December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since it seems to be the topic of the day, here are some of my thoughts on moderating CP. o Moderation achieved what it could achieve. Spam is no longer clogging up the list. Insults, i.e., "Tim Mayo fucks children", are no longer polluting the list. o Moderation did not achieve what it couldn't achieve. The level of noise has been reduced, but signal has not been increased. This is sad, but true. The attempt was probably bound to fail, since many of the "top signal generators" have long left the list and are not about to come back. All that is remaining are a few diehards, such as myself, some TLA goons (knowingly or unknowingly) working against the cause, and many newbies and observers. I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy Maytag's father, an idiot, stumbled across Timmy Maytag's mother, an imbecile, when she had no clothes on. Nine months later she had a little moron. \\\ (0 0) _ooO_(_)_Ooo____ Timmy Maytag

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swiss buy centralized euro-smartcard system
by Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.hotwired.com/staff/pointcast/Features/1814.html A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's warm here.

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Re: Key Security Question
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > On the other hand, if the "repairman" replaced your pgp executable > > > with version 2.6.3kgb, which uses your hashed passphrase as the > > > session key, you're hosed. Or if he installed a keystroke sniffer, > > > or added a small radio transmitter to your keyboard, or whatever. > > > Depends on your threat model. If you need to be paranoid, > > > they've already gotten you.... > > > > If you're really paranoid, you can boot from a clean floppy and > > reinstall everything from your backup tapes. You do have a > > contingency plan in case your hard disk goes bad, or gets a > > virus, don't you? Well, if you're in doubt, exercise it. Face it, the only solution is to wrap your computer, cat, family, car and yourself in aluminium foil and burn your hard disk whilst chanting "yamma yamma yamma yaaaaamaa" Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: "Secret" Postal Device stolen
by Andrew Loewenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So much for key escrow. *ding!* we have a winner! andrew

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Re: Fortune, 3 Feb
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike McNally wrote: > > Big article in Fortune about e-mail privace. One little paragraph > about encryption ("scrambling"). Fairly clue-free overall, but > entertaining. > I found the article to be extremely silly, although it was probably useful for "management". Anyway, computer security is an oxymoron. - Igor.

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Re: Voice Encrytion/Scrambling
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:09 PM 2/2/97 -0800, Huge Cajones Remailer wrote: >Can anyone comment on and give pointers to devices designed to >encrypt voice transmission over POTS lines? I am interested in >the respective sound qualities (if you've tried it) and >relative strengths of encryption algorithms. http://www.comsec.com/ Uses 2048 bit DH and 3DES. The voice quality is excellent. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List" -Reply
by Eldon Jenkins 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sandy, I've been a member of this list off and on for the past few years. In reading this list daily for quite some time I feel that the filtering you are doing has made quite a substantial and positive change. Normally I would spend an hour or so at work filtering through the list deleting endless threads of nonsense just so I could glean the valuable information that is hidden in midst of the mindless chatter. Now the time I spend searching for information has been drastically reduced and I would like to thank you for this. While I am against censorship and moderation whole-heartedly I see this as a different case. You are not preventing anyone from posting, you just sort the posts and place them in their appropriate list. I see your efforts as more of an organizing project rather then censorship. I would love to see the list continue to be moderated. Just my two cents though. Eldon Jenkins USRobotics Programmer

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Re: PCS Encryption?
by Greg Rose 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

David Lesher writes: >Greg Rose sez: >> >> The three different digital standards in North >> America are TDMA, CDMA, and GSM (in NY and DC >> only AFAIK). Newer analog phones use at least >> some of this, but I don't know much about them. > >? I always thought GSM was a specific application >of TDMA... Technologically, GSM *is* a kind of time division multiple access, but the term "TDMA" as I used it is meant to apply to North American IS-128(?) compliant things. They are definitely not interoperable. Greg. Greg Rose INTERNET: ggr(a)Qualcomm.com Qualcomm Australia VOICE: +61-2-9743 4646 FAX: +61-2-9736 3262 6 Kingston Avenue homepage. Mortlake NSW 2137 35 0A 79 7D 5E 21 8D 47 E3 53 75 66 AC FB D9 45

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Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since it seems to be the topic of the day, here are some of my thoughts on moderating CP. o Moderation achieved what it could achieve. Spam is no longer clogging up the list. Insults, i.e., "Tim Mayo fucks children", are no longer polluting the list. o Moderation did not achieve what it couldn't achieve. The level of noise has been reduced, but signal has not been increased. This is sad, but true. The attempt was probably bound to fail, since many of the "top signal generators" have long left the list and are not about to come back. All that is remaining are a few diehards, such as myself, some TLA goons (knowingly or unknowingly) working against the cause, and many newbies and observers. I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: PCS Encryption?
by Andrew Meredith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greg Rose wrote: > > The three different digital standards in North America are TDMA, > CDMA, and GSM (in NY and DC only AFAIK). GSM is also a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) system. In it's original form it uses specrum around 900 MHz, which I believe not to be available in the US. Shame really, I can roam with my GSM phone over pretty much the rest of the planet ... except the US. Anyway, there are two higher frequency derivatives, PCS1800 & PCS1900, which have been deployed in the US. I'm not involved directly in the US market so I'm not sure where. I assume however that these are the systems to which Greg refers. > Newer analog phones use at least some of this, but I don't know much > about them. I'll ignore GSM. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Aww shame ;) > The conclusion is that neither way of doing it is truly > cryptographically strong, but both are a lot better than > listening to Princess Di call Newt "Squidgy" on a Radio Shack > scanner. GSM uses the A5 algorithm which *is* cryptographically strong, but is unfortunately considered to be top secret stuff. If, however, you were to pick up a copy of "Applied Cryptography, 2nd Edition" by Bruce Schneier you may find something of interest. I hope that you'll work out from my .sig why I can't say much more. Hope this helps Andy M -- ___________________________________________________________________ Andrew Meredith Senior Systems Engineer Tel: +44(0) 1793 565377 Network Engineering Tools Grp Fax: +44(0) 1793 565161 GSM Products Division Page: +44(0) 839 421153 Motorola SMTP: meredith(a)ecid.cig.mot.com 16, Euroway, Blagrove X400: QSWI016(a)email.mot.com Swindon, SN5 8YQ, UK SMS: 44860608008(a)sms.telco.mot.com ___________________________________________________________________

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Dissolving Choke Points
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the moderation of the cypherpunks list. Recently a number of new regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date. Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced. Many of us thought that was pretty sneaky. I feel the same way about the moderation plan. Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. The cypherpunks list right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11. Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy? Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's replace it. What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of these machines should be across borders. The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing the message IDs. Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other. I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to do this. I haven't found one. However, if we have many machines sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important because the list will survive multiple "hits". Only the subscribers on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed. This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list operator. (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.) Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the load. This makes more machines available and has less impact on people's net connections. Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at toad.com. All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers each. (This is a completely manageable load.) Do you have a Unix machine on the Net? Does it have sendmail and Perl? Then you have all that it takes to participate. Send me mail and I'll help you set it up. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from both of them. While basically well-intentioned, they just made a mistake in this instance.

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

i do have unix (linux) and stuff, but i can't take a lot of subscribers -- maybe 200-300 or so. i actually wrote a proposal for a mailing list without a central control point, with several advantages being impossibility of control, absense of a single point of failure, and cryptographic verification of honesty of moderators. if there is any interest, i will post it here. igor Peter Hendrickson wrote: > > I was amused by the similarities of USG crypto policy and the > moderation of the cypherpunks list. Recently a number of new > regulations were announced to go into effect by a certain date. > Requests for comments were made after the policy was announced. Many > of us thought that was pretty sneaky. I feel the same way about the > moderation plan. > > Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I > can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. > > There are lessons to be learned here. One is that censorship does > not promote a stimulating and creative dialogue. The cypherpunks list > right now is about as interesting as hanging out by the 7-11. > > Another lesson is the danger of choke points. We can see how > tempting it is for people to exercise their control. Even John Gilmore > was unable to restrain himself from involuntary social engineering > experiments. Who would we have considered to be more trustworthy? > > Toad.com is a choke point, not just in terms of moderation but in > terms of the rate at which it can distribute messages. Let's > replace it. > > What we want are many machines carrying the cypherpunks list. A > message posted to any machine goes to all of the others. Each > machine sends messages to its subscribers only once. Some of > these machines should be across borders. > > The mail loop and multiple posting problems are solved by observing > the message IDs. > > Fast implementation: use moderated mailing list software. Put a > filter in the .forward file of the "moderator" account which looks > at the message ID and forwards the message if it hasn't been seen > already. The mailing list machines all subscribe each other. > > I've been looking for a stable machine with a good net connection to > do this. I haven't found one. However, if we have many machines > sharing the load, the stability of any one unit is not as important > because the list will survive multiple "hits". Only the subscribers > on one machine will be affected by having their messages delayed. > This greatly reduces the work and responsibility for any one list > operator. (As John will attest, keeping a machine running 24 hours a > day, 7 days a week, rain or shine, is a lot of work.) > > Also, with multiple machines, each unit handles a small amount of the > load. This makes more machines available and has less impact on > people's net connections. > > Last I checked, there were about 1200 addresses on the mailing list at > toad.com. All we need are about 10 machines to take 120 subscribers > each. (This is a completely manageable load.) > > Do you have a Unix machine on the Net? Does it have sendmail and > Perl? Then you have all that it takes to participate. Send me > mail and I'll help you set it up. > > Peter Hendrickson > ph(a)netcom.com > > P.S. I like and respect John and Sandy and I've learned a lot from > both of them. While basically well-intentioned, they just made a > mistake in this instance. > > - Igor.

