December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:28:28 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals February 12, 1997 Nancy Crowe Regulatory Policy Division Bureau of Export Administration Department of Commerce Room 2705 14th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20230. Docket No. 960918265-6366-03 Dear Ms. Crowe The United States Public Policy Committee for the Association for Computing (USACM) welcomes this opportunity to submit our views on the Interim Rule issued by the Department of Commerce with regard to "Encryption Items Transferred From the United States Munitions List to the Commerce Control List." The USACM believes it is in the best interest of the U.S. government to promote the widespread use of strong encryption. >From our perspective the Interim Rule fails to recognize the legitimate needs and interests of academic, professional, scientific, and ordinary users of telecommunications technology. Thus, the Interim Rule must be modified before it can resolve the many problems with the current export controls on encryption technologies. Introduction and Summary The Association for Computing is an international professional society whose 76,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.) represent a critical mass of computer scientists in education, industry, and government. The USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers and the general public. We have identified a number of serious problems with specific provisions of the Interim Rule. As a professional society of computer scientists which produces a number of peer-reviewed technical journals, we are concerned that the Interim Rule will hamper both communication and education in our field. Part 7.34.3 (b)(3) which refers to the distinction between printed and electronic publications of cryptographic materials is unworkable under the new paradigms of electronic publishing and communications. Electronic media, including the World Wide Web, listserves, Usenet news groups, and video conferencing are becoming the prominent means by which scientists communicate. Provisions of the Rule, specifically Parts 7.34.9 and 744.9, which affect teaching cryptography to foreign students are vague and contradictory. Educational environments are not limited to academic institutions but also occur in national and industry labs and by distance education. Restrictions on cryptography exports must not interfere with the traditional freedom of access over digital networks which is indispensable to maintain motivated and effective academic and research communities. We also believe that the development of public policies and technical standards for communications technologies, such as a Key Recovery Infrastructure (KRI), raise vital issues of privacy, competitiveness, and scientific innovation. Parts 740.8 and 742.15 raise a number of troubling issues for the computing community. We believe it is unwise for the Commerce Department to link relaxing export controls on 56-bit encryption to the development of a KRI as both the desirability and the feasibility of such a system remains uncertain. Key recovery products have not yet been subject to the vigorous testing necessary for a proposed standard and there is little understanding of how such a system would operate and what controls would be needed to ensure that it remained secure. Also, Supplement No. 7 to part 742 (which requires that businesses who wish to export 56-bit encryption before 1998 submit a biannual business plan for developing key recovery products) will stifle the innovation of new cryptography technologies and discourage the process of scientific innovation. We believe the Commerce Department should not promulgate regulations which prohibit U.S. research and development from responding to market demands and limit the ability of Americans using new on-line services to protect their privacy. Analysis The USACM has identified electronic publication, education, research and development, key recovery, and privacy as problematic areas which need addressing. We have outlined our concerns below: Electronic Publishing It is unreasonable and unconstitutional to distinguish between printed and electronic distribution of encryption source code as set forth in the note to Part 7.34.3 (b)(2) and (b)(3). A Federal Court in California has ruled in Bernstein v. U.S. Department of State that source code is speech and is thus protected under the first amendment. This distinction is also currently being challenged in a federal court in the District of Columbia in Karn v. U.S. Department of State. The USACM joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Internet Society in submitting an Amici Curiae brief in the case which argued that such language is an impermissible regulation aimed at the suppression of expression. As computer scientists we see no practical reason why the Commerce Department should insist on creating a distinction when one does not exist. The ACM is the publisher of numerous scientific publications and conference proceedings. They range from our flagship journal Communications of the ACM (CACM) to the on-line, peer-reviewed journal Experimental Algorithms. All 76,000 members of ACM, including 15,000 members overseas, receive CACM by mail and have access to ACM's on-line publications. ACM foresees a time when all its publishing will be electronic and on-line. At that time, it will need interoperable encryption technology available in the U.S. and in its mirror sites abroad to dispense its material. Its subscribers worldwide will need access to secure, commercial encryption as well. An article which described the development of a new cryptographic algorithm would likely appear in one of the many technical journals or conference proceedings published by ACM or the Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), another international professional society. In fact a number of the groundbreaking articles in the field of cryptography science were originally published by ACM and IEEE. Publication of encryption algorithms is extremely important to the field of cryptography. In order for an algorithm to be trusted, it must be challenged. To do that, the code must be made widely available. Foreign members of ACM will be unable to access in electronic format the same articles they currently receive in the printed journal. And, it is technically impossible, at this late date, to partition ACM's publications into distinct paper and electronic (hence encryptable) media. Electronic communications, including the World Wide Web, list serves, Usenet news groups, and video conferencing are becoming the prominent means by which scientists communicate. Science is a global pursuit and there exists a open communications network between scientists in different countries. Part 734.2 which prohibits making cryptographic software available outside the U.S. will not only eliminate this international communication but also technical communication among U.S. scientists. In electronic communications it is not always clear to whom the information is being transmitted. WWW sites and Usenet news groups are accessible by anyone with a modem. Video conferences can be retransmitted overseas and moderated listserves are difficult to control. The Interim Rule refers to an individual taking "precautions adequate to prevent unauthorized transfer of such code outside the U.S." It is our belief that it would be impossible to be certain of any precautions taken. This will effectively eliminate all communications on electronic media that describe or discuss cryptographic source code. We believe the interim rule must be revised to eliminate the distinction between printed and electronic source code and to allow for open communications within scientific communities. Restricting these communications will retard the evolution of the science and the development of new algorithms and cryptographic devices. Education Many ACM members are computer science professors and teachers, so we are concerned about the contradictions in the proposed regulations with regards to education. A number of fields and sub-fields address cryptography as part of their curricula. Part 734.9 states that "Educational Information" is not subject to the new regulations if it is "released by instruction in catalog courses and associated teaching laboratories of academic institutions." Computer science, mathematics, engineering, and electronic security may all include technical instruction in encryption technologies and would be covered in U.S. university classrooms. However, questions arise with regard to distance and home or overseas education because of Part 744.9. It states that "No U.S. person may, without a license from BXA, provide technical assistance (including training) to foreign persons with the intent to aid a foreign person in the development or manufacture outside the United States..." While Part 744.9 defines a U.S. person it does not define "technical assistance" or "training." It is uncertain whether a U.S. professor teaching a course in which foreign students are registered, or teaching a course in cryptography overseas would be "training" a foreigner to develop a cryptographic device if the course work was more detailed than "a discussion of information about cryptography." This would affect course studies as disparate as 'number theory' and 'local area networks'. Also, educational environments are not limited to academic institutions but are also found in national and industry labs. Many computer scientists receive their first hands on training after they graduate from their University. It is unclear whether this "training" or "technical assistance" is in violation of the Interim Rule. The intent of the training is give the new employee the practical tools necessary to participate in the field of cryptography science, and is not necessarily intended to be project or employer specific. While the General prohibition in Part 744.9 discusses the meaning of intent as applied to an academic setting, it is not clear if "academic setting" can be applied to instruction which occurs outside of the University environment. The argument made previously with regard to digital media also applies to education. As part of their course work, students often use electronic media as resources (WWW, digital libraries, CD-ROMs), as a communication device for the class outside the classroom (electronic mail, listserves), and to learn from listening to the discussions among research scientists (Usenet groups, listserves). Part 7.34.3 (b)(3) which covers encryption source code in electronic form or media will restrict these types of educational instruction. Instructors will be unable to take advantage of digital media in their courses. Students studying cryptography will be unfairly disadvantaged as they will be unable to access valuable resources even in the process of furthering their education. The USACM believes the contradictions in Parts 7.34 and 744.9 must be resolved in a clear manner so educators are not required to reduce the quality of their courses for fear of misinterpreting the Interim Rule. Specifically, "academic setting," "training," and "technical assistance" must be defined, and distance education, and academic research and communication must be addressed. Research and Development Encryption policies must reflect the needs of the global market. The international demand for products which incorporate strong cryptographic tools is growing. Such products are widely available and produced by a number of nations. U.S. scientists have been prominent in the development of current encryption technologies. The field has developed though research and development efforts along many different tangents, only one of which describes key recovery products. There is little evidence that the demand for cryptography tools is limited to those products which incorporate key recovery protocols. Part 742.15 (which states that businesses must submit a business plan for the development of key recovery products before they may export 56- bit software; the license must be renewed biannually until 1998 when only key recovery products will be allowed for export) will restrict the U.S. to producing only products which incorporate KRI protocols. Mandating that businesses develop key recovery products will also impede the natural market development of novel and innovative systems. Part 740 hypothesizes that a worldwide KRI will be desirable, feasible, and in place by 1998. However it is unclear whether key recovery is the best alternative. Research along new tangents will continue in non- industry and non-U.S. settings. A new protocol may be discovered which is considered a better choice for a worldwide infrastructure. There will exist a great market demand for variety in choosing a security system to fit the needs of the distinct commercial group. If this happens U.S. scientists and industry will be at a disadvantage as they will have only a core competence in key recovery protocols as per Part 740.8. There are a variety of commercial groups interested in utilizing the Internet for business interactions and transactions. Without interoperable encryption programs, commercial needs in an increasing global environment cannot be met. Supplement No. 4 to Part 742 states that a product can not interact with another product whose key recovery system has been "altered, bypassed, disabled, or otherwise rendered inoperative." This will be a major source of problems for researchers and educators, as well as government and commercial institutions. The result of a system not being able to talk to another system because of an intentional or accidental disabling of the KRI protocols can have a very large impact on telemedicine, research, government operations, and commercial enterprises. The USACM believes the Interim Rule should be rewritten to avoid dissuading innovation and development and eliminating the U.S.'s core competency in cryptography. It should also recognize the need for consistency in interoperable systems. Key Recovery The USACM recognizes that there is a real market demand for key recovery products from business and government employers. However, the viability of a KRI has not yet been determined. It has not yet been subject to the vigorous testing necessary for a proposed standard. There is little understanding of how such a system would operate and what controls would be needed to ensure that it remained secure. Part 740 describes the development of a Key Recovery Infrastructure within two years. We believe it is unwise for the United States to insist on the development of a untested, unproved technology for a worldwide infrastructure. The National Research Council report stated that a feasibility study needed to be performed on a smaller scale before key escrow could be seriously proposed for commercial applications. We believe this warning applies to KRI as well. While key recovery tools may be appropriate in some settings, we believe it would be wrong to impose such restrictions on users or businesses and the Interim Rule should not dictate that businesses limit their research to a potentially unworkable system. Privacy The USACM believes that certain principles should be reflected in a national cryptography policy. Encryption should be used for privacy protection and to encourage the development of technologies and institutional practices which will provide real privacy for the future users of the NII and real security for the protection of the system. The USACM believes that transferring the regulation of cryptography to the Commerce Department could establish United States leadership in protecting the privacy rights of its citizens. However the Interim Rule fails to do that. Conclusion We recognize that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting national security. However, whether or not the worldwide infrastructure is achieved, the role of national security agencies will remain difficult. The government's proposal to balance national security, business, and privacy interests by creating a Key Recovery Infrastructure within the next two years is overly aggressive. We suggest that the development of a policy that serves the long term interests of our nation's security will not be one based on a Key Recovery Infrastructure, but rather one that anticipates the widespread availability of strong encryption and the multifaceted demands of a global economy. Toward that end, the interests in protecting open research within the U.S. academic community will be crucial. Sincerely, Barbara Simons, Ph.D Chair, United States Public Policy Office for the Association for Computing The ACM, founded in 1947, is an international non-profit educational and scientific society dedicated to the development and use of information technology, and to addressing the impact information technology has on the world's major social challenges. The Association's activities include the publication of scholarly journals and the sponsorship of special interest groups (SIGS) in numerous disciplines. ACM has 76,000 members. The 60,000 who reside in the United States are academic, professional, scientific, and ordinary users of telecommunications technology and have a strong interest in the development of sound encryption policies. The USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers and the general public. We respond to requests for information and technical expertise from United States government agencies and departments, seeks to influence relevant United States government policies on behalf of the computing community and the public, and provides information to the ACM on relevant United States government activities.

