December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

test ping - cypherpunks@toad.com 12:32pm PST - ignore
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! This is a test ping to verify whether mail to cypherpunks(a)toad.com gets forwarded successfully to one of the other cypherpunks lists, and how fast. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Bad Headers Added to John Young postings via owner-cypherpunks@sirius.infonex.com
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! The following headers are from a posting by John Young that looks like it was sent to cypherpunks(a)toad.com, forwarded to cypherpunks(a)sirius.infonex.com and/or cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net, and has the Reply-To: header set to reply to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead of to John Young.... It looks like the obvious implementation of cypherpunks-style mail header patching, but isn't quite right..... Leads to people sending their John Young mailbot requests to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead, … [View More]

2 1

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin writes: > Dave is offering a single mailing list, which, while I am sure Dave is > a great person, still represents a single point of control and a > single point of failure. A distributed mailing list has a potential > for being much more robust, and for supporting a wide range of > viewpoints. I can also offer my participation in the distributed mailing list, if that is what it takes to get cypherpunks free of control interests again. ------ Dave Hayes - … [View More]

2 1

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation writes: > I believe homophobia is a great way to bring out the censors in > people. However, inducing censorship is only part of fighting it. You assume that it is an enemy to be fought. While censorship is clearly undesireable, making it an enemy only strengthens it. > You also need respectable people to some in, argue cogently against > the dangers of censorship, perhaps even get some extremely reasonable > articles suppressed, and then spread the word … [View More]about it. I find the > freedom-knights tactics' extremely lacking in this second, "clean up > and analyze the mess" phase. Part, if not all, of that lack is due to our knowledge of the subjective standard of "respectability" that human beings have. That's the same differentiation used in many censorship attempts, and if we made or supported such differentiations this would undermine any anti-censorship actions we could take. The meta-points are: - What is reasonable to you may or may not be reasonable to me. That is why we refrain from censoring others, since we have no absolute standard of reasonability. - You appear to be concerned with convincing others. We are not concerned with that, since we know that the default for most others is to be invincibly unconvincable. We are simply here to be living models for an arbitrary code of behavior...that behavior being outlined in the Freedom Knights FAQ. - Please remember that you have to judge who is and is not a Freedom Knight by their -actions- and not their claims. > censorship on cypherpunks. However, I think most peoples' opinions > didn't really turn, or at least people didn't realize how serious > things were and didn't really care, until Tim May [someone the many > freedom-knights hate] started criticizing this censorship in extremely > reasonable messages that were suppressed from both the -edited and > -flames mailing list. Assuming that is true, that people do not care about censorship until a person with an arbitrary reasonability says something, I would say that such a group cares not about free speech...even if they think they do. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Two men were fighting outside Nasrudin's window at dead of night. Nasrudin got up, wrapped his only blanket around himself, and ran outside. As he tried to reason with the drunks, one snatched his blanket and both ran away. "What were they arguing about?" asked his wife when he went in. "It must have been the blanket. When they got that, the fight broke up." [View Less]

2 1

FC97: Post-strike airfares
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One more datablip about FC97 and I'll shut up a bit. Having just promised gratuitously cheap airfares to Anguilla/St. Maarten, I went and called the local branch of American Express Travel and got some actual prices. Their number is 617-868-2600, but AEXP-T has branches everywhere, and, I think, an 800 number, so you might want to get ahold of them that way... Anyway, here's what I got, as of about 20 minutes ago: For departures 2/22/97 with return 3/1/97, Boston Anguilla $ 864 … [View More]

1 0

'Jim Beam' me up, Scotty!
by Toto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

scribve cypherpunks-thenextgeneration "Dr. Spook" <6UALDV8(a)cyberspace.9>

1 0

Re: FBI_100
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

# Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Printed Ecash decoder now available
by Marc Briceno 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ian Goldberg <iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu> won the second part of the "turn Ecash into 2-D bar code and back into an Ecash payment" contest. Building on Jeremey Barrett's Ecash -> PDF417 encoder, Ian wrote an Ecash PDF417 encoder and decoder. http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/tools/pdf417-1.0.tar.gz It is now possible to print Ecash on a laser printer and scan it back in on a standard flat bed scanner. Possible applications include sending Ecash by fax or mail. Ian notes the following: "… [View More]

1 0

We're in Anguilla! Comon down!!!
by Bill Clinton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My fellow cypherpunks, I wanted to let you all know, we are having a great time, building a router to the 21st Century, down here in sunny Anguilla. Al and I will be wiring Anguilla's great high school for the internet. Afterwards, we'll meet with some longtime supporters of the democratic party for a beer. Spaces at the conference are still available, I didn't let those folks at American strike, so you have no excuses to be anywhere else next week. Willy Citizen Unit 429-92-9947

1 0

test ping - cypherpunks@toad.com 12:32pm PST - ignore
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! This is a test ping to verify whether mail to cypherpunks(a)toad.com gets forwarded successfully to one of the other cypherpunks lists, and how fast. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)

1 0

Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sean Roach wrote: > > At 04:45 PM 2/15/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: > >Roy M. Silvernail wrote: > ... > >> Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted > >> signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is > >> offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie > >> sent and it's already been redeemed. > > > >Well, if the trusted party performs the encryption by both recipient'… [View More]

1 0

ANNOUNCE:- RSAEuro
by RSAEuro General 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ANNOUNCE:- RSAEuro Version 1.04 (Internet) and 1.10 (Commercial) ================================================================ What is RSAEuro? ---------------- RSAEuro is a cryptographic toolkit providing various functions for the use of digital signatures, data encryption and supporting areas (PEM encoding, random number generation etc). To aid compatibility with existing software, RSAEuro is call-compatible with RSADSI's "RSAREF(tm)" toolkit. RSAEuro allows non-US residents to make use … [View More]of much of the cryptographic software previously only (legally) available in the US. RSAEuro contains support for the following: * RSA encryption, decryption and key generation. Compatible with 'RSA Laboratories' Public-Key Cryptography Standard (PKCS) #1. * Generation and verification of message digests using MD2, MD4, MD5 and SHS (SHS currently not implemented in higher-level functions to maintain compatibility with PKCS). * DES encryption and decryption using CBC (1, 2 or 3 keys using Encrypt-Decrypt-Encrypt) and DESX(tm), RSADSI's secure DES enhancement. Blowfish and RRC.2 encryption and decryption using CBC (available in commercial versions only). * Diffie-Hellman key agreement as defined in PKCS #3. * PEM support support for RFC 1421 encoded ASCII data with all main functions. * Key routines implemented in assembler for speed (80386 and 680x0 currently supported). * Much improved library documentation with code samples. International Use ----------------- IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please do not distribute or use this software in the US it is 'illegal' to use this toolkit in the US, as RSADSI and Cylink hold patents relating to public-key cryptography. If you are a US resident, please use the RSAREF toolkit instead. On The Web ---------- RSAEuro can now be found at http://www.sourcery.demon.co.uk/RSAEuro.html Author Details -------------- With comments and suggestions, please address them to Stephen Kapp, at 'rsaeuro(a)sourcery.demon.co.uk', for documentation comments suggestions please address them to Nick Barron, at 'nikb(a)sourcery.demon.co.uk' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- RSAEURO: rsaeuro(a)sourcery.demon.co.uk RSAEURO Bugs: rsaeuro-bugs(a)sourcery.demon.co.uk Tel: +44 (0) 468 286034 Http: http://www.sourcery.demon.co.uk/rsaann.html RSAEURO - Copyright (c) J.S.A.Kapp 1994-1996. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [View Less]

1 0

Re: Questions about Naughty Robot (fwd)
by Genocide 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I got this message (on a system that I am webmaster on) regarding something that sounded so stupid it made me chuckle...Naughty Robot...I have enclosed the message below. If any of you have any idea what this user is talking about, any info would be appreciated. Personally it sounds like another "GoodTimes Virus" again... Genocide Head of the Genocide2600 Group ============================================================================ **Coming soon! www.Genocide2600.com! … [View More]