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Filling Power Vacuums
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:57 AM -0800 2/3/97, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >After reading through Tim's post, I don't think much would be >served by doing another point by point response. From Tim's >tone, it appears he is still seething about how this all came >about, so I'll just leave our two expressions of opinions where >they were. I have no wish to exacerbate any hard feelings Tim >may be having. Indeed, I have been seething for the past several weeks (off and on, as I am fortunately able to usually put it out of my mind and do other things with my mental energies....). I think I have figured out why I'm seething. It's about "power grabs." You see, in any anarchic situation, where reliance on self-control and self-filtering is emphasized, there is always a _temptation_ for some to "fill the power vacuum" and grab power. I learned in my years at Intel how easy it was to start bossing people around, and as I hired engineers and scientists, I built up quite a little empire. But I didn't like what it was doing to me, as it distanced me from the technology and also brought out "control freak" tendencies....I started worrying about how my people were using their time ("my" time), and I increasingly applied my own notions of what they should talk about and what were suitable topics for laboratory chatter. In other words, I became a censor. (Not a government censor, but a censor in the broader definition I've already cited.) So I gave it up. Even before eventually retiring from Intel, I elected to leave the management track and rejoin the "technical ladder," becoming one of Intel's so-called Principal Engineers. No longer could I control others, except through the example I set and the information I provided. And I was happy I had moved away from "the dark side of the force." (I accept the role hierarchies play in corporations. They can't be built with just people like me. They need leaders, controllers, power freaks, etc. But a virtual community like the Cypherpunks group is not such a heirarchical organization, and it needs few rules, leaders, etc. "We don't need no steenking leaders.") As this relates to Cypherpunks, I have steadfastly refused to consider any "management role," so to speak, in how the list is run, the formal policies, etc. I'm not saying there has been a call for management (though Detweiler used to rail against us for not having a management heirarchy, for not having rules and democratic procedures for "making decisions"), just that the power vacuum in anarchies such as ours is often an open invitation for someone to step in and "provide structure and guidance." I resisted any thoughts of doing this, and argued against this sort of thing whenever the topic came up in conversation. I chose to lead only by the posts I wrote and the ideas I worked on. There have been frequent calls over the years for the Cypherpunks to have a more permanent presence, perhaps even an office in Washington, D.C., such as the EFF had, the CPSR still has, and so on. And to have an Official Spokesman, a contact person for the media droids to contact. The calls for this have declined in the last couple of years, as people figured out that the Cypherpunks are not about having spokespunks for us, and that the media will just have to deal with the "anarchy" of having to herd cats to get information out of us. Now, of course, the message is being sent that Sandy Sandfort is in some sense the de facto leader, being that he determines what traffic goes out to the main list and what traffic gets bounced into the flames list. In fact, I'll make a prediction: The media will see that he is the chief censor and arbiter of worthiness and will increasingly contact him for the Official Point of View on various items they are interested in. It distresses me greatly that Sandy Sandfort has elected to move into this "power vacuum" to nominate himself as our Leader and Chief Censor. Foo on that. (I used to hear this at Intel, where the argument for a hierarchical structure was much stronger, to wit: "Tim, if you won't agree to manage others, you'll have to accept that people less technically competent than yourself are going to elect to become managers and they'll probably become _your_ manager in the not too distant future.") So, I sort of thank Sandy for helping me to realize certain things that I may not have explicitly realized before. Namely, I realize that I don't want the karmic burdens of power myself, preferring to lead only by the example I set and the ideas I generate. This is why "market anarchies" (books, music, ideas, all things where "no ruler" exists) appeal to me so much. And since I don't wish to assume the mantle of leadership, and don't see much need for leadership or global censorship (as opposed to locally contracted for filtering, a la Eric Blossom's list, or Siskel and Ebert giving recommendations, or ratings of restaurants, etc.), I am resentful and suspicious of people who _do_ step into the "power vacuum" to lead and control. Now I grant you that Sandy's form of leadership and control is relatively mild, but the very notion that Sandy can reject a long essay because of a couple of phrasings he dislikes (this was his "judgment call" point about why he (reluctantly?) allowed my post to go out) is a step in the wrong direction. And given our strong ideological bias toward market anarchies, this move toward censorship stands out like a sore thumb. At least the issue would be clearer if Sandy passed all posts through but deleted sections that offended him and marked deleted sections as "**CENSORED**." Yes, I'm seething. Sandy is right about that. I saw a group I helped create and spent thousands of hours on, writing articles and developing ideas choose--by fiat from the owner of the machine the list was being sent out from--to embrace the dark side, the control freak side. In the name of "comity," Sandy's term for the bonhomie he thinks he can cultivate, we lose our ideological purity. "Hey, even the Cypherpunks have embraced censorship." Instead of letting the power vacuum remain unfilled, and suggesting to people that they solve the problems it creates as best they can, Sandy jumped in to fill the vacuum. This is what I'm seething about. And even dropping the power grab at the end of the "experiment" will not stop this seething. Fuck it. --Tim May " Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: GAK cracking?
by C. Kuethe 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com wrote: > Just days after a U.S. graduate student cracked the most powerful > computer encryption system allowed out of the country, the Commerce > Department announced it would allow three companies to export an > even stronger system. [snip] > Companies said products with just 40-bit long keys, the old limit, > were too easy to crack. The approvals came just days after Ian Goldberg, a > graduate student at the University of California, cracked a message > encoded with a software key 40-bits long. > > The government did not name the companies given permission to export > stronger, 56-bit programs, but Glenwood, Md.,-based Trusted > Information Systems acknowledged that it was one of the three. Why does it not surprise me that TIS gets permission to export 56-bit (DES?) ? They do key recovery (is it GAK?) They brag about government consulting. The clients they will admit to having are listed on: http://www.tis.com/docs/products/consulting/govt/govcon.html and, purely unsubstantiated rumors here, but I've heard (seen) TIS, NSA, FBI and other "friends" of ours all together in the same paragraph. Conspiracy? Maybe... This is both good and bad.... yes, longer codes are now exportable, but only to / by certain people? I notice that the new cipher length is 56 bit...same size as DES? hopefully that's just a coincidence (yeah, right) or maybe somebody's starting to see the real world where people download pirate cryptosystems and says "so let's export bigger ones and make a buck off it, too..." (yeah, right) PLUR chris -- Chris Kuethe <ckuethe(a)gpu.srv.ualberta.ca> LPGV Electronics and Controls <c100305(a)wolfcreek.cs.ualberta.ca> http://www.ualberta.ca/~ckuethe/ RSA in 2 lines of PERL lives at http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/ print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

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Another ActiveX hole (fwd)
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-------+..........................................................+------- + ^ + : Ray Arachelian : #include <std_disclaimer.h> :../|\.. \|/ : ray(a)earthweb.com :.....................................:./\|/\. <--+-->: ................ : My oppinions are my own and do not :.\/|\/. /|\ :voice: 212-725-6550 : neccesairly represent those of my :..\|/.. + v + :....................: employer. :....... .... http://www.sundernet.com ...personal.email sunder(a)sundernet.com ..... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:26:44 -0500 From: Andy Breen <abreen(a)earthweb.com> To: yak(a)earthweb.com Subject: Another ActiveX hole hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... ------------------ DMK: An application of covert channels. From RISKS Digest Vol 18, Issue 80. Date: 1 Feb 1997 05:12:02 GMT From: weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) Subject: Electronic Funds Transfer without stealing PIN/TAN The Berlin newspaper "Tagespiegel" reports on 29 Jan 97 about a television show broadcast the previous evening on which hackers from the Chaos Computer Club demonstrated how to electronically transfer funds without needing a PIN (Personal Identification Number) or TAN (Transaction Number). Apparently it suffices for the victim to visit a site which downloads an ActiveX application, which automatically starts and checks to see if Quicken, a popular financial software package that also offers electronic funds transfer, is on the machine. If so, Quicken is given a transfer order which is saved by Quicken in its pile of pending transfer orders. The next time the victim sends off the pending transfer orders to the bank (and enters in a valid PIN and TAN for that!) all the orders (= 1 transaction) are executed - money is transferred without the victim noticing! The newspaper quotes various officials at Microsoft et al expressing disbelief/outrage/"we're working on it". We discussed this briefly in class looking for a way to avoid the problem. Demanding a TAN for each transfer is not a solution, for one, the banks only send you 50 at a time, and many small companies pay their bills in bunches. Having to enter a TAN for each transaction would be quite time-consuming. Our only solution would be to forbid browsers from executing any ActiveX component without express authorization, but that rather circumvents part of what ActiveX is intended for. A small consolation: the transfer is trackable, that is, it can be determined at the bank to which account the money went. Some banks even include this information on the statement, but who checks every entry on their statements... Debora Weber-Wulff, Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, Luxemburger Str. 10, 13353 Berlin GERMANY weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de <http://www.tfh-berlin.de/~weberwu/