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote: > > > It is too late to stop alt.cypherpunks, but if I had to make a > > > prediction again, I would predict that soon posters will BEG to help > > > them create comp.*.cypherpunks, because of spam and alt.flamage. > > > > Timmy has a valid point: the reason why a comp.* newsgroup might have less > > cross-posted and "off-topic" crap is because net.cops would be more > > likely to complain to posters' sysadmins. Having a charter state that > > cypherpunks have technical means to ignore traffic they don't like, > > and don't need anyone forging cancels or complaining to sysadmins > > or otherwise getting silenced, is a good idea. > > I don`t believe for one moment that, however well intentioned such a > move would be, it would work. The most notorious net.cops who > thoroughly deserve the (spit) after their name would take little > notice of such a charter and take it upon themselved to "act in the > best interests of the usenet community" That is not necessarily true. I asked Chris Lewis to not cancel any articles in soc.culture.russian.moderated (of which I am one of moderators) and it did not cause any problem. I was very pleased by his reaction. - Igor.

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Re: Need a good bi-directional mail-news gateway
by Jonathan M. Bresler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

much as the irony of the idea appeals, i am not in a position to offer a host/machine to run the list. i *can* offer what i have learned from running the FreeBSD mailing lists for 2+ years. so who has a host/machine, that we can use ;) jmb >At 3:18 pm -0500 2/12/97, Jonathan M. Bresler <jmb(a)frb.gov> wrote: > ^^^^^^^ >> your expected mail volume is 100,000+ messages a day? >> >> i run lists that do 200,000+ routinely. >> recent peak of 350,000 messages >> >> does that meet your needs? > >Great. > >Let's run cypherpunks with a government subsidy. > >;-). > >Pulling your leg, just a bit.. > >Cheers, >Bob Hettinga > >"So much for a geodesic monitary system..." > > >----------------- >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/ > >

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Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s)
by Kent Crispin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ichudov(a)algebra.com allegedly said: > > Firebeard wrote: > > > > >>>>> Igor Chudov @ home writes: > > > > IC> This is where the distributed nature of the list comes in. if > > IC> someone disagrees with Jim's AUP, he or she can use soem other > > IC> mailing list host. > > > > And once I'm up and running, my cypherpunks list server will > > not be interconnected with any server which has a similar AUP. The > > implication of the AUP is that if you _don't_ comply with it, you will > > be blocked. Without such an implication, the AUP is meaningless, and > > I'm dedicated that there should be no filtering/blocking of any kind, > > of the list. Persons behaving 'unacceptably' should be handled by > > social pressures by others in the 'community' of the list, and not by > > policies of the list operators. > > Which is, again, a perfectly fine idea. > > I would probably disconnect from any server that > > a) does not let certain messages go through (unless they are fighting a DOS > attack) and > b) Alters content of any messages. > I can understand this sentiment, given the events of the past couple of months, but it seems short-sighted. If this scheme grows there could be several hundred or more mailers involved, and there is no technical reason why moderated lists couldn't be included. Remember that each list operator actually represents a community of users, users who are *free* to go elsewhere if they choose. Clearly, some people would chose to populate a filtered list. There is no reason whatsoever to discriminate against them. -- Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com,kc@llnl.gov the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: 5A 16 DA 04 31 33 40 1E 87 DA 29 02 97 A3 46 2F

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USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 08:28:28 -0800 (PST) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals February 12, 1997 Nancy Crowe Regulatory Policy Division Bureau of Export Administration Department of Commerce Room 2705 14th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20230. Docket No. 960918265-6366-03 Dear Ms. Crowe The United States Public Policy Committee for the Association for Computing (USACM) welcomes this opportunity to submit our views on the Interim Rule issued by the Department of Commerce with regard to "Encryption Items Transferred From the United States Munitions List to the Commerce Control List." The USACM believes it is in the best interest of the U.S. government to promote the widespread use of strong encryption. >From our perspective the Interim Rule fails to recognize the legitimate needs and interests of academic, professional, scientific, and ordinary users of telecommunications technology. Thus, the Interim Rule must be modified before it can resolve the many problems with the current export controls on encryption technologies. Introduction and Summary The Association for Computing is an international professional society whose 76,000 members (60,000 in the U.S.) represent a critical mass of computer scientists in education, industry, and government. The USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers and the general public. We have identified a number of serious problems with specific provisions of the Interim Rule. As a professional society of computer scientists which produces a number of peer-reviewed technical journals, we are concerned that the Interim Rule will hamper both communication and education in our field. Part 7.34.3 (b)(3) which refers to the distinction between printed and electronic publications of cryptographic materials is unworkable under the new paradigms of electronic publishing and communications. Electronic media, including the World Wide Web, listserves, Usenet news groups, and video conferencing are becoming the prominent means by which scientists communicate. Provisions of the Rule, specifically Parts 7.34.9 and 744.9, which affect teaching cryptography to foreign students are vague and contradictory. Educational environments are not limited to academic institutions but also occur in national and industry labs and by distance education. Restrictions on cryptography exports must not interfere with the traditional freedom of access over digital networks which is indispensable to maintain motivated and effective academic and research communities. We also believe that the development of public policies and technical standards for communications technologies, such as a Key Recovery Infrastructure (KRI), raise vital issues of privacy, competitiveness, and scientific innovation. Parts 740.8 and 742.15 raise a number of troubling issues for the computing community. We believe it is unwise for the Commerce Department to link relaxing export controls on 56-bit encryption to the development of a KRI as both the desirability and the feasibility of such a system remains uncertain. Key recovery products have not yet been subject to the vigorous testing necessary for a proposed standard and there is little understanding of how such a system would operate and what controls would be needed to ensure that it remained secure. Also, Supplement No. 7 to part 742 (which requires that businesses who wish to export 56-bit encryption before 1998 submit a biannual business plan for developing key recovery products) will stifle the innovation of new cryptography technologies and discourage the process of scientific innovation. We believe the Commerce Department should not promulgate regulations which prohibit U.S. research and development from responding to market demands and limit the ability of Americans using new on-line services to protect their privacy. Analysis The USACM has identified electronic publication, education, research and development, key recovery, and privacy as problematic areas which need addressing. We have outlined our concerns below: Electronic Publishing It is unreasonable and unconstitutional to distinguish between printed and electronic distribution of encryption source code as set forth in the note to Part 7.34.3 (b)(2) and (b)(3). A Federal Court in California has ruled in Bernstein v. U.S. Department of State that source code is speech and is thus protected under the first amendment. This distinction is also currently being challenged in a federal court in the District of Columbia in Karn v. U.S. Department of State. The USACM joined the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Internet Society in submitting an Amici Curiae brief in the case which argued that such language is an impermissible regulation aimed at the suppression of expression. As computer scientists we see no practical reason why the Commerce Department should insist on creating a distinction when one does not exist. The ACM is the publisher of numerous scientific publications and conference proceedings. They range from our flagship journal Communications of the ACM (CACM) to the on-line, peer-reviewed journal Experimental Algorithms. All 76,000 members of ACM, including 15,000 members overseas, receive CACM by mail and have access to ACM's on-line publications. ACM foresees a time when all its publishing will be electronic and on-line. At that time, it will need interoperable encryption technology available in the U.S. and in its mirror sites abroad to dispense its material. Its subscribers worldwide will need access to secure, commercial encryption as well. An article which described the development of a new cryptographic algorithm would likely appear in one of the many technical journals or conference proceedings published by ACM or the Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE), another international professional society. In fact a number of the groundbreaking articles in the field of cryptography science were originally published by ACM and IEEE. Publication of encryption algorithms is extremely important to the field of cryptography. In order for an algorithm to be trusted, it must be challenged. To do that, the code must be made widely available. Foreign members of ACM will be unable to access in electronic format the same articles they currently receive in the printed journal. And, it is technically impossible, at this late date, to partition ACM's publications into distinct paper and electronic (hence encryptable) media. Electronic communications, including the World Wide Web, list serves, Usenet news groups, and video conferencing are becoming the prominent means by which scientists communicate. Science is a global pursuit and there exists a open communications network between scientists in different countries. Part 734.2 which prohibits making cryptographic software available outside the U.S. will not only eliminate this international communication but also technical communication among U.S. scientists. In electronic communications it is not always clear to whom the information is being transmitted. WWW sites and Usenet news groups are accessible by anyone with a modem. Video conferences can be retransmitted overseas and moderated listserves are difficult to control. The Interim Rule refers to an individual taking "precautions adequate to prevent unauthorized transfer of such code outside the U.S." It is our belief that it would be impossible to be certain of any precautions taken. This will effectively eliminate all communications on electronic media that describe or discuss cryptographic source code. We believe the interim rule must be revised to eliminate the distinction between printed and electronic source code and to allow for open communications within scientific communities. Restricting these communications will retard the evolution of the science and the development of new algorithms and cryptographic devices. Education Many ACM members are computer science professors and teachers, so we are concerned about the contradictions in the proposed regulations with regards to education. A number of fields and sub-fields address cryptography as part of their curricula. Part 734.9 states that "Educational Information" is not subject to the new regulations if it is "released by instruction in catalog courses and associated teaching laboratories of academic institutions." Computer science, mathematics, engineering, and electronic security may all include technical instruction in encryption technologies and would be covered in U.S. university classrooms. However, questions arise with regard to distance and home or overseas education because of Part 744.9. It states that "No U.S. person may, without a license from BXA, provide technical assistance (including training) to foreign persons with the intent to aid a foreign person in the development or manufacture outside the United States..." While Part 744.9 defines a U.S. person it does not define "technical assistance" or "training." It is uncertain whether a U.S. professor teaching a course in which foreign students are registered, or teaching a course in cryptography overseas would be "training" a foreigner to develop a cryptographic device if the course work was more detailed than "a discussion of information about cryptography." This would affect course studies as disparate as 'number theory' and 'local area networks'. Also, educational environments are not limited to academic institutions but are also found in national and industry labs. Many computer scientists receive their first hands on training after they graduate from their University. It is unclear whether this "training" or "technical assistance" is in violation of the Interim Rule. The intent of the training is give the new employee the practical tools necessary to participate in the field of cryptography science, and is not necessarily intended to be project or employer specific. While the General prohibition in Part 744.9 discusses the meaning of intent as applied to an academic setting, it is not clear if "academic setting" can be applied to instruction which occurs outside of the University environment. The argument made previously with regard to digital media also applies to education. As part of their course work, students often use electronic media as resources (WWW, digital libraries, CD-ROMs), as a communication device for the class outside the classroom (electronic mail, listserves), and to learn from listening to the discussions among research scientists (Usenet groups, listserves). Part 7.34.3 (b)(3) which covers encryption source code in electronic form or media will restrict these types of educational instruction. Instructors will be unable to take advantage of digital media in their courses. Students studying cryptography will be unfairly disadvantaged as they will be unable to access valuable resources even in the process of furthering their education. The USACM believes the contradictions in Parts 7.34 and 744.9 must be resolved in a clear manner so educators are not required to reduce the quality of their courses for fear of misinterpreting the Interim Rule. Specifically, "academic setting," "training," and "technical assistance" must be defined, and distance education, and academic research and communication must be addressed. Research and Development Encryption policies must reflect the needs of the global market. The international demand for products which incorporate strong cryptographic tools is growing. Such products are widely available and produced by a number of nations. U.S. scientists have been prominent in the development of current encryption technologies. The field has developed though research and development efforts along many different tangents, only one of which describes key recovery products. There is little evidence that the demand for cryptography tools is limited to those products which incorporate key recovery protocols. Part 742.15 (which states that businesses must submit a business plan for the development of key recovery products before they may export 56- bit software; the license must be renewed biannually until 1998 when only key recovery products will be allowed for export) will restrict the U.S. to producing only products which incorporate KRI protocols. Mandating that businesses develop key recovery products will also impede the natural market development of novel and innovative systems. Part 740 hypothesizes that a worldwide KRI will be desirable, feasible, and in place by 1998. However it is unclear whether key recovery is the best alternative. Research along new tangents will continue in non- industry and non-U.S. settings. A new protocol may be discovered which is considered a better choice for a worldwide infrastructure. There will exist a great market demand for variety in choosing a security system to fit the needs of the distinct commercial group. If this happens U.S. scientists and industry will be at a disadvantage as they will have only a core competence in key recovery protocols as per Part 740.8. There are a variety of commercial groups interested in utilizing the Internet for business interactions and transactions. Without interoperable encryption programs, commercial needs in an increasing global environment cannot be met. Supplement No. 4 to Part 742 states that a product can not interact with another product whose key recovery system has been "altered, bypassed, disabled, or otherwise rendered inoperative." This will be a major source of problems for researchers and educators, as well as government and commercial institutions. The result of a system not being able to talk to another system because of an intentional or accidental disabling of the KRI protocols can have a very large impact on telemedicine, research, government operations, and commercial enterprises. The USACM believes the Interim Rule should be rewritten to avoid dissuading innovation and development and eliminating the U.S.'s core competency in cryptography. It should also recognize the need for consistency in interoperable systems. Key Recovery The USACM recognizes that there is a real market demand for key recovery products from business and government employers. However, the viability of a KRI has not yet been determined. It has not yet been subject to the vigorous testing necessary for a proposed standard. There is little understanding of how such a system would operate and what controls would be needed to ensure that it remained secure. Part 740 describes the development of a Key Recovery Infrastructure within two years. We believe it is unwise for the United States to insist on the development of a untested, unproved technology for a worldwide infrastructure. The National Research Council report stated that a feasibility study needed to be performed on a smaller scale before key escrow could be seriously proposed for commercial applications. We believe this warning applies to KRI as well. While key recovery tools may be appropriate in some settings, we believe it would be wrong to impose such restrictions on users or businesses and the Interim Rule should not dictate that businesses limit their research to a potentially unworkable system. Privacy The USACM believes that certain principles should be reflected in a national cryptography policy. Encryption should be used for privacy protection and to encourage the development of technologies and institutional practices which will provide real privacy for the future users of the NII and real security for the protection of the system. The USACM believes that transferring the regulation of cryptography to the Commerce Department could establish United States leadership in protecting the privacy rights of its citizens. However the Interim Rule fails to do that. Conclusion We recognize that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting national security. However, whether or not the worldwide infrastructure is achieved, the role of national security agencies will remain difficult. The government's proposal to balance national security, business, and privacy interests by creating a Key Recovery Infrastructure within the next two years is overly aggressive. We suggest that the development of a policy that serves the long term interests of our nation's security will not be one based on a Key Recovery Infrastructure, but rather one that anticipates the widespread availability of strong encryption and the multifaceted demands of a global economy. Toward that end, the interests in protecting open research within the U.S. academic community will be crucial. Sincerely, Barbara Simons, Ph.D Chair, United States Public Policy Office for the Association for Computing The ACM, founded in 1947, is an international non-profit educational and scientific society dedicated to the development and use of information technology, and to addressing the impact information technology has on the world's major social challenges. The Association's activities include the publication of scholarly journals and the sponsorship of special interest groups (SIGS) in numerous disciplines. ACM has 76,000 members. The 60,000 who reside in the United States are academic, professional, scientific, and ordinary users of telecommunications technology and have a strong interest in the development of sound encryption policies. The USACM provides a means for promoting dialogue on technology policy issues with United States policy makers and the general public. We respond to requests for information and technical expertise from United States government agencies and departments, seeks to influence relevant United States government policies on behalf of the computing community and the public, and provides information to the ACM on relevant United States government activities.

