December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

JUST GO AWAY Sue D nym!
by kelly＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey detweiler... I am not as gentle as perry is... just go away... you DONT have any votes here... p.s. I WIll be notifying netcom management again of your activities...

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Big Brother comes to Campus
by Robert A. Hayden 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wanted to forward this to everyone to show ya what the school is trying to spring on us over the summer when nobody is around. --------------------------- Acting for: XXXXX XXXXX Mankato State's new ID card is fast becoming a reality. We are calling the new ID the MavCard and have begun taking pictures of the summer orientation students. Attached is a brief summary of the features of the MavCard we have given to parents and students who were here for orientation. Soon we will be taking pictures of other students, faculty and staff. I will inform you of the time and location. If you have any questions or concerns about Mankato State's MavCard, please let me know. Mankato State University MavCard As part of our mission to improve campus services, Mankato State University is introducing the new MavCard, a more efficient identification card (ID) that can also act like cash to pay for many on-campus services. The MavCard is more efficient because it will become the only ID card you need for access to university facilities, services and events including the Memorial Library, athletic and student activities. The MavCard will also eliminate the hassle of carrying cash. It can be used like cash for library charges, vending machine products, photocopying, laundry services and more! Mankato State University's goal is to provide one convenient card that does it all! It all begins with your new MavCard for the 1994-95 academic year. Where to Get Your MavCard The Office of Business Affairs will start processing MavCards during Freshman Orientation, the first two weeks of Fall Quarter, and until the entire campus community has been issued new ID cards. Hours and convenient processing locations will be posted at the Office of Business Affairs, Administration Building. It's Quick and Easy Getting a MavCard is quick and easy. A new photo imaging process will use a video camera and computer to create and store all of your card information in seconds. Your picture, along with all other card information, will be directly transferred to one durable plastic card (the same size as a credit card). One process, one card does it all! The First Phase Beginning Fall Quarter 1994, you will be able to use your MavCard in the Memorial Library, food and vending machines, laundry machines, photocopying services, the University Bookstore and Residence Hall meal plans. How the MavCard Works The MavCard will carry three primary information identifiers, along with your name and picture. The first identifier is your library and Residence Hall meal plan Barcode on the front of the card. The second identifier is a small black magnetic Cash Stripe on the back of the card. This Cash Stripe will retain information on the amount of funds you apply to the card through one of the many CASH-TO-CARD or $10, or $20 on your Cash Stripe, you will activate your the card through one of the many CASH-TO-CARD or ACCOUNT-TO-CARD machines on campus. By placing $1, $5, $10, or $20 on your Cash Stripe, you will activate your new MavCard. For safety purposes, there will be a $20 limit on the funds that can be placed on the Cash Stripe at any time. Once your Cash Stripe is activated, you can use your MavCard like cash to pay for campus services such as photocopying, vending and laundry. The third identifier is a large magnetic Bank Stripe on the back of the card, similar to the bank stripe on a credit card. The Bank Stripe is like an electronic check! Once money is deposited to your MavCard account, the card can be used instead of a check to purchase goods and services. The amount of the purchase is deducted directly from your on-line bank account so there is no possibility of overdrawing your account. This Bank Stripe is also used to obtain cash from the automatic teller machines which will be available on campus. A Personal Identification Number (PIN) is used with this stripe so that your account is protected in the event the card is lost or stolen. The Bank Stripe will save you time, reduce the need to carry cash, and help eliminate the hassle of writing checks. Calling Card Option The MavCard can be used as a personal long distance calling card. Information on this feature will be available from MCI during Welcome Week. Future Phases In the future the MavCard will expand to include building access, voting, campus food services and direct deposit of financial aid, refunds and student payroll. Questions & Answers Will I have to get a MavCard or can I just use my old ID? Your old ID will still be valid when classes start in the Fall of 1994 and until all students can get their new ID. The process to get your new MavCard is quick and easy. What will the benefits of using the MavCard really be to non-campus residents? The MavCard will do much more than just consolidate your ID with meal plan information. Even if you do not those offered through the library, vending machines, your ID with meal plan information. Even if you do not use a meal plan on campus, other services including those offered through the library, vending machines, photocopiers, food services...will be easier to use than ever before. What if I lose my MavCard? Contact the Office of Business Affairs at XXX-XXXX. Since your information, including your photo, is stored in the computer, replacement cards can be processed immediately. Who do I contact with any questions about the MavCard? The Office of Business Affairs at XXX-XXXX, with any questions or suggestions on how to make the MavCard work... and save...for you! ===================================================== Basically, they can now track you whenover you enter a building, get financial aid, or even purchase a soda or make a photocopy. I feel used. -- ____ Robert A. Hayden <=> hayden(a)vorlon.mankato.msus.edu \ /__ -=-=-=-=- <=> -=-=-=-=- \/ / Finger for Geek Code Info <=> I do not necessarily speak for the \/ Finger for PGP Public Key <=> City of Mankato or anyone else, dammit -=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (GEEK CODE 2.1) GJ/CM d- H-- s-:++>s-:+ g+ p? au+ a- w++ v* C++(++++) UL++++$ P+>++ L++$ 3- E---- N+++ K+++ W M+ V-- -po+(---)>$ Y++ t+ 5+++ j R+++$ G- tv+ b+ D+ B--- e+>++(*) u** h* f r-->+++ !n y++**

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Re: Detweiler
by Matthew Ghio 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

|ghio said that Detweiller must have forged that Big Collision message |sent to his remailer, because the person it was attributed to hadn't |logged in. I wonder if "rsh" shows up in that type of login?? maybe |he "rsh"ed to the account to send from there?!?! and didn't log in |to have a cover story?? The messages appear to be being forged via port 25. He's sent several dozen of them, and they all have different from addresses. |btw, I haven't seen anything from Detweiller at tmp(a)netcom.com. I assume |he still has the account?!?! maybe if someone calls netcom and complains |they will do something?? Well, I complained... Haven't heard anything from them yet tho. |i'm glad ghio caught that message in his mailbox through careful screening |so that it wouldn't go out to the newsgroups. I always thought the |remailers were automated, but I guess in most case the operators are |screening all the stuff. this is good, because we don't need any more |Detweiller junk out there (amazing how peaceful things are without him!!!) |too bad if the message was forged, because it would be LOTS of fun to |EXPOSE THE BASTARD!!! (insert evil smirk here) No. The remailer is automated. I don't normally screen messages before they are sent out or otherwise censor them. The message he sent went out to the newsgroups. After I saw the anonymous messages appearing, I started having the remailer save copies of all messages. He seems to have an automated process set up to spew these things out. I have now temporarily disabled my remailer until this crud stops. |BTW, here is something I was wondering. on the Detweiller message he has |an "errors-to: /dev/null" field. what does that do? why did he put that |in there, anyway? i've never seen any documentation reference it. do |the remailers handle it? It doesn't do anything that I'm aware of. My remailer does support "Request-Remailing-To: null" which will just delete the message. The more recent messages just have a blank Errors-To: header. I keep getting messages from him every few minutes. blah...