2 1

*Really* Shameless, Gratuitous, FC97 DFA Hucksterism (Was Re: DFA)
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:29 pm -0500 on 2/16/97, John Young wrote: > Paul Bell wrote: > >does anyone know what has happened to DFA, and the people who > >just a few months ago were publishing such encouraging results? > > There seems be sustained investigation of DFA, offensive and defensive, > by Biham and Shamir, by Anderson and Kuhn, by the Bellcore team, by > Quisquater and others. > > However, the smartcard manufacturers appear to have a role in dampening > publicity … [View More]about the ongoing research, or at least diminishing the claims of > effectiveness of DFA. At FC97 <http://www.offhsore.com.ai/fc97/> ;-), we have the following paper at 10:45 on Tuesday February 22nd: > Fault Induction Attacks, Tamper Resistance, and Hostile Reverse > Engineering in Perspective > David P. Maher (AT&T Labs--Research, Murray Hill, NJ, USA) I'm not sure whether which side of the fight this paper will be on, but it could be easy to speculate from the title. :-). On the other side of the coin, we invited Shamir to come talk about his DFA work, but eventually it turned out that he couldn't make the trip. Maybe next year. We *did* get Ron Rivest, though. (Shameless plug: Our *other* invited speakers are Simon L. Lelieveldt of the Dutch central bank, who'll talk about the security of electronic money, and Peter Wayner, the author of "Digital Cash", who'll talk about money laundering.) (*Really* shameless hucksterism: Since AA *didn't* strike, they're offering mucho cheapseat deals to places like Anguilla and St. Maarten, a short ferry ride away, even if you make your reservations on really short notice. Like, maybe to go to FC97? Nudge, Nudge. We can also get you *cheap* hotel rooms when you get there... Wink, wink, wink.) Meanwhile, the FC97 workshop (which runs the week prior to the conference itself) starts on Monday, and, having weathered the American Airlines non-strike, Ian Goldberg, Adam Shostack and Gary Howland are now all down in Anguilla getting things set up. I don't think people can get to *that* in time, but, hey, you could *try*, I suppose. Better get packing, though, 'cause time is running out. The workshop starts at 09:00 tomorrow. <http://www.offshore.com.ai/fc97/> ;-). Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "Never attribute to conspiracy what can be explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/ FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/ [View Less]

1 0

Re: Query on "secure databases"
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Peter - here's my previous posting, with an addendum, Cc: cypherpunks At 04:43 PM 2/11/97 -0500, Peter Swire <swire.1(a)osu.edu> wrote: > Can you point me to anything I can read on "secure databases"? I >hadn't hit that term before. I am curious to what extent they are secure >due to cryptographic approaches, or to what extent you rely on other >mechanisms for keeping out unauthorized users. It's been a long time since I've looked much into it, since I was … [View More]getting out of phone-company-defense-contractor mode at the time the field was developing. I think the NCSC Rainbow Book that deals with secure databases is the Purple Book, though it might be the Gray. Oracle and/or Sybase have done some work trying to do databases at the B1 or B2 level, but I don't know details. I'll talk about secure databases a bit, but for the real world there's more useful stuff that isn't related to them. =================== Begin "Secure Database" Section ============== At the time, the Orange Book (security for standalone computers) was well-understood, though there weren't really any systems above B2 level, and the Red Book was written, but nobody really had a clue how to implement multi-level machines on a multi-level LAN, though you could use encrypting Ethernet cards to get single-level machines of different levels on the same LAN, if they were all administered by the same group of people (so user-IDs and security levels worked across the entire system.) At the lower security levels, Orange Book techniques mainly involve removing bugs and adding accounting features. At the higher levels, the key is to come up with a good mathematical/logical model of interactions in your computer system, and then design a computer system that only does the things permitted by the model and prove it does that. Some of these systems use cryptographic techniques, including some of the capability-based systems - see Bill Frantz's KeyKOS work, which he's referred to on Cypherpunks occasionally. The objective is to have databases that can be accessed by multiple users with different sets of security permissions. In the military vernacular, this mainly means having UNCLASSIFIED, CONFIDENTIAL, SECRET, and maybe TOP SECRET data in the database, where not all users are cleared to the highest security level, and maybe projects X, Y, and Z, where users of project X may not have a need to know for project Y, etc. The easy problems are probably solved by now - either you do a good job of verifying the design and bug-free-ness of your database software so you can be sure that each request includes, and obeys, security levels, or you use crypto to encrypt the data items for each security level (e.g. everybody with a SECRET or PROJECT Z clearance shares a key for that data, which isn't really ideal for non-small groups of people, the database just tries to do a good job, and you only do operations in the database that make sense when the data is encrypted, though that's annoyingly restrictive for many applications.) The sticky problems are aggregation-related. It may be ok if an uncleared person knows that military base A has missile types 1, 3, and 5, and if the uncleared person knows where all your military bases are. But is it ok if the uncleared person knows about _all_ the missiles at _all_ the bases, and can tell that nobody's using Type 2 missiles any more, and that all the Type 4 missiles got moved to New Jersey last week? =============== End "Secure Database" section ================= =============== Begin "Real-World and Crypto" section ========= For the average person, though, the simple military models aren't really useful. You really care more about groups of people, though the multi-level stuff is sometimes a good way to keep machines from being hacked. But the real problem is that computers are very good at correlating information - if two different companies know your Social Security Number, and they share their data with each other (maybe for a price), then they can all tie together everything they each know about you. And there's no way to stop it, except by limiting the information you give people (which limits the transactions they'll do with you), or contractually limiting what they can do with it (good luck), or using multiple identities - and even then, computers are often good at guessing that the John Doe at 1234 Main Street is the related to Jane Smith at 1234 Main Street, and maybe the foreign car parts Jane bought on her American Express are for the Porsche registered to John, so there's a junk-mail opportunity. There's really only one technology that lets you avoid this, which is crypto and its relatives - though you still have to get people you use business with to use it, which is an uphill game. Some of the fundamental work on this is David Chaum's papers on Credentials without Identity (or something about like that, from ~1985.) For instance, you can have a voter registration number that's cryptographically signed by the voting bureau, but uses blinded signatures so they can't correlate the known good unique number with the Peter Swire who walked in and showed a picture ID one day. A driver's license smartcard could keep a pointer to your driving records, but wouldn't give your True Name, and would only show a cop that the person whose picture is on the front is a Licensed Driver, and maybe could demonstrate that the bearer knows the card's PIN. One big issue is that the government is pushing banks to demand SSNs, and requiring employers to demand SSNs (makes them easy Employee IDs), and pushing medical insurers and providers to use SSNs (makes it easy to collect Medicare data.) You can gain a lot of privacy just by having employers use their own employee-ID numbering system, so the travel agent subcontracting to Corporate Travel doesn't need your SSN on every form they fill out. But suppose the Social Security Administration and IRS issued you a bunch of separate numbers, that were either related using a cryptographic key, or just randomly picked and kept in a big database (maybe pointing to your old SSN), so you could give everybody who needs a Tax ID a different number, and only you and the IRS could correlate them. (To some extent, you can do this yourself by creating lots of companies, but it's a real pain and costs a certain amount of money.) =============== addendum ===================== Of course, for many transactions, the way to reduce the privacy problems is to use bearer certificates rather than book-entry approaches - pay cash, or digicash, rather than credit cards, use on-line anonymous delivery of bits, or picking up stuff in person, rather than mailing stuff to a snail address, etc. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.) [View Less]