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Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The provocateurs won. Too bad. Seems Cpunks caved to the simplest of attacks. Proves you don't need key-escrow or any of the rest to ahem, "affect" unfettered discourse in cyberspace. At 11:23 PM 2/13/97 -0800, you wrote: >Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST) >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu > >The Netly News Network >http://netlynews.com/ > >A List Goes Down In Flames >by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) >February 12, 1997 > > The plan for the cypherpunks mailing list was simple. It was to be > an online gathering place, an intellectual mosh pit, dedicated to the > free flow of ideas and personal privacy through encryption. > > Of course it caught on. From its modest beginnings connecting a > few friends who lived in Northern California, it quickly grew into one > of the most rowdy, volatile lists on the Net: Cypherpunks typically > piped more than 100 messages a day into the mailboxes of nearly 2,000 > subscribers. And the list became a kind of crypto-anarchist utopia. > Populated by pseudonymous posters with names like Black Unicorn, it > was a corner of cyberspace where PGP signatures and digital cash were > the norm -- and there were no rules. Then yesterday came the news: The > list was being evicted and faced imminent shutdown. > > In an e-mail seen 'round the Net, John Gilmore, Electronic > Frontier Foundation cofounder and list maintainer, announced that he > was no longer willing to provide a virtual home for the cypherpunks. > In a post entitled "Put Up or Shut Up," he described how his efforts > to improve the list through moderation were condemned, how technical > problems were consuming more of his time, how pranksters had tried to > subscribe the entire U.S. Congress to the list. How this experiment in > crypto-anarchy had failed. He gave the cypherpunks 10 days to find new > lodgings. > > "The last straw for me was seeing the reaction of the list to > every attempt to improve it. It was to carp, to cut it down, to say > you're doing everything wrong," Gilmore told me yesterday night. One > of the first employees of Sun, Gilmore quit after eight years -- a > millionaire more interested in pursuing ideas than dollars. But his > experiment with the list has left him weary. "If everything I'm doing > is wrong, I'm clearly not the right person to host the list," he said. > > "I would like to see some other structure in which the positive > interactions on the list could continue. I'm not trying to create that > structure anymore," he added. Instead, he would try the only true > crypto-anarchist solution: "I'm handing it over to members to do what > they wish with it." > > The cypherpunks first pierced the public's consciousness when > Wired magazine splashed them across the cover of the second issue. The > Whole Earth Review and the Village Voice followed soon after. The name > "cypherpunk" came to be synonymous with a brash young breed of > digerati who were intent on derailing the White House's encryption > policies and conquering cyberspace. This was crypto with an attitude. > > Gilmore was typical of the breed. Monthly Bay Area meetings of the > 'punks were held in the offices of Cygnus, a company he started to > provide support for the free Unix alternative, GNU. > > But the veteran cypherpunk came under heavy fire in November 1996, > when a loudmouthed flamer flooded the list with flame bait and ad > hominem attacks on various members. Finally, Gilmore, ironically, gave > him the boot -- and incited an all-consuming debate over what the > concept of censorship means in a forum devoted to opposing it. In a > society of crypto-anarchists, who should make the rules? The mailing > list melted down. By last month, it seemed, more messages complained > about censorship than discussed crypto. > > Indeed, for months Gilmore seemed unable to do anything right. He > tried moderation, which proved to be even more contentious, raising > the question of empowering one cypherpunk to decide what was > appropriate for others to read. One member of the group, in effect, > would be more equal than the rest. And why would members take the time > to write elaborate, thoughtful articles on crypto-politics if their > treatises might not make it past the moderator's keyboard? > > After the expulsion, some of the longtime list denizens left > angrily, joining the 700 subscribers who had departed since the > controversy began. One of those was Tim C. May, a crusty former Intel > engineer who prides himself as the organizer of the first cypherpunk > meeting in September 1992. In an essay summarizing the reasons for his > departure, he wrote: "The proper solution to bad speech is more > speech, not censorship. Censorship just makes opponents of 'speech > anarchy' happy -- it affirms their basic belief that censors are > needed." > > After all, May pointed out, the list ended up on Gilmore's > toad.com machine only by happenstance -- it almost was housed on a > workstation at the University of California at Berkeley. Ownership of > the computer with the database of subscribers did not mean that > Gilmore owned the cypherpunks. "Whatever our group once was, or still > is, is not dependent on having a particular mailing list running on > someone's home machine... and it cannot be claimed that any person > 'owns' the cypherpunks group," May wrote. > > The cypherpunks have responded to Gilmore's eviction notice. List > participants generally have halted the incessant attacks on Gilmore, > and now the discussion has turned to how to continue this experiment > in online anarchy -- while preventing one person from ever again > having absolute control of the List. Within hours of Gilmore's > announcement, posters were tossing around ideas of a distributed > network of mailing lists that would carry the cypherpunk name, and > other 'punks likely will migrate to the more tightly controlled > coderpunks and cryptography lists. > > But for the true believers in crypto-anarchy, only one solution is > adequate: Usenet. "There is no 'nexus' of control, no chokepoint, no > precedent... for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups," Tim May > wrote. That, in the end, is what defines a cypherpunk. > >### > > >

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The Konformist: Acid Novelist or Art Lover? You Decide
by Robalini＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Note: Either you requested to receive a subscription to this e-mail, or someone else recommended you to be placed on this list. If you are interested in a free subscription, please e-mail Robalini(a)aol.com with the subject: I NEED TO KONFORM. (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a cool catch phrase.) Please e-mail me back with subject: CANCEL KONFORMIST if you're not interested in receiving this. Thanks, Robert Sterling. Subj: American "Acid Novelist" Brings Home Expatriate Treasure Date: Wed, Feb 12, 1997 7:58 PM PST From: fargone(a)popalex1.linknet.net News Release--For Immediate Distribution--2/12/97 Novelist and psychedelic renegade Todd Brendan Fahey, wit the aid of his father, a Los Angeles-area health care executive, has purchased from the Amsterdam art gallery Anton Heyboerwinkel what is believed to be the bulwark of The Logbook of the Ship _Henry David Thoreau_, an obsessive and intimate mixed media project of an expatriate American artist/mystic known pseudonymously as Viktor IV before his drowning death in Amsterdam in 1986. While on assignment for _Smoke_ magazine last November, Professor Fahey, author of the incendiary underground LSD novel _Wisdom's Maw_, claims he was "directed" to a particular shop on Prinsengracht, a canal street in downtown Amsterdam; after entering the shop, he was immediately struck by the idiosyncratic force of the works of a particular artist. "It was as if I were being beckoned into Aladdin's Castle from way out in some super-mall parking lot," says Fahey, of his experience. "I will never be able to put it into words; but there was a pull, a connection, and then, after studying the many Logbook pages for several days in this shop, there came a long moment of illumination." Fahey describes this "illumination" as an ecstatic vision, in which he claims to have understood the mystical emphasis of much of the Logbook drawings. "It's not entirely bizarre," says Fahey, who is currently completing his Ph.D. coursework in English at University of Southwestern Louisiana. "Allen Ginsberg had an experience one day, in his early twenties, where he heard and witnessed, or believes he did, the voice and personage of the mystic poet William Blake. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote the poem `Kubla Khan' completely whacked in an opium trance. I was using psychedelics pretty heavily during the writing of `Fear & Loathing in Amsterdam' for _Smoke_, and feel as if I were privileged for a few days to some kind of Source. I had many things happen to me in Amsterdam--very powerful moments of insight and registrations of the cosmic flow of things--and during one of these moments, it was impressed upon me from without, that I should bring back to the U.S. these Logbook drawings of Viktor IV." Born Walter Karl Gluck, the artist Viktor IV traveled to Amsterdam in the early 1960s and settled there, leaving on a ship he christened the _Henry David Thoreau_, after the philosopher who he claimed as his chief inspiration and muse. A burly, rugged figure, Viktor IV was recognizable amongst the quiet Amsterdam populace as the barefoot American hippie artist who dressed in black, loved cats and young women, and worked tirelessly on deeply personal and largely non-commercial projects aboard his canal-bound ship. A master scuba diver, Viktor IV drowned in June of 1986, while performing underwater repairs to the _Henry David Thoreau_. Todd Brendan Fahey, a novice art collector, perceives in the Logbook pages the artist's fascination with the "ecstatic vision." In this way, he compares the drawings to the poem-paintings of American surrealist Kenneth Patchen. "There is that same relentless focus on the All-At-Once, that so characterizes the experiences of mystics in every religion and culture. The rich, interconnectedness of all things. That is what Viktor IV is expressing in these pages. And that is what I was feeling for much of my stay in Amsterdam; as much as I was really out of my head most of the time, I was, in another way, very grounded." Unconcerned with commerce, Viktor IV created hundreds of these Logbook drawings in the original, with no known professional reproductions, from between 1966 and 1976, after which he turned his artistic vision to clockmaking. The bulk of individual pages of The Logbook of the Ship _Henry David Thoreau_ is held by the Fedor Museum and the Stejdilik Museum, in Amsterdam, where the adopted artist is revered as a free spirit. Viktor IV visited the United States only a handful of times after emigrating to Amsterdam, and is believed to have held only one American gallery exhibition in his lifetime. Professor Fahey hopes to arrange a traveling exhibition of his 34 pages from The Logbook of the Ship _Henry David Thoreau_, by the artist Viktor IV. Interested museums and art galleries in major American cities should contact Fahey at the following address: Todd Brendan Fahey c/o Far Gone Books P.O. Box 43745 Lafayette, LA 70504-3745 (318) 261-1946 Dutch and European media should contact: Georges or Couzijn Simon Anton Heyboerwinkel Prinsengracht 578 020 624-7691 1017 KR Amsterdam The Netherlands The award-winning Far Gone Books/_Wisdom's Maw_ Web site: http://www2.linknet.net/fahey/fargone ************************************************************ The Konformist is interested in accepting articles, opinions, free subscriptions, and advertising. E-mail us at Robalini(a)aol.com, or call (310) 967-4195. The Konformist is a subsidiary of Sterling Operation Solutions, the trouble-shooting problem-solvers for all business needs. We charge on a sliding scale based on the difficulty (and legality) of the proposed solution. Call (310) 967-4195 for further information. Hey kids, don't forget to enter the "Rockin' To Armageddon Sweepstakes", sponsored by The Konformist, the Official Internet Investigative Journal of the 1997 Academy Awards. (Okay, it's not official, but we're anti-authority anyways.) Right down the day, month, year, and time of the end of the world, and, as a tie-breaker, your nominee for the anti-Christ. The winner will receive a t-shirt stating, "I CameClosest To Predicting The Apocalypse, And All I Got Was This Crummy T-Shirt." You will also receive a free one year supply of Twix candy bars. Also, this is a free magazine, but we'll still take your money if you want. Please send cash, check, money orders, and credit card numbers (Visa, Master Card, American Express, or Discover) to: Robert Sterling Post Office Box 24825 Los Angeles, California 90024-0825 ************************************************************ Rob's Place A SITE IS DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM http://www.vom.com/rc/home.htm Robalini's Note: This is another Rob. I have no interest in spirit, truth, peace, justice, and/or freedom. I do have an interest in making money.