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Tracing port 25 mail forgery
by Matthew Ghio 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

While looking over some of the detcrud I noticed something interesting... >From colton(a)netcom.com Mon Jul 18 15:48:30 1994 >Received: from virginia.edu (uvaarpa.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.7]) by >kaiwan.kaiwan.com (8.6.9/8.6.5) with SMTP > id PAA27245 for <ghio(a)kaiwan.com>; Mon, 18 Jul 1994 15:48:24 -0700 > *** KAIWAN Internet Access *** >From: colton(a)netcom.com >Received: from fulton.seas.virginia.edu by uvaarpa.virginia.edu id aa05968; > 18 Jul 94 18:48 EDT >Received: from <netcom12.netcom.com> (nym(a)netcom14.netcom.com > [192.100.81.126]) by fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU (8.6.8/8.6.6) with SMTP id > SAA67017 for <ghio(a)kaiwan.com >; Mon, 18 Jul 1994 18:48:20 -0400 >Date: Mon, 18 Jul 1994 18:48:20 -0400 >Message-Id: <199407182248.SAA67017(a)fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU> >To: ghio(a)kaiwan.com >Request-Remailing-To: alt.59.79.99(a)comlab.ox.ac.uk > >## >Followups-To: news.admin.policy >Reply-To: <support(a)netcom.com> >Subject: Netcom is being SCAPEGOATED > ...drivel removed... In the Received: header, fulton.seas.Virginia.EDU identifies the message as coming from nym(a)netcom14.netcom.com My question is, How did it do this??? Did it use identd? I tried making a fake mail thru that site and it did not show my username...but neither kaiwan nor andrew have identd installed. nova.unix.portal.com did the same thing: >Received: from <netcom12.netcom.com> (nym(a)netcom2.netcom.com [192.100.81.108]) >by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.7/8.6.5) with SMTP id SAA22450 for ><ghio(a)kaiwan.com >; Mon, 18 Jul 1994 18:09:22 -0700 Comments?

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Life & Times LA TV prog on LLL Porn
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A local public TV program in LA just ended. One of their closing mini- items was on the spy porn at Lawrence Livermore (sic). One host gave a short version of the hysterical take, including that LLL was going to do Star Wars, and how terrible their security must be. Host #2 kicked in with a claim that he knows nothing about computers. Host #3 did the best thing I can imagine: said it was also part of the JFK coverup... FYA. -kb, the Kent who has been caught watching TVF -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:30 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Card Playing Protocol?
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>There's no need for a central server per game I am presuming this is true--I am just trying to phrase things carefully. I don't yet understand all I need to know (I think I need to read crypto someone said). I like distributed stuff...I am just too ignorant to know how purely it can be adhered to. -kb, the Kent who is trying not to get too far ahead of himself -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:30 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Re: Card Playing Protocol
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>No. Schneier is a start, but the source papers... So I should wonder about how to find the sources mentioned in his bibliography? Yup. I haven't gotten that far yet. -kb, the Kent who is only human -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 35:30 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

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Federal Control of Financial Transactions
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As regular readers will be aware, Tim May and I have been sparring with each other about the risks of various control strategies that the world's governments may deploy. I thought it might be helpful to make one of his fears concrete so that we can analyze it. I trust that I am not putting words in Tim's mouth. The major concern is the same one mentioned in the Book of Revelations: "REV 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: REV 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." So the Feds deploy a card (smart or dumb) that has to be used for most transactions and lets them track everything we do. Tourists are brought into the system through the use of temporary cards (or the machine-readable strip on their passports which already includes a space for a national ID number.) How is this most likely to come about? I consider force majeure to be unlikely. It would be rough to get Congress to impose a burden like this on businesses (who would have to completely wire themselves) in a formal vote. It is not necessary to do this in any case since they know they can't snag everyone into the system. They just want to capture most of the transaction data. If they can do it administratively without involving Congress in controversy, they will use that approach. Clipper and the Post Office agitprop on the US Card give us a possible scenario. The P.O., desperate to find a reason to exist as its core business drains away to the wires and private carriers, would like to become the primary digital signature authorizers for the U.S. It claims to be able to put millions of "US Cards" in the hands of happy shoppers within months of the go-ahead. (Assuming they use FedEx for the actual *shipments* of course). The recently attempted "Clipper maneuver" of game strategy (government preemption by standard setting rather than by direct application of force) shows us how the US Card system might be actually deployed. The government adopts the standard it likes and tries to make it the de facto standard by requiring it for most official business. An instant market is thereby created. No congressional action required. Similarly, the government might try to preempt the market for digital signature and commercial encryption technology by deciding to make anyone who wants to use a digital signature system in dealings with the government use the Post Office or some such agency as the signature authenticator. Thus bids, purchasing, benefits, and taxes could all require your "US Card" registered at your local post office. The government would then hope that commercial users who would need to use the government's system for tax filings anyway would also use it for its ordinary dealings with the public. Then if a health care bill drafting you into a "universal coverage" army is ever passed, the "US Card" also becomes the Health Security Card you will have to show to get a job in the US. Thus, all sorts of authentication transactions would pass through the powerful and efficient post office data network and the ex-countercultural/born-again control freaks Inside the Beltway could get their jollies tracking your employment and purchases. What's the big hole in this frightening scenario? Ask yourself one question. Why is the Post Office looking around for some useful work these days? Didn't they have a monopoly guaranteed by the Federal Government for more than 100 years? If they couldn't make a go of it with a pure coercive monopoly during a time of slower commercial activity, what makes them think that they can compete *without* a genuine coercive monopoly in a time of constant change. Governments have proved over and over again that they can go broke running "guaranteed" money spinners like state lotteries and such. They don't stand a chance in a marketplace that will break the hearts of the brightest people this planet has ever produced. What has recent history established? Governments are weaker. Why didn't the Amin mandate Clipper? No political ability to do so. Why are banks and telecoms being deregulated in nearly every country on earth (in spite of propaganda about "risks" and "public needs"? Why have exchange controls (a common feature of life a generation ago) become impossible almost everywhere on earth? Is it "free market ideology" that has triumphed or did the *reality* of markets rather than the *idea* of markets hit governments on the head. To those who romanticize the power of the State in the modern world I ask, why doesn't Clinton impose wage and price controls, exchange controls, tariffs, and a full-blown industrial policy? Why doesn't he nationalize the steel industry, guarantee jobs for all, confiscate all estates above $100,000, impose 95% income taxes on those making more than $40,000/year, and all of the other proposals that were popular earlier in this century? I doubt that he is restrained because of his deep commitment to human liberty. He doesn't do it because he can't. Markets wouldn't put up with it. His government would be destroyed (by capital flight.) In this connection, I invite everyone to read the excellent profile of Japan in last week's Economist. It discusses the current and growing Japanese commitment to deregulation and what is driving it. That issue is a keeper anyway because of an article on commerce on the Internet and (as has been mentioned before) the use of the word "anarcho-capitalism" in an article comparing Thailand and Singapore. Assuming that the government were to attempt to establish a Post Office mediated digital authentication system, there is no guarantee that it would work. Foreign users would presumably use foreign systems to authenticate their transactions. Some of these systems might be run by privatized foreign PTTs or by others. Note that since banks and credit agencies will still have to approve the transactions anyway (to make sure you've got the dough), they may decide to use other systems for signature authentication. It would not really cost them any more. Since information is cheap, setting up a system to use several authentication systems is almost as easy as setting up a system to use one. (Particularly since you have to do it anyway.) It is difficult to imagine the P.O. being able to compete in the cutthroat world of credit processing. Recall that even today, there are companies that pick up and deliver your mail to the P.O. to speed the process along. Similarly, expediters may interpose themselves between the customer and the P.O. to speed authentication in the even that the P.O. network is slow or inefficient (likely). Here again, Clipper gives us some hints as to how the attempted market cornering might work out in practice: The Admin is currently floating stories about perhaps withdrawing Clipper in favor of "wider discussions" with the industry. Clipper is already painfully obsolete and it isn't even shipping in quantity. Inefficient government monopolies create marvelous profit opportunities for markets to arbitrage the gap between cost and price. In a highly efficient networked world, it will be very difficult for governments to compete. DCF Why Pizza Hut should hire *me* as their spokesman: "Why does Pizza Hut oppose mandatory, employer-paid health insurance in the US even though we are forced to pay it in Japan and Germany? We support the principle of cultural diversity under which different societies experiment with different methods of social organization. Germany and Japan have chosen one road, we have chosen another. Pizza Hut would not voluntarily impose on our US customers the burden of the very high food costs that the agricultural policies of Germany and Japan impose on their citizens. Similarly, we would not choose to impose on our US employees the burden of bureaucratically designed employment contracts. Pizza Hut supports the right of our customers to enjoy the least expensive and best pizza on earth and the right of our employees to bargain with us collectively and individually concerning the conditions of their employment."