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:28 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >At 11:38 AM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >> I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated >> with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. > >If you don't like the list, why not unsubscribe? That won't solve the problem. The list has become counterproductive. It is impossible for other lists to provide a real forum for the discussion of the topics that this list used to be about while CP still exists. At the same time, CP has long stopped providing such a forum. CP is draining energy from its subscribers and the cause. Kill it! Kill it now! -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Timothy C. May With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose substantive essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day. (Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!" ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name Nurdane Oksas, and the occasional bit of crypto news. Ho hum. I'm glad I'm not reading the list in e-mail, and thus can easily avoid replying to these inanities... .......................................... Your thoughtful contributions to the list are missed, Tim. As soon as I realized that you had left the list I suspected it had something to do with its moderation. However, I must protest the inclusion of Toto's posts as one of the "inane". His posts were intentionally formulated to cause to stand out what was, indeed, inane - as he said, to "hold up a mirror". And he continually decried the list experiment, pointing out the philosophical contradiction of a moderated "anarchist" forum. If the antidote to bad speech is more speech, then he certainly provided some, although not on the level or style as yourself. And you may say that some of these posts are not worth replying to, but didn't I see you respond to one of Dale's, regarding a photo of Jessica-the-pilot which he keeps above his desk? .. Blanc

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Information Warfare
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The cypherpunks list has been under "attack" for some time. How have we managed it? Very poorly in my view. Some people have dismissed the idea that rogue governmental elements are behind some of our problems. Yet, there is no reason to rule out this hypothesis. The government has not always behaved well with regards to its perceived enemies in the last few decades. The FBI seems to infiltrate everything - even churches!. This is well documented. The CIA has worked hard on disrupting various political movements of which it did not approve using provocateurs and other conspiratorial dirty tricks. (I believe the FBI has, too, but I do not recall any documentation offhand.) We know that "Information Warfare" is the big thing in the defense establishment right now. It's all over their web pages. We see articles from the Kennedy School which seem to compare free speech with disease. Etc. Etc. We also believe that the things the Cypherpunks are interested in are on the radar screen. Maybe the Cypherpunks are, too. Is it unreasonable to ask whether some people are getting funding to experiment with disrupting "groups" like the Cypherpunks? I can easily picture people inventing all sorts of important sounding words like "psy-op" for what is little more than rudeness. Whatever the cause of the disruptions, the solutions are the same. Most of the proposals I've been hearing have to do with controlling the behavior of other cypherpunks and creating more structure. This is a mistake. It's clear that even the definitions of "spam" and "flame" are hard to nail down. The next idea will be to moderate on the basis of content. How will we decide what is content? Clearly that's much too important a question to leave to just one person. What we need is a committee to decide! What's next? Robert's Rules of Order? All of this detracts from the work we have before us. If you've ever been involved with a non-profit organization, you will know that enormous energy is spent on internal political scheming. That's a boring waste of time. Let's go down a better path. Let's think about the best way for each cypherpunk to manage disruptions. Please consider these suggestions: 1. Filter noise. I filter based on origin. If a kill file doesn't work, use a positive filter to read messages only from people who are worthwhile. It has been suggested that this doesn't work because some people post garbage, but also occasionally post something good. There's gold in the ocean, too. Why don't we retrieve it? If you don't want to manage a filter yourself, find somebody to do it for you. A number of people offer filtering services. Remember that in an open forum, noise increases with signal. The more worthwhile and interesting threads are on the list, the more worthless postings we are going to see, particlarly when people are consciously disruptive. 2. Post signal. Filters are useless when there is no signal. Signal comes from cypherpunks. You are a cypherpunk. 3. Birds of a feather flock together. When you respond to somebody, you mingle your on-line identity with theirs. Fly with the eagles. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by pdh＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:12 PM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >At 12:28 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>At 11:38 AM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >>> I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated >>> with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. >> If you don't like the list, why not unsubscribe? > That won't solve the problem. The list has become counterproductive. It is > impossible for other lists to provide a real forum for the discussion of > the topics that this list used to be about while CP still exists. At the > same time, CP has long stopped providing such a forum. CP is draining > energy from its subscribers and the cause. Kill it! Kill it now! Who should do what to comply with your proposal? Should John shut down the list? Are you asking everybody to unsubscribe? I don't think "killing the list" is an option for you or anybody else. The List transcends all domains. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: PGP 2.1
by Lynne L. Harrison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Mon Feb 03 17:19:14 1997 > Mark Henderson wrote: > > > > Larry Johnson writes: > > > Hello, > > > Can any;one tell me how to get a version of PGP 2.1? > > > Thanks > > > > > But, why do you want version 2.1? > > Because the guy who wrote it was let off after that on his jail > charges, so I'm not going to use anything he made after that if > I don't know why. > I'm not saying that he rolled over or nothin buyt I'm gonna be > paranoyd like he said in the book. I dont suposse he'd mind, > since he said it. > I'm not real smart sometimes but I'nm not a real lamer, either. > (I don't think) I bite my tongue.... -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMvZkYj5A4+Z4Wnt9AQEtNwP/TXMTZcozL0dNIJjBbdX7mwu0DiEJZV29 nzmIOPZFQyqeVgc1+DrYc0oB6hILAdC5Juf2k7sHr3bzqwNUWERY+PskVRWxRsi6 onN5OqNiAZxVJMcUDZx2r34vZd9Z3TtkGqHDY91xr6Q8UgBYcsmI1SwyjUTwgwST oraGSR/h8eE= =YYIb -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: RC5-12/32/5 contest solved
by Eric Blossom 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security apparently wrote: > Have good reason to believe your estimate for a purpose built machine this > year (expect 600,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 kps per sieve - these will not > be cheap chips but will be commecially available). Expect 400 arrays > would be required to do DES in a day (average) but is a lot more > achievable than the 65k postulated by the gang of nine. I received a nice flyer in the mail the other day from "Chip Express" (www.chipexpress.com, 800-95-CHIPX). They are offering Laser Programmed Gate Arrays. It appears to be a reasonable way to get some Wiener chips built. As I recall, the Wiener design required about 23,000 gates. Their blurb had the following table in in: FPGA Gates ASIC Gates 500 Units 1000 Units 5000 Units 40,000 20,000 $77 $45 $10 Not Avail 200,000 $176 $150 $82 So it appears that you can get 5000 Wiener key search chips build for about $50K. I'm not sure about the speed, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could clock these at 50 MHz. The Wiener design is pipelined and searches one key per clock, so each chip could search 50e6 keys / second. 50e6 * 5000 = 250e9 keys / second for $50K Happy Hunting... Eric

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GAK/KR spin
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several months back there were discussions on the list regarding renaming the government's key escrow/recovery proposals (KRAP comes to mind). I think we need something that's catchy and simple (perhaps already familiar) to understand for the semi-litterate citizen units. I propose we encourage use of the terms "crippleware" or "crypto crippleware" when refering to the products limited to their weak crypto and/or key escrow/recovery. --Steve

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Re: Dissolving Choke Points
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter Hendrickson writes: > Moderation has been a failure. I'm pretty good at filtering and I > can sadly report that there is very little signal out there. The quality of the Cypherpunks list is determined solely by the amount of signal. The amount of noise is irrelevant. Barring someone continuously mail-bombing the list 24 hours a day from a T3, it is easy to pick and choose the posts one wishes to read, and wipe the rest with a single keystroke afterwards. I read the list selectively depending upon the amount of free time I have. I always try to read serious crypto articles, and all posts by Tim, Hal, Eric, Duncan, and a few other notables. If I have additional time, I will read other threads of interest, a little Vulis, and selected Toto, who happens to be a very funny person at times. Now that we have moderation, I can't do this while subscribed to the main list, and have to live in eternal fear that I am writing for an audience of 20 every time I respond to something on the unedited list. Foo on that. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Govt & cyberspace
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

DF raises the question of whether the IRS will be able to modernize in the lack of "intellectual capital" (i.e. brains). This is actually a very interesting topic which I've not seen a lot of analysis on elsewhere, but which I expect to see a lot more in the future. the basic issue is this: private industry is moving into cyberspace at a lightening pace. yet the government is painfully incapable of doing the same for reasons of bureacracy. numerous articles have been documenting the inability of the government to successfully pull of massive software and hardware upgrade projects. I suspect it will only be a matter of time before this is called a major "crisis" by politicians and milked for all of its conceivable tax value. eeks. I've seen a lot of articles about govt agencies in a computational crisis due to this problem. maybe someone can come up with a cute tag item. "technology envy" maybe? I read about how the FAA was trying to install a new flight control system that's insanely over budget and lightyears from a conceivable completion. another *major* computation problem is the year 2000 crisis. private companies can barely get it together to do the upgrading and investigation required to fix the 2000-flip problem. the government is even farther behind. if there is going to be a year 2000 "crisis" due to the millenium bug, I suspect much of it will be focused in government agencies. "tech envy"-- what impact is this going to have on our government? it's becoming a huge issue. it may be a really great opportunity for a populist movement to truly reform the government in the process of upgrading their computers. I suspect that the "groupware" technology that is just getting started will have major influence in these areas. as private companies find increasingly sophisticated ways of managing themselves, the obvious question will arise, "why can't we have an efficient govt when our private industries are"? the answer is, we can!! I've written about "electronic democracy" repeatedly. many people object to the idea. but when it is phrased in terms of groupware, it becomes more palatable. imagine a small company humming along with its groupware application that allows it to make company-wide decisions using a democratic process. moreover, the software is robust and scales well. why can't the same principles be scaled up, up, up? I predict that they will be in a rather extraordinary revolution. a new "velvet revolution"? comments anyone?