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Re: USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks for forwarding the USACM analysis. We've put it at: http://jya.com/usacm.htm We'd welcome those submitted by cypherpunks or others, for putting on jya.com. It will be some time before BXA publishes them along with the Final Rule, and, there's worldwide interest in the US's foot-shooting.

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No Subject
by Scott A. Hommel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Is it legal or illegal to send a PGP encrypted message from the US to someone in another country? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMwSrJdaX0pKkbeJ9AQG1ogQAloERqECRmAgHAOPq1LwTrWXMw9/E2c0C Q8TqlVuc6pmW+L+DmTrMb0eZdSTJ00A4Fa4j1390UJEncA1X+zHMNMY9CmUJgDKZ ROWNiD8tHiIQYJBH2400WYxKsFPb2mX31SJFc4gK0hQtturtzNXWjOGtowqes6MU kp3/vpeFXZ4= =pLXe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ********************************* Scott A. Hommel President, New Paradigm Design, Inc. PGP key available at: http://paradigm-2.com/scott.html *********************************

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Industry Blasts U.S. Encryption Policy
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

2-14-97. National Business Review, NZ (http://www.nbr.co.nz/) USA: Industry Groups Blast U.S. Encryption Policy. Washington, Feb 13 (Reuter) - An array of private-sector trade groups charged Thursday the Clinton administration's new export policy on computer encoding technology was a failure. Encryption products, which scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software "key," are subject to strict export limits, although the administration recently relaxed the rules a bit. The new policy "does not adequately address the needs of either the American business community or the general public," the 13 groups said in a letter to Clinton dated Wednesday and released Thursday. Among the groups signing the letter were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation, along with a host of high-tech industry groups such as the Business Software Alliance and the Information Technology Association of America. The Centre for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group for civil liberties in cyberspace, and the Association of Research Libraries also signed the letter. An administration spokeswoman said that, despite the complaints, the current policy would be maintained. "The administration is moving ahead with our encryption export liberalisation policy," spokeswoman Heidi Kukis said. The policy balances diverse interests by "allowing us to develop exports while protecting our national security," she said. The administration has repeatedly said it opposes allowing unfettered powerful encryption programmes out of the country where they could be used by international criminals and terrorists. Under current policy, U.S. companies cannot export products containing so-called strong encryption, used to protect everything from a business' electronic mail to a consumer's credit card number sent over the Internet, unless the products also allow the government to crack the code by recovering the software keys. Companies can get a license to export medium-strength encryption lacking so-called key recovery features if the companies agree to incorporate key recovery in future products within two years. The Commerce Department has issued three licenses so far under the two-year provision. Digital Equipment Corp., Trusted Information Systems Inc., and Cylink Corp. won approval by promising to offer key recovery products by 1999. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett Packard Co. have said they are also seeking licenses. But companies and privacy advocates rejected the administration's key recovery-based approach. "It fails to accommodate the competitiveness concerns of sellers of encryption products, the security concerns of the buyers of such products, or important privacy rights," the groups said in their letter. "We believe a fundamental rethinking of this policy is necessary," they added. "We remain interested in working with you to achieve a constructive solution to this very difficult problem." Congress is already considering proposals to dramatically relax the export restrictions without requiring key recovery. -----

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

17 Dec '03

> Is it legal or illegal to send a > PGP encrypted message from the US to someone in another country? Yes. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Fuck UseNet
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should > be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored > automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal? Absolutely, It is really, as far as I see it anyway, just a stop-gap measure. The caballers haven`t got enough room to do their censorship on the 18000 or so big 7 groups so they decide to fuck up the alt. heirachy as well ;-) Hopefully Igor and co.`s network of Majordomo's should be fully operational soon (as I understand it two are up and a third is on it's way) then we can move back there. Might even get it finished before the 20th????? Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Again, MY definition of a "bigot" is the correct one which is > most understood by modern people. > > A "bigot" is a racist, period. I would have to differ with you there Dr. Grubor, although I think the term Bigot being applied critically to your opinions is inappropriate. > > I see nothing that limits bigotry to racial intolerance. > > > > You are a fool then. Religion and sexism and groups all have nothing > to do with bigotry. A bigot is a racist, period. That is TODAY'S > correct definition of the term, and I am a lot more current than > Webster. Any anybody who has a "religion" and "prays" is a fool. > The only god you will ever find is within yourself. I do not begin to believe this is correct. I happen to believe that sexism, not in the sense of believing women inferior but in the sense of believing homosexuals inferior can be, in some instances, a form of bigotry but it is merely a matter of semantics and not of interest. I wholeheartedly agree with the last point, anybody who believes in any form of deity or higher being (call it god if you like) is, IMHO, a fool. However, this has proven in history to be contradicted on a number of occasions, for example, Albert Einstein was a Jew but did not just accept without enquiry, rather, his religious views were subtle and well thought through. This is, of course, the exception not the rule, and 99.9999% of all religious people are fools. > > > It is very logical and wise to discriminate on the basis of sex. Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. > > Most would disagree, and decide based on that and other statements you > > have made that you must be an extremely unpleasant person. > > > > See, there you go again, attacking the person, instead of the > argument. You lose points for that. Sexism is GOOD and right and > justified. I want a woman cutting my hair, and a man fixing my car, > and I demand the correct sex for ALL activities. Exactly, the poster has failed to recognise that you have every right to discrimate as you do and are justified in doing so. They are probably either homosexual and feel threatened or they are censorous and feel they must protect people from being "defamed" etc... > > If you want to fight censorship effectively, going around telling > > people "You're a shit-eating faggot you fucking cock-sucking homo > > censor" in public forums is not going to win you many points. > > Look sonny, I am not out to win any points. I have two Doctorates and > 22 years of experience. I speak with authority and only to those who > have the intelligence to understand. I was a perfect 4.00 in > College, and am probably the most intelligent body-politic analyst in > the world. Now let's face it: Faggots are BAD news. They are most > always censors! And that is the truth you can never get around. I agree, I have no prejudice against homosexuals. Rather I have formulated a low opinion of them as a group due to their censorous behaviour. I think it is because they feel threatened by straight people. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's always interesting to see how another person, particularly a writer, filters and reshapes an experience you shared with them . Differences in the telling are inevitable -- but I perceived the recent experience of the C'punks List quite differently than what Declan described and implied in his column. My understanding of Sandy's effort, for instance, was that he was to filter out the sludge of spam and contentless name-calling with which some idiots were flooding the list. My impression was that he was passing along any posts with content (ideas, pro or con, on almost anything) but filtering out the empty obscene name-calling and slurs (many of which seemed anon or forged, with varied and misleading titles, to duck my kill-file filters.) I, for one, was appreciative. I don't mind flames (and I expected to still be able to recieve them, from whatever POV -- and it seemed that I did!) but I also want a little meat somewhere amid the smoke. Who did the filtering (at the minimal level I expected) was almost irrelevant. If the filtering was on content, I'd be unhappy -- but I was eager to see some effort to cut out the empty hate messages. I even suggested to Dale, off-list, that he take it on for awhile. To me, the issue was whether this community could develop some mechanism to defend itself against a willful and intentional effort to destroy it. I think we failed to do so, despite the creative search for alternative venues -- and I think the triumphant cackling I read on what's left of the List is quite out of place. It may be that ideological purists were able to develop dynamic local filters on their PCs which satisfied them, but my filters just could't do enough. It was clear that the fecal-buckshot attacks on the List were designed to evade them. I'm still here, but it was more than a minor annoyance. (A year ago, I knew maybe five friends and acquaintances who subscribed to C'punks, but they all ran out of patience with the unchecked flow of sludge and unsubscribed... months before John tried to introduce his moderation experiment.) If 700 dropped off right after the moderation experiment was announced -- which I somehow doubt -- I wonder how many were battered into unsubscribing in the six or eight months prior? And, of the fleeing 700, how many became bored with the obsession of some (exhaustively prolific) writers with the "Moderation & Me" -- and went off to find some discussion of cryptography, politics, and ideas elsewhere? (Gawd knows, on the then-Moderated List I never found any lack of overwrought attacks on Sandy or John. I even read them for a week or two;-) From this whole experience, I carry away something different than those who gleefully celebrate Gilmore's surrender. I think something unusual and valuable is being killed. I'm now convinced that virtually all mailing lists will soon be forced to either limit posts to authenticated subscribers or introduce some sort of moderation -- just to deal with the spam threat and the problem of concerned attacks by those who decide they hate or dislike or simply want to destroy that particular List community . By the logic of Tim and others, a clever and dedicated crusade against Cypherpunks by any minimally-organized group, bir or small -- your local coven, CoS, RC bishops, FBI, Romanian Govt, , whomever! -- could have destroyed the List at any time in the past. I'm glad they never realized how vulnerable we were; I've enjoyed this Community greatly in its current manifestation. I also hate to think of how gleeful the sociopaths who mail-bombed us into the choice of submission or suicide must be today. I think it is a particularly henious crime to destroy a virtual community; something akin to book-burning, but maybe more like arson -- like burning village schools. There was a willful attempt to destroy C'punks, an attack of depth and volume which led many of us (even those who had ignored at least three earlier efforts to offer filtered subsets to the List) to welcome the Moderation Experiment. Unfortunately, the attempt at moderation just twisted our own energies against ourselves. We were, perhaps predictably, quite easy to manipulate. If I have any criticism of John et al, it is that our List-Owner (a statement of function, rather than property) never gave the List Community an overt option to vote for minimal moderation. A tactical error. That that allowed the anarchists, nihlists, and others pure of heart to focus their ire on toad.com and Sandy -- rather than on those of us who (when John finally acted) might have gladly re-subscribed to another version of the List in order to obtain minimal spam and slur filtration. So now we ourselves burn the village in order to save it. <nostalgic sigh> How American! Suerte, _Vin At 11:23 PM 2/13/97 -0800, you wrote: >Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST) >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu > >The Netly News Network >http://netlynews.com/ > >A List Goes Down In Flames >by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) >February 12, 1997 >