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PARTY: [2nd post] A Post Jovial Bash, July 23rd, Santa Cruz, CA.
by eric＠Synopsys.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This is going to several lists with overlapping memberships. Apologies if you're recieving this more than once.] The bashing of Jupiter has begun, and in less than a week it will be over. That's certainly a cause for celebration, so you're invited to join me for a Post Jovial Bash. Where: A cozy geodesic dome nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains. Directions are included below. When: Saturday, July 23, 1994. The party begins at noon. Crash space is available if you wish to stay until Sunday. What to bring: Food and/or drink to share and enjoy. I'd like to encourage people to bring healthier items: low-fat and/or vegetarian food, juices, etc... but nothing will be turned away. A grill will be available, and I will be providing some food and drinks. Suggestions and contributions are welcome. Musical instruments. A towel (you do know where it is, don't you?) for enjoying the hot tub. It will be clothing optional, but probably not used until it cools off in the evening. Bedding if you suspect you might want to spend the night. And of course, bring interesting people, ideas, and things. Note to cat allergy sufferers (like me): 6 cats live in the house. Be prepared. To print a map and directions, snip off the file below and send it to any PostScript(tm) printer. If you haven't got one, you'll have to make do without the map. Just read the text at the top of the file for directions. Be seeing you -- -eric messick PS: PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated. ------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8------>8 %!ps % Directions to KT & Eric's dome % % KT & Eric % 15139 Old Ranch Rd % Los Gatos CA 95030 8506 % +1 408 353 4751 % % From San Jose, take Highway 17 South from Highway 280 for 15 miles. % From Santa Cruz, take Highway 17 North from Highway 1 for 12.5 miles. % Exit Highway 17 at Summit Road (the only bridge over Highway 17 in % the mountains), and head west. % 0.5 miles west of 17, turn left from Summit Road onto Hutchinson Road. % 0.2 miles from Summit, just after Riva Ridge Road on the left and a long % group of mailboxes on the right, turn right from Hutchinson onto % Old Ranch Road. % A short distance down Old Ranch there is a three-way fork. The left % branch is a small driveway; the center branch is Old Ranch Road which % continues around a curve to the left (a sign points to the left to % indicate this); and the right branch leads to our house and three % others. Our address (15139) is on the top of a sign to the right. % Turn onto the rightmost fork, down a steep grade. % Our geodesic dome is 0.4 miles from Hutchinson Road down the rightmost % fork of Old Ranch Road. /fg { 0 setgray } def /bg { 1 setgray } def /r { moveto currentpoint } def /a { rmoveto pop pop currentpoint } def /ah { pop pop currentpoint } def /rc { rcurveto } def /lab { % x y alpha (str) gsave 4 2 roll rmoveto exch rotate show grestore } def /nl { show 7 sub r } def bg clippath fill 4.25 72 mul 5.5 72 mul translate 90 rotate 2 2 scale /Helvetica findfont 5 scalefont setfont 0 0 moveto currentpoint 70 -100 a currentpoint % North arrow 50 30 a fg 3 setlinewidth 0 60 rlineto ah stroke r 0 -10 1 -15 5 -20 rc stroke r gsave -5 5 rmoveto /Times-Bold findfont 13 scalefont setfont (N) show grestore pop pop r -12 20 -90 (to Santa Cruz -->) lab -25 210 -65 (<-- to San Jose) lab 11 setlinewidth fg 2 120 -10 170 -30 200 rc stroke r % 17 outer lines 7 setlinewidth bg 2 120 -10 170 -30 200 rc stroke r % 17 interior 1 setlinewidth fg 2 120 -10 170 -30 200 rc stroke r % 17 center 1.25 100 a 10 -40 270 (Highway 17) lab 2 setlinewidth -2.5 27 rmoveto fg 2 -7 5 -9 14.5 4.7 rc stroke r % summit to 17n -8.2 0 rmoveto fg -2.5 20 -10.5 30 -20.5 50 rc stroke r % summit to 17s -12.75 35 rmoveto fg 2 -15 -4 -8 -13.3 10 rc stroke r % 17s to summit 1 setlinewidth -3.2 49 rmoveto % bridge fingers fg 5 5 rlineto stroke r -3.2 49 rmoveto fg .85 -7 rlineto stroke r -18.5 52 rmoveto fg -3 6 rlineto stroke r -19 52 rmoveto fg -2 -6 rlineto stroke r -1 48 rmoveto % bridge border 9 setlinewidth fg -8 3 -13 5 -20 4 rc stroke r -1 48 rmoveto % bridge interior 7 setlinewidth bg -8 3 -13 5 -20 4 rc stroke r 2 setlinewidth .5 0 rmoveto fg 0 20 9.5 30 19.5 40 rc ah stroke r % 17n to summit currentpoint fg 10 10 25 15 40 10 rc stroke r % summit e 33 15 -15 (Summit Rd) lab 25 11.5 rmoveto fg 10 10 10 20 5 40 rc stroke r % mt charlie e 30 70 -80 (Mt Charlie Rd) lab 5 15 25 (Phone) lab 0 5 25 (Parking lot) lab pop pop r fg -20 10 -40 15 -48 10 rc ah stroke r % across bridge fg -16 -10 10 -35 -3 -43 rc ah stroke r fg 5 -10 0 -20 5 -30 rc stroke r % mt charlie w 5 -5 -80 (Mt Charlie Rd) lab fg -13 -8 -20 20 -30 15 rc ah stroke r fg -10 -5 -30 -20 -55 -20 rc ah stroke r fg 5 -10 0 -20 5 -30 rc stroke r % stagecoach 5 -5 280 (Stagecoach Rd) lab fg -25 0 -10 -20 -15 -25 rc ah stroke r fg -5 -5 -30 0 -40 0 rc stroke r % summit continues... -45 5 -5 (Summit Rd) lab fg 5 -5 0 -20 0 -30 rc ah stroke r % hutchinson 5 25 -90 (Hutchinson Rd) lab % side road could go here fg 0 -10 3 -10 5 -17 rc ah stroke r fg 5 -5 10 -8 20 -8 rc stroke r % riva ridge 15 -5 0 (Riva Ridge Rd) lab fg 1 -3 1 -4 2 -7 rc ah stroke r fg 1 -3 5 -5 10 -7 rc stroke r % hutchinson continues... 3 -12 -20 (Hutchinson Rd) lab 1.5 setlinewidth fg -5 -5 -10 8 -15 3 rc ah stroke r % old ranch fg -3 -3 0 -10 5 -15 rc stroke r % old ranch continues... -8 -9 -55 (Old Ranch Rd) lab 1 setlinewidth fg 2 1 rmoveto -1 -2 1 -4 5 -7 rc stroke r % left fork driveway fg -5 5 -15 15 -20 12 rc ah stroke r % our portion of old ranch fg -5 -3 -15 -15 -25 -10 rc ah stroke r fg -10 5 -15 5 -20 0 rc ah stroke r fg -5 -5 -10 -5 -20 0 rc stroke r % our portion continues... fg 5 -5 rlineto ah stroke r % our driveway fg 7 2 rmoveto currentpoint newpath 3 0 360 arc stroke r /Helvetica-Bold findfont 5 scalefont setfont -15 -10 0 (KT & Eric) lab -15 -15 0 (15139 Old Ranch Rd) lab -15 -20 0 (Los Gatos CA 95030 8506) lab -15 -25 0 (+1 408 353 4751) lab -155 115 moveto ah /Times-Roman findfont 6 scalefont setfont (From San Jose, take Highway 17 South from Highway 280 for 15 miles.) nl (From Santa Cruz, take Highway 17 North from Highway 1 for 12.5 miles.) nl (Exit Highway 17 at Summit Road $the only bridge over Highway 17 in) nl ( the mountains$, and head west.) nl (0.5 miles west of 17, turn left from Summit Road onto Hutchinson Road.) nl (0.2 miles from Summit, just after Riva Ridge Road on the left and a long group) nl ( of mailboxes on the right, turn right from Hutchinson onto Old Ranch Road.) nl (A short distance down Old Ranch there is a three-way fork. The left branch is a) nl ( small driveway; the center branch is Old Ranch Road which continues around a) nl ( curve to the left $a sign points to the left to indicate this$; and the right branch) nl ( leads to our house and three others. Our address $15139$ is on the top of a) nl ( sign to the right. Turn onto the rightmost fork, down a steep grade.) nl (Our geodesic dome is 0.4 miles from Hutchinson Road down the rightmost) nl ( fork of Old Ranch Road.) nl -80 128 moveto ah /Times-Bold findfont 12 scalefont setfont (Directions to KT & Eric's dome) nl pop pop showpage

