMTP Gateway 3.0 for jya(a)pipeline.com) Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:51:36 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-2); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:51:36 -0400 Received: by tcs_gateway1.treas.gov (Internal Mail Agent-1); Fri, 18 Jul 1997 18:51:36 -0400 Date: Thu, 17 Jul 1997 12:33:43 -0400 From: IRS Inspection <irsnwpr(a)net.insp.irs.gov> Message-Id: <199707171633.MAA02778(a)net.insp.irs.gov> To: Interested-Parties(a)net.insp.irs.gov Subject: Something of Interest ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 2

No Subject
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

L. Tood Masco: > Perhaps one could generate a privacy crisis by collecting that information > and conducting a mass mailing to every person in the database: "we have > this information on you. So could anybody with $125. Call your congress > critter and complain." This is a wonderful, wonderful idea. The biggest blow to privacy in this decade was when Lotus Markeplace was withdrawn off the market. This ifnromation is already widely distributed. The only effect the withdrawal had was keeping the public in the dark about what infromation is out there in the world about them, and (by inference) how it was obtained. The sad fact is, most of the political action over 'privacy' only has the net effect of keeping people in the dark about what information they are giving out to complete strangers about themselves. Most people don't realize, at either gut level or fully at the intellectual level, just how much personal information they are giving away when they write down their Social Security or other universal ID number on a form. As long as the information is only being swapped between skyscrapers, so that most peple aren't allowed to access it, this ignorance will contininue. People will realize what they are doing when it's sitting in front of their faces on the computer screeen. I also highly recommend using anonymous remailers to post allegedly personal, but in fact widely available, information to the net such as credit card numbers, credit histories, medical data, and the like -- as long as viable alternatives for the victims are available. Timing is critical here; let's be ready to do this but not jump the gun until the alternatives are available. Let's promote real privacy, technology that gives customers real knowledge and choices about what data they give out, rather than the current bankrupt political movement which promotes information theft from ignorant consumers, and the hoarding and monopolisation of information, in the name of 'privacy'.