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Congressional subcommittee hearings on computer security
by Omegaman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Computer crimes rife, unreported By Reuters February 13, 1997, 9:45 a.m. PT WASHINGTON--Security experts say hackers are finding it easier to break into computer networks and steal money, partly because companies are reluctant to admit that they are vulnerable. "If I want to steal money, a computer is a much better tool than a handgun," Daniel Geer, director of engineering for Open Market, told a House of Representatives technology subcommittee hearing on computer security. " Has anyone been following this debate more closely? Nothing in any of the articles I've seen on this story have mentioned the role of strong encryption. <rhetorical question mode on> Why can't banks better protect themselves? Why can't banks better authenticate electronic transactions to prevent theft & break-ins? Why is the such a dearth of protective measures available to the institutions? The public has a right to know! <rhetorical question mode off> Seriously, though, has anyone been following these hearings in more detail? me --------------------------------------------------------------------- Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com>|"When they kick out your front door, PGP Key fingerprint = | How are you gonna come? 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 | With your hands upon your head, 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 | Or on the trigger of your gun?" Send email with "get key" as the| -- The Clash, "Guns of Brixton" "Subject:"to get my public key | _London_Calling_ , 1980 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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e$
by lucifer＠dhp.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Timmy Maya has been a source of endless embarassments to his sympathizers on and off the net. /_/\/\ \_\ / Timmy Maya /_/ \ \_\/\ \ \_\/

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

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation writes: > If you want to fight censorship effectively, going around telling > people "You're a shit-eating faggot you fucking cock-sucking homo > censor" in public forums is not going to win you many points. On the contrary. John Grubor is Usenet's most effective probe as to the mindset of people who really want free speech. The precise litmus test of free speech is vehemently offensive things that are spoken. > Instead, it will quickly land you in many people's killfiles, and will > eventually lead some people with bad client software to wonder if it > wouldn't be worth giving up some freedom of speech for the benefit of > not having to see your rants any more. Then they don't want free speech. They want the illusion of free speech, "free speech as long as you don't say THOSE things". > Unfortunately, it sort of makes life harder for those who actually > fight the censorship when you pretend to be one of them. Your > argument seems to run something like, "To protect freedom of speech, > bad all faggots from the net, and especially don't let them run any > mailing lists." If this offensive and highly noticeable argument > eclipses many of the important, fundamental ones as the censors would > like it too (why do you think your articles make it to cypherpunks- > flames while mine only get as far as -unedited), you will end up not > only inducing censorship but also seriously hampering the efforts of > those who are legitimately fighting that censorship. Don't you get it? Real censorship issues do not arise until someone rocks the boat. It takes someone to rock the boat to make you aware of your own prejudices of that nature. If it takes attacking homosexuals and pissing them off enough to make them show their true colors and begin censorship...so be it. Why be civil when that civility serves to hide that which is ultimately against free speech? You'll find those of us who -truly- want free speech are extremely good at ignoring what we don't like. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Don't teach the blind until you have practiced living with closed eyes

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

17 Dec '03

Ok. I'll "put up". If the cypherpunks will have me, -I'll- run the cypherpunks list. Those that know me know that I will *not* censor, moderate, or otherwise alter the content (other than the stuff majordomo does with "resend") of any messages to the list. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Advice is priceless; when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

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

17 Dec '03

Against Moderation writes: > If you want to fight censorship effectively, going around telling > people "You're a shit-eating faggot you fucking cock-sucking homo > censor" in public forums is not going to win you many points. On the contrary. John Grubor is Usenet's most effective probe as to the mindset of people who really want free speech. The precise litmus test of free speech is vehemently offensive things that are spoken. > Instead, it will quickly land you in many people's killfiles, and will > eventually lead some people with bad client software to wonder if it > wouldn't be worth giving up some freedom of speech for the benefit of > not having to see your rants any more. Then they don't want free speech. They want the illusion of free speech, "free speech as long as you don't say THOSE things". > Unfortunately, it sort of makes life harder for those who actually > fight the censorship when you pretend to be one of them. Your > argument seems to run something like, "To protect freedom of speech, > bad all faggots from the net, and especially don't let them run any > mailing lists." If this offensive and highly noticeable argument > eclipses many of the important, fundamental ones as the censors would > like it too (why do you think your articles make it to cypherpunks- > flames while mine only get as far as -unedited), you will end up not > only inducing censorship but also seriously hampering the efforts of > those who are legitimately fighting that censorship. Don't you get it? Real censorship issues do not arise until someone rocks the boat. It takes someone to rock the boat to make you aware of your own prejudices of that nature. If it takes attacking homosexuals and pissing them off enough to make them show their true colors and begin censorship...so be it. Why be civil when that civility serves to hide that which is ultimately against free speech? You'll find those of us who -truly- want free speech are extremely good at ignoring what we don't like. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Don't teach the blind until you have practiced living with closed eyes

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Industry Blasts U.S. Encryption Policy
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

2-14-97. National Business Review, NZ (http://www.nbr.co.nz/) USA: Industry Groups Blast U.S. Encryption Policy. Washington, Feb 13 (Reuter) - An array of private-sector trade groups charged Thursday the Clinton administration's new export policy on computer encoding technology was a failure. Encryption products, which scramble information and render it unreadable without a password or software "key," are subject to strict export limits, although the administration recently relaxed the rules a bit. The new policy "does not adequately address the needs of either the American business community or the general public," the 13 groups said in a letter to Clinton dated Wednesday and released Thursday. Among the groups signing the letter were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Retail Federation, along with a host of high-tech industry groups such as the Business Software Alliance and the Information Technology Association of America. The Centre for Democracy and Technology, an advocacy group for civil liberties in cyberspace, and the Association of Research Libraries also signed the letter. An administration spokeswoman said that, despite the complaints, the current policy would be maintained. "The administration is moving ahead with our encryption export liberalisation policy," spokeswoman Heidi Kukis said. The policy balances diverse interests by "allowing us to develop exports while protecting our national security," she said. The administration has repeatedly said it opposes allowing unfettered powerful encryption programmes out of the country where they could be used by international criminals and terrorists. Under current policy, U.S. companies cannot export products containing so-called strong encryption, used to protect everything from a business' electronic mail to a consumer's credit card number sent over the Internet, unless the products also allow the government to crack the code by recovering the software keys. Companies can get a license to export medium-strength encryption lacking so-called key recovery features if the companies agree to incorporate key recovery in future products within two years. The Commerce Department has issued three licenses so far under the two-year provision. Digital Equipment Corp., Trusted Information Systems Inc., and Cylink Corp. won approval by promising to offer key recovery products by 1999. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett Packard Co. have said they are also seeking licenses. But companies and privacy advocates rejected the administration's key recovery-based approach. "It fails to accommodate the competitiveness concerns of sellers of encryption products, the security concerns of the buyers of such products, or important privacy rights," the groups said in their letter. "We believe a fundamental rethinking of this policy is necessary," they added. "We remain interested in working with you to achieve a constructive solution to this very difficult problem." Congress is already considering proposals to dramatically relax the export restrictions without requiring key recovery. -----

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Re: Letter Re: Kahn Supporting GAK
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:35 PM 2/5/97 +0000, Robert Rothenburg 'Walking-Owl' wrote: >Good point: but I've seen a few refs from LEAs about "Drug Dealer X >who we can't talk about" or "Child Pornographer Y who we can't talk >about" (in lieu of cases being digested by the court system) so I >didn't harp on that point. > >A point I did leave out was that if they already knew these people >were criminals and were building cases against them, monitoring them >enough to know they used crypto, then do they really need to bother >with listening in to the exact message? I think it would be appropriate to insist that these guys (the LEAs) document their need for decryption, by providing "us" (the public) with an encrypted version of the data that they have accessed but cannot understand, as well as its source and what case it's associated with. The LEAs would encrypt it and publicize it (not openly identifying the details) but with the promise that the key to unlock the information would be released within, say, a year or even earlier once a case is brought. Included within the encrypted identification would be references sufficient to identify the case involved. If they have any doubts as to why they should do this, we should point out that we see no reason to believe their claims, but we want to give them the maximum opportunity to prove them without requiring that they spill the beans, completely, now. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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

17 Dec '03

> Dave Hayes wrote: > > You'll find those of us who -truly- want free speech are extremely > > good at ignoring what we don't like. > Not all of you freedom-knights are good at it at all. The "us" I mentioned did not refer to the freedom knights, but "those of us who -truly- want free speech"...a slight english parsing problem. The freedom knights are a subset of those who want free speech. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet It is our ability to act as ourselves, freely and of our own choosing, that is the greatest gift to mankind; my Creator, the sole being in the universe who legitimately had power over me, gave me that power freely in order to enable me to become what I am. -- Russ Allbery

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DES and RSA crypto hardware from the free world
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've just got the details on two new crypto chips produced by the Dutch company Pijnenburg Custom Chips B.V. These are the PCC 201 bignum coprocessor and the PCC 101 DES-with-everything processor (the official names are slightly different :-). The PCC 101 sells for approximately US$27, the PCC 201 sells for approximately US$50 (for people who aren't familiar with the market for these things, these are very good prices, especially for the 201). The PCC 201 is officially a "Large number modular arithmetic coprocessor" which is designed to perform the operations: A^x mod N AB mod N C mod n very quickly for quantities of up to 1024 bits. Typical procesing times for 1K-bit operands is 40ms, for 512 bits it's 12ms when clocked at 25 MHz. Unfortunately you can't directly chain them for larger operands, although it's possible to use two 201's and some software tricks for CRT decrypts to stretch the operand size to > 1024 bits. The way the 201 works is that you load the fixed components (exponent and modulus for A^x mod N, modulus only for AB mod N and C mod N) into one of three sets of on-chip registers, and then use them to perform arbitrary numbers of operations on data. This means that for something like a micropayment application you would load the necessary private key components once and then generate signatures at the (theoretical) rate of 25 a second. To date the cost of this kind of hardware has been such that the most viable solution was to run racks full of cheap P5 boards booting a bare-bones RSA-processing application through a network card, but with the PCC 201 you could populate a board with 201's and a few microcontrollers a la a Wiener machine and use these as a payment transaction processing engine. They'd also make fairly cool SSL co-processors for web servers. The PCC 101, officially a "DES encryption device", does DES, 3DES (EDE with 2 or 3 keys), and DESX in ECB, CBC, CFB, OFB, and MAC modes at a maximum rate of 132 Mbits/s (16.5 Mbytes/sec) for single DES, or 1/3 that for 3DES, when clocked at 33 MHz. It's possible to load either single or triple-DES encrypted keys which are then decrypted using onboard key encryption keys (KEKs). The chip contains onboard storage for 24 keys, 3 KEKs, 4 IV's, and 2 DESX keys (pre/post-whitener). Processing is done in a 3-stage pipeline, so once you feed in 3 64-bit blocks it churns out a new result every 16 clocks (this also allows overlapped I/O operation). You can add an external battery to save the internal state when power is removed, so you could keep your keys permanently stored onboard (although given that these keys can be recovered given enough money and effort I'm not sure if this is a good thing). The PCC 101 is available in 44-pin PLCC/TQFP packages, the PCC 201 is available in 68-pin PLCC and 80-pin TQFP packages. The PCC 201 contains a multiplexed address/data bus and a few control signals (most of the pins are unused), the PCC 101 contains data and address ports and a few control signals. They look fairly easy to interface. There's an ISA evaluation board available which contains the PCC 201 and the slightly older PCC 100 (predecessor of the 101) and some test software. Note that this is an evaluation board only, Pijnenburg make the chips but don't sell general encryption cards. A fast PCI card containing these chips and drivers for various common operating systems and MSDOS is currently being designed by an international cabal. This will be a PCI 2.1-compliant card containing a PCC101, an optional PCC201, and possibly a few other things (we're still arguing about the design). I'll be writing DOS and Win16 drivers for it, and someone else will do an NT and possibly Linux driver (again, it's still at the design stage). cryptlib (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/cryptlib.html) will probably end up having native support for it when it's ready. Pijnenburg don't have a web page yet but are working on it, I'll post the details here when it becomes available. Until then you can contact them at asic(a)pijnenburg.nl. The only slight problem is that they're subject to the Dutch governments export rules (the usual Wassenaar stuff) which means that if you're not using it for an authentication/integrity-only application or a financial application, you'll probably need to go through some paperwork to show that it's for your use only and you won't be passing it on to your friend Jose from Columbia. Pijnenburg have a standard Statement of Application which people can use as to write their own statement for export approval. These chips look *very* promising. Who needs Clipper, or HP's Clipper-under-another-name, when you can get triple DES from the free world at prices like this? Peter.