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:15 PM -0800 2/3/97, Blanc Weber wrote: >Your thoughtful contributions to the list are missed, Tim. As soon as >I realized that you had left the list I suspected it had something to do >with its moderation. > >However, I must protest the inclusion of Toto's posts as one of the >"inane". His posts were intentionally formulated to cause to stand >out what was, indeed, inane - as he said, to "hold up a mirror". And >he continually decried the list experiment, pointing out the >philosophical contradiction of a moderated "anarchist" forum. Well, "Toto" wrote in a style I found hard to grasp, and his/her/its points were often lost to me. But I was only scanning the list via the hks.net archive site, and so may have missed the subtleties. One way thoughtful posts get "absorbed" is when others quote them (or the parts they like best, disagree with, etc.). This gives people a second or third look. (And, of course, when one _replies_ to a post this is how it gets read most carefully.) I saw few people I respect a lot replying substantively to the posts of some of these people who seemed to dominate the list in the last month, and of course I myself did not reply to any of them, so whatever points they were making were lost on me. >If the antidote to bad speech is more speech, then he certainly provided >some, although not on the level or style as yourself. And you may say >that some of these posts are not worth replying to, but didn't I see you >respond to one of Dale's, regarding a photo of Jessica-the-pilot which >he keeps above his desk? Sure, but that was months ago. In any case, I didn't say Dale nor Toto nor anyone else should be shunned; I posted when I felt like it. Nor of course have I ever argued for censoring Toto or Dale or anyone else. My point to Sandy was just that the new censorship policy was still clearly letting a lot of crap^H^H^H^H "piffle" (a Sandy-used and hence Sandy-approved synonym for "cr*p") through, and that certain folks were issuing lots and lots of rants and raves. Personally, I think "flames" are not the problem. Not flames from obviously thoughtful folks who are angered or peeved about something. The "flames" posted by bots--targetted at me, usually--were not especially helpful, but I see nothing wrong with, say, Hallam-Baker flaming Bell. Or vice versa. Flames and intense argument are often useful in explicating hard subjects...and who can deny that Bell's ideas are controversial and may generate intense opinions? To expunge the list of Vulis' ASCII art and "Timmy May was born on a toilet as the spawn of a dandruff-covered Armenian tchurka and his nekulturny peasant mother" bot-generated insults we have apparently now gotten a list where Lord Sandy apprises us that he almost rejected my long, carefully-constructed essay because I committed the NewCyphepunk (TM) sin of referring to Toto, Dale, Dimitri, and Nurgaine in unflattering ways. Like I said, "fuck that." Or, more politely, it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Not to mention sending the strong message that "Even Cypherpunks gave up their experiment with anarchy and now have a moderator deciding what the main list is permitted to read." Far too high a price to pay for the "comity" Sandy craves. (And if Sandy wants comity and good cheer, let him either form his own list or establish a filtered list just the way Blossom and Arachelian did. Hijacking the list to reform it in his own image is dirty pool.) --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:28 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >At 11:38 AM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >> I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated >> with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. > >If you don't like the list, why not unsubscribe? That won't solve the problem. The list has become counterproductive. It is impossible for other lists to provide a real forum for the discussion of the topics that this list used to be about while CP still exists. At the same time, CP has long stopped providing such a forum. CP is draining energy from its subscribers and the cause. Kill it! Kill it now! -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Another ActiveX hole (fwd)
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-------+..........................................................+------- + ^ + : Ray Arachelian : #include <std_disclaimer.h> :../|\.. \|/ : ray(a)earthweb.com :.....................................:./\|/\. <--+-->: ................ : My oppinions are my own and do not :.\/|\/. /|\ :voice: 212-725-6550 : neccesairly represent those of my :..\|/.. + v + :....................: employer. :....... .... http://www.sundernet.com ...personal.email sunder(a)sundernet.com ..... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 13:26:44 -0500 From: Andy Breen <abreen(a)earthweb.com> To: yak(a)earthweb.com Subject: Another ActiveX hole hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... ------------------ DMK: An application of covert channels. From RISKS Digest Vol 18, Issue 80. Date: 1 Feb 1997 05:12:02 GMT From: weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff) Subject: Electronic Funds Transfer without stealing PIN/TAN The Berlin newspaper "Tagespiegel" reports on 29 Jan 97 about a television show broadcast the previous evening on which hackers from the Chaos Computer Club demonstrated how to electronically transfer funds without needing a PIN (Personal Identification Number) or TAN (Transaction Number). Apparently it suffices for the victim to visit a site which downloads an ActiveX application, which automatically starts and checks to see if Quicken, a popular financial software package that also offers electronic funds transfer, is on the machine. If so, Quicken is given a transfer order which is saved by Quicken in its pile of pending transfer orders. The next time the victim sends off the pending transfer orders to the bank (and enters in a valid PIN and TAN for that!) all the orders (= 1 transaction) are executed - money is transferred without the victim noticing! The newspaper quotes various officials at Microsoft et al expressing disbelief/outrage/"we're working on it". We discussed this briefly in class looking for a way to avoid the problem. Demanding a TAN for each transfer is not a solution, for one, the banks only send you 50 at a time, and many small companies pay their bills in bunches. Having to enter a TAN for each transaction would be quite time-consuming. Our only solution would be to forbid browsers from executing any ActiveX component without express authorization, but that rather circumvents part of what ActiveX is intended for. A small consolation: the transfer is trackable, that is, it can be determined at the bank to which account the money went. Some banks even include this information on the statement, but who checks every entry on their statements... Debora Weber-Wulff, Technische Fachhochschule Berlin, Luxemburger Str. 10, 13353 Berlin GERMANY weberwu(a)tfh-berlin.de <http://www.tfh-berlin.de/~weberwu/

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RE: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Timothy C. May With no false modesty I tried awfully hard to compose substantive essays on crypto-political topics, often more than one per day. (Others did too, but they seem to be tapering off as well, leaving the list to be dominated by something called a "Toto," the "O.J. was framed!" ravings of Dale Thorn, the love letters between Vulis and someone name Nurdane Oksas, and the occasional bit of crypto news. Ho hum. I'm glad I'm not reading the list in e-mail, and thus can easily avoid replying to these inanities... .......................................... Your thoughtful contributions to the list are missed, Tim. As soon as I realized that you had left the list I suspected it had something to do with its moderation. However, I must protest the inclusion of Toto's posts as one of the "inane". His posts were intentionally formulated to cause to stand out what was, indeed, inane - as he said, to "hold up a mirror". And he continually decried the list experiment, pointing out the philosophical contradiction of a moderated "anarchist" forum. If the antidote to bad speech is more speech, then he certainly provided some, although not on the level or style as yourself. And you may say that some of these posts are not worth replying to, but didn't I see you respond to one of Dale's, regarding a photo of Jessica-the-pilot which he keeps above his desk? .. Blanc

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GAK/KR spin
by Steve Schear 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Several months back there were discussions on the list regarding renaming the government's key escrow/recovery proposals (KRAP comes to mind). I think we need something that's catchy and simple (perhaps already familiar) to understand for the semi-litterate citizen units. I propose we encourage use of the terms "crippleware" or "crypto crippleware" when refering to the products limited to their weak crypto and/or key escrow/recovery. --Steve

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Re: Filling Power Vacuums
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

vovochka wrote: > timmy writes: > > <It's about "power grabs." > < > <You see, in any anarchic situation, where reliance on self-control and > <self-filtering is emphasized, there is always a _temptation_ for some to > <"fill the power vacuum" and grab power. > > ah, so what's the solution? Maybe there is a way to set up a structure that allows for no power to appear. In fact, I know one. > don't worry timmy, you'll feel better later after you've forgotten > that there was some deep lesson in all this. - Igor.