1 0

Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:20 PM 8/19/94 -0700, Eric Hughes wrote: >A raw, non-modal "is"?? Digital cash doesn't exist yet, so saying >that it "is" something, is, well, premature. The real question is >"What happens if we set up a digital cash system as a callable bond?" > >And my answer to that is, "You really _want_ the SEC involved?" > I meant "is". Like a triangle, or a limit, or an asymptote, "is". It's okay to be non-modal here. Digital cash has to be issued by someone, who *really should* back it up with real money, and should thus receive real money as collateral for the digicash on the net. Thus, there's a float. Thus it's really a loan with a security (ecash) to prove it, with the collateral in the bank of the issuer earning the issuer interest. Thus it's a bond. And since it has no maturity date, and it's not a perpetuity, then it has an implicit call provision. Thus, it's a callable bond. Example: A CMO is a callable bond, whether it's called one or not. When a tranche's principal comes in, the tranche is "called", and the investors in that tranche are paid off. By the way, most people refer to a callable bond as a series of options, and that's how modern portfolio analysis is done on them... Wittgenstein would laugh. The SEC has nothing to do with the mechanics of a security's behavior. There are some bonds which are illegal here, but not illegal outside the country. They're still bonds. The obligation is held by the issuer, and the issuer keeps the interest, which discounts their price. Also, so what if the SEC is involved, or not? I expect that there has to be a test of the technology, forced by the possibility of competition from overseas (regulatory arbitrage). If the market test is successful, then the SEC will not willfully restrain trade if the market's big enough (the revolving door), and perceived to be benign enough. Frankly, I don't see what the fuss is about, do you? It's just a low-cost settlement mechanism for retail transactions on the internet. ;-). > The issuer gets to > keep the interest accrued on that money while the ecash is in circulation. > >Perhaps in some systems this is so, but not all. The unit of account >must be fixed, but the unit of account may not be constant currency, >but rather currency at a fixed interest rate. Is "unit of account" a formal term here? Could you define it? The problem about not keeping the interest on the float is, who do you pay it to otherwise? If you have a truly anonymous digital cash system, you couldn't find the original purchaser if you tried. If you want to treat this like a settlement problem in securities operations then you have to track each owner's interest share for the time they held the instrument and pay them back. Again impossible. If you pay back the accrued interest on that specific ecash certificate to the person who "walks in the door" with it, is it fair? The solution is, keep the interest, use the money to fund the issuer's operations. If that's not enough, charge exchange fees. A competitive market will sort out who's got the most efficient operations, and thus ecash users get ecash at its most efficient price. It's just like insurance. An insurance underwriter collects premiums, some portion are direct fees for handling the transaction. The remaining premiums are put into a fund which accrues interest (for want of a better term). Some or all of that interest ends up in the insurers pocket, and the rest is held for loss reserve (which may be itself reinsured) so the insured are paid when calamity strikes. It's a living. >Why do you assume that the only source of income for the "underwriter" >is the return on investment from the float? Sure, that's one business >model. Transaction and participation fees can also be levied. It's not really like you're quoting me out of context here, but I really did say further on in the post you're talking about here that exchange fees were how an issuer made up the difference between his cost of operations and the actual return he got on the float... >The issuer has a debt mediated by an instrument, yes. There are, >however, more instruments than bonds available for use. Yes. But probably short term bonds (money markets, t-bills) are safe places to earn higher returns than a demand deposit account. It's all cash management technique, which is pretty straightforward, boring stuff. >Is the debt >secured or unsecured? It's secured by the cash which bought the ecash in the first place, which can be put into secure money instruments of some sort. See the post you're quoting from about durations, total return, etc. If you want the issuer to put it into a demand deposit at, say, Shawmut National here in Boston, and let *them* invest the money in the money market, you can do that. They'll gladly take your money. (This is a good reason for a bank to get into the market, in my opinion, because of this synergy.) But it doesn't take much to manage your own portfolio of cash instruments by yourself. >What happens during bankruptcy of the issuer? This probably won't happen except in cases of fraud. I expect this business to be pretty boring. After all, you're the one with a portfolio of (real) cash to manage. Unwinding a position in the money markets is not really a scary proposition at all. When an ecash bank "fails" if ever, it'll be just like the old days (actually, not so old, really; Continental in Chicago was the last famous big one). The ecash banking community will circle the wagons and honor the unfortunate's ecash. More probably the bank will be quietly merged, and no one will know the difference. >These and similar issues determine the nature of the instrument. The instrument is e-cash. It's backed up by dollars, probably money market instruments, or maybe government bills. There may be "brands" of ecash which may have to charge higher and lower fees, depending on their risk. A rating system could evolve. I bet that the differences between issuers could be pretty marginal after a while. It's as simple and as boring as running IBM's corporate treasury accounts. It's just not that complex. > If you thought that > the ecash duration was 3 days and it stayed out there 3 months, > >It's unlikely that these sorts of figures are not going to be known >shortly after rollout, during which phase the cash management function >for income is much smaller. Agreed. Pardon my hyperbolic example. I just put them out there for illustration. Fees will be higher at first. They might be too high to sustain a market in the long run. There's no way to find out except to try, which was the ultimate point of the post. > > In > theory, if the fees are high, the money may never come back, and stay in > circulation forever. > >I think you may be getting confused here between "on-us" transactions >and a first class currency, which does circulate. Digital cash cannot >"circulate forever". That's why I said "in theory". I thought I qualified that further in the same paragraph. Again my hyperbolic rhetorical style does me in. In the first few pages of finance text books (I read Brealy & Meyers in 1985), they like to talk about British securities called "perpetuities". They are literally perpetual bonds with no expiration date, and a few have no call provisions at all. Whoever holds them keeps getting interest until he sells them. This type of asymptotic behavior was what I meant by "forever". I forgot at the time that digicash grows every time it's exchanged, for instance, and was simply making a point about the behavior of a system at it's extremes. My apologies. By the way, what does "on-us" mean? > >I should note, however, that I agree with the basic point, that the >portfolio management problem for digital cash is not unusual. > >Eric I'll leave this here. I feel better now. Between Eric and Tim, I feel a little like the gopher in the game at Chuck E. Cheese's. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

4 3

www log stripper
by Jim Hart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

First question: does anybody know the full URL for detailed information on how World Wide Web servers do logging, and the particular kinds of connection and transaction information they can log, and what information they typically do log? (I know the main Mosaic doc URLs but can't find this info). Second question: wev'e heard about installing swIPe in the kernel and using it as an anonymous packet forwarder -- stripping off the original. Has anybody done the analogous thing at the http protocol level for the World Wide Web? That is, set up an httped, the only purpose of which is to forward URL requests with all originating site and username information stripped. I would love to use such a service. I would even pay substantial amounts of "Magic Money" tokens to do so, if somebody writes a convenient user interface to that system. Also, if some folks are serious about taking the lead on either of these projects, I'd be happy to contribute my hacking skills (the typical C/Berkeley Unix & networking, etc.) and do beta testing. Jim Hart hart(a)chaos.bsu.edu