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y'all gotta see True Lies
by jdblair＠nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey y'all, check it out! The cypherpunks better go to the movies! I just got back from True Lies, the latest Arnie flick. I recommend y'all go see it. Hollywood's managed to push the collective american button yet another time, ladies and gentlemen. Where's the "Dr. Strangelove" of the 90's when we need it? I'll make a short list: 1) Passionate Arabs driven to find there revenge through stolen Soviet nuclear weapons. 2) A "blanket order" to a vague, unknown government agency to wire tap anything they feel like. 3) Fear that, because there are no customs or controls regulating traffic between the Florida Keys and the mainland, the terrorists will be able to drive anywhere with their fancy nuclear weapon. 4) After summoning the skill to purchase a nuclear weapon, smuggle it into the United States undetected (except for the suspicions of our amazing Arnie and his crack team), and detonate one of them in the Keys, still unable to work a video camera with reliability (oh, those crazy wacko arabs! Oh the magic of Hollywood!) 5) Of course, every hacker in the audience noticed that the rich multinational zillionaire is unable to choose encryption secure enough to fend off an attack on minutes in length using computer equipment in a van! What was he using to hide his records? Enigma? 6) Oh yeah, the women are unable to do anything except talk on the phone, get into catfights, give men blowjobs, and kill people by accident. The only female villain is clever, but the screenplay is sure to point out that she has not principle other than the dollar (or yen, pound, mark, etc). This is a very male film, even without getting into that old 60's cliche about missiles being penis extensions. 7) Luckily, amid all the casual death in the name of national security and the american way, we have Arnie pointing out that "he only kills bad people." Reminds me of the time I was at the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, right after the Gulf War. They had a patriot missile on display, along with the wreckage of a "busted scud." A mother pointed to the missile, saying to her son, "Look, its the patriotic missile." I am not making this up. Y'all better get crackin', you clever cypherpunks. We sit here and chat about the National ID card, and argue about the best way to not pay our taxes (should I lease my car from a front, or buy it from the Mafia? What if I get a speeding ticket?). Meanwhile, the REAL MEDIA, the MOVIES, the TV, and all the other DRUGS most of America uses to ignore their surroundings are giving people the armor to fend off all the reason in the world we will ever cook up. "You can see, as the movie 'True Lies' showed, its relatively easy for a group of Arab terrorists to land in America and cruise up the coast with a nuclear weapon! Just think how easy it is for some Joe to walk on in with a kilo taped to his belly, and feed it to your kids! Worse, a whole family of Mexicans could sneak in and collect YOUR welfare check! (pregnant mother giving birth the moment she steps on American soil!" Choose whatever villain you wish for the delivery. The lefties can imagine Ronnie Boy calming us with his liquid voice. Those of other persuasions can choose Billary Klinton, promising us health and benefits. Maybe I'll imagine that guy my parents told me about... I think his name was Mixon or something like that. I doubt it'll matter who's holding the wheel. I think the car's driving itself. If anyone has a good monkeywrench, send it my way. -john. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- John Blair: <jdblair(a)nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu> voice: (513) 529-2961 http://phoenix.aps.muohio.edu/users/jdblair/home.html KILL YOUR Finger me for PGP key. TELEVISION Too much proximity to folly tends to make it seem normal. --Edward Abbey

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How to legally circumvent the PGP 2.6 "legal kludge"!
by Paul Elliott 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How to legally circumvent the PGP 2.6 Legal Kludge. According to the pgpdoc2.txt that comes with PGP 2.6: >PGP version 2.6 can read anything produced by versions 2.3, 2.3a, 2.4, >or 2.5. However, because of a negotiated agreement between MIT and >RSA Data Security, PGP 2.6 will change its behavior slightly on 1 >September 1994, triggered by a built-in software timer. On that date, >version 2.6 will start producing a new and slightly different data >format for messages, signatures and keys. PGP 2.6 will still be able >to read and process messages, signatures, and keys produced under the >old format, but it will generate the new format. This incompatible >change is intended to discourage people from continuing to use the >older (2.3a and earlier) versions of PGP, which Public Key Partners >contends infringes its RSA patent (see the section on Legal Issues). This is the "legal kludge". However there is an undocumented PGP parameter in PGP 2.6 which appears to be intended to allow the PGP user to disable this "feature". This parameter may only be specified on the command line using the "+" syntax. It is thought that it was intended that one could disable this feature using a command like the following: pgp +legal_kludge=off -e file However this does not work. In the source file config.c we find: case LEGAL_KLUDGE: legal_kludge = value; break; Since legal_kludge is a Boolean variable, the specified value "=off" is in the variable "flag". Value usually has the wrong number, since it is not set for Boolean values. Thus due to what appears to be a bug, we can not use the "legal_kludge" parameter to disable the kludge. Perhaps the bug is not really a bug at all, but a feature. After all it does limit the interpretability of pgp 2.6 with earlier versions. We can not fix this bug without violating MIT's licensing requirements. >2. Software included in this compilation includes a feature that >causes the format of messages generated by it to change on September >1, 1994. Modification to this software to disable this feature is not >authorized and will make this license, and the license in the >underlying software, null and void. If we were hell-bent to frustrate RSA and MIT, we would simply use pgp26ui and not tell them about it rather than hack their sacred kludge. It would seem to be an impasse. Or is it? Note that value is declared statically: >static int value; Every time a numeric parameter is parsed the variable value is used to hold the number. So all we have to do is specify a numeric parameter of zero before we specifying "legal_kludge"! We can then set that parameter back to the desired value if zero is not desired. That is the following works! >pgp +cert_depth=0 +legal_kludge=off +cert_depth=4 -e file The above assumes that we wish to use 4 as the value of cert_depth. We set cert_depth to zero only to get the value of "value" to 0. The the legal_kludge parameter will set the value of "legal_kludge" to be =value=0, then we set cert_depth to the real desired value. This trick is legal, because we have not modified pgp 2.6 in any way. We are simply exploiting a bug or feature in the way PGP 2.6 is written. This kludge may seem to be too kludgy! It is asking a lot to ask users to type such a thing! But is this really a problem? Most users do not invoke PGP directly. They usually invoke PGP thru a mail program or some other shell program. These shell programs can be easily modified to do the right thing. In the worst case, people could define a shell alias to invoke pgp with the incantation! This discovery will allow people who must use PGP 2.6 to communicate with people with earlier versions of PGP! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paul Elliott Telephone: 1-713-781-4543 Paul.Elliott(a)hrnowl.lonestar.org Address: 3987 South Gessner #224 Houston Texas 77063 --