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Information Warfare
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The cypherpunks list has been under "attack" for some time. How have we managed it? Very poorly in my view. Some people have dismissed the idea that rogue governmental elements are behind some of our problems. Yet, there is no reason to rule out this hypothesis. The government has not always behaved well with regards to its perceived enemies in the last few decades. The FBI seems to infiltrate everything - even churches!. This is well documented. The CIA has worked hard on disrupting various political movements of which it did not approve using provocateurs and other conspiratorial dirty tricks. (I believe the FBI has, too, but I do not recall any documentation offhand.) We know that "Information Warfare" is the big thing in the defense establishment right now. It's all over their web pages. We see articles from the Kennedy School which seem to compare free speech with disease. Etc. Etc. We also believe that the things the Cypherpunks are interested in are on the radar screen. Maybe the Cypherpunks are, too. Is it unreasonable to ask whether some people are getting funding to experiment with disrupting "groups" like the Cypherpunks? I can easily picture people inventing all sorts of important sounding words like "psy-op" for what is little more than rudeness. Whatever the cause of the disruptions, the solutions are the same. Most of the proposals I've been hearing have to do with controlling the behavior of other cypherpunks and creating more structure. This is a mistake. It's clear that even the definitions of "spam" and "flame" are hard to nail down. The next idea will be to moderate on the basis of content. How will we decide what is content? Clearly that's much too important a question to leave to just one person. What we need is a committee to decide! What's next? Robert's Rules of Order? All of this detracts from the work we have before us. If you've ever been involved with a non-profit organization, you will know that enormous energy is spent on internal political scheming. That's a boring waste of time. Let's go down a better path. Let's think about the best way for each cypherpunk to manage disruptions. Please consider these suggestions: 1. Filter noise. I filter based on origin. If a kill file doesn't work, use a positive filter to read messages only from people who are worthwhile. It has been suggested that this doesn't work because some people post garbage, but also occasionally post something good. There's gold in the ocean, too. Why don't we retrieve it? If you don't want to manage a filter yourself, find somebody to do it for you. A number of people offer filtering services. Remember that in an open forum, noise increases with signal. The more worthwhile and interesting threads are on the list, the more worthless postings we are going to see, particlarly when people are consciously disruptive. 2. Post signal. Filters are useless when there is no signal. Signal comes from cypherpunks. You are a cypherpunk. 3. Birds of a feather flock together. When you respond to somebody, you mingle your on-line identity with theirs. Fly with the eagles. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

<* The mechanics of the announcement troubled me greatly. To be blunt, I was <seething with anger. I was mightily annoyed to read that John had made a <decision to appoint Sandy as his Moderator, with no discussion on the list. <I don't know if Eric Hughes and Hugh Daniel were asked their opinions, but <I certainly know I was not. I feel that as one of the two or three <founders, depending on how one is counting, and as a frequent contributor <to the list since its inception, and so on, I (and others) should at least <have been told of this plan. Better yet, have the plans discussed on the <list, as some good ideas may have been generated. hi timmy, a word to the wise: it amuses me that whenever I referred to a cypherpunk "community" my eyebrows were flamed off, by people who claimed there was no such thing. a community has certain properties, many of which I believe the cypherpunks "crowd" has always lacked. one aspect of the "crowd" that is lacking is LEADERSHIP. I have pointed this out again and again. the cpunks believe that leadership is no longer relevant in a digital society, somehow. the list is in the shape it is in because of POOR LEADERSHIP.. neither you nor EH care about what LEADERSHIP entails, or wish to exert the sacrifices that it requires. hence, you have, and have always had, a LEADERSHIP VACUUM. and now you are "mightily annoyed", "pissed off" etc. that as a "founder" you were not consulted? you weren't consulted because you weren't a leader in the true sense of the word. are you in or out? imho leadership does not merely entail writing posts and having a completely laissaiz fair attitude about every single issue under the sun, particularly those of dear importance to the list, such as how to deal with crappy signal to noise ratios, intentional provocateurs, people who seem to have ulterior agendas, etc. I think it is highly amusing for you to get a lesson about how your views about "anarchy" really work out. what does this anarchy thing mean, anyway? is someone else taking over the list your idea of what is represented by anarchy? imho anarchy is a power vacuum in which the events which have transpired, and that you perceive as unpalatable to say the least, are inevitable. <I'll have more to say about my problems with how things were handled. <Frankly, it smacked of the same kind of fait accompli decision John made <with the unsubscribing of Vulis. While John had (and has) every legal right <to do with his property as he wished, the effect was very negative. First, <Vulis found other ways to post (duh). Second, the list was consumed with <flames about this, many from Vulis, and many from others. Third, <journalists (who love sizzle over substance any day of the week) lept into <the fray with articles which gave Vulis the publicity he craved. Fourth, it <sent a message to enemies of liberty that "Even the Cypherpunks have found <it necessary to abandon their anarchic ways." "enemies of liberty"? hee, hee. anarchy was not a practical way of running the list, and never has been, and now that the REALITY of the situation is PROVING this to you in an inescapable existence proof, you find it impossible to confront the obvious message. timmy, a little tip: anarchy, as you seem to conceive it, doesn't scale well, and both usenet and the cypherpunks list are eminent evidence of this. <(I'm well aware of the issues with pests like Vulis, who seek to destroy <virtual communities like ours. But the solution John used did not work, and <generated more crap. As you all should know, it was John himself who coined <the wonderful saying, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes <around it." A delicious irony.) which should encourage people to understand that there is a subtle difference between censorship and moderation.. or does the distinction elude you? is there a difference in your opinion? you have plenty of financial resources to start a mailing list of your own, what makes you think it would be any more orderly than the one that is being run here? in fact, do you understand how "anarchy" and "order" are mutually exclusive, now that your own reality is shouting it to you? <* The proper solution to bad speech is more speech, not censorship. ah, so everyone should post 5 messages to the list, instead of 1, and those that are quite should post 3. quite an elegant solution. do you see how the silly rhetoric fails to hold up in reality? when will you get a clue about where your own views are really leading you? <* OK, even given that John had decided to censor "his" list, what about his <choice of Sandy Sandfort as the censor? "moderator"-- does the word mean anything to you? <(I count Sandy as a friend, but I'm just being honest here. Sandy is just <not a "Peter Neumann" (moderator of the "RISKS" list). you were free to propose another moderator. moderation is hard work. it takes a lot of time. who volunteered other than sandy? <* I would have had no problem had John announced that he was creating a new <list, the "Good Stuff" list, with Sandy has his Chooser of Good Stuff. <After all, both Eric Blossom and Ray Arachelian already offer just such <lists, and more would not hurt. < <But by making the _main list_ the censored one, this skewed things <considerably. anyone is free to subscribe to any list they choose, including the unfiltered one. how is the reality different than that which you write? are you suggesting that people are too lazy to make a coherent choose on their own? who are you to argue with what everyone themself chooses? <* The decision to "moderate" (censor) the Cypherpunks list is powerful <ammunition to give to our opponents, and Vulis is certainly gleeful that <his fondest wishes have been realized. And it won't work. People are <consuming even more bandwidth arguing the merits of John's decision, the <traffic is presumably being slowed down by the need for Sandy to wade <through the traffic and stamp "Approved" or "Rejected" on what he glances <at, and people are "testing the limits" of what they can say and what they <can't say. what's a better solution, in your opinion, besides ignoring it all and pretending there is no problem? <In any case, my several years with the list have taken a huge amount of my <time. Given the way this whole thing was handled, and the way the list is <degenerating even further, it looks like it's good that I'm moving on to <other things. ah, quite convenient excuse to bail out when no elegant solution seems possible. blame all the problems on faux-reasons rather than an opportunity for soul-searching. <- the decision to censor the list was made without any discussion on the <list, without any discussion with at least some of the longterm core <contributors, and was presented as a "fait accompli." by their own construction, all insisted that everyone be treated identically on the list, and that no such distinction be made about "longterm core contributors" but thanks for showing up and clarifying your position, timmy. what a tragedy not to routinely see your smiling face here. I for one have "taps" playing on my computer whenever I read the list as a suitable memorial to your past greatness. viva la cypherpunks!

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by Peter Hendrickson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:12 PM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >At 12:28 PM 2/3/97 -0800, Peter Hendrickson wrote: >>At 11:38 AM 2/3/1997, Lucky Green wrote: >>> I am well aware of the name recognition and reputation capital associated >>> with CP, still I believe it best to *kill the list*. >> If you don't like the list, why not unsubscribe? > That won't solve the problem. The list has become counterproductive. It is > impossible for other lists to provide a real forum for the discussion of > the topics that this list used to be about while CP still exists. At the > same time, CP has long stopped providing such a forum. CP is draining > energy from its subscribers and the cause. Kill it! Kill it now! Who should do what to comply with your proposal? Should John shut down the list? Are you asking everybody to unsubscribe? I don't think "killing the list" is an option for you or anybody else. The List transcends all domains. Peter Hendrickson ph(a)netcom.com

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My main complaints about the `filtering' service forced upon the list readership are that: 1. It was done to the main list! If cypherpunks were left unchanged, and a `cypherpunks-edited' were created I wouldn't have a problem, it would be just another filtered list. However there are already several filtered lists, so the usefulness of this is limited anyway. Merely including details of these filtered lists in the sign on message, and posting a reminder every few weeks would suffice. I and apparently, most others didn't choose to subscribe to a filtering service. I object to this choice being over-ridden. OK, so I can re-subscribe to cypherpunks (cypherpunks-unedited), but many won't bother. (Actually I subscribe to cypherpunks-flames and cypherpunks, as the most efficient way of receiving all messages, and still being able to see the moderation results). 2. The impetus for moderating the main list seems to be as a result of a few posts by Dimitri. Really, if this is all it takes to destroy an unmoderated list, I've got to laugh at cypherpunks collectively. Why is it such a big deal to press the `n' key, if you don't like what Dimitri, or anyone else, has to say? If your time is too valuable to press `n' keys, what is wrong with subscribing to the existing filtered lists? Or with setting up a kill-file? Or maybe generating a bit of signal yourself? 3. It is even more funny that in my opinion Dimitri purposefully set out to raise the issue of censorship (after his own partial censorship), and has succeeded to this extent. The whole thing is just allowing yourself to be manipulated by his transparent efforts. 4. There is already a moderated forum for discussion of cypherpunks issues: cryptography(a)c2.net, why do we need another one? My vote is for renaming: `cypherpunks-unedited' -> `cypherpunks' and `cypherpunks' -> `cypherpunks-edited' and for moving all those still on the edited list to the unedited list. Post a note advertising the availability of a new filtering service called `cypherpunks-edited(a)toad.com', along with the references to the other competing filtering services. If at the end of the trial forced moderation period, John Gilmore doesn't have the bandwidth on toad.com to support all of `cypherpunks', `cypherpunks-edited' and `cypherpunks-flames', I suggest that a new home is found for `cypherpunks'. Or perhaps Sandy as proponent of his filtering service, would be able to find a home for `sandys-filtered-cypherpunks' service, as with the other filtering services. Personally, I am not in the habit of flaming people, or using the word `fuck', in general discussion, but I find the way this `filtering service' was foisted on the main list highly objectionable. Adam -- print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`