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Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> writes: [Fluffy Gilmore apologia by Declan expunged] Two small points. 1. The rift between Gilmore/EFF and Cypherpunks is hardly of recent origin, and dates back to when the EFF first demonstrated to horrified Cypherpunks that its policy would be one of appeasement and capitulation towards clearly unacceptable legislation. This is all in the archives, including Tim May's essay on why he chose not to renew his EFF membership. 2. The article fails to mention Gilmore's new nickname. :) -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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The Konformist: The Chamish Files - The Rabin Hit CONT
by Robalini＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Note: Either you requested to receive a subscription to this e-mail, or someone else recommended you to be placed on this list. If you are interested in a free subscription, please e-mail Robalini(a)aol.com with the subject: I NEED TO KONFORM. (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a cool catch phrase.) Please e-mail me back with subject: CANCEL KONFORMIST if you're not interested in receiving this. Thanks, Robert Sterling. Subj: rubin's secret testimony Date: Sun, 09 Feb, 1997 10:59 AM EDT From: chamish(a)netmedia.net.il THE AMIR-RUBIN DEBATE: YORAM RUBIN'S SECRET TESTIMONY by Barry Chamish The author is privy to an important document withheld from the media and public. It is the testimony of Yitzhak Rabin's personal bodyguard Yoram Rubin taken from the protocols of the trial of Yigal Amir, the alleged assassin of Rabin. As we recall, Rubin was the bodyguard who jumped on Rabin after Amir's alleged first shot and took his second shot in the arm. What is surprising about the secret testimony is how mundane it is compared to what Rubin testified to in open court. That testimony is far more damning to his credibility. The secret testimony begins with the court asking Rubin why the session should be closed. Rubin replied, "I don't mind being photographed but within my story I could touch on matters that I wouldn't want made public." A representative of the intelligence services then explained that operating procedures and details of secret servicemen should not be publicized. The defence argued that the court could decide whether to procede after hearing its questions. The argument did not sway the judges and they decided to hold the session in camera and afterwards sign a declaration that they heard testimony denied the public. The final declaration of the three judges Levy, Rothlevy and Mordick read that, "To prevent speculation, we must relate that the previous testimony was held behind closed doors, is not for public attention and will not be included in the trial protocols." In the most bizarre episodes of the trial, Amir acted as his own attorney and personally questioned Rubin, one of the two men he allegedly shot. Rubin first testified that seven bodyguards in two groups covered Rabin. He was then asked by Amir why Rabin didn't wear a bulletproof vest. He answered, "We judge the situation and decide if a bulletproof vest is called for. Vests are worn only in exceptional cases. The bodyguards never wear them." At this point Rubin makes a rather remarkable statement. "There were previous warnings that an incident could happen." Needless to say, if there were prior warnings, then it was up to Rubin to make certain Rabin was wearing a bulletproof vest. Amir did not jump on this point, rather he returned to the question of the makeup of Rabin's bodyguard formation. Amir- You pointed out that seven bodyguards surrounded Rabin. Rubin- Thre were seven attached to him and twenty in all. I was the commander of one group, I walked beside him, another preceded him, another man walked behind him and he was joined by someone to the left, they formed the pair guarding the rear. One other proceeded forward and another right to cover the fence on Ibn Gvirol Street. Amir- You were with Rabin on the left side. Rubin- No. I didn't walk on his left. Amir now questioned the security arrangements but did not make his point. Instead, he digressed, asking questions about whether bulletproof vests can be discerned under clothing. His attorney, Jonathan Goldberg addressed Rubin to help get Amir back on the right track. Defence- Was the protective ring around Rabin different at this rally than at other events because according to the defendant, he circled the prime minister and saw that his protective guard was different? Rubin- It was different. Defence- The defendant says that at prior events the formation was two bodyguards on the side, one in front and another in back but this time the formation was different. Amir- At the rally when I got into Rabin's range, a hole opened up for me, I walked around someone and came in from the side. I always wanted to kill Rabin but I didn't believe that I'd ever have room to push my hand right to him. But that's what happened in this case. When I walked towards him I saw a gap open and I shot him in the back. In round one, Amir admits to murdering Rabin but has planted deep suspicions that he had help from Rubin and other Shabak agents. He stops just short of saying he couldn't have done it without their help. Of course, the judges didn't see it that way. But any other objective observor would ask why Rabin wasn't wearing a bulletproof vest if warnings against his life were received, why the bodyguards changed their regular formation that night and how did they allow the gap to open which permitted Amir an unhampered shot at the prime minister? end -------------------------------------------- Sent by Barry Chamish - Israeli journalist. Phone/Fax : (972)-2-9914936 E-Mail : chamish(a)netmedia.net.il ************************************************************ The Konformist is interested in accepting articles, opinions, free subscriptions, and advertising. E-mail us at Robalini(a)aol.com, or call (310) 967-4195. The Konformist is a subsidiary of Sterling Operation Solutions, the trouble-shooting problem-solvers for all business needs. We charge on a sliding scale based on the difficulty (and legality) of the proposed solution. Call (310) 967-4195 for further information. Hey kids, don't forget to enter the "Rockin' To Armageddon Sweepstakes", sponsored by The Konformist, the Official Internet Investigative Journal of the 1997 Academy Awards. (Okay, it's not official, but we're anti-authority anyways.) Right down the day, month, year, and time of the end of the world, and, as a tie-breaker, your nominee for the anti-Christ. The winner will receive a t-shirt stating, "I CameClosest To Predicting The Apocalypse, And All I Got Was This Crummy T-Shirt." You will also receive a free one year supply of Twix candy bars. Also, this is a free magazine, but we'll still take your money if you want. Please send cash, check, money orders, and credit card numbers (Visa, Master Card, American Express, or Discover) to: Robert Sterling Post Office Box 24825 Los Angeles, California 90024-0825 ************************************************************ Rob's Place A SITE IS DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM http://www.vom.com/rc/home.htm Robalini's Note: This is another Rob. I have no interest in spirit, truth, peace, justice, and/or freedom. I do have an interest in making money.