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Re: JUST GO AWAY Sue D nym!
by snyderra＠dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:14 PM 7/18/94, kelly(a)netcom.com wrote: > Hey detweiler... I am not as gentle as perry is... just go away... >you DONT have any votes here... p.s. I WIll be notifying netcom management >again of your activities... When I joined the list, I received a note describing Detweiler, and asking me not to react to said person. This seems like good advice. I have placed "Sue" in my mail filtering program. I suggest that those who feel that "Sue D. Nym" is Detweiler do the same, and ignore the person. If it is Detweiler, he's having his desired effect. Bob -- Bob Snyder N2KGO MIME, RIPEM mail accepted snyderra(a)dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu finger for RIPEM public key When cryptography is outlawed, bayl bhgynjf jvyy unir cevinpl.

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Anti-Clipper Article in "THe Computer Applications Journal"
by NetSurfer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI the following is scanned, not stirred (or forwarded) from "The Computer Applications Journal", July 1994, issue #48 (a 'zine with a refreshingly technical mix of software, hardware info for board-level integration with current popular operating systems e.g. DOS etc.) By John Iovine Cryptology is a science of enciphering and deciphering messages and information. The word conjures up images of espionage, spies, hostile government action, and top secret information. We don't usually associate this word with privacy--your privacy--but it is this facet of cryptology that is being argued today in our courts and among government agencies. ENCRYPTED PRIVACY? The arena where electronic bits of information are transmitted through data conduits is loosely termed "cyberspace." Currently, in cyberspace there's no guarantee of privacy. Transmitted messages may be intercepted and read indiscriminately. This possible invasion of privacy is not just limited to Email on your local BBS or on Internet. Our national telephone network, which handles voice and fax as well as computer telecommunication, is vulnerable. Additional data conduits like cable television systems and satellite feeds are becoming more commonplace all across the country. These newer networks are vulnerable to interception as well. To better grasp the threat, imagine a company that routinely transmits bids or promotional information to field agents through one of these networks. The company can be put at a severe disadvantage if a competitor gains access to this information. The dark side of our information age is that technically skilled crooks--sometimes romantically referred to as phreakers and crackers can create havoc in your life. For a while, crackers were making national news by breaking into secured government databases. Intercepting various unprotected data communications makes most people easy targets for others to gain access to confidential material. Anyone who has been electronically mugged has very little sympathy for these criminals. By stealing credit card numbers, they are capable of making purchases, charging telephone calls to your phone number, reading your Email, and listening to cellular phone conversations. The problem is growing. Our national data network increases in size and complexity daily. It is changing and defining the methods by which people communicate, information is transferred, and business is conducted. It is therefore becoming increasingly important to secure the privacy of the networks and reduce their vulnerability to interception. Business has been less than responsive to this threat. For instance, credit card companies justify their exorbitant +19% interest rates because they are needed to compensate for the tremendous amount of credit card (read "electronic") fraud and thievery. These companies should be doing much more to prevent electronic fraud instead of just passing the cost on to honest consumers in the way of high interest rates. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass), the chairman of the House Telecom- munication and Finance Subcommittee, had this to say about privacy: "Whether it's a cellular phone conversation, computer data, a fax transmission, a satellite feed, cable programming, or other electronic services, encryption is the key to protecting privacy and security." He stated further that "developing a national policy for encryption and its uses is therefore a process of fundamental importance for the future of our national networks and our competitive position internationally." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> --------- ENTER THE CYPHERPUNKS >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> That's cypher, not cyber. Let's not confuse these similar sounding monikers. The cypherpunks want to see widespread public use of cryptotechnology. They see the individual's privacy protected through cryptography. However, they face powerful governmental and political obstacles. The end of the cold war hasn't eliminated the need for cryptography and secret codes used by our government. But it should have alleviated some of the regulations concerning private use of cryptotechnology. The government still classifies cryptotechnology with hard military weapons such as tanks. The U.S. government agency in charge of cryptotechnology is the National Security Agency (NSA). The cypherpunks see the NSA as trying to keep its monopoly on cryptotechnology intact. One of the most outspoken and visible members of the cypherpunks is Iohn Gillmore. Mr. Gillmore has this to say on the subject: Government investment leads to government control. Government control is detrimental to the development of the media. Government seized the control of radio and television in their infancy. Since then the media has never had full first amendment rights or protection. Encryption technology is the key for people and companies to maintain their privacy over the networks. The government should cease its involvement . John has fought legal battles with the NSA on a few fronts. So far he has been victorious. BATTLE LINES The lines are drawn. On one side you have the cypherpunks who feel that good public cryptographic technology safeguards our privacy. The NSA feels this is compromising our national security. The government has threatened private cryptographers with jail. John Gillmore was threatened by the NSA stating that he was on the verge of violating the Espionage Act. A conviction would have sent him to jail for 10 years. How can the government threaten private citizens7 Easily: as stated previously, the government classifies cryptographic tools with military tanks and bomber planes. THE WASHINGTON CONNECTION The Administration wants America to encrypt its information to protect it from unauthorized access. The encryption scheme, con- tained in the government-sponsored Clipper chip, includes voice as well as data information sent over communication lines. A major catch in this plan is that only the government-approved encryption is allowed in any device used by the government or in government projects. Other encryption methods continue to be legal for domestic use, but only in nongovernment applications. The second catch is the potential for a trap door in the encryption chip's program that would allow law enforcement agencies to decipher any encrypted data. Therefol-e, this method of encryption doesn't alleviate concerns that the government could abuse its ability to tap into the privacy of the citizenship. Of course, organized crime would use its own crytotechnology, anyway. So a trap door would only be effective for spying on small incidental crooks and private citizens. The encryption algorithm touted by the Administration is contained in an integrated circuit. This chip, designed by Mykotronx in Torrance, Calif. and manufactured by VLSI in San Jose, Calif., is nicknamed "Clipper." It is a 12-Mbps encryption coprocessor. The OEM cost of the chip is $26 when purchased in large quantities, which trickles down to an increase of $100 in the street price of any electronic equipment (computer, phone, fax that contains the chip. SOFTWARE VS. HARDWARE There are less expensive encryption chips on the market than the Clipper. Usually anyone interested in encryption takes a software approach. It may be a little slower than hardware, but the recurring cost is much less. Speed only becomes a critical consideration when it's necessary to secure fast communication such as video or voice communication. RECENT EVENTS On February 4, 1994, the U.S. Government officially endorsed the Clipper chip and directed the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Treasury Department to hold in escrow the keys used to unlock the Clipper codes. It also establishes new procedures for exporting products using Clipper to most countries. The government has formed an interagency group whose job it is to develop encryption technologies that could serve as alternatives to Clipper. The Clipper endorsement contains three flaws according to a policy paper released in January 1994 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers: a classified algorithm, the key-escrow system, and an encryption standard developed