1 0

Proposed info file
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, The text below is what I wrote for cypherpunks(a)algebra.com to be sent to new subscribers. Feel free to criticize. - Igor. @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ About cypherpunks mailing lists ------------------------------- * * * ATTENTION: PLEASE SAVE THIS MESSAGE IN A MAIL FOLDER!!! IT WILL BE * * * HELPFUL FOR YOU WHEN YOU WANT TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM cypherpunks MAILING * * * LIST. * * * * * * DO NOT JUST DELETE THIS MESSAGE. I. Administrivia (… [View More]please read, boring though it may be) The cypherpunks list cypherpunks(a)algebra.com is one of the cypherpunks mailing lists discussing cryptography, privacy, and social issues relating to them. These lists are connected to each other in such a way that all messages appear on all of these lists. All of these lists are high-volume mailing lists. There are several reasons for existence of multiple mailing lists that are inter-subscribed. The main reason is the large number of subscribers and limited bandwidth of each of the participating list nodes -- each node can take on only that many users. Most people will not want to subscribe to more than one of these lists. If you don't know how to do something, like unsubscribe, send mail to majordomo(a)algebra.com and the software robot which answers that address will send you back instructions on how to do what you want. If you don't know the majordomo syntax, an empty message to this address will get you a help file, as will a command 'help' in the body. Even with all this automated help, you may still encounter problems. If you get really stuck, please feel free to contact me directly at the address I use for mailing list management: cypherpunks-request(a)algebra.com Please use this address for all mailing list management issues. Hint: if you try to unsubscribe yourself from a different account than you signed up for, it likely won't work. Log back into your old account and try again. If you no longer have access to that account, mail me at the list management address above. Also, please realize that there will be some cypherpunks messages "in transit" to you at the time you unsubscribe. If you get a response that says you are unsubscribed, but the messages keep coming, wait a day and they should stop. Do not mail to the whole list asking to be removed. It's rude ans stupid. To post to the whole list, send mail to cypherpunks(a)algebra.com If your mail bounces repeatedly, you will be removed from the list. Nothing personal, but I have to look at all the bounce messages. There is no digest version available. There is a meta list which discusses the architecture and other issues of the distributed cypherpunks lists. It is not intended to be used for crypto discussions. if you want to be added or removed to the metadiscussion list, send a message "subscribe cypherpunks-hosts" to majordomo(a)algebra.com. II. About cypherpunks The cypherpunks list is not designed for beginners, although they are welcome. If you are totally new to crypto, please get and read the crypto FAQ referenced below. This document is a good introduction, although not short. Crypto is a subtle field and a good understanding will not come without some study. Please, as a courtesy to all, do some reading to make sure that your question is not already frequently asked. There are other forums to use on the subject of cryptography. The Usenet group sci.crypt deals with technical cryptography; cypherpunks deals with technical details but slants the discussion toward their social implications. The Usenet group talk.politics.crypto, as is says, is for political theorizing, and cypherpunks gets its share of that, but cypherpunks is all pro-crypto; the debates on this list are about how to best get crypto out there. The Usenet group alt.security.pgp is a pgp-specific group, and questions about pgp as such are likely better asked there than here. Ditto for alt.security.ripem. alt.cypherpunks is indended as a mirror USENET forum for this mailing list. III. Posting Policy. Please note that some members of cypherpunks mailing list may surprise you as very rude people. You may see views that sound very offensive to you. You will also see many articles that make no sense to you, are very stupid, or appear to be commercial advertisements. Consider such situation to be a price of YOUR freedom to post anything you want. Remember that speech that pleases everyone needs no protection: it is the offensive speech that is most often assaulted and thus needs to be protected. Also, speech that you find silly and distasteful may seem to be of great use for others. If you feel that some poster's articles are not useful and offensive to you, you can set up your mail reading software to ignore all articles coming from that person. Ignoring them silently has shown to be the best way of dealing with them. It will save you a lot of your own time. Even though you are free do write anything, please consider not following up to their posts with suggestions to shut them up. It only decreases usefulness of this mailing list. Eudora for Windows is known for its mail filtering capability. Procmail is a tool of choice for Unix users who want to filter their articles. Please read the documentation for these programs to find out how to set them to filter and delete unwanted messages. None of the above precludes the administrator of this mailing list to use tools protecting his hardware and bandwidth from denial of service attacks. If someone maliciously mailbombs cypherpunks mailing list, the mail bombs may be silently ignored and not passed on to the list. IMPORTANT: the list owner does not monitor the content of the messages appearing here. I disclaim any liability whatsoever for the content of articles on cypherpunks(a)algebra.com. If you have a problem with any materials posted here, please contact the poster to resolve them. Your use of the resources of this list constitutes an agreement with these terms. You have been warned. IV. Resources. A. The sci.crypt FAQ anonymous ftp to rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet-by-group/sci.crypt The cryptography FAQ is good online intro to crypto. Very much worth reading. Last I looked, it was in ten parts. B. cypherpunks ftp site anonymous ftp to ftp.csua.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks This site contains code, information, rants, and other miscellany. There is a glossary there that all new members should download and read. Also recommended for all users are Hal Finney's instructions on how to use the anonymous remailer system; the remailer sources are there for the perl-literate. C. Bruce Schneier's _Applied Cryptography_, published by Wiley This is required reading for any serious technical cypherpunk (and there are no non-technical cypherpunks). An excellent overview of the field, it describes many of the basic algorithms and protocols with their mathematical descriptions. Some of the stuff at the edges of the scope of the book is a little incomplete, so short descriptions in here should lead to library research for the latest papers, or to the list for the current thinking. All in all, a solid and valuable book. It's even got the cypherpunks-request address. Enjoy and deploy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cypherpunks assume privacy is a good thing and wish there were more of it. Cypherpunks acknowledge that those who want privacy must create it for themselves and not expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant them privacy out of beneficence. Cypherpunks know that people have been creating their own privacy for centuries with whispers, envelopes, closed doors, and couriers. Cypherpunks do not seek to prevent other people from speaking about their experiences or their opinions. The most important means to the defense of privacy is encryption. To encrypt is to indicate the desire for privacy. But to encrypt with weak cryptography is to indicate not too much desire for privacy. Cypherpunks hope that all people desiring privacy will learn how best to defend it. Cypherpunks are therefore devoted to cryptography. Cypherpunks wish to learn about it, to teach it, to implement it, and to make more of it. Cypherpunks know that cryptographic protocols make social structures. Cypherpunks know how to attack a system and how to defend it. Cypherpunks know just how hard it is to make good cryptosystems. Cypherpunks love to practice. They love to play with public key cryptography. They love to play with anonymous and pseudonymous mail forwarding and delivery. They love to play with DC-nets. They love to play with secure communications of all kinds. Cypherpunks write code. They know that someone has to write code to defend privacy, and since it's their privacy, they're going to write it. Cypherpunks publish their code so that their fellow cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Cypherpunks realize that security is not built in a day and are patient with incremental progress. Cypherpunks don't care if you don't like the software they write. Cypherpunks know that software can't be destroyed. Cypherpunks know that a widely dispersed system can't be shut down. Cypherpunks will make the networks safe for privacy. [Last updated Sun Feb 16 13:10:56 CST 1997 ichudov(a)algebra.com] [Adopted from the original version by John Gilmore and Eric Hughes] [View Less]

1 0

NEW "Black Box" Technology!!
by omex＠cyberservices.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This message is being brought to you by EMAIL BLASTER 2.0 software. If you would like a FREE copy of this software or any of our other HOT programs ABSOLTELY FREE call our FAX ON DEMAND number at 213-960-7822. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I am sending this to you because I feel that you are an honest person, with a sincere desire to improve your station in life. If I am incorrect, please excuse my intrusion, and simply hit reply to be … [View More]removed from my database. If you would like additional information, simply send me email with "info" in the subject area. Thanks!! NEW "Black Box" Technology !! GET IN ON THE TOP LEVEL of the Hottest New Program 1. GLOBAL COM TECHNOLOGY -GCT- is the name of the new company created to handle the basket of telecom- munications breakthrough technologies we're going to represent. It is based in Chesapeake, VA. GCT has been put together by a highly seasoned group including MAJOR individuals in the Telecom industry. They have selected Kerry J. Young, a skilled executive and administrator, to be President and CEO. They have also assembled a blue ribbon support team headed by a top level executive from one of the "big three" telephone companies. This combined powerhouse of high-level Telecom experience, management, administration, marketing and financial depth promises to make GCT one of the world's premier telecommunications companies. Their mission: To create the world's largest MLM network to deliver advanced Telecom technology at the most competitive price. In short, they plan on delivering products that will stand the industry on its ear! 2. GCT has set up a 24-hour information line: 415-273-6121. Call it NOW! It is powerful. It will introduce several of the key players and answer questions about the products, how they work and how our business will be structured. 3. The company has announced the official launch date: Monday, March 3, 1997. On Saturday, the 15th of March, GCT will be holding simultaneous training's/meetings in eight cities across the United States. The locations are: Atlanta + Chicago + Dallas + Honolulu + Los Angeles + Orlando + Seattle + Washington, DC. The company will add additional cities as you indicate your preference. Seating is extremely limited and must be reserved in advance by calling an 800# which will be made available within a few days on the GCT hotline. Price: $59 - includes Distributor Kit! 4. What will we be offering? We will have a FULL RANGE of products -- with far more advanced technology and far better pricing than is currently being offered by the several, hastily launched GCT wannabees. The first products announced include a prepaid calling card at 9.9 cents per minute, long distance service at 7.9 cents and WE HAVE the long awaited "black box" technology! It comes in three versions (from basic to advanced) and will wholesale: $39 - $69. In addition, there are several more advanced products which will be brought into our portfolio. As more information becomes available, it is increasingly clear: We are poised to bring the world what everyone has been promised -- but ONLY WE CAN DELIVER! 6. Beware of other companies who have attempted to preempt GCT by implying they can duplicate the various products that we already have on board. This program is not merely an application form and compensation plan offering a single, 7.9 cent product. GCT is a major new Telecom company assembling a full range of leading edge telecommunications technology. The success of this program requires the contacts and know-how of the Telecom industry that can only come from years of experience at the highest levels. Bringing these exceptional products to market is not a project for well-meaning amateurs. 7. The only way to participate in the program described above is to join GCT. They are the ONLY COMPANY with the contracts in hand, technical skill and telecommunications experience to deliver. Global Connections is a group of very experienced marketers and networkers who have an Independent Distributorship positioned directly at the top level of GCT. 8. We are signing up the frontline on Monday & Tuesday... I can place you on the top levels... Email me for registration form at: omex(a)cyberservices.com Put "BLACK BOX" in the subject box. [View Less]

1 0

Re: DES and RSA crypto hardware from the free world
by bs-org＠c2.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 21:32 1997-02-15 -0200, John Ioannidis wrote: Sorry to correct you, but uti-maco is an old german company ... >I believe uti-Maco (a belgian company) has been using the Pijnenburg chips >for their boards. However, last I checked with them (about half a year ago) >the price of the boards was pretty steep -- of the order of $1K. > >Anyway, if the boards Peter is referring to are ready in the next couple >of months, I volunteer to write drivers for Linux and *BSD*. > >/ji >

1 0

Re: Excerpt on SPAM from Edupage, 11 February 1997
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 04:45 PM 2/15/97 -0600, Igor Chudov wrote: >Roy M. Silvernail wrote: ... >> Or that the money wasn't there in the first place (absent a trusted >> signature system), or the key doesn't exist, or the wrong key is >> offered, or the sender put the same e-dollar on all 60000 mails sie >> sent and it's already been redeemed. > >Well, if the trusted party performs the encryption by both recipient's >public key and the "retrieval key", the problem that you … [View More]