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The Konformist: News From Waco
by Robalini＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Note: Either you requested to receive a subscription to this e-mail, or someone else recommended you to be placed on this list. If you are interested in a free subscription, please e-mail Robalini(a)aol.com with the subject: I NEED TO KONFORM. (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a cool catch phrase.) Please e-mail me back with subject: CANCEL KONFORMIST if you're not interested in receiving this. Thanks, Robert Sterling. ITEM ONE Date: Sat, 08 Feb, 1997 09:21 PM EDT From: paul watson Rob, Ken is a fellow who had a Dish company south of Dallas and recorded all the network uplink for the whole Waco affair. His tapes were used By Linda Thompson.. Paul Date: Sat, 8 Feb 1997 12:08:05, -0500 From: MR KEN FAWCETT If no child died on Feb.28- when was the ATF attack? Clearly, Koresh, Snyder, and others conveyed information that children had indeed been injured and or killed. The physical evidence is overwhelming. But there remains a question in my mind to this day as to whether the ATF had actually assaulted the place on Feb. 27. Sound crazy? It came from ATF commander Ted Royster's mouth first. In his first press briefing, on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 28, he began (reading from a prepared statement), "Yesterday's action, I mean today, er. uh it seems like yesterday...." There is much to question about how it would be possible for TV newsmen acting on their own without sattelite-link support, could remain at the site of a two and a half hour "gun battle" that began at approximately 10 AM for the duration, slowly walk out (nearly 2 miles), and have an edited tape of the raid ready to show on Dallas TV at 11:30 AM. Several things about the big lie don't add up! Ken ITEM TWO From: Liberty or Death <ghostpwr(a)dmi.net> Subject: Waco Film >Subject: Review this review of "WACO: The Rules of Engagement" >Date: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 1:03AM > >FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE > >WACO: The Rules of Engagement > >Executive Producer Dan Gifford introduces his new documentary, "Waco: >The Rules of Engagement", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, by >saying words to the effect that "This movie is about looking under rocks >and finding what we never wanted to know." The result is an extremely >disturbing film that should be required viewing for all Americans. "Waco" >is a damning indictment of the BATF, the FBI, and the Congressional >hearings which allegedly investigated the disaster in which four ATF agents >and 76 Branch Davidians were killed. > >Gifford and co-executive director Deborah Sommer-Gifford were inspired >to make the film when they were presented with aerial "Forward Looking >Infra-Red" (FLIR) footage taken by FBI surveillance. The FLIR film >provides answers to many of the previously unanswered questions about Waco. >According to Gifford, this film footage had been offered to the major news >networks and was rejected. > >The heart and mind of the film come from the never-before released >FLIR footage and home videos made by the Branch Davidians with a >camera given to them by the FBI. Accompanying them is extensive news >footage of the events at Waco, C-SPAN tapes of the Congressional hearings, >transcripts of conversations between the Davidians and negotiators and >interviews with various experts and key participants >in the disaster. > >The FLIR photography was taken by FBI planes flying over the Davidian >compound to provide surveillance. The film, which looks like ordinary >black and white film, actually measures heat, not light, and is thus >able to provide a great deal of information about weapons fire as well >as the inferno that destroyed the complex. Interpretation of the film >is provided by an independent company. The FLIR footage shows conclusively >that the FBI did fire on the Davidians despite their claims that "not a >single bullet was ever fired" and that the catastrophic fire was started by >the FBI firing grenades into the building after refilling it with the >deadly and flammable CS powder-methylene chloride mixture. It also provides >strong evidence that the FBI stationed personnel with machine guns outside >the only exit from the building, which if true, indicates that the FBI's >intent was to murder the Davidians, not to "rescue hostages". > >The FBI gave the Davidians a video camera and tapes to make videos of >themselves, presumably to help the negotiators understand them better. >These videos were never released because the FBI feared it would generate >too much sympathy for the Davidians and David Koresh. And in fact, the >video does refute the widely-publicized image of Koresh as a crazed, >charismatic and controlling leader, not unlike Charles Manson, and of his >followers as the "wackos from Waco". > >While Koresh was certainly not your "average American", he appears >rational, intelligent, and committed to teaching his religious beliefs. His >followers seem to be ordinary people on a spiritual quest, no different >from many I've encountered in my own spiritual seeking. >They did not appear to be brainwashed automatons, or homicidal maniacs. >Many were foreigners and ironically felt they would be safer studying >religion in the United States. While sexual practices outside the norm did >occur, they were consensual. I saw no evidence of child abuse whatever. >Clearly the FBI, aided by the media, demonized the Branch Davidians in an >attempt to dehumanize them. And dehumanization of the enemy is one of the >prerequisites for genocide. > >Given that the Congressional committee charged with investigating Waco >had access to all the material presented in this film, the >investigation can only be considered a farce and a travesty. With >rare exceptions, the hearings are shown to be nothing more than a >compilation of lies and perjury combined with a lot of self-serving >political grandstanding. What does stand out, and what gives the >film its name, is that neither the ATF nor the FBI ever had a detailed, >organized plan of attack, that there were never any formal rules of >engagement, and that no contingency plans for failure of the raids, >injuries, fire, or other foreseeable problems were ever made. > >While some have commented that the film appears biased against the >government, all the involved agencies were invited to participate, to >be interviewed, and to present their side of the story. They all refused. > And the producers are careful to state that they have no partisan agenda, >that their goal is to reopen debate on Waco. They >appear almost apologetic about the damaging evidence they have collected >and state they wish someone could or would disprove their findings. And >they emphatically do not wish to be associated with "right wing conspiracy >nuts". > >It is of course impossible to do justice to a nearly three hour film >in a review. Despite its length, I found it compelling and not at all >boring or dragging. Technically, the visuals are mostly dependent on the >quality of the archival film, although the sound levels could use some >work. The musical score was dramatic and quite effective. The film >includes views of the charred and mutilated bodies of some who died at >Waco, which I found appropriate, but may be too graphic for some. > >YOU need to see "Waco: The Rules of Engagement." So does every >American of every political persuasion. For the past four years, "Remember >Waco" has been a rallying cry for the "political right" >and gun owners. In response, they have been laughed at, dismissed, >and even accused of being anti-government terrorists. What this film shows >is human beings being methodically gassed and then burned. >Anyone and everyone who has ever vowed "Never again" needs to >view this film and renew that vow. > >This is absolutely not a film to celebrate. There is now evidence >that people within our government are guilty of genocide and crimes against >humanity and that they engaged in a huge cover-up. This >should sadden and sicken each of us, and it should also motivate us >to find ways to prevent such a tragedy from occurring ever again. >If we do not, we become accessories to these crimes. > >"Waco" has not yet been accepted for commercial release, although >negotiations are underway. If you want to see this film, if you feel >others should see this film, then you will have to act. Write to >Sundance and thank them for making this film available. (When you consider >who holds the power at Sundance, it IS rather remarkable >that "Waco" was shown.) Encourage them to support its general >release. If you have contacts with any film distribution companies, >ask them to distribute this film. Write letters to the editors of >newspapers and magazines. Tell everyone you know. If there is a >demand, if it appears profitable to distribute this documentary, Hollywood >will most likely cooperate. > >Remember that this is NOT about partisan politics, Right vs. Left, >gun rights, or other divisive issues. It is about our unalienable >Constitutional rights to religious freedom, freedom from unreasonable >search and seizure, and above all the freedom not to be murdered by >our own government. > >As the Talmud commands: "Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of thy >brother." > >Further information is available at http://www.waco93.com > >c 1997, Sarah Thompson, M.D. >Permission to reprint granted as long as no changes are made and full >attribution is given. > >Sarah Thompson, M.D. >The Righter > >PO Box 271231 >Salt Lake City, UT 84127-1231 >(801) 966-0257 - voice >(801) 966-7278 - voice/fax >righter(a)therighter.com > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Liberty's Educational Advocacy Forum, Indiana-FIJA, Inc. > Url: http://www.iquest.net/~rjtavel/ > ************************* > Not a high-tech law firm brochure. > Dr. Tavel's Self Help Clinic and Sovereign Law Library > promotes "action that raises the cost of state violence > for its perpetrators (and) that lays the basis for > institutional change " -- Noam Chomsky > For Liberty in Our Lifetime, R.J. Tavel, J.D. - - Monte ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Don't Tread On Me! <<< - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Psalm 33 * ------------------------------------------------------------------------- "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams ************************************************************ The Konformist is interested in accepting articles, opinions, free subscriptions, and advertising. E-mail us at Robalini(a)aol.com, or call (310) 967-4195. The Konformist is a subsidiary of Sterling Operation Solutions, the trouble-shooting problem-solvers for all business needs. We charge on a sliding scale based on the difficulty (and legality) of the proposed solution. Call (310) 967-4195 for further information. Hey kids, don't forget to enter the "Rockin' To Armageddon Sweepstakes", sponsored by The Konformist, the Official Internet Investigative Journal of the 1997 Academy Awards. (Okay, it's not official, but we're anti-authority anyways.) Right down the day, month, year, and time of the end of the world, and, as a tie-breaker, your nominee for the anti-Christ. The winner will receive a t-shirt stating, "I CameClosest To Predicting The Apocalypse, And All I Got Was This Crummy T-Shirt." You will also receive a free one year supply of Twix candy bars. Also, this is a free magazine, but we'll still take your money if you want. Please send cash, check, money orders, and credit card numbers (Visa, Master Card, American Express, or Discover) to: Robert Sterling Post Office Box 24825 Los Angeles, California 90024-0825 ************************************************************ Rob's Place A SITE IS DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM http://www.vom.com/rc/home.htm Robalini's Note: This is another Rob. I have no interest in spirit, truth, peace, justice, and/or freedom. I do have an interest in making money.

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A "Default Faggot"/ was:Dale disses gays.
by aga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997, Anonymous wrote: > Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 12:45:07 -0700 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)wazoo.com> > Reply-To: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org > To: freedom-knights(a)jetcafe.org > Subject: Re: Dale disses gays. > > aga <aga(a)dhp.com> writes: > > > Now just who is thisa guy? -- who keeps posting under > > "nobody" at the cajones remailer? Anybody have him/her > > tagged yet for the real person? > > Probably multiple people. It's just an anonymous remailer. > > > ... > > I don't know. It has always been easy for me to spot a faggot. I > > mean, I can even tell by their voice if they are queer. > > Well, those of us who happen to know Gilmore is straight are not very > impressed with your accuracy. > Well, I never talked to Gilmore, but I will tell you this: I have never seen him come outright and say "I am straight and not gay." So until he says that, he is a default faggot. The default faggots are the worst kind. If a guy would just say "o.k., I am gay," I can respect him and drop the subject. It is the ones who refuse to admit they are gay that bug me the most.

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Re: crypto restrictions
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anand Abhyankar <anand(a)querisoft.com> asked: >1) is it illegal to develop an encryption tool (s/w) outside the US >which uses > 40 bit size session keys and then import that s/w inside of >the US. > >anand.... Hi Anand, Nope! Unless there are export controls in India, your wizards in Bombay or Dehli (pardon, I forget) can offer their US customers the full and unrestricted product of their creativity and genius in algorithms, crypto implementations, and/or crypto protocols. There are no restrictions on encryption software being _imported_ into the US, nor are there (at the moment <sigh>) any legal (as opposed to patent or copyright) restrictions on any encryption software of any strength being _used_ in the US. For that matter, there are no restrictions on encrypted data being transmitted across the US border. And (while it may require a license, apparently an exemption for the product, as opposed to a sales-by-sale license) there are seemingly no -- or at least less -- restrictions on the use of specialized encryption products (within the US) which can generate a "self-decrypting" secure packet which can be transmitted (cross-border, outside the US) and opened, anywhere, by a recipient who has been provided with a password/key out of band. That is how RSA's SecurPC has been able to offer full 128-bit RC4 encryption to secure US-to-Anywhere international file transfers. (As with DES, the US Govt is apparently trying to control the export of a full implementation package -- not the international distribution of a widely-known algorithm, per se. As I understand it, the self-decrypting PCSecure packet does not contain the user interface which allows automatic encryption, the interface can only decrypt. The RC4 algorithm, of course, has to be included in the transmission, and it is inherently reversible -- only the user interface is "crippled" to restrict its use to encrypt. Corrections welcome, if I don't have this exactly right.) The international traffic in self-decrypting "128-bit" products is separate and distinct from the issues involved in the recent modifications of the US export regs, which allow vendors to get approval to export a 56-bit secret-key encryption product (eg. RC4, RC5, or DES) only if the vendor submits a concrete plan, and schedule of implementation, to redesign their (export) product to require key-escrow or trusted-party key-recovery/storage. (In addition whatever recovery key is required by corporate backup policies, this is also, obviously, a mechanism for GAK, "government access to keys" --under US law, hopefully with a court warrant -- and/or whatever backup/key-recovery/GAK-access mechanism might be required various other nations in which those products will be imported, used, or transhipped from.) And with those GAK-adapted implementations, the US govt. will then approve, for the first time, general export of robust 128-bit secret-key products... as they reportedly have for Open Market's SSL, and TIS and Digital crypto products. I hope this is helpful, Suerte, _Vin

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim May asked: >And was my article the kind of "sludge of spam" and "contentless >name-calling" you thought the Moderation experiment was all about? No. It definitely was not. >And what of the four or five of my posts a week ago which never made it to >either the Main list or the Flames list? The contained no "sludge of spam" >nor "contentless name-calling." What they dealt with was a claim (like this >one) that some posts were not being passed on to either of the two lists, >and that perhaps a conflict of interest was developing. > >Does this still match your "understanding of Sandy's effort"? Sadly, no. _Vin

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Re: USACM analysis of Commerce Dept crypto export proposals
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks for forwarding the USACM analysis. We've put it at: http://jya.com/usacm.htm We'd welcome those submitted by cypherpunks or others, for putting on jya.com. It will be some time before BXA publishes them along with the Final Rule, and, there's worldwide interest in the US's foot-shooting.

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Re: Dale disses gays.
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

aga <aga(a)dhp.com> writes: > Now just who is thisa guy? -- who keeps posting under > "nobody" at the cajones remailer? Anybody have him/her > tagged yet for the real person? Probably multiple people. It's just an anonymous remailer. > ... > I don't know. It has always been easy for me to spot a faggot. I > mean, I can even tell by their voice if they are queer. Well, those of us who happen to know Gilmore is straight are not very impressed with your accuracy.

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No Subject
by Scott A. Hommel 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Is it legal or illegal to send a PGP encrypted message from the US to someone in another country? -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMwSrJdaX0pKkbeJ9AQG1ogQAloERqECRmAgHAOPq1LwTrWXMw9/E2c0C Q8TqlVuc6pmW+L+DmTrMb0eZdSTJ00A4Fa4j1390UJEncA1X+zHMNMY9CmUJgDKZ ROWNiD8tHiIQYJBH2400WYxKsFPb2mX31SJFc4gK0hQtturtzNXWjOGtowqes6MU kp3/vpeFXZ4= =pLXe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ********************************* Scott A. Hommel President, New Paradigm Design, Inc. PGP key available at: http://paradigm-2.com/scott.html *********************************

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Mike Duvos 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Froomkin writes: > Just for the record. I will not post to USENET given the spamming that > seems to go to IDs that appear there. Helpful hint: Mung your email address in a way which will confuse bots, but not humans. "From: froomkin(a)[NO-SPAM]law.miami.edu" should work nicely. This will also eliminate mail from very clueless people. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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Re: Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer (fwd)
by Jonathan M. Bresler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Well, if you can't deliver mail because their mailbox is full, then >you should simply wait a few days before trying to deliver mail to that >address. If it's because the address isn't there any more, you should delete >it from the subscription lists. Otherwise, the instant people's mail quotas >overflow (e.g., they're on AOL and they haven't been able to get through the >clogged lines), they get bounced... or you're left with a lot of invalid >addresses. The address causing the bounce is not necessarily determinable >automatically from the bounce message; if it isn't, then you need to keep a >copy around for a human to look at. who should bear the burden of dealing with bounces? the list admin or the owner of the bouncing address? if you have the time and desire, you can accomodate people that bounce mail due to a temporarily full mailbox. if not, unsubscribe them after N bounces in a 24 hour period. it becomes their responsibility not to bounce more than N emails. when a list has 1000's of subscribers, i have not have been able to provide the type of personal service that the first option entails. i do make a digest version of every list available. if the digest bounces, the bouncer??? bouncee?? stays below the N bounces threshhold (for many values of N :). jmb