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Re: Filling Power Vacuums
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

timmy writes: <It's about "power grabs." < <You see, in any anarchic situation, where reliance on self-control and <self-filtering is emphasized, there is always a _temptation_ for some to <"fill the power vacuum" and grab power. ah, so what's the solution? <I learned in my years at Intel how easy it was to start bossing people <around, and as I hired engineers and scientists, I built up quite a little <empire. But I didn't like what it was doing to me, as it distanced me from <the technology and also brought out "control freak" tendencies....I started <worrying about how my people were using their time ("my" time), and I <increasingly applied my own notions of what they should talk about and what <were suitable topics for laboratory chatter. In other words, I became a <censor. (Not a government censor, but a censor in the broader definition <I've already cited.) timmy, I encourage you to understand that leadership is not inherently evil. there are enlightened ways to lead people that leave the group better as a whole. you just fell into the trap of "negative leadership", the dark side of the force as you write. imho, however, there is a light side of the force that still involves leadership. <(I accept the role hierarchies play in corporations. They can't be built <with just people like me. They need leaders, controllers, power freaks, <etc. oops, a little bit of a glaring logical error there imho. leadership is not equivalent to a hierarchy imho. admittedly, it often translates that way. But a virtual community like the Cypherpunks group is not such a <heirarchical organization, and it needs few rules, leaders, etc. "We don't <need no steenking leaders.") yes, if you only want to be an ineffectual debate society with no significant power whatseover. <As this relates to Cypherpunks, I have steadfastly refused to consider any <"management role," so to speak, in how the list is run, the formal <policies, etc. I'm not saying there has been a call for management (though <Detweiler used to rail against us for not having a management heirarchy, <for not having rules and democratic procedures for "making decisions"), <just that the power vacuum in anarchies such as ours is often an open <invitation for someone to step in and "provide structure and guidance." I <resisted any thoughts of doing this, and argued against this sort of thing <whenever the topic came up in conversation. I chose to lead only by the <posts I wrote and the ideas I worked on. heh. perhaps "leadership" involves more than posting. perhaps there is a way to have "leadership" without hierarchy. perhaps "leadership" is not equivalent to "management". perhaps sometimes you win by losing, and lose by winning. perhaps water is so powerful because it is lower than all that which it flows around. <Now, of course, the message is being sent that Sandy Sandfort is in some <sense the de facto leader, being that he determines what traffic goes out <to the main list and what traffic gets bounced into the flames list. In <fact, I'll make a prediction: The media will see that he is the chief <censor and arbiter of worthiness and will increasingly contact him for the <Official Point of View on various items they are interested in. timmy, why are you so upset about the media angle? why do you give the slightest damn what the media thinks? answer: because you want to be the one they call when they want to know what the cypherpunks think. you want them to pay attention to the cypherpunks. in short, you would like to have the glamor of a leader, without any of the responsibility. <Namely, I realize that I don't want the karmic burdens of power myself, <preferring to lead only by the example I set and the ideas I generate. This <is why "market anarchies" (books, music, ideas, all things where "no ruler" <exists) appeal to me so much. I think you would be surprise at the realization that "leaders" exist in those so-called "anarchies" > And since I don't wish to assume the mantle <of leadership, hmmmmmmmmmmmm, it seems to me that reliquishing that burden might entail having decisions made that you do not agree with. <I am resentful and suspicious of people who _do_ step into the <"power vacuum" to lead and control. <Now I grant you that Sandy's form of leadership and control is relatively apparently in your brain, "lead" == "control" <Yes, I'm seething. Sandy is right about that. I saw a group I helped create <and spent thousands of hours on, writing articles and developing ideas <choose--by fiat from the owner of the machine the list was being sent out <from--to embrace the dark side, the control freak side. In the name of <"comity," Sandy's term for the bonhomie he thinks he can cultivate, we lose <our ideological purity. hee, hee. don't worry timmy, you'll feel better later after you've forgotten that there was some deep lesson in all this.

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now we know why it was called altavista!
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

... Cylink (CYLK) announced today that the government has approved export of the company's security products containing strong encryption. Likewise, Digital Equipment (DEC) has also won approval and plans to begin shipments of encryption-enabled networking and system software immediately. A third company, Trusted Information Systems, effectively had approval before January 1 because of its existing key recovery technology. ... http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,7575,00.html

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concerning Ben Franklin
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I was reading one of the posts in the thread reguarding sone stolen object in Miami, the one reffering to the locks of the boxes, and it got me thinking. Ben Franklin was a revolutionary, scientist, inventor, publisher, statesman, and bookburner (according to F451). Perhaps he should be considered to be a cypherpunk, not that he necessarily knew anything about crypto, but because he was interested in many of the same ideals. It is my belief that were he alive today, he would be on this list. If the work of fiction referred to above, and in another recent post, is accurate in its reference to Franklin, then he would seem to have had the same solution to net pollution, burn it. Rather than considering Ben Franklin the first fireman, I would like to think of him as an early breed of cypherpunk. By this I consider cypherpunk to be interested in the subject, and its outcome, and a cryptographer to be just one faction of cypherpunk. Merely my opinion. Does anyone know whether or not Mr. Franklin may have played with code as well? All of my sources were assimilated into my understanding of the man several years ago, and at the time crypto was less in the public eye than it is now.

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[PKP] Info please!
by winsock＠rigel.cyberpass.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Debauchery L[ethargic] Vilus K[unt]OTM likes to be the man in the middle, getting it both up the ass and in his mouth. ,/ \, ((__,-"""-,__)) `--)~ ~(--` .-'( )`-, Debauchery L[ethargic] Vilus K[unt]OTM `~~`d\ /b`~~` | | (6___6) `---`

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Re: Editted Edupage
by winsock＠rigel.cyberpass.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

When Dimitri L[eisuresuit] Vulis K[arcinogen] Of The Month's mother gave birth to him after fucking with a bunch of sailors, she didn't know who the father was but decided to tell him that he was a Russian as the Russian sailor was the one who satisfied her the most. _ I I I~I I~I __ _ I~I _ . \ \ I_I/I-II-II \~~\' `-'`-'~I \_ ) ~\_ /~~ ) Dimitri L[eisuresuit] Vulis K[arcinogen] Of The Month \_ Y )' \ ^ / |~ ~| =====

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now we know why it was called altavista!
by Huge Cajones Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

... Cylink (CYLK) announced today that the government has approved export of the company's security products containing strong encryption. Likewise, Digital Equipment (DEC) has also won approval and plans to begin shipments of encryption-enabled networking and system software immediately. A third company, Trusted Information Systems, effectively had approval before January 1 because of its existing key recovery technology. ... http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,7575,00.html

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New X-Ray Imager
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