1 0

Re: DFA
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Paul Bell wrote: >does anyone know what has happened to DFA, and the people who >just a few months ago were publishing such encouraging results? There seems be sustained investigation of DFA, offensive and defensive, by Biham and Shamir, by Anderson and Kuhn, by the Bellcore team, by Quisquater and others. However, the smartcard manufacturers appear to have a role in dampening publicity about the ongoing research, or at least diminishing the claims of effectiveness of DFA. Carol … [View More]

2 1

Thanks to John Gilmore for running cypherpunks mailing list
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, cypherpunks(a)toad.com goes down in four days. I would like to thank John Gilmore for all his efforts that he spent to run the list. Administering a huge mailing list like cypherpunks is a tough job, requiring a lot of dedication, time and patience. John, along with other cypherpunks, created a unique online community that generated many valuable ideas. This community helped a great deal to increase crypto awareness of the masses. I personally joined cypherpunks for very arkane reasons, … [View More]

1 0

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin writes: > Dave is offering a single mailing list, which, while I am sure Dave is > a great person, still represents a single point of control and a > single point of failure. A distributed mailing list has a potential > for being much more robust, and for supporting a wide range of > viewpoints. I can also offer my participation in the distributed mailing list, if that is what it takes to get cypherpunks free of control interests again. ------ Dave Hayes - … [View More]

1 0

Bad Headers Added to John Young postings via owner-cypherpunks@sirius.infonex.com
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi! The following headers are from a posting by John Young that looks like it was sent to cypherpunks(a)toad.com, forwarded to cypherpunks(a)sirius.infonex.com and/or cypherpunks(a)cyberpass.net, and has the Reply-To: header set to reply to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead of to John Young.... It looks like the obvious implementation of cypherpunks-style mail header patching, but isn't quite right..... Leads to people sending their John Young mailbot requests to cypherpunks(a)toad.com instead, … [View More]

1 0

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by ISP_Ratings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dave Hayes wrote: > >> censorship on cypherpunks. However, I think most peoples' opinions >> didn't really turn, or at least people didn't realize how serious >> things were and didn't really care, until Tim May [someone the many >> freedom-knights hate] started criticizing this censorship in extremely >> reasonable messages that were suppressed from both the -edited and >> -flames mailing list. > > Assuming that is true, that people do not care … [View More]

1 0

FC97: Post-strike airfares
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One more datablip about FC97 and I'll shut up a bit. Having just promised gratuitously cheap airfares to Anguilla/St. Maarten, I went and called the local branch of American Express Travel and got some actual prices. Their number is 617-868-2600, but AEXP-T has branches everywhere, and, I think, an 800 number, so you might want to get ahold of them that way... Anyway, here's what I got, as of about 20 minutes ago: For departures 2/22/97 with return 3/1/97, Boston Anguilla $ 864 … [View More]

1 0

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Dave Hayes 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation writes: > I believe homophobia is a great way to bring out the censors in > people. However, inducing censorship is only part of fighting it. You assume that it is an enemy to be fought. While censorship is clearly undesireable, making it an enemy only strengthens it. > You also need respectable people to some in, argue cogently against > the dangers of censorship, perhaps even get some extremely reasonable > articles suppressed, and then spread the word … [View More]about it. I find the > freedom-knights tactics' extremely lacking in this second, "clean up > and analyze the mess" phase. Part, if not all, of that lack is due to our knowledge of the subjective standard of "respectability" that human beings have. That's the same differentiation used in many censorship attempts, and if we made or supported such differentiations this would undermine any anti-censorship actions we could take. The meta-points are: - What is reasonable to you may or may not be reasonable to me. That is why we refrain from censoring others, since we have no absolute standard of reasonability. - You appear to be concerned with convincing others. We are not concerned with that, since we know that the default for most others is to be invincibly unconvincable. We are simply here to be living models for an arbitrary code of behavior...that behavior being outlined in the Freedom Knights FAQ. - Please remember that you have to judge who is and is not a Freedom Knight by their -actions- and not their claims. > censorship on cypherpunks. However, I think most peoples' opinions > didn't really turn, or at least people didn't realize how serious > things were and didn't really care, until Tim May [someone the many > freedom-knights hate] started criticizing this censorship in extremely > reasonable messages that were suppressed from both the -edited and > -flames mailing list. Assuming that is true, that people do not care about censorship until a person with an arbitrary reasonability says something, I would say that such a group cares not about free speech...even if they think they do. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Two men were fighting outside Nasrudin's window at dead of night. Nasrudin got up, wrapped his only blanket around himself, and ran outside. As he tried to reason with the drunks, one snatched his blanket and both ran away. "What were they arguing about?" asked his wife when he went in. "It must have been the blanket. When they got that, the fight broke up." [View Less]

1 0

Re: Questions about Naughty Robot (fwd)
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Genocide <gen2600(a)aracnet.com> writes: > I got this message (on a system that I am webmaster on) regarding > something that sounded so stupid it made me chuckle...Naughty Robot...I > have enclosed the message below. If any of you have any idea what this > user is talking about, any info would be appreciated. <snip> > >> I had a customer in Tennesee who got an E-Mail saying that Naughty Robot > >> has … [View More]

1 0

Re: Proposed info file
by ISP_Ratings 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > Hi, > > The text below is what I wrote for cypherpunks(a)algebra.com to be > sent to new subscribers. Feel free to criticize. > > - Igor. > > @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ > > About cypherpunks mailing lists > ------------------------------- It all sounds very interesting especially given what's been going on. About how many posts a day can a subscriber reasonbly expect … [View More]

1 0

Re: Proposed info file
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ISP_Ratings wrote: > Igor Chudov @ home wrote: > > About cypherpunks mailing lists > > ------------------------------- > > > It all sounds very interesting especially given what's been going > on. About how many posts a day can a subscriber reasonbly expect > in their mailbox if one were to subscribe? > About a hundred, maybe. It is QUITE A LOT. If you are not interested in applications of cryptography, the list may not be as interesting. All the … [View More]

1 0

Re: More on digital postage
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997 at 23:30:17 Timothy C. May wrote: > At 1:09 AM -0500 2/16/97, Cynthia H. Brown wrote: > > >Here in Canada, the CRTC (Canadian Radio & Telecomms Commission) put > >out rules limiting the time of day, etc. for phone spam (voice or > >fax). Does anyone out there have the specifics of the CRTC regs? > > "Spam" has rapidly become one of those overused, overloaded, meaningless > words. Everything bad on the Net these days is labelled "spam."… [View More] > > For the phone example in Canada, just what is "spam"? > > -- Is it the semi-traditional definition of "spam," i.e., a phone call made > to thousands of sites? (At the same time? Sequentially? How?) > > -- Is it a robo-dialer, with no human at the other end? > > -- Or is it merely an "unwanted phone call"? I used "spam" to mean scripted commercial solicitations, by a human or robot, based on a list of names and numbers. I'm not sure whether this is the same definition as in the legislation. > As I see it, the danger of criminalizing "unwanted phone calls" is obvious. > (Though obviously the courts and prisons are not about to be filled up with > people who committed the heinous crime of making an unrequested phone call.) > > The danger of all "junk mail" and "junk phone call" laws is that they give > power to the government to decide on what is junk and what is not. My understanding is that the legislation restricts commercial solicitations by phone to: - certain times of day (not after 9 PM? unsure) - one initial call, and no follow-ups if the person explicitly asks the caller to never phone this number again (again, unsure of legal details) I don't consider this scenario overly restrictive, since it gives _them_ a chance to sell their product, and _me_ a chance to have them delete my name from their database. Unfortunately, without some formal means of redress, very few telemarketers seem to remember that they are unlikely to find new customers if they call at 7 AM Saturday for the third time this month. What means of redress would you suggest, in the absence of legislation / fines, to someone who has been called repeatedly by a telemarketer? This person is not a current customer and so cannot withdraw his/her business. Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within. [View Less]