for public use without public scrutiny. The Clipper chip has developed many industrial and congressional opponents. So far, Novell, AT&T, Citicorp, Computer Associates, Hughes Aircraft, Motorola, and other major corporations openly oppose the Clipper encryption standard. The failure of recent administrations lies in the fact that they did not seek greater industry participation before proposing the Clipper chip. Further, they ignored protests from industry and Congress. THE BIG BROTHER ISSUE The Clipper chip can provide government agencies with unprecedented wiretapping ability. Ideally, the Clipper chip encrypts (scrambles) communication to everyone except the intended recipient. The key code to unscramble communication is held by two separate government agencies. The government has the option of using a joining key code to unscramble communications with court-approved legal authorization. However, there is a strong possibility that a trap door exists in the Clipper chip that would allow agencies unauthorized tapping. The government wouldn't allow the algorithm used in the Clipper, called "SkipJack," to be studied publicly, so no one knows for sure. When the Administration endorsed the Clipper as a Federal Data Processing Standard on February 4, it was backed up with an immediate order for 50,000 Clipper chips. Meanwhile, a forced export embargo keeps all other encryption schemes expensive. U.S.manu- facturers must "dumb down" their data encryption programs by keeping the key lengths to 40 bits or fewer for legal export. The Clipper uses an 80-bit code. ENCRYPTION BASICS The following is a list of some of the basic terms that are used in encryption. Plaintext is the original unaltered message or file. Ciphertext is the encrypted message or file. An encryption algorithm is the function that maps plaintext into ciphertext. Keys are used to determine mapping. Keyspace describes the size of the key; it determines the number of all possible keys. For instance, an 8-bit key has a keyspace of 256 (256 possible values), where a 16-bit key has a keyspace of 65,536. Keys are usually alphanumeric. There are three main types of ciphers: substitution, transposition, and product. Substitution ciphers substitute each character in the plaintext with another, determined by the key. Transposition ciphers rearrange the characters in plaintext, again, determined by the key. Product ciphers combine the substitution and transposition algorithms. A substitution cipher simply substitutes each plaintext character with another character determined by the key. For instance, we could easily displace the alphabet by one character to generate a simple substitution. For example, ABC...XYZ could become BCD...YZA, and the phrase "HELLO WORLD" would become "IFMMP XPSME." Substitution ciphers are also called Caesar ciphers, because Julius Caesar used this simple method of encoding messages. The transposition cipher system rearranges the characters in plaintext. A simple system rearranges every two characters, so "ab" becomes "ba." With this kind of cipher, "HELLO WORLD" becomes "EHLLW ORODL." GENERATING MORE COMPLEX CIPHER SYSTEMS Blaise de Vigenere, a French cryptographer in the sixteenth century, complicated the simple Caesar code. He proposed that the key be used to change the plaintext in a periodic manner. When a message is encoded by this method, you change a plaintext letter for each successive letter in the key, always running through the same sequence of key letters. A simple example should clear any confusion. Suppose the name "John" was selected for the key code. This corre- sponds to the number sequence 9, 14, 7, 13. To encode a message using this key sequence, divide the letters of the plaintext message into groups of four. This corresponds to the four letters used in the key. To each letter group, add 9 to the number value of the first letter of each group, 14 to the second letter, 7 to the third letter, and 13 to the fourth letter. The example below illustrates the Vigenere code: Key Code: JohnJohnJohnJohn Plaintext message: helloworld Ciphertext message: qssy xlvf m As you can see, the coding algorithms are becoming more complex. Even this code pales to the more sophisticated programs available. THE DEBATE CONTINUES I've only scratched the surface in the great encryption debate. There are a number of on-line newsletters carried on the Circuit Cellar BBS that follow the issue closely Computer Underground Digest [CuD] and Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF]. If you are interested in following along, check them out. So what do you think? Write and let me nkwo (pun intended) John Iovine is a free-lance writer living in Staten Island, N.Y. He has published numerous books on electronics and science-related topics. He may be reached at 75425.673(a)compuserve.com. For those who wish to pursue data encryption, Images Company offers an encryption program titled Cipher 1.0 for $9.95. Images Company, P.O. Box 140742, Staten Island, NY 10314, l 718 698-8305. New York residents must add the appropriate sales tax. Add $5.00 postage and handling to all orders. -NetSurfer #include standard.disclaimer >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> == = = |James D. Wilson |V.PGP 2.4: 512/E12FCD 1994/03/17 > " " " |P. O. Box 15432 | finger for full PGP key > " " /\ " |Honolulu, HI 96830 |====================================> \" "/ \" |Serendipitous Solutions| Also NetSurfer(a)sersol.com > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

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Sue D. Nym
by xentrac＠cybele.unm.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I think that the evidence is pretty strong that Sue isn't Larry. She's another person completely, with a different posting style, a moderate feminist and extreme leftist political stance, a willingness (possibly, probably IMHO) to forward unsubstantiated libels (Ollie North smuggling drugs? How likely is that?), a great deal of sensitivity to the feelings of others, and a beautiful capacity to find symbolism. I could be wrong about any or all of these, but they are my impression on reading her posts, both here and from the new-age religion group. I suggest that the cypherpunks list has been dominated by a few people to a great extent. They're highly intelligent people, their ideas are worth listening to, but they don't take well to being challenged. I think that if we are to maintain a rational view of reality, we must listen to the views of people from outside. The tone has been rather paranoid IMHO much of the time. My opinion is that the repressive government shit that several prominent and articulate cypherpunks fear so greatly is unlikely, for the simple reason that the government is in the process of communist collapse. If it takes on health-care as well as all of the things it has taken on so far, it will die from the inside much faster. I predict within two or three decades, unless it becomes a police state. Needless to say, I don't want to be living here when that happens. But I know that the government that rises in its place will be different from any government the world has ever seen before, simply because the circumstances it will arise in will be so unique. We must be open to the opinions of others. We don't need to accept them without reservation; I'd like to do my best to make sure that what happens here after the Feds die is positive, and assures privacy. I want to avoid the police-state mentality, though, which permeates the thinking of many cypherpunks. Kragen

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Re: The Detweiler Files on FTP
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

rah(a)shipwright.com (Robert Hettinga): > On the other hand, how old is this guy? 12? I mean what do we really know > about him? Do these archives have anything on him besides his spam and the > resultant fusilades? Has anyone actually met him? Not that I'd like to, I > guess... He's obviously intelligent and rather older than 12. The archives have someone's well-researched trace of his activities, Tim May's (lengthy) biography of LD, and some of his sane posts -- such as a correspondence with Diffie. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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GUT and P=NP
by nzook＠math.utexas.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(flashing mathematical credentials) Okay, I was hoping this would die quietly, but sinces it isn't.... GUT is a physical theory. If true, it is believed, it would be possible to manufacture a computer which excedes a Turing machine in several important ways. In particular, it is believed that a "quantum computer" could perform certain NP tasks (factoring) in P time. BUT, as I read it, this has _nothing_ to do with the P/NP question. It simple creates a new area of inquiry, the QP/QNP/QNP-complete area. (The first qu question being wheather some of these sets are empty.) The P/NP question is a question about Turing machines, and as such, would not be affected by the creation of a non-Turing computer. As for boundaries... GUT _might_ give us a single equation that contains all physical laws. But so what? We can't even solve the three-body problem for gravity! Chaos is an emergent process. Have fun.