2 1

NSA leak (fwd)
by Robert Hayden-0797-EMP-HSE 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Say this on the Fight Censorship list. Just FYI. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 19 Jul 1997 17:56:51 -0000 From: Secret Squirrel <nobody(a)secret.squirrel.owl.de> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: NSA leak WASHINGTON (AP) - In a rare moment of openness bordering on glibness, a senior official at the super-secret National Security Agency was overheard at a White House press conference concerning current bans on the export of encryption technology saying, "It would not take any twelve times the age of the universe to decrypt a 128-bit message. Thirty-three minutes is more like it." Observers at the press conference indicated that the senior official's remarks were intended to be overheard by those standing nearby, who included White House officials, reporters, and a troupe of girl scouts from Lundane, Illinois. =-=-=-=-=-= Robert Hayden rhayden(a)means.net IP Network Administrator (612) 230-4416 MEANS Telcom

4 4

Creating privacy crises: Society hacking
by cactus＠bb.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the composition of my last message, I was thinking in the back of my mind about how we could foment an information privacy crisis. This could very well be a Good Thing, a societal hack to serve as a wake- up call. At the HOPE conference, there was someone selling CD-ROMs of the DMV records for Oregon for $125. The same folks promise to add more states soon: next in line is Texas. Perhaps one could generate a privacy crisis by collecting that information and conducting a mass mailing to every person in the database: "we have this information on you. So could anybody with $125. Call your congress critter and complain." Some people don't consider their DMV records critical -- so perhaps a mailing from a company of their credit history would open their eyes (More effort than the $125 + postage, but probably a better yield). It's just a thought and it would require some amount of time & money, but it's a doable hack with finite resources. Thoughts? Is this totally off the wall, or do y'all think that somebody with a small but not tiny amount of money would be into doing this? -- L. Todd Masco | "Large prime numbers imply arrest." - Previously meaningless cactus(a)bb.com | grammatically correct sentence. Now...