2 1

Moderation experiment and moderator liability
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There appears to be a bit of a hush up surrounding the circumstances of the pause in the moderation experiment and subsequent change of moderation policy. To clear the air, I think it would be kind of nice if the full story were told, so I'll gather here a history as I understand it. Information from my archives (those I have), and from asking around in email. I realise that some of the actions that I am claiming of participants in this sequence of events seem hard to believe given their high … [View More]reputation capital. I was myself initially dubious on the strength of the reputation capital of those being critisized. However the below is the sequence of events as close as I can determine. I welcome being proven wrong on any points. Events: 1. Dimitri Vulis posted a lot of off topic posts over a period of time 2. Dimitri reposted a couple of 50k Serdar Argic revisionist articles 3. Dimitri challenged John Gilmore to shut him up 4. John unsubscribed Dimitri, and modified majordomo(a)toad.com to siltently ignore Dimitri's attempts to resubscribe. Dimitri could still post, and presumably read cypherpunks with a different email address or via an archive. It was a token unsubscription only. 5. When Dimitri figured out what John had done, he made many posts denigrating John as a censor 6. Much discussion ensued critisizing John for blocking Dimitri 7. Over Christmas some joker subscribed cypherpunks(a)toad.com to a load of sports mailing lists, Hugh Daniels and John cleaned up the mess 8. Followed a long thread on hardening lists against spam attacks 9. John made a post to the list announcing that the list would be moderated for one month from Jan 11 as an experiment, and included Sandy Sandfort's proposed moderatation policy and offer to act as moderator. It appeared that the moderation experiment was Sandy's suggestion, and that John had agreed to go along with it. 10. Some discussion both pro and con of moderation, and the technical , free speech, and legal aspects followed 11. Moderation started Jan 19, the main list became the moderated list 12. Lots of people complained about the moderation, some defended it Tim May quietly unsubscribed 13. Some people complained about inconsistency in moderation -- some articles which went to flames were not flamish, but made by posters with low reputation capital, or were following up to posts which were flamish. 14. After a while some people commented on Tim's absence, and sent him mail asking what happened. Tim posted an article explaining that he had left because of the imposed moderation without discussion. 15. John followed up with a post defending the moderation experiment, and arguing for it's popularity (he claimed as evidence the number of posters who had not taken the trouble to move to the unedited list). 16. Dimitri posted an article where he claimed that there was a security flaw in Stronghold. Stronghold is C2Nets commercial version of the freeware Apache SSL web server. Sandy is employed by C2Net. 17. Sandy dropped the posting entirely -- it went to neither cypherpunks (edited), nor cypherpunks-flames. He considered that forwarding the posting would have made him legally liable. Sandy is a lawyer by profession. He did not explain this situation on the list. 18. Tim May had by now subscribed to cypherpunks-flames, and posted several follow-ups to Dimitri's posting, discussing the issue of Dimitri's post being dropped, and stated that Dimitri's posting was not flamish, and should not have been dropped in his opinion. Tim's postings were also silently dropped, going to neither of cypherpunks (edited), and cypherpunks-flames. 19. Sandy made an announcement that he was ending his participation in the moderation experiment. Still no explanation of why posts were dropped, or even admission that they were. 20. The two moderated cypherpunks lists (cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames) went dead for some time. 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising a C2Net product that he would be sued! 22. John posted a statement where he explained Sandy's sudden announcement of ending his particpation. John explained that Sandy had "hit a pothole in the moderation experiment when Mr. Nemesis submitted a posting containing nothing but libelous statements about Sandy's employer". Sandy did not drop Johns posting even though it covered the same topics that had resulted in Tim's posts being dropped, and resulted in Tim receiving legal threats from C2Net. In the same post John said that he had come to the conclusion that he was no longer willing to host the cypherpunks list. In this post John announced that Sandy had been persuaded to continue to moderate for the remainder of the moderation period, and gave the new policy. The changes were that anything other than crypto discussion and discussion of forming a new cypherpunks list would go to flames, and anything that Sandy thought was libelous would be dropped silently. 23. Sandy posted a statement affirming that he would continue to moderate, and that if any cypherpunks wished to discuss his prior moderation policy and performance as a moderator that they do it on new lists which they create themselves. (If Sandy's current moderation criteria mean that he feels obliged to forward this post to cypherpunks-flames as off-topic, or even to silently drop it from both moderated lists, so be it. I will simply repost it later, when the moderation experiment is over on one of the new lists. In the event of myself receiving legal threats, I shall simply post it via a remailer, or rely on someone else to do so. C2 does not appear to be running any remailers at the moment, otherwise I would use a remailer hosted at c2.net as the exit node in the remailer chain.) The positive outcome of all this has been to make the cypherpunks list more resilient to legal attack. The new distributed list seems to be progressing well, and will be less liable to attack. Filtering services continue, as they should. And alt.cypherpunks has been created as a forum ultimately resistant to legal attack. Also I should say that I would hope that no one holds any long term animosity towards any of the players in this episode, many of the people have been very prolific in their work to further online privacy and freedom, and I hope that we can all put this chapter behind us. Now more fun things... Anyone checked out the DES breaking project? Over on http://fh28.fa.umist.ac.uk/des/ are details of mailing lists where people are organising breaking RSADSIs DES challenge. For the RC5/32/12/6 (48 bit RC5) break which took 13 days, it seems there were a peak of 5000 machines involved. At this rate it will take 8 months to break DES. 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` [View Less]

1 0

Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 01:13 PM 2/16/97 -0800, Dave Hayes wrote: >I can also offer my participation in the distributed mailing list, if >that is what it takes to get cypherpunks free of control interests again. I think it would be more accurate to say that this is what it takes to get cypherpunks into the hands of different control interests. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQEVAgUBMweY6P37pMWUJFlhAQGdewf/Rvli6pc1PId0xSK9hCII4exlWGetoU66 … [View More]

1 0

Re: More on digital postage
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sat, 15 Feb 1997 at 23:30:17 Timothy C. May wrote: > At 1:09 AM -0500 2/16/97, Cynthia H. Brown wrote: > > >Here in Canada, the CRTC (Canadian Radio & Telecomms Commission) put > >out rules limiting the time of day, etc. for phone spam (voice or > >fax). Does anyone out there have the specifics of the CRTC regs? > > "Spam" has rapidly become one of those overused, overloaded, meaningless > words. Everything bad on the Net these days is labelled "spam."… [View More] > > For the phone example in Canada, just what is "spam"? > > -- Is it the semi-traditional definition of "spam," i.e., a phone call made > to thousands of sites? (At the same time? Sequentially? How?) > > -- Is it a robo-dialer, with no human at the other end? > > -- Or is it merely an "unwanted phone call"? I used "spam" to mean scripted commercial solicitations, by a human or robot, based on a list of names and numbers. I'm not sure whether this is the same definition as in the legislation. > As I see it, the danger of criminalizing "unwanted phone calls" is obvious. > (Though obviously the courts and prisons are not about to be filled up with > people who committed the heinous crime of making an unrequested phone call.) > > The danger of all "junk mail" and "junk phone call" laws is that they give > power to the government to decide on what is junk and what is not. My understanding is that the legislation restricts commercial solicitations by phone to: - certain times of day (not after 9 PM? unsure) - one initial call, and no follow-ups if the person explicitly asks the caller to never phone this number again (again, unsure of legal details) I don't consider this scenario overly restrictive, since it gives _them_ a chance to sell their product, and _me_ a chance to have them delete my name from their database. Unfortunately, without some formal means of redress, very few telemarketers seem to remember that they are unlikely to find new customers if they call at 7 AM Saturday for the third time this month. What means of redress would you suggest, in the absence of legislation / fines, to someone who has been called repeatedly by a telemarketer? This person is not a current customer and so cannot withdraw his/her business. Cynthia =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within. [View Less]