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RE: Federal Control of Financial Transactions
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some comments on Duncan's post: All of the arguments which he proposes against reasons why the government can't succeed are true and accurate; however, it is one of those things where "you know and I know, but *they* don't know"...... The examples which you relate of government failures from inefficiency, etc. have been proven time and again in history, but in that case why does history keep repeating itself, in slightly different variations. "......why doesn't Clinton impose wage and price controls, exchange controls, tariffs, and a full-blown industrial policy?" If he can succeed in implementing the Health Plan, and if the National ID were accepted, that would probably next on his agenda (if he were to be re-elected [2 more years]). One saving grace from all the discussions which are going on of the above projects is that they presently are just discussions, and if they could just be kept discussing these things, none of them will ever be accomplished. By the time the discussions are finished, everyone will have version 10.x of every computer app and all companies will be "virtual". Blanc

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Re: Anti-Clipper Article in "THe Computer Applications Journal"
by smb＠research.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Might I suggest that this is not the right newsgroup for anti-Clipper articles? I've never seen *any* Cypherpunk defend it; what's the point? Preaching to the choir? Repeat doses of brainwashing? Citations are fine; they show what the outside world thinks. Technical aspects are fine; there's a lot to be learned about Skipjack and key escrow. But there's little point -- on this list -- to hearing yet again that Clipper is bad (unless, of course, someone starts defending it here). --Steve Bellovin

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Federal Control of Financial Transactions
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

As regular readers will be aware, Tim May and I have been sparring with each other about the risks of various control strategies that the world's governments may deploy. I thought it might be helpful to make one of his fears concrete so that we can analyze it. I trust that I am not putting words in Tim's mouth. The major concern is the same one mentioned in the Book of Revelations: "REV 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: REV 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." So the Feds deploy a card (smart or dumb) that has to be used for most transactions and lets them track everything we do. Tourists are brought into the system through the use of temporary cards (or the machine-readable strip on their passports which already includes a space for a national ID number.) How is this most likely to come about? I consider force majeure to be unlikely. It would be rough to get Congress to impose a burden like this on businesses (who would have to completely wire themselves) in a formal vote. It is not necessary to do this in any case since they know they can't snag everyone into the system. They just want to capture most of the transaction data. If they can do it administratively without involving Congress in controversy, they will use that approach. Clipper and the Post Office agitprop on the US Card give us a possible scenario. The P.O., desperate to find a reason to exist as its core business drains away to the wires and private carriers, would like to become the primary digital signature authorizers for the U.S. It claims to be able to put millions of "US Cards" in the hands of happy shoppers within months of the go-ahead. (Assuming they use FedEx for the actual *shipments* of course). The recently attempted "Clipper maneuver" of game strategy (government preemption by standard setting rather than by direct application of force) shows us how the US Card system might be actually deployed. The government adopts the standard it likes and tries to make it the de facto standard by requiring it for most official business. An instant market is thereby created. No congressional action required. Similarly, the government might try to preempt the market for digital signature and commercial encryption technology by deciding to make anyone who wants to use a digital signature system in dealings with the government use the Post Office or some such agency as the signature authenticator. Thus bids, purchasing, benefits, and taxes could all require your "US Card" registered at your local post office. The government would then hope that commercial users who would need to use the government's system for tax filings anyway would also use it for its ordinary dealings with the public. Then if a health care bill drafting you into a "universal coverage" army is ever passed, the "US Card" also becomes the Health Security Card you will have to show to get a job in the US. Thus, all sorts of authentication transactions would pass through the powerful and efficient post office data network and the ex-countercultural/born-again control freaks Inside the Beltway could get their jollies tracking your employment and purchases. What's the big hole in this frightening scenario? Ask yourself one question. Why is the Post Office looking around for some useful work these days? Didn't they have a monopoly guaranteed by the Federal Government for more than 100 years? If they couldn't make a go of it with a pure coercive monopoly during a time of slower commercial activity, what makes them think that they can compete *without* a genuine coercive monopoly in a time of constant change. Governments have proved over and over again that they can go broke running "guaranteed" money spinners like state lotteries and such. They don't stand a chance in a marketplace that will break the hearts of the brightest people this planet has ever produced. What has recent history established? Governments are weaker. Why didn't the Amin mandate Clipper? No political ability to do so. Why are banks and telecoms being deregulated in nearly every country on earth (in spite of propaganda about "risks" and "public needs"? Why have exchange controls (a common feature of life a generation ago) become impossible almost everywhere on earth? Is it "free market ideology" that has triumphed or did the *reality* of markets rather than the *idea* of markets hit governments on the head. To those who romanticize the power of the State in the modern world I ask, why doesn't Clinton impose wage and price controls, exchange controls, tariffs, and a full-blown industrial policy? Why doesn't he nationalize the steel industry, guarantee jobs for all, confiscate all estates above $100,000, impose 95% income taxes on those making more than $40,000/year, and all of the other proposals that were popular earlier in this century? I doubt that he is restrained because of his deep commitment to human liberty. He doesn't do it because he can't. Markets wouldn't put up with it. His government would be destroyed (by capital flight.) In this connection, I invite everyone to read the excellent profile of Japan in last week's Economist. It discusses the current and growing Japanese commitment to deregulation and what is driving it. That issue is a keeper anyway because of an article on commerce on the Internet and (as has been mentioned before) the use of the word "anarcho-capitalism" in an article comparing Thailand and Singapore. Assuming that the government were to attempt to establish a Post Office mediated digital authentication system, there is no guarantee that it would work. Foreign users would presumably use foreign systems to authenticate their transactions. Some of these systems might be run by privatized foreign PTTs or by others. Note that since banks and credit agencies will still have to approve the transactions anyway (to make sure you've got the dough), they may decide to use other systems for signature authentication. It would not really cost them any more. Since information is cheap, setting up a system to use several authentication systems is almost as easy as setting up a system to use one. (Particularly since you have to do it anyway.) It is difficult to imagine the P.O. being able to compete in the cutthroat world of credit processing. Recall that even today, there are companies that pick up and deliver your mail to the P.O. to speed the process along. Similarly, expediters may interpose themselves between the customer and the P.O. to speed authentication in the even that the P.O. network is slow or inefficient (likely). Here again, Clipper gives us some hints as to how the attempted market cornering might work out in practice: The Admin is currently floating stories about perhaps withdrawing Clipper in favor of "wider discussions" with the industry. Clipper is already painfully obsolete and it isn't even shipping in quantity. Inefficient government monopolies create marvelous profit opportunities for markets to arbitrage the gap between cost and price. In a highly efficient networked world, it will be very difficult for governments to compete. DCF Why Pizza Hut should hire *me* as their spokesman: "Why does Pizza Hut oppose mandatory, employer-paid health insurance in the US even though we are forced to pay it in Japan and Germany? We support the principle of cultural diversity under which different societies experiment with different methods of social organization. Germany and Japan have chosen one road, we have chosen another. Pizza Hut would not voluntarily impose on our US customers the burden of the very high food costs that the agricultural policies of Germany and Japan impose on their citizens. Similarly, we would not choose to impose on our US employees the burden of bureaucratically designed employment contracts. Pizza Hut supports the right of our customers to enjoy the least expensive and best pizza on earth and the right of our employees to bargain with us collectively and individually concerning the conditions of their employment."