5 5

Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:24 PM 8/21/94 -0700, Hal wrote: >Well, I still don't follow this analogy. By this reasoning virtually every >commodity that someone is willing to buy and sell is a callable bond. The >local gold dealer may sell me gold coins for cash, take the cash, put it in >the bank and collect interest, then buy my coins back from me later. Is the >gold a bond? Am I "calling in my bond" when I sell the gold to him? I don't >get it. OK. I'll try again. The difference between digital cash and your examples of gold and cash is that that gold really *is* a commodity. It can be melted down, and recombined with other gold into any unit of measure you want, as long as the purity of the metal is the same, and that's a scientifically verifiable process. An ounce of gold is utterly indistinguishable from another ounce of gold. In the case of cash, there's a certificate number on each one, issued by the issuer. Thus it has a set of specifically identifiable future cashflows associated with it. Since it is directly related to a "risk-free" security (the US dollar) and it is collateralized with a pool of money which accretes interest, it acts just like a bond. If it walks like a bond, and quacks like a bond, it's a bond, yes? Anyone can dig up more gold but when it's melted with other gold, who's to tell which one's the gold they dug up? Only the issuer can issue an issuer's certificates, be they cash (in the old banknote days), bonds, stock, whatever. A bond is a unique discrete entity. More to the point, it's a promise to pay a specific cash amount at some specified time, or upon redemption by the purchaser. So is digital cash. Gold, on the other hand, is a continuous commodity. Different stuff. Probably not much help, but I'm trying here. I really am. Is that any better? By the way, "calling the bond" is actually exercising an option, and yes, the finance guys will tell you that there is no difference. You can use option pricing methods to price lots of stuff, and some people do it with commodities. Remember my goofy (but true) statement that a bond is really a string of embedded call options? It's in the book I referred to (Fabozzi, Fixed Income Mathematics, Probus Press, 1993, isbn 1-55738-423-1, pp 249-315). >Let's see, I'm selling spindles for $2.59 and you come up with a piece of >ecash you bought ten years ago for $1.00, which is now worth $2.59, and I >sell my spindle to you for it. I deposit the cash in the bank and it's worth >$2.59. Now who isn't this fair to? How is it different from you putting >$1.00 into your interest-bearing checking account ten years ago and writing >me a check for $2.59 today, the amount your $1.00 grew to? The problem is, you have to price the cash before you use it to buy something, and then you and the seller has to agree that that's the value of it. To do that, you or the person you're offering the cash to need to somehow communicate with the underwriter, thus destroying the anonymity of the cash transaction, and also increasing it by the communication costs, and creating an on-line cash system when we wanted an off-line one. Of course, the issuer could publish the prices based on the compounded interest accrued *for each certificate*, for the time period it's outstanding, possibly complete with the compounding factors for each compounding period used. (a day, a month, a year, or even continuous over the life of the instrument) Lot of overhead there, but mutual funds do it all the time. You'd want to just take their word for it, I suppose, and trust their price, right? Mutual funds are priced in exactly this way. A mutual fund share has a specific value at purchase. It is specifically identified and compounded over the time it is held, in theory, anyway, because there are accounting and programming tricks to get the same result with less overhead and still maintain the audit trail. Those values are computed and accumulated as if they were on an individual share basis. Really. I swear. I've priced mutual funds and their returns and used them to compile data used in portfolio managers' performance evaluations. I didn't say that that you couldn't do it your way. I just said it costs more than just dumping the certificate numbers into a redemption database, keeping the interest, and pricing the e-cash at issuance to reflect your costs of operation and your competitive pressures from the marketplace. > >Sorry, I guess I'm missing a lot of your points. I'm also sorry. I'm doing the best I can here. I hope I took a better shot at it this time. > >Hal There's nothing awful about keeping the interest, folks. (Unless you're a moslem, of course :-) ) It's really just a type of liquidity premium paid to the underwriter to offset whatever risk (business risk, and legal risk at this point) taken to issue e$ for use in internet commerce. As more people get into internet commerce and underwriting it, then the premium goes down because the risk goes down. I think this whole discussion about where the money gets made is beside the point. The fact is that some combination of exchange fees and interest on the "suspension" account balance will offset the costs of underwriting ecash. People can make money underwriting e-cash. If the market's there, anyway... ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Snore...Re: e$: buyinfo, internet commerce, and GMU
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Longtime c'punks push D now... Just in case we have a zillion newbies, which I doubt, but judging from the email I've gotten on the PJD piece, I can't tell... I'm at GMU, as are Peter J Denning, the SO of Dorothy Denning, and lots of other folks who agree or disagree with c'punks, including the department of PSOL which is a spinnoff of the Econ department (which hard-core pro-market), Brad Cox of Objective C and superdistribution fame, etc. Peter was my MS/CS advisor, and may still be my PhD commitee chair. Please at least look at the .sig. tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes: >> There are some people from GMU (Program on Social and Organizational >> Learning") talking [stuff elided] > Brad Cox at GMU is one of the "superdistribution" advocates. In > addition to his article in the latest "Wired," he's had pieces in > "Byte" and elsewhere. The GMU econ/PSOL folks were heavily into AMIX, which was a commercial faliure. Cox is getting a lot of press and is positioning his team to get some serious NIS&T money. There are serious privacy problems with Cox's superdistribution. There may be solutions, but so far, nothing that I've seen mitigates the 1984 aspects of Cox's ideas. I agree with Tim's comments on the snore factor of IMP-interest. Those folks couldn't get past credit, let alone get into untracable digital cash. If you take the time to read the PJD post that I sent out, even non-c'punks see digital cash, credentials without identity, and other technological ideas as both good and inevitable. Of course, six months ago, it looked like eric and sandy were starting the first intergalictic bank of e$. I was ready to sign up and deposit real money so I could join Tim in the Caribbean RSN. > I'm gonna miss these parties when I move to the Caribbean!) Gee, I thought you got 180 days in country once you are an official Ex-patriot. That is a lot of partying... Yo Tim, where is the F-ing FAQ so the newbies can have a clue? Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)cs.gmu.edu Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Achieving Privacy while Enabling Marketing