1 0

Moderation experiment and moderator liability
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There appears to be a bit of a hush up surrounding the circumstances of the pause in the moderation experiment and subsequent change of moderation policy. To clear the air, I think it would be kind of nice if the full story were told, so I'll gather here a history as I understand it. Information from my archives (those I have), and from asking around in email. I realise that some of the actions that I am claiming of participants in this sequence of events seem hard to believe given their high … [View More]reputation capital. I was myself initially dubious on the strength of the reputation capital of those being critisized. However the below is the sequence of events as close as I can determine. I welcome being proven wrong on any points. Events: 1. Dimitri Vulis posted a lot of off topic posts over a period of time 2. Dimitri reposted a couple of 50k Serdar Argic revisionist articles 3. Dimitri challenged John Gilmore to shut him up 4. John unsubscribed Dimitri, and modified majordomo(a)toad.com to siltently ignore Dimitri's attempts to resubscribe. Dimitri could still post, and presumably read cypherpunks with a different email address or via an archive. It was a token unsubscription only. 5. When Dimitri figured out what John had done, he made many posts denigrating John as a censor 6. Much discussion ensued critisizing John for blocking Dimitri 7. Over Christmas some joker subscribed cypherpunks(a)toad.com to a load of sports mailing lists, Hugh Daniels and John cleaned up the mess 8. Followed a long thread on hardening lists against spam attacks 9. John made a post to the list announcing that the list would be moderated for one month from Jan 11 as an experiment, and included Sandy Sandfort's proposed moderatation policy and offer to act as moderator. It appeared that the moderation experiment was Sandy's suggestion, and that John had agreed to go along with it. 10. Some discussion both pro and con of moderation, and the technical , free speech, and legal aspects followed 11. Moderation started Jan 19, the main list became the moderated list 12. Lots of people complained about the moderation, some defended it Tim May quietly unsubscribed 13. Some people complained about inconsistency in moderation -- some articles which went to flames were not flamish, but made by posters with low reputation capital, or were following up to posts which were flamish. 14. After a while some people commented on Tim's absence, and sent him mail asking what happened. Tim posted an article explaining that he had left because of the imposed moderation without discussion. 15. John followed up with a post defending the moderation experiment, and arguing for it's popularity (he claimed as evidence the number of posters who had not taken the trouble to move to the unedited list). 16. Dimitri posted an article where he claimed that there was a security flaw in Stronghold. Stronghold is C2Nets commercial version of the freeware Apache SSL web server. Sandy is employed by C2Net. 17. Sandy dropped the posting entirely -- it went to neither cypherpunks (edited), nor cypherpunks-flames. He considered that forwarding the posting would have made him legally liable. Sandy is a lawyer by profession. He did not explain this situation on the list. 18. Tim May had by now subscribed to cypherpunks-flames, and posted several follow-ups to Dimitri's posting, discussing the issue of Dimitri's post being dropped, and stated that Dimitri's posting was not flamish, and should not have been dropped in his opinion. Tim's postings were also silently dropped, going to neither of cypherpunks (edited), and cypherpunks-flames. 19. Sandy made an announcement that he was ending his participation in the moderation experiment. Still no explanation of why posts were dropped, or even admission that they were. 20. The two moderated cypherpunks lists (cypherpunks and cypherpunks-flames) went dead for some time. 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising a C2Net product that he would be sued! 22. John posted a statement where he explained Sandy's sudden announcement of ending his particpation. John explained that Sandy had "hit a pothole in the moderation experiment when Mr. Nemesis submitted a posting containing nothing but libelous statements about Sandy's employer". Sandy did not drop Johns posting even though it covered the same topics that had resulted in Tim's posts being dropped, and resulted in Tim receiving legal threats from C2Net. In the same post John said that he had come to the conclusion that he was no longer willing to host the cypherpunks list. In this post John announced that Sandy had been persuaded to continue to moderate for the remainder of the moderation period, and gave the new policy. The changes were that anything other than crypto discussion and discussion of forming a new cypherpunks list would go to flames, and anything that Sandy thought was libelous would be dropped silently. 23. Sandy posted a statement affirming that he would continue to moderate, and that if any cypherpunks wished to discuss his prior moderation policy and performance as a moderator that they do it on new lists which they create themselves. (If Sandy's current moderation criteria mean that he feels obliged to forward this post to cypherpunks-flames as off-topic, or even to silently drop it from both moderated lists, so be it. I will simply repost it later, when the moderation experiment is over on one of the new lists. In the event of myself receiving legal threats, I shall simply post it via a remailer, or rely on someone else to do so. C2 does not appear to be running any remailers at the moment, otherwise I would use a remailer hosted at c2.net as the exit node in the remailer chain.) The positive outcome of all this has been to make the cypherpunks list more resilient to legal attack. The new distributed list seems to be progressing well, and will be less liable to attack. Filtering services continue, as they should. And alt.cypherpunks has been created as a forum ultimately resistant to legal attack. Also I should say that I would hope that no one holds any long term animosity towards any of the players in this episode, many of the people have been very prolific in their work to further online privacy and freedom, and I hope that we can all put this chapter behind us. Now more fun things... Anyone checked out the DES breaking project? Over on http://fh28.fa.umist.ac.uk/des/ are details of mailing lists where people are organising breaking RSADSIs DES challenge. For the RC5/32/12/6 (48 bit RC5) break which took 13 days, it seems there were a peak of 5000 machines involved. At this rate it will take 8 months to break DES. 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` [View Less]

1 0

When and where?
by camcc＠abraxis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Friends: Please post the date when this list will shift to Usenet if that is indeed to happen. I have not been able to sort out the facts (?) from the speculation, argument, and gas. I have requested my ISP to add alt.cypherpunks to the mail server asap. I don't want to miss a second of the resurrected (or is that born again?) c'punks. Thanks. Alec -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMwextiKJGkNBIH7lAQEF2gP+… [View More]

2 1

No Subject
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy `C' May, a product of anal birth, appeared with a coathanger through his head. _______c___c / /_ _\ | ((6)(6)) ( )_ __\\ //__ o___n) (nn)\o/(nn)

1 0

Re: When and where?
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- camcc(a)abraxis.com (Alec) writes: > Please post the date when this list will shift to Usenet if that is indeed to > happen. I have not been able to sort out the facts (?) from the speculation, > argument, and gas. > > I have requested my ISP to add alt.cypherpunks to the mail server asap. I hope you misspelled "news server." alt.cypherpunks (and subgroups) is a newsgroup. > I don't want to miss a second of the resurrected (or is that … [View More]

2 2

Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability (fwd)
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Adam has assembled a pretty good history of recent events. The following comments only cover some of the issues raised by Adam. It should not be assumed that I agree with all the statements upon which I do not comment. I have limited myself to commenting on only a few issues with which I am in dispute. On Sun, … [View More]

1 0

When and where?
by Alec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Friends: Please post the date when this list will shift to Usenet if that is indeed to happen. I have not been able to sort out the facts (?) from the speculation, argument, and gas. I have requested my ISP to add alt.cypherpunks to the mail server asap. I don't want to miss a second of the resurrected (or is that born again?) c'punks. Thanks. Alec -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 4.5 iQCVAgUBMwextiKJGkNBIH7lAQEF2gP+… [View More]

2 1

Re: Questions about Naughty Robot (fwd)
by Chris Kuethe 1024 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, Genocide wrote: > > I got this message (on a system that I am webmaster on) regarding > something that sounded so stupid it made me chuckle...Naughty Robot...I > have enclosed the message below. If any of you have any idea what this > user is talking about, any info would be appreciated. > > Personally it sounds like another "GoodTimes Virus" again... > > Genocide > Head of the Genocide2600 Group It is another fake... this is what my … [View More]

1 0

We Will Send Your Bulk Email
by Product Link 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*If you want to be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this email and put "Remove" in the subject line. We will send out your bulk E Mail. Period. No qualifiers, no conditions, no nonsense...and we'll do it at the best prices. We are Product Link. We are a business partner with a marketing company which develops buyers for its clients' products through electronic marketing; primarily broadcast fax. Together, we have over a hundred clients, almost 10% of which are Fortune … [View More]500 companies. We have numerous staff, and have just begun, at client request, to send high volumes of E Mail. If you're new to bulk E Mail marketing, as we were a short time ago, I can confirm that all the E Mails you've been getting from E Mail software companies about how great E Mail marketing is; well, they're true. However, as those of you who have already purchased software and have tried bulk E mail know, nothing good ever comes easy. Our staff has spent millions of advertising dollars on our clients' behalf; everything from commercials on the Superbowl to ads in the New York Times, to full page spreads in Scientific American.; not to mention the sending of over 1,000,000 marketing faxes a year for major corporations. Bulk E mail has been quite an eye opener. The Internet, the on line services and ISP providers are full of shrill, self appointed "net cops," whose mission in life seems to be dumping on those who have the audacity to sell product via E Mail. I don't wish nor intend to debate the issue here, except to say that if you've purchased bulk E Mail software (or intend to), you've already found out that when you attempt to use it, your ISP provider will shut you down, your E Mail account will be bombed, and electronic flames will become a way of life. Since we have a low tolerance for allowing small groups of vocal fanatics to dictate our business life, we set up our own system to send out Bulk E Mail. This system will be greatly expanded in 30 days or so (we're installing more T lines), but we currently have room on our system to send out Bulk E Mail for a limited number of companies or individuals other than ourselves. We'll send out your order, large or small. We'll do it quickly, and we'll do it at a really great price. You can supply the list, or we'll supply the list. Place an order with us, and we'll give you advice on how to set up your E Mail so your on line service won't shut you down, how to write your material, and much more. We will also write your marketing material, if you so desire. If you supply a list, we can run it through our computer program to sort out all duplicates and bad AOL or CompuServe addresses. If you buy a list from us, we will guarantee that the exact number of names you order will go out; if we send a list for you and a number of addresses are not delivered, we will send out more E Mails until you get delivered exactly what you ordered. We can even tell you how to confirm that your list was sent. We also have programs that can filter out E Mail "bombs" and other irritating toys played with at your expense by people who don't have a life. When we first began exploring bulk E mail, we contacted numerous firms advertising that they would send out bulk E mail. What we got was answering machines, disconnected numbers, and no call backs. The one firm that did contract us would only send limited numbers of E mails for us, and then only if we had already sent the list out once and taken off all the removes (go figure...if we could send out the list once, what did we need them for?). We finally got so exasperated, we set up our own system. And are we glad we did. Speaking as a marketing man with over 30 years experience in major advertising, E Mail marketing will change the face of advertising and cost of sale forever. I do not believe that has ever been a vehicle like it in history to allow anyone of any size and any budget to advertise and sell their products literally overnight. We employ 18 people, and I guarantee you that when you E Mail us back, you'll get a call. Right away. And the office phone number we give you, will have a live person at the other end. Following is a price list to give you an idea of the quality of our company. Please bear in mind that Bulk E Mail is effective in large numbers; i.e., 25,000 and above. Price List To Send Bulk E Mail: Amount Cost Set Up (One Time Fee) 25,000 $150.00 $50.00 50,000 $275.00 $50.00 75,000 $400.00 $50.00 100,000 $550.00 $50.00 Bulk E Mail amounts above 100,000 per sending will be bid on a case by case basis. If you wish to modem us a list, there may be a small charge for down load depending on list size. If you wish us to "clean" your list (remove all duplicates and bad addresses), we will supply a bid on a case by case basis as with writing your marketing materials and other services. If we may be of service to you, please call us directly at (805) 654-4042. Thank you. [View Less]