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Recent references to Crypto in the media...
by Jim choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Just a note to alert those interested that the latest issue of PC Magazine has two articles about crypto. One is about public key and DES and the general currents. The second is in reference to WinCrypt. Both articles are very general and do not delve into technical discussion. Take care.

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Nat'l ID # ?
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It strikes me as anachronistic to worry about national ID numbers for privacy reasons. With data processing of the 1950's, someone would have needed a single index number in order to gather all records about me into one place. With today's excess computing power, there's no problem doing a kind of fuzzy fill algorithm -- find all my various numbers, record links between them and therefore equate them (MC 1234 5678 8765 1982) = (AMEX 9876 123655 83002) = (SS 788 84 2345) = Carl M. Ellison 2130 Mass Ave; Cambridge 02140 = (617) 876-6644 etc. To aid those who are computationally challenged, this entity could also create its own index number and let others refer to that -- even call it a national ID number. None of this requires a national ID card.

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Cypherpunks & math
by Nathan Zook 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I know I'll regret this, but... I've seen a lot of comments by folks that indicates a high level of mathematical sofistication. So I'm curious. Please e-mail me as follows: SUBJECT: nomath If you've not had some Discrete Math course. SUBJECT: discrete If you've had Discrete Math. SUBJECT: algebra1 If you've had semester course on algebra. SUBJECT: algebra2 If you've had a year-long senior level course based on Fraliegh or some such. SUBJECT: grad If you've been to grad school in math. SUBJECT: firstcourse If you've had the prelim algebra course. (Hungerford or such) SUBJECT: prelim If you've passed your algebra prelim. SUBJECT: orals If you've passed your oral exam. SUBJECT: orala If your oral had a significant algebra component SUBJECT: candidate If you are a candidate in algebra. SUBJECT: phd If you have a phd in math. SUBJECT: research If you have published in number theory. I'm an "orala". Thanks!

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Re: y'all gotta see True Lies
by Berzerk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Tue, 19 Jul 1994 jdblair(a)nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU wrote: > 2) A "blanket order" to a vague, unknown government agency to wire tap > anything they feel like. Dont forget the abuse of this to tap his own wife! I am sure that convinced everyone that there needed to be no oversite on this.(not). They also mentioned that unauthorized wiretaps were a felony, but also showed the man ignoring it. > 5) Of course, every hacker in the audience noticed that the rich > multinational zillionaire is unable to choose encryption secure enough to > fend off an attack on minutes in length using computer equipment in a van! > What was he using to hide his records? Enigma? No! an atack on enigma would take much to long, must have been [in]deskrete. > 6) Oh yeah, the women are unable to do anything except talk on the phone, > get into catfights, give men blowjobs, and kill people by accident. The I liked that part.:-) > 7) Luckily, amid all the casual death in the name of national security and > the american way, we have Arnie pointing out that "he only kills bad > people." Reminds me of the time I was at the Space and Rocket Center in The exact line was Q: "have you ever killed anyone?" a: "Ja, but they were all bad". > Huntsville, right after the Gulf War. They had a patriot missile on > display, along with the wreckage of a "busted scud." A mother pointed to > the missile, saying to her son, "Look, its the patriotic missile." I am > not making this up. Raising good little sheep for the fatherland. > I doubt it'll matter who's holding the wheel. I think the car's driving > itself. And it is not a pendulum swinging back and forth, it is a car swerving from the right lane to the left lane and heading for a cliff. > If anyone has a good monkeywrench, send it my way. Hehehhehehehehheheheheh. Berzerk, Green Libertarian ******************* Hey, those dams were paid for by stolen tax money, right? Does that mean we can blow them up?

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Re: Federal Control of Financial Transactions
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:53 AM 7/19/94 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >Inefficient government monopolies create marvelous profit opportunities for >markets to arbitrage the gap between cost and price. In a highly efficient >networked world, it will be very difficult for governments to compete. Yeah. What he said. Arachno-Capitalism, anyone? You have to be careful to use the analytic methods of the present (modern financial concepts, for instance), to make informed guesses about the future. If you don't, and your analysis is clouded with a belief in the efficacy of command economies, you start to see totalarians behind every bush. I think Eric put his finger on it before when he said something about not demonizing the NSA. They were just wrong, and they were going to lose this fight because the technology was stacked against them. "Reality is not optional", to quote Thomas Sowell. While I've been watching this discussion about manditory identity, I keep remembering a couple of things I read a while ago. The first was Gerard K. O'Neill's book "2081". Gerry was the Princeton physicist whose undergraduate physics class started the space colonization craze of the late 70's. In "2081", O'Neill had posited a world where, among other things, everyone had micro-transponders. The ultimate nightmare of free people everywhere. Yet it had it's advantages. You could pick up something and walk out of a store, and since the store's receivers knew who you were and what you took, the item would be deducted from your bank account. Phone calls would be routed to follow you wherever you went. If a crime is committed, you have an alaibi. I'm pretty sure most of you have heard about Xerox PARC's work in this regard. There was an article in Scientific American about it a couple of years ago. I even saw that Olivetti has begun manufacturing the smart badges (transponders) upon which the technology hinges. I expect that strong cryptology is the way to make this technology work so that a person's freedom and privacy is actually enhanced. The other thing I remember reading was an old Esther Dyson (Freeman Dyson's daughter...synchronicity!) quote about the necessity for some kind of law which made personal information the property of the person whose information it was. Again, I expect strong crypto and market mechanisms will evolve together to enforce that legal claim at some point. 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

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Re: CBS News: National ID Card Returns
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

: From: michael(a)resonex.com (Michael Bryan) : On a related note, I was very surprised when I went to England, and : found out that their driver's licenses don't have photos on them, : supposedly because it would be an invasion of privacy. And I was also : told that they cannot keep your fingerprints on file permanently, : except for particularly severe crimes. Minor crimes might allow them : to keep records of your fingerprints for a couple of years or so, but : then the records must be destroyed. It's amazing how complacent we : are in the US by comparison. I fear that a National ID card would be : far to easy to foist upon the American public. I hope I'm wrong. The *police* aren't supposed to keep fingerprints on file if the person isn't a criminal, but who believes they're that stringent? And of course MI5 (SIS, whatever) can do what they damn well please. The USA aren't supposed to keep peoples fingerprints on file either, after they've done the background check, when you immigrate. Want to bet they do? I think when I give my fingerprints I'll ask the official to write me a *personal* guarantee that my fingerprints won't be saved, then sue his ass if they ever appear later... once they've been digitised for the system, do you believe that all copies will be deleted? I sure don't. All I believe is when they tell you the *card* will be returned they're probably telling the truth. BFD. G (Who also wonders if the blood sample for AIDS testing gets dried and filed for future genetic fingerprinting...) PS So are we going to spin off that list we talked about for this sort of stuff or not? Sameer?

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