by Jason W Solinsky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[I sent a variant of this to several lists earlier this year. It was originally a response to a post on online-news asking what the future of advertising will be like. It suggests a system whereby marketers only get the information that they absolutely need and pay for what they get.] [The software is being debuged and will be ready "soon". I had thought I would be alpha testing it already, but its going to take me atleast another two weeks and quite possibly much more. I'm working on it :( ] Well here is my view of advertising, supported by a product that I will be indroducing latter this year: In the NEAR future, content in the new media will be nearly entirely divorced from advertising. Online media, be they magazines, interactive games, fiction, discussion groups, or simple news, will be paid for at full cost by the consumer. At the most, some of this content will contain hints about where advertisements should go and keywords suggesting types of advertisements which are particularly apt. [herein, when I say browser, I mean the instrument by which the user examines the content] The browsers that the reader/viewer uses to read/view/listen to the medium will pay the cost of the content from the user's electronic account almost transparently. The browser will then schedule advertisements to pay for the cost of the content. The browser has precisely one valuable resource, the attention span of its user. Periodically [the frequency is established by preferences that the user can set] the browser will conduct an auction. All the agents that are interested in taking up some of the user's time [either to deliver an advertisement or ask a question] submit a "profile" to a third party that is mutually trusted by the advertisers and the browser. The user also submits a profile. The agent's profiles contain two things: A) a routines which, given the characteristics of the user, returns a price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the user's time. B) the set of conditions which the advertiser is willing to agree to, and how much less it is willing to pay if it has to agree to those conditions. For example, suppose the user is a citizen of a cyberspatial government that prohibits fraud. If it is a popular government, the agent will have done one of two things: 1) It will have been pre-approved by the cyberspatial government's censors [who analyzed it to make sure that it wouldn't confuse the netizens who support that government] for either a one-time fee or a per use fee or both. 2) Its owner will have given the government a deposit from which to subtract fines (using a protocol that supports the use of a third party adjudicator). After doing this the agent will have received a certificate [probably one that requires a time sensitive number from the government to demonstrate its validity. There are many protocols for doing this. This allows the government to collect its "per use fees". Now acquiring this certification has cost the advertiser money, so the profile includes information on how much less the advertiser is willing to pay if the user requires agreement to the anti-fraud laws of the government in question. The user's profile will contain: A) the answers to the questions that have been asked of it. These are completelly uncertified. B) certified characteristics. These may simply be answers which have been certified by third parties as time invariant [make sure that the user doesn't change his answers all of the time] or they may be certifications by vendors that the user spends X dollars on product Y each year, or they may be certifications by a third party that the user has bought a gift certificate for a class of goods. [For example, certification that a user has bought a $100 gift certificate for any truck in class X for Y dollars, something that certainly is worth something to truck advertisers.] All users will also have several certified characteristics describing how frequently they look at advertisements. Most of these certificates also require a fee for verification. So the user will not be able to demonstrate the certificates without first paying the certificate issuers a small fee. [Presumably, in order to fight the false issuance of certificates there will be anti-fraud agencies which in turn also ceritify the parties issuing the certificates.] C) The user's preferences. Users may require more money for femenine hygene commercials than for beer advertisements. Users may also pay extra for advertisements that promise to be entertaining. This promise would be backed up by an agreement that requires less entertaining advertisements to pay a penalty while more entertaining advertisements get a discount. After these commercials the user would rate them. The algorithm used to determine who gets what would keep the amount that the user pays constant. Presumably the algorithm would be tweaked so that non-commercial entertainment could be sold through the same medium. Jokes could show up and promise to be funny [there could even be certification agencies to verify this [the comedian's guild]]. The user would then rate the jokes and sufficiently funny jokes could make money. [Presumably jokes certified by highly acclaimed comic certification agencies would only show themselves if the user were giving them a price at which they could make money]. The governments to which the users belong would also be in this part. For each law that is important to the user, there would be an additional amount of money that the user is willing to pay for advertisements that comply with that law ranging from zero to infinity. Children's restrictions also belong here. The user could be subscribed to a law which gives a near infinite credit to those advertisers that can verify that they are suitable for children. Finally, users [and advertisers but I forgot to mention this earlier] could pay extra for advertisements that are in context. If the user was reading content about X and there is an advertisement related to X, the user or advertiser could be willing to pay extra to get an advertisement that is relevant to the current content. The third party puts all this information together and for each advertiser determines how much he is willing to pay. Then, it modifies the amounts the advertisers are willing to pay by the credits that the user offers. Finally these amounts are normalized by the resources that they require. 30 second commercials need twice as high an amount as 15 second commercials and many times more than visual pop-up and streamer commercials. The highest amount wins... but the highest amount pays what it was willing to (i.e. the credits that the user offers are just for determining who wins, not how much they pay. Depending on the content they watch, the cost of their net services, and their advertising preferences, some people will make money just by reading or viewing the screen while others will have to pay. The question of guaranteeing advertising time has come up. The way this will be taken care of is by establishing attention futures markets. Agents will be able to purchase futures on somebody's attention. So if coke wants its new advertising campaign to role out to X% of the population at the same time, it can buy futures. The futures will give coke the right to show its commercial to a certain person at some point in time between two times. If the commercial can't be shown, a penalty of Y cents will be paid to coke by the issuer of the future. The futures would be traded my arbitrage agents that think they can model the user's advertisement viewing patterns and by the browser which has an advantage as an insider. Cheers, JWS

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Re: Voluntary Governments? (Sort of)
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>From Jason W Solinsky: Are: "They [the malls] can take away your personal property by force and they are not governments?. . . . " Is Not: ". . . . . this is the first I've heard of defining government by the force it weilds." ............................................................. Definitions, definitions. Governments are defined according to some unknown determining factor, but force is recognizable immediately upon being threatened by it. Fighting fire with fire can be confusing, trying to decide what difference it makes when it all looks the same. Blanc

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