New X-ray gun trades privacy for safety Reported by Andy C Seen in The Nando Times on 13 August 1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Passive Millimeter Wave Imager can X-ray through clothing to "see" a concealed weapon, plastic explosives or drugs. A police officer can surreptitiously aim it into a crowd from as far away as 90 feet. The new X-ray gun is becoming a symbol for an unlikely alliance of civil libertarians and gun owners who fear the fight against crime and terrorism may be waged at the expense of personal freedoms. "I'm incredibly concerned," said John Henry Hingson, a past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, meeting here this past week. "The entire nation could become a victim of illegal searches and seizures and the law is powerless to protect them from these police abuses." But in these nervous times following the the crash of TWA Fight 800 and bombings at the Olympics, Oklahoma City and the World Trade Center, many Americans are now willing to trade some of their privacy and civil liberties for greater security. A poll last week by the Los Angeles Times found that a majority of people -- 58 percent -- said they would curtail some civil liberties if it would help thwart terrorism. Thirteen percent said it would depend on what rights were at stake. The poll didn't ask people to single out any rights. The Clinton administration has proposed increased wiretapping and other anti-terrorism steps, and is doling out research grants for cutting edge anti-crime technology that once may have been intended for only military use. Last year, the National Institute of Justice awarded $2.1 million to three companies to develop weapon detectors for airports, stores and public buildings. Two models are being developed of the Passive Millimeter Wave Imager, a creation of Hadley, Massachusetts-based Millimetrix Corp. The larger one, about the size of a shoebox, is mounted on a patrol car and pointed at the unsuspecting person. The gadget doesn't send out X-rays; instead, it picks up electromagnetic waves emitted by human flesh. Anything that stands in the way of those waves -- like a gun -- or anything that emits weaker waves -- like a bag of cocaine or a plastic explosive -- will show up on a little screen in the patrol car. Clothes emit no waves. Neither do walls, allowing the device to be used from even outside a room. A second model is a smaller, battery-operated version that an officer can operate by hand, like a radar gun. Millimetrix hopes to field test the larger model soon at a police agency. Hingson argues the device runs roughshod over bans against illegal searches and seizures. The law says police can stop and frisk a person only when an officer has a "reasonable suspicion" the person is armed or involved in a crime. Millimetrix points out that while the imager can see through clothing, it still leaves people some privacy. The device's display screen, the company says, "does not reveal intimate anatomical details of the person." Chip Walker, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, noted that devices like the imager threaten the legal rights of people in 31 states who are allowed to carry concealed weapons with proper licenses. "We certainly support efforts to disarm criminals, but we need to be careful that we're not painting with too broad a brush here," he said. Walker said that as troubling as terrorism is, people may be playing into terrorists' hands by giving up their privacy. "One of the broader issues is that if we start giving up certain civil liberties, that essentially means that the terrorists are starting to accomplish one of their goals," he said. Contact email address: acobley(a)mic.dundee.ac.uk --------------------- (From a TRW development program description) The Passive Millimeter Wave sensor detects thermal energy, which is radiated from objects and reflected from other objects such as the sky in the 94 Giga Hertz frequency band. The advantage of this frequency is that there is little attenuation of the energy by water particles in the air (fog). The camera operates very much like a television camera except that it operates at mm-wave frequencies (near 90 GHz) instead of in the visible spectrum. It has components analogous to a television camera: optics to focus the image, a readout device to convert the electromagnetic energy into electrical signals, signal processing electronics to prepare the signals for display, and display unit to view the scene. The optical system images the blackbody radiation emanating from the scene on the Focal Plane Array (FPA), which consists of an array of small antennas, each coupled to a very small MMIC W-band (90 GHz) direct-detection receiver. ---------------- >From a description of the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center/Northeast (NLECTC) at Rome Laboratory (more on that later). The Millimeter Wave Imaging Radar Consortium seeks development of a suitable technology and effective, affordable products for concealed weapon detection (CWD) and through-the-wall surveillance (TWS) application --- well-established objectives for both military operations other than war and civilian law enforcement agencies. Consortium members include Millimetrix Corp., South Deerfield, Mass.; Technology Service Corp., Trumbull, Conn.; and Riverside Research Institute of Lexington, Mass. They will contribute $2,035,087 to the research program, while the government's share will be $2,018,491. Military applications of the envisioned technology, in addition to operations other than war, would include use by military police and special forces personnel, all weather aircraft operation, shipboard and airborne missile warning, helicopter obstacle avoidance, battlefield surveillance, fire control, and missile seekers. Civilian law enforcement agencies would be able to use the technology in curtailing terrorist acts and juvenile handgun crimes that frequently involve the use of concealed weapons, bombs and other contraband that cannot be detected using currently available technology see <http://www.nlectc.org/E144T127/june.htm> --Steve

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Your tax dollars at work
by azur＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NIJ Opens Regional Technology Center in Rome: Representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice, state and local elected officials, and Air Force leaders officially opened the National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center/Northeast (NLECTC) at Rome Laboratory. The Center will work with law en forcement and corrections organizations from 16 states --- stretching from Maine to Minnesota --- to determine operational requirem ents and identify, evaluate, develop, demonstrate and assess new or improved technology applications to meet those needs. The Center will also provide assessment of law enforcement products information, standards and testing. The Northeast NLECTC is co-located with Rome Laboratory within the Griffiss Business and Technology Park. Rome Laboratory is the Air Force's research and development laboratory responsible for command, control, communications, computer and intelligence technologies. The laboratory was selected as a regional technology center for the Justice Department's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in December 1994. It joins four other regional centers across the country that use existing facilities and resources to support the NI J's Office of Science and Technology and law enforcement and corrections organizations. The Northeast NLECTC will support law enforcement and corrections activities in the following states: Maine, New Hampshire, Verm ont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio Michigan, Wisconsin, Io wa and Minnesota. It will facilitate technical interchange between prospective users and developers or technology through regional symposia, exhibitions and workshops. Participants range from the law enforcement and corrections community to the Department of De fense and the commercial sector. Each of the five regional centers has a specific technological focus, with the Northeast NLECTC capitalizing on Rome Laboratory' s more than 40 years of expertise developing technologies that provided the vital eyes, ears and voices for the nation's military. The Rome Laboratory Law Enforcement Team will be working with the Northeast NLECTC to convert a variety of defense technologies to the benefit of law enforcement and corrections. At the current time, efforts are directed at transferring technologies in the foll owing areas: *** Sensors: concealed weapon detection, Over-the-Horizon radar, wall penetration surveillance, and passive location, tracking and tagging. *** Information Technology: image processing, natural language processing, and identification using optical correlation. *** Intelligence Exploitation: speech processing, timeline analysis, automated firearm identification, and forensic sciences. *** Communications: applications of high-speed networks, multiband multifunction radios, and rapidly deployable communications. *** Command and Control: collaborative planning, visualization techniques, and Joint Automated Booking Station. Over the past four decades, researchers at Rome Laboratory have developed a vast array of technological tools for the military to e mploy in our national defense. Within the shared framework of command, control, communications and intelligence, many of those tech nologies apply to the domestic law enforcement mission as well. As one of NLECTC's regional law enforcement technology centers, Ro me Laboratory will continue to make substantial contributions to the war on crime by developing technologies that meet the increasi ng needs of law enforcement. Rome Laboratory Signs Law Enforcement Technology Agreement with City of Rome Representatives of Rome Laboratory and the City of Rome signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRDA) to establ ish a formal working agreement for the purpose of testing and evaluating military technologies in a law enforcement setting. The C RDA signing was the first official action following a ribbon-cutting that opened the National Institute of Justice's Northeast Regi on National Law Enforcement & Corrections Technology Center at Rome Laboratory. Signing the agreement were Col. Ted. F. Bowlds, com mander of Rome Laboratory, and Rome Police Chief Merino J. Ciccone. During the five-year agreement, Rome Laboratory will supply a variety of technologies to the Rome Police Department. Police department officers and officials will then test, evaluate and report back to Rome Laboratory regarding the effectiveness of the test technologies. Some of the technical tasks to be performed under t he CRDA are enhancing the computing capability of the Rome Police Department, including improved access to law enforcement data bas es and access to the World Wide Web/Internet, as well as synchronization of 911 Emergency System, computer and alarm time clocks. Rome Police Department personnel will also gain access to advanced technologies such as the "sniffer alcohol detection flashlight," night-vision goggles and hand-held digital assistants. German Magazine interested in Rome Laboratory's Law Enforcement Efforts Dr. Frank Ochmann, a science editor for Germany's Stern Magazine, visited Rome Laboratory to interview engineers and managers involved in law enforcement technology. The interview was requested in light of the April issue of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, which carried an eight-page article covering a wide variety of C3I technologies developed by the Laboratory. Rome Laboratory Awards Funding to Research Consortia for Dual-Use Military and Law Enforcement Applications ROME, N.Y., June 25, 1996 --- Rome Laboratory has awarded funding totaling more than $5 million to three research consortia. Combined with investment by the consortia partners, the total amount of research will approach $17 million. Rome Laboratory will serve as the agent for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in managing the three research programs that were instituted under DARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project. The goal of all three programs is to develop new technologies with applications to both the military and commercial markets. The Quick Reaction Spoken Language Translator (QRSLT) Consortium seeks to develop a product prototype of a hand-held or body-mounted QRSLT that would allow military personnel in a hostile environment or civilian law enforcement personnel in an emergency situation to communicate with a non-English speaking individual using an easily portable, automatic translation device. The government is contributing $2,374,821 to the program, with consortium members sharing a cost of $3,632,852. Consortium members include Language Systems Inc., Woodland, Calif.; Entropic Research Laboratories Inc., Menlo Park, Calif.; and Eloquent Technology Inc. of Ithaca, N.Y. Language Systems Incorporated, developed the initial spoken language translation prototype under the direction and funding of Rome Laboratory, in support of military requirements. The QRSLT will accept spoken English input from a military or law enforcement user, translate the input into Spanish or Arabic, and generate the computer-spoken translation. The translator will also accept spoken Spanish and Arabic inputs and translate them into spoken English output. This will be an innovative advance over currently available "speaking translators," which produce speech based on typed inputs, which cannot accept spoken input, and which are not customized for military or law enforcement operations. The Millimeter Wave Imaging Radar Consortium seeks development of a suitable technology and effective, affordable products for concealed weapon detection (CWD) and through-the-wall surveillance (TWS) application --- well-established objectives for both military operations other than war and civilian law enforcement agencies. Consortium members include Millimetrix Corp., South Deerfield, Mass.; Technology Service Corp., Trumbull, Conn.; and Riverside Research Institute of Lexington, Mass. They will contribute $2,035,087 to the research program, while the government's share will be $2,018,491. Military applications of the envisioned technology, in addition to operations other than war, would include use by military police and special forces personnel, all weather aircraft operation, shipboard and airborne missile warning, helicopter obstacle avoidance, battlefield surveillance, fire control, and missile seekers. Civilian law enforcement agencies would be able to use the technology in curtailing terrorist acts and juvenile handgun crimes that frequently involve the use of concealed weapons, bombs and other contraband that cannot be detected using currently available technology. The Speaker Identification for Law Enforcement Consortium will be funded with $3.2 million, evenly divided between the government and consortium members T-NETIX Inc. of Englewood, Colo., and Dictaphone of Stratford, Conn. The goal of the consortium is to transfer previously developed speaker identification technology into commercial and military applications. With specific emphasis on minimal size, weight, power and cost, the technology is envisioned to have widespread civilian law enforcement surveillance applications. see <http://www.nlectc.org/E144T127/june.htm>