1 0

Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.cypherpunks, alt.privacy, comp.org.eff.talk) At 6:07 PM -0800 2/16/97, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May >proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of >moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him. Go >figure. The only phone conversation I had was with Doug Barnes, at the request of Doug that I urgently phone either him … [View More]or Sameer. I called Doug as soon as I got the message. (Doug also said he was the only one in the room at the time, and that the call was *not* being recorded, so I have to surmise that Sandy got his version of things via a recap by Doug.) >> 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not >> desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising >> a C2Net product that he would be sued! > >Absolutely false. > What Doug told me was that Dimitri Vulis had already been served with a legal notice about his warnings about a security flaw in Stronghold, and that any repetition of Dimitri's claims by me or anyone else would result in similar legal action. Doug said that any repetition of the claims, even as part of a quote, would be seen as actionable by C2Net. "We'll vigorously defend our rights." (as best I can recall) He said he thought my messages, to the extent they merely _alluded_ to the claims were probably OK and that they would certainly go through to the list, as Sandy has already resigned from his role as moderator. (For the record, these messages DID NOT GO THROUGH, and have not gone through as of tonight, 8-9 days later. However, I have forwarded them to several people who requested them.) (I also did not have a recorder running, so I can't claim this is a verbatim summary of what was said. As to what I said about how the moderation thing might have been done differently, Doug and I chatted for a while about various alternatives. I raised the point I've made before, that having a "members only" policy, with some special provision for some amount of remailed messages, would probably best suit the notion of keeping the "community" running. What I told Doug was that my main objection was having Sandy sit in judgement to essays folks might have spent a long time composing, and I cited physical parties, where a host invites those he wants in attendance, but does not micromanage or screen conversations being held at the party. My sense was that Doug agreed, and agreed that the whole thing had been handled in a bad way...but Doug should comment to tell his view of things.) The next day, at the physical Cyperpunks meeting at Stanford, I briefly talked to Greg Broiles, working as a legal aide at C2Net. I told Greg he could "take his best shot," in terms of filing suit against me about my messages, as I'm prepared to fight C2Net in court on this matter, and have the financial resources to hire some pretty good lawyers. (I don't recall if Greg replied, or what his reply was.) In a message to Cypherpunks, I outlined my understanding of the Vulis report on security flaws in Stronghold, and put the claims in the context of messages not appearing on either of the two main lists, but none of my messages were sent to either the Main list or the Flames list. (I also had communication with several members of the list, some known to me and some only pseudonyms. I have taken the precaution of erasing these messages and copying files to the disk on which they resided to head off any attempts by C2Net seize my computer and disks as part of some "discovery" process.) I find it unfortunate that C2Net is behaving in such a manner, and their actions are generating far more publicity about the claimed security flaws in Stronghold than the original Vulis message ever would have generated. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as a Supreme Court justice averred. And suppression is a breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria, fungi, and ugly growth, as a less articulate person said. Reporters interested in this story have already contacted me. They're interested in the situation surrounding the claims of a flaw. I told one reporter I had no expertise in Stronghold, SSL, etc., and could not say, but that I suspected strongly that the claim was made just as a "tweak" of C2Net. "Truth is an absolute defence against libel claims." (P.S. To repeat, I doubt there is a flaw in Stronghold, either introduced by RSA (Republic of South Africa, of course) or by the NSA, or by C2Net, or by anyone else. I said as much in my messages which never made it to the list.) --Tim May -- Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway." [View Less]

2 2

Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn <dthorn(a)gte.net> writes: > Adam Back wrote: > > [summary of events] > > I believe your summary is very accurate except: > > I would add after the paragraph about Dimitri posting the warning > about C2, that C2's lawyers sent an immediate threatening letter > to Dimitri. Agree, that should be added: 15a. Dimitri received a legal notice from C2Net's lawyers about Dimitri's allegations > I would change the paragraph about Tim May receiving a … [View More]

2 1

Re: Moderation experiment and moderator liability (fwd)
by Sandy Sandfort 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Adam has assembled a pretty good history of recent events. The following comments only cover some of the issues raised by Adam. It should not be assumed that I agree with all the statements upon which I do not comment. I have limited myself to commenting on only a few issues with which I am in dispute. On Sun, … [View More]

1 0

Re: More on digital postage
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 6:36 PM -0500 2/16/97, Cynthia H. Brown wrote: >My understanding is that the legislation restricts commercial >solicitations by phone to: > >- certain times of day (not after 9 PM? unsure) >- one initial call, and no follow-ups if the person explicitly asks >the caller to never phone this number again (again, unsure of legal >details) > >I don't consider this scenario overly restrictive, since it gives >_them_ a chance to sell their product, and _me_ a chance … [View More]to have them >delete my name from their database. Unfortunately, without some >formal means of redress, very few telemarketers seem to remember that >they are unlikely to find new customers if they call at 7 AM Saturday >for the third time this month. I despise telemarketing calls as much as the next one, and I now let my answering machine do the answering whenever possible, only picking up if it's a call that sounds interesting. (And my cellular phone number I give to only a very few people, as I get charged for incoming calls before 7 p.m.) So, I'm sympathetic to the "problem." However, I try to always "deconstruct" governmental/regulatory "solutions" to see if statist encroachment is lurking in the bushes. In the case of the notion of "have them delete my name from their database," here are some of the issues: * The Armour Spam Company buys its data bases from direct marketing firms, so whose data base is one's name supposed to be removed from? The instance used by Armour in its February 17th contact, or the "parent index" (which is itself an instance) controlled by someone else? How does Armour insist that the data base company from which it bought the data base handle the removal? * If the argument is only that Armour Spam Company not repeat a call, this is generally not a problem, as few companies repeat their telemarketing pitches; counterexamples doubtless exist, but the general trend is not for repeat calls, but, rather, for the same data base to be bought by multiple telemarketing firms. * And there are "freedom of speech" (important in the U.S., though not perhaps in other countries lacking an explicit provision in their constitutions or charters) issues in forcing sellers of legally obtained data bases to reveal internals, to modify them, etc. (Again, it is Armour Spam Company that made the offending call, but they, for this example, only made the call _once_. The fact that N other companies make similar calls, based on the same data base, is a separable issue. Unless the collection and sale of legally-accumulated data bases is regulated, no real remedy exists. I am not, of course, a fan of regulating data bases, but that's a long and involved issue to discuss.) >What means of redress would you suggest, in the absence of >legislation / fines, to someone who has been called repeatedly by a >telemarketer? This person is not a current customer and so cannot >withdraw his/her business. As I said, I believe the case of repeated calls by the _same_ telemarketer is unusual. Perhaps others have had different experiences. And if a particular telemarketer is banned from calling twice, their solution will be obvious: they'll change their company name, farm out the calls to a subcontractor, etc. That is, they'll become a different "corporate instance." It'll be very tough for any law to keep up with such changes (without trampling severely on what most of us think of us as basic freedoms). --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." [View Less]

1 0

We Will Send Your Bulk Email
by Product Link 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