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"Secret" Postal Device -- Update.
by Jim Ray 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It seems as though it's a keyring(!) with one (some?) of the/those key(s) they use to unlock all the mailboxes for apartment houses. I guess it's a keyring too big for a pocket, but I don't know. Herald reporter revealed this today, but didn't want to. I guessed right, and he ended up admitting it after I informed him of how I know various Herald reporters and sorta social engineered him into saying too much by keeping him talking. :-) My mail has been acting up all weekend due to something unknown happening at Sprint. JMR -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEPAwUBMvZg9TUhsGSn1j2pAQFSNQfPTQ5WVwEu5AoNGoAY/jguoMIMdmOBtp0i fB6ralJD29b0VJ0ci8Z7l/vDoqhwMCT+nbP0Upp8xFDP391hbg4I2/H3KcDUxEen YRzB61k64UOuEVVQoeLJDq8/yyutZHLc599J93lTC6nmPqaogUzdYEjcyMnLuW/D j91pXvst+4IddZ7Aavnucu5AdwN84AitWc5/1sCBUpNlE6StcDtMtndkDnZT3f5H SZezlFpBB0UcRPirehSjaeSbWkgFeiLBIVLfLfFfJ+Fn1zHAeJ20L5fw7M7dAwp6 DruKucQ0jaIGpfeZJnPkwqYyKAmD63e+fFprw2/LaGQgxw== =pcrs -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Regards, Jim Ray <jmr(a)shopmiami.com> DNRC Minister of Encryption Advocacy One of the "legitimate concerns of law enforcement" seems to be that I was born innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around. -- me http://shopmiami.com/prs/jimray/ PGP id.A7D63DA9 98 1F 39 BA 93 86 B4 F5 57 52 64 0E DA BA 2C 71

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Race and IQ
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dense Vinegar had his foreskin ripped off last night by a vacuum cleaner. ^-^-^-@@-^-^-^ (..) Dense Vinegar

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Re: VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 08:25 PM 2/2/97 -0800, jim bell wrote: >Awhile back we were discussing voice-stress analysis; just got this item on >the subject; he said it's okay to post it. > > > >>From: Spectre334(a)aol.com >>Date: Sun, 2 Feb 1997 09:31:17 -0500 (EST) >>To: jimbell(a)pacifier.com >>cc: BLAMES2778(a)aol.com, AFSCA(a)aol.com, JLeek426(a)aol.com >>Subject: VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS >> >>MR. BELL: >> >>I FOUND YOUR QUERY ABOUT VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS ON THE INTERNET, AND I TOO, >>HAVE FOUND A DEARTH OF INFORMATION THERE - UNTIL NOW. >> >>I'M PLEASED TO REPORT THAT VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS (VSA) IS ALIVE AND WELL. IT >>HAS BEEN QUIETLY PERFORMING IN THE SHADOW OF THE POLYGRAPH FOR MANY YEARS. >> NOW, HOWEVER, IT IS COMING INTO ITS AND IS USED IN MANY STATES TO AID IN >>CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS AND OTHER APPLICATIONS. >> ... >>THE DIOGENES GROUP, INC., OF WHICH I AM PRESIDENT, HAS DEVELOPED A TOTALLY >>DIGITAL APPROACH TO VSA, AND BEGAN DELIVERING SYSTEMS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT >>AGENCIES IN DECEMBER, 1996. THE PREMIER DIOGENES VSA PRODUCT IS REDUCED TO >>THE SIZE OF A NOTEBOOK COMPUTER, BUT PRODUCES REALTIME PROCESSING FOR >>SOFTCOPY DISPLAY, AND HARDCOPY PRINTING WITHIN SECONDS. >> >>YOU MAY BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PREVIOUS STATE-OF-THE-ART, WHICH WAS A >>RELATIVELY LARGE ANALOG MACHINE, USING A SINGLE CHANNEL AND PRINTING OUT THAT >>DATA ON A ROLL OF THERMAL PAPER. THOSE DAYS ARE GONE FOREVER. >> >>IF YOU WOULD LIKE MORE INFORMATION ON THE DIOGENES GROUP AND ITS PRODUCTS, >>PLEASE USE THIS CHANNEL TO SEND ME YOUR MAILING ADDRESS, PHONE NUMBER, AND >>FAX NUMBER. >> >>THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST IN VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS. ... Check the Readers Guide for the last couple of years. I don't have my Popular Electronics collection handy, but not too long ago they put out the plans to a smaller unit based around some Cell Phone part. It operated on a single frequency as opposed to a varient modulation of the voice. This allowed the unit to be much smaller and simpler, sacrificing some of the accuracy for a reasonable price (PC board, parts and case available for, I think, less than $100). The whole unit fit in a case about the size of a transistor radio and used a couple of bar graph displays (LED) for output. The whole operating theory is regulary printed with the schematics, and a parts list and foil diagrams are included for those who want to make the project from scratch. While your at it, look up the subliminal mixer from about 1992, I made one of these and only prevented from using it by the lack of a decent power supply. The single frequency mentioned above is further explained in the text. The local library can get a copy of either of these issues, or any others that catch your interest, for you if you ask really nicely.

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Re: RC5-12/32/5 contest solved
by A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I received a nice flyer in the mail the other day from "Chip Express" >(www.chipexpress.com, 800-95-CHIPX). They are offering Laser >Programmed Gate Arrays. It appears to be a reasonable way to get some >Wiener chips built. As I recall, the Wiener design required about >23,000 gates. Their blurb had the following table in in: > FPGA Gates ASIC Gates 500 Units 1000 Units 5000 Units > 40,000 20,000 $77 $45 $10 > Not Avail 200,000 $176 $150 $82 First I can buy a 486DX-66 (with fan) for $37, but to make it into a PC takes just a wee bit more. Second, there is a world of difference in speed between a Field Programmable Gate Array and an Application Specific Integrated Circuit. The second is much faster (have heard of up to 200 Mhz) but doubt that you can get there with a laser (probably where the 50 Mhz figure comes from). I suspect you will need to have a mask made first - that is where the real money goes. However lets consider that you are really lucky and the first mask works and you get 100% yield (good chips). Next you need a backplane with an input mechanism to prime each of those chips with the text to break (will assume you have built in the initialization sequences for each chip). Then you need a path to provide the KPT to the XOR at the output, powersupply, RF shielding, and a few other minor items (can probably use a PC for a front end). Then, you need a way to report success but that is trivial. Finally, you need to hope that none of those 5000 chips experiences infant mortality or that you have some scheme to detect if that happens and to which chip (was there BITE in the design ?). Personally, would design the 5,000 to provide possible answers (say 2^32) as an initial step and then push that into a single MasPar or similar. Might find out some interesting things that way while reducing the overall complexity. Just some food for thought. Warmly, Padgett ps couple of people last year were working with FPGAs, I corresponded with them briefly. Why not ask them how my "guesstimates" correlated with their experiments...

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what's in a name?
by Wei Dai 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've stayed out of the debate about list moderation so far, but a recent post from tmcghan(a)gill-simpson.com reminds me of something I've been thinking about. An interesting way to look at what happened is that John Gilmore owns the name "cypherpunks(a)toad.com" and has chosen to exercise that ownership. Even though those of us who disagree with the way he has done so are free to leave and set up our own mailing list, it is costly to do so, and the problem of central name ownership remains. List subscribers have made investments that are specific to the name "cypherpunks(a)toad.com", and most of the cost of switching to a new list is in the new investments they would have to (re)make. The fact is that a promise of no censorship is not enough incentive for us to do so. I suspect that the hierarchical nature of name ownership on the Internet today will be an important technological barrier for the establishment of truly anarchic virtual communities. Unless this problem is solved, the closest we'll come is pseudo-anarchies that exist with the tolerance of beneficent dictators. Wei Dai

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Re: Moderation [Tim,Sandy]
by snow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I believe that Cypherpunks is beyond hope of recovery. In fact, each day > Cypherpunk (as in cypherpunks(a)toad.com) lives on, it does damage to the > cause. Let's kill the list. Once and for all. Let the hard core crypto go > to Coderpunks, the politics to Cryptography, and the garbage into the void. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't(wasn't) there an implied threat of moderation on the cryptography(a)c2.net list? Mr. M started it with the intent of getting away from much of the cruft (ADD, & etc.) that had accumlated here, and he was quite open about moderating it if he thought it needed it.

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Re: My Departure, Moderation, and "Ownership of the List"
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, On Mon, 3 Feb 1997, Scott V. McGuire wrote: > Sandy, you said that you thought the list had improved since you began > moderating. How could you think otherwise? When you send an article to > the flames list its because you think the list would have been worse > otherwise. If I wasn't clear, I'm sorry. I think the quality of content and the degree of civility have improved. My extreme example was the increase in polite, on-topic posts from Dimitri, but are others. That's the sort of improvement to which I was referring. S a n d y ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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