*If you want to be removed from our mailing list, please respond to this email and put "Remove" in the subject line. We will send out your bulk E Mail. Period. No qualifiers, no conditions, no nonsense...and we'll do it at the best prices. We are Product Link. We are a business partner with a marketing company which develops buyers for its clients' products through electronic marketing; primarily broadcast fax. Together, we have over a hundred clients, almost 10% of which are Fortune … [View More]500 companies. We have numerous staff, and have just begun, at client request, to send high volumes of E Mail. If you're new to bulk E Mail marketing, as we were a short time ago, I can confirm that all the E Mails you've been getting from E Mail software companies about how great E Mail marketing is; well, they're true. However, as those of you who have already purchased software and have tried bulk E mail know, nothing good ever comes easy. Our staff has spent millions of advertising dollars on our clients' behalf; everything from commercials on the Superbowl to ads in the New York Times, to full page spreads in Scientific American.; not to mention the sending of over 1,000,000 marketing faxes a year for major corporations. Bulk E mail has been quite an eye opener. The Internet, the on line services and ISP providers are full of shrill, self appointed "net cops," whose mission in life seems to be dumping on those who have the audacity to sell product via E Mail. I don't wish nor intend to debate the issue here, except to say that if you've purchased bulk E Mail software (or intend to), you've already found out that when you attempt to use it, your ISP provider will shut you down, your E Mail account will be bombed, and electronic flames will become a way of life. Since we have a low tolerance for allowing small groups of vocal fanatics to dictate our business life, we set up our own system to send out Bulk E Mail. This system will be greatly expanded in 30 days or so (we're installing more T lines), but we currently have room on our system to send out Bulk E Mail for a limited number of companies or individuals other than ourselves. We'll send out your order, large or small. We'll do it quickly, and we'll do it at a really great price. You can supply the list, or we'll supply the list. Place an order with us, and we'll give you advice on how to set up your E Mail so your on line service won't shut you down, how to write your material, and much more. We will also write your marketing material, if you so desire. If you supply a list, we can run it through our computer program to sort out all duplicates and bad AOL or CompuServe addresses. If you buy a list from us, we will guarantee that the exact number of names you order will go out; if we send a list for you and a number of addresses are not delivered, we will send out more E Mails until you get delivered exactly what you ordered. We can even tell you how to confirm that your list was sent. We also have programs that can filter out E Mail "bombs" and other irritating toys played with at your expense by people who don't have a life. When we first began exploring bulk E mail, we contacted numerous firms advertising that they would send out bulk E mail. What we got was answering machines, disconnected numbers, and no call backs. The one firm that did contract us would only send limited numbers of E mails for us, and then only if we had already sent the list out once and taken off all the removes (go figure...if we could send out the list once, what did we need them for?). We finally got so exasperated, we set up our own system. And are we glad we did. Speaking as a marketing man with over 30 years experience in major advertising, E Mail marketing will change the face of advertising and cost of sale forever. I do not believe that has ever been a vehicle like it in history to allow anyone of any size and any budget to advertise and sell their products literally overnight. We employ 18 people, and I guarantee you that when you E Mail us back, you'll get a call. Right away. And the office phone number we give you, will have a live person at the other end. Following is a price list to give you an idea of the quality of our company. Please bear in mind that Bulk E Mail is effective in large numbers; i.e., 25,000 and above. Price List To Send Bulk E Mail: Amount Cost Set Up (One Time Fee) 25,000 $150.00 $50.00 50,000 $275.00 $50.00 75,000 $400.00 $50.00 100,000 $550.00 $50.00 Bulk E Mail amounts above 100,000 per sending will be bid on a case by case basis. If you wish to modem us a list, there may be a small charge for down load depending on list size. If you wish us to "clean" your list (remove all duplicates and bad addresses), we will supply a bid on a case by case basis as with writing your marketing materials and other services. If we may be of service to you, please call us directly at (805) 654-4042. Thank you. [View Less]

1 0

SSZ Test [No Reply]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Test Sunday - No Reply

1 0

Re: Cypherpunks afraid of spam?
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sun, 16 Feb 1997, camcc(a)abraxis.com (Alec) wrote: > :> I put a spam-busted address in my .sig and give root(a)127.0.0.1 as my email > :> in the from: header. Sure, somebody out there is going to be unhappy with > :> me, but if they have a clue they'll figure it out. Meantime, the SpamBots > :> are bouncing mail to the admin of the site instead of to me. > : > For the less computer articulate (me), please rephrase what you … [View More]just > said more in the form of basic instructions. For starters, root is the all-powerful system administrator account on UNIX machines, and 127.0.0.1 is the "loopback" or "localhost" IP address, generally used for testing. A connection to loopback amounts to a software connection back to the originating host, and e-mail sent to loopback won't even go out the Ethernet card / modem / whatever. So, if I put root(a)127.0.0.1 in the "From:" field of my news reader's configuration, all of my posts will give this as my e-mail address. Depending on the news reader, I may have to set options like "override default domain name", which would override my service provider's name. Since many commercial mailer programs ("SpamBots") scan Usenet news posts for potential target e-mail addresses, these programs will pick up my phony e-mail address and send their junk to their own system administrator instead of me :-) The smarter programs will also scan the bottom of posts for e-mail addresses in people's signatures (or .sig files). The "spam-busted" address described above could be anything that is not a verbatim copy of my e-mail address, for example: c.y.n.t.h.b(a)i.o.s.p.h.e.r.e.dot.n.e.t cynthb[at]iosphere.net cynthb(a)[NOSPAM].iosphere.net Any reasonably computer-literate human will be able to figure out what my real address is, but a cut-and-paste by a software robot won't work. Hope this helps, Cynthia -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: cp850 iQCVAwUBMwfYOZOg7xGCJGQtAQFysQP/VBvuOqZnuQd/1PKz2eApuKUFhUSqWcMe L0W44yFEhMF/vsSz9cZ1fY6ge72Mc1M6UaFPW109rkrmlT9Y0rytelmE+IVr5U92 Q0b+5t/SZAs2HTX8brF6XnqY+1kCcQCv20Yv1dUyWrHM/MOe6RUObSSS2uxqC7tf r4TWCnQ6y7c= =bet0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- =============================================================== Cynthia H. Brown, P.Eng. E-mail: cynthb(a)iosphere.net | PGP Key: See Home Page Home Page: http://www.iosphere.net/~cynthb/ Junk mail will be ignored in the order in which it is received. Klein bottle for rent; enquire within. [View Less]

2 2

Re: Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The story about Stronghold security flaws reminds me of The Right Reverend Colin James III (puke). CJ3 also started his kook career when he was accused of being stupid and not knowing what he was talking about in his announcement about performance of BSAM, his "invention". He immediately reacted to the accusers and promised to sue them, their employers, their providers, the Inspector General, and more. He really went after his enemies, trying to get them fired, etc. As a result of his long … [View More]

1 0

Threats of Legal Action and C2Net/Stronghold Issue
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

(A copy of this message has also been posted to the following newsgroups: alt.cypherpunks, alt.privacy, comp.org.eff.talk) At 6:07 PM -0800 2/16/97, Sandy Sandfort wrote: >Curiously, in a subsequent telephone conversation, Tim May >proposed almost that exact suggestion as an alternative form of >moderation that he said would have been acceptable to him. Go >figure. The only phone conversation I had was with Doug Barnes, at the request of Doug that I urgently phone either him … [View More]or Sameer. I called Doug as soon as I got the message. (Doug also said he was the only one in the room at the time, and that the call was *not* being recorded, so I have to surmise that Sandy got his version of things via a recap by Doug.) >> 21. Tim received a warning from C2Net's lawyers that if he did not >> desist from mentioning that Dimitri had posted an article criticising >> a C2Net product that he would be sued! > >Absolutely false. > What Doug told me was that Dimitri Vulis had already been served with a legal notice about his warnings about a security flaw in Stronghold, and that any repetition of Dimitri's claims by me or anyone else would result in similar legal action. Doug said that any repetition of the claims, even as part of a quote, would be seen as actionable by C2Net. "We'll vigorously defend our rights." (as best I can recall) He said he thought my messages, to the extent they merely _alluded_ to the claims were probably OK and that they would certainly go through to the list, as Sandy has already resigned from his role as moderator. (For the record, these messages DID NOT GO THROUGH, and have not gone through as of tonight, 8-9 days later. However, I have forwarded them to several people who requested them.) (I also did not have a recorder running, so I can't claim this is a verbatim summary of what was said. As to what I said about how the moderation thing might have been done differently, Doug and I chatted for a while about various alternatives. I raised the point I've made before, that having a "members only" policy, with some special provision for some amount of remailed messages, would probably best suit the notion of keeping the "community" running. What I told Doug was that my main objection was having Sandy sit in judgement to essays folks might have spent a long time composing, and I cited physical parties, where a host invites those he wants in attendance, but does not micromanage or screen conversations being held at the party. My sense was that Doug agreed, and agreed that the whole thing had been handled in a bad way...but Doug should comment to tell his view of things.) The next day, at the physical Cyperpunks meeting at Stanford, I briefly talked to Greg Broiles, working as a legal aide at C2Net. I told Greg he could "take his best shot," in terms of filing suit against me about my messages, as I'm prepared to fight C2Net in court on this matter, and have the financial resources to hire some pretty good lawyers. (I don't recall if Greg replied, or what his reply was.) In a message to Cypherpunks, I outlined my understanding of the Vulis report on security flaws in Stronghold, and put the claims in the context of messages not appearing on either of the two main lists, but none of my messages were sent to either the Main list or the Flames list. (I also had communication with several members of the list, some known to me and some only pseudonyms. I have taken the precaution of erasing these messages and copying files to the disk on which they resided to head off any attempts by C2Net seize my computer and disks as part of some "discovery" process.) I find it unfortunate that C2Net is behaving in such a manner, and their actions are generating far more publicity about the claimed security flaws in Stronghold than the original Vulis message ever would have generated. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as a Supreme Court justice averred. And suppression is a breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria, fungi, and ugly growth, as a less articulate person said. Reporters interested in this story have already contacted me. They're interested in the situation surrounding the claims of a flaw. I told one reporter I had no expertise in Stronghold, SSL, etc., and could not say, but that I suspected strongly that the claim was made just as a "tweak" of C2Net. "Truth is an absolute defence against libel claims." (P.S. To repeat, I doubt there is a flaw in Stronghold, either introduced by RSA (Republic of South Africa, of course) or by the NSA, or by C2Net, or by anyone else. I said as much in my messages which never made it to the list.) --Tim May -- Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we 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, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway." [View Less]

1 0