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Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by Martin Minow 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

My first reaction to the "Death of Cypherpunks" (Declan McCullagh's article in http://netlynews.com Feb 12, 1997) is that it is another example of "The Tragedy of the Commons." -- the (unsolvable) problem of unlimited access to a limited resource. Cypherpunks was also susceptable to the strange Internet phenomenon where people could be proud of their anti-social, bad behavior (flame wars, "grafitti" in the form of spam). For this reason, I suspect that the future of the Internet in general, and Cyphperpunks in particular, will require serious editorial control (as is done by the Risks and Privacy digests). The only other alternative I can see would be to limit membership -- but not limit what members might write. In the long term, I suppose we'll have sufficiently intelligent software agents that can recognize spam and flaming and invisibly delete them from our e-mail in-boxes. What bothers me more than anything else about the "solutions" I've seen proposed to the death of Cypherpunks is that they rely on technology -- and reject human judgement -- to solve what is, in reality, a social problem. (One can certainly make the same argument about the V-chip, browser porn filters, and similar hacks.) Having been "on" the net for over 15 years -- and with experience in both ends of the censorship/moderation problem (I'm probably the only Cypherpunks member to have had a book "banned in Boston"), I'm sorry that a handful of sociopaths managed to destroy this experiment in anarchy, but I suspect that this was inevitable. Martin Minow minow(a)apple.com ps: (From McCullagh): > But for the true believers in crypto-anarchy, only one solution is > adequate: Usenet. "There is no 'nexus' of control, no chokepoint, no > precedent... for halting distribution of Usenet newsgroups," Tim May > wrote. That, in the end, is what defines a cypherpunk. > Nope: alt.cypherpunks will not be distributed to many sites that would accept an e-mail list. Also, it's too easy for the disgruntled to forge cancel group messages. I'm afraid that human judgement is still required.

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

17 Dec '03

At 3:31 AM -0800 2/14/97, John C. Randolph wrote: >Tim may says: > >>By the way, I think the "junk fax" and "junk phone call" laws are clearcut >>violations of the First Amendment. I understand why the herd _wants_ these >>laws, as it reduces the costs involved in replacing fax paper, running to >>the telephone only to find someone trying to sell something, etc., but it >>is quite clearly a prior restraint on speech, however well-intentioned. > >I have to disagree here. The junk fax law is a restraint on unauthorised >use of property, i.e. *my* fax machine, *my* phone, etc. > >That tort of unauthorised use of property applies, whether someone's sending >me a fax to sell me spamming software, or whether it's some kid ringing >my doorbell and running away. It's not the speech that I'm fighting, it's >the misuse of my property. > >Freedom of speech does not confer a right to use other people's property. Fair enough, John. I can agree that _tort law_ (civil) might be used. If Party A can convince a jury that Party B did it real damage and can quantify that damage, maybe Party A can collect. My main objection is to to blanket laws, known as "junk mail" laws. The rules for what constitutes "junk" are unclear and give the government regulatory power which I think it should not have. Imagine a bureaucrat deciding that solicitations to join the National Rifle Association are "junk" and ordering the U.S. Postal Service to scrap all such solicitations. Imagine further that alternate delivery systems, such as UPS and FedEx are also notified that delivery of NRA material constitute a crime. (This is not so far-fetched, especially the "alternate delivery" point. If the regulators declare a communication to be junk, it remains junk even if delivered via a different route. If CyberPromotions tries fiddling with the domain names, as they have, it remains junk to CompuServe and to the District Court which upholds their decision to censor mail to customers.) To paraphrase what the CompuServe customer said: "I'll decide what's junk and what's not." --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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

17 Dec '03

> Is it legal or illegal to send a > PGP encrypted message from the US to someone in another country? Yes. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> writes: <snip declan's rather well-balanced article> > What does `crusty' mean as applied to a former Intel engineer? Try definition 2 Word crusty (KRUHS'tee) adj. Definition --adj. -ier, -iest. 1. Like or having a crust. 2. Surly or brusk. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMwS3m8kz/YzIV3P5AQHNJgL+NtjXkx/EHmx9vXm9ucwmonam+2sXRwHB 4bCrz3SM9pk4VbcPhYjx+PRzmX3j9mvesPkkAXaYiUcnFUBmmF35YvIZnTxornfy kE30sVsW4juawhXGRIAWJ/5Ce9lBLPdp =bB+u -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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

17 Dec '03

Ok. I'll "put up". If the cypherpunks will have me, -I'll- run the cypherpunks list. Those that know me know that I will *not* censor, moderate, or otherwise alter the content (other than the stuff majordomo does with "resend") of any messages to the list. ------ Dave Hayes - Altadena CA, USA - dave(a)jetcafe.org Freedom Knight of Usenet - http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet Advice is priceless; when it becomes interference it is preposterous.

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Re: Fuck UseNet
by Jeremiah A Blatz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Toto <toto(a)sk.sympatico.ca> reminds me while I've killfiled him: > So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should > be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored > automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal? Yup. You're begging resources, deal with it. We didn't kiss John Gillmore's ass, and he decided that he was tired of the shit and stopped letting us squat on his land. If we were paying him for the use of toad, he maybe wouldn't have the right to yank it so suddenly, but we weren't, so it's his call. Same with usenet. The "cabal" has high reputation capital. News admins the world over trust them. One might say that they deserve the respect they get, but that is immaterial to the discussion. the fact is that people who donate resources to usenet trust the cabal. Unless you have a contractual relationship, you're begging, and you have to convince your benefactors to give you stuff. If you have a different model for a world economy, feel free to post it. Jer "standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole PS. Of course, the cabal didn't rmgroup alt.cypherpunks, thus showing that they do have some good sence yet. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQB1AwUBMwSyzMkz/YzIV3P5AQHgbgMApfVYTtanDNpL1A96oqMa0wk99GC6jfk9 p7V2KUBn2rl3rOJlBsYpgPWJRYxcMeich8tulf0NcUkh5ru7YdsACD7GYa7B7bz2 Kj6VnQibFnCKb2BTkQfkqYCpdKIUhvLL =dkhj -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Congressional subcommittee hearings on computer security
by Omegaman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Computer crimes rife, unreported By Reuters February 13, 1997, 9:45 a.m. PT WASHINGTON--Security experts say hackers are finding it easier to break into computer networks and steal money, partly because companies are reluctant to admit that they are vulnerable. "If I want to steal money, a computer is a much better tool than a handgun," Daniel Geer, director of engineering for Open Market, told a House of Representatives technology subcommittee hearing on computer security. " Has anyone been following this debate more closely? Nothing in any of the articles I've seen on this story have mentioned the role of strong encryption. <rhetorical question mode on> Why can't banks better protect themselves? Why can't banks better authenticate electronic transactions to prevent theft & break-ins? Why is the such a dearth of protective measures available to the institutions? The public has a right to know! <rhetorical question mode off> Seriously, though, has anyone been following these hearings in more detail? me --------------------------------------------------------------------- Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com>|"When they kick out your front door, PGP Key fingerprint = | How are you gonna come? 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 | With your hands upon your head, 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 | Or on the trigger of your gun?" Send email with "get key" as the| -- The Clash, "Guns of Brixton" "Subject:"to get my public key | _London_Calling_ , 1980 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Keep it Simple and the Cypherpunk Way
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

what TCM continues to stick his head in the sand over is the fact that the list noise levels have gotten outlandishly out of control over recent times, far beyond anything in memory. what is it due to? it appears that there is a basic law of cyberspace that S/N decreases as you add more people. it seems to be a very obvious and repeatable property. there are some significant lessons about cryptoanarchy that are completely evading TCM. how well does anarchy scale? apparently, not well. TCM would like to pretend that just deleting posts and having outsider filterers is a "solution" to the problem and argues for business as usual, upholding the status quo. the problem is that when you have a deteriorating situation, the status quo is not a valid concept. keeping the status quo means further deterioration. TCM also fails to address the problem of AGENT PROVOCATEURS. the cyberspace list is intensely fragile and susceptible/ vulnerable to them as Vulis demonstrates. it only takes ONE and a lot of tentacles. does TCM propose a solution to this? no, of course not, because he has a blind spot when it comes to realizing the PATENTLY OBVIOUS FLAWS OF CRYPTOANARCHY that stare him in the face. if cpunks had a formal way of making decisions, and some loyalty to each other, instead of BAILING OUT at the slightest difficulty, perhaps the situation would be different, eh? see how quickly people who were once friends simply WALK OUT on each other in the cryptoanarchist approach? where is the loyalty? the sense of working for the greater good? it's gone. TCM simply ABANDONS the list at the first opportunity, and ignores the years of hard work that J.G. has put into it. timmy, cpunks, etc. you are getting a lesson in REALITY. you are seeing the logical conclusion of your views playing out before you. acrimony, bitterness, resignation, chaos, confusion, cacaphony, anarchy.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by Cynthia H. Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 14 Feb 1997 paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk wrote: > Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not > in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe > each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. > That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented > from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. > They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later > I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. <flame-retardant suit on> Normally I would ignore this sort of comment (which probably belongs in some soc. newsgroup), but I feel obliged to point out that: - The female <mechanic / scientist / engineer>, in addition to passing the same exams as her male classmates, has probably had to put up with a fair load of B.S. questioning her right and ability to be there. The ones that keep at it long enough to graduate are the ones that *really* want to do whatever it is, and IMHO are more likely to try harder. - If she has been in business for a while, this means she has attracted and kept customers in spite of the attitude displayed in previous posts. There are no "quotas" in the marketplace. - I wonder whether the garage owners have any preference. In my military experience (Signals officer), the (older male) sergeants and chiefs, when given a choice, preferred female radar / radio technicians to male because, in general, they were harder working, had thicker skins, and were more pleasant to deal with. Chicken and Egg: How much of "each sex [is] better suited to different tasks" is due to little girls being pulled away from the Lego and toy trucks, and encouraged to play with Barbies? Being told that they are *pretty* not *smart* as a form of approval? 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.

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Re: Moderation experiment almost over; "put up or shut up"
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Again, MY definition of a "bigot" is the correct one which is > most understood by modern people. > > A "bigot" is a racist, period. I would have to differ with you there Dr. Grubor, although I think the term Bigot being applied critically to your opinions is inappropriate. > > I see nothing that limits bigotry to racial intolerance. > > > > You are a fool then. Religion and sexism and groups all have nothing > to do with bigotry. A bigot is a racist, period. That is TODAY'S > correct definition of the term, and I am a lot more current than > Webster. Any anybody who has a "religion" and "prays" is a fool. > The only god you will ever find is within yourself. I do not begin to believe this is correct. I happen to believe that sexism, not in the sense of believing women inferior but in the sense of believing homosexuals inferior can be, in some instances, a form of bigotry but it is merely a matter of semantics and not of interest. I wholeheartedly agree with the last point, anybody who believes in any form of deity or higher being (call it god if you like) is, IMHO, a fool. However, this has proven in history to be contradicted on a number of occasions, for example, Albert Einstein was a Jew but did not just accept without enquiry, rather, his religious views were subtle and well thought through. This is, of course, the exception not the rule, and 99.9999% of all religious people are fools. > > > It is very logical and wise to discriminate on the basis of sex. Here I can agree, I personally discriminate on the basis of sex, not in that I believe women inferior to men but rather that I believe each sex better suited to different tasks and vocations. That is not, however, to say that I believe women should be prevented from taking up lines of work that men traditionally hold. They are free to do so, but as in the example you give later I would feel uncomfortable having my car serviced by a woman. > > Most would disagree, and decide based on that and other statements you > > have made that you must be an extremely unpleasant person. > > > > See, there you go again, attacking the person, instead of the > argument. You lose points for that. Sexism is GOOD and right and > justified. I want a woman cutting my hair, and a man fixing my car, > and I demand the correct sex for ALL activities. Exactly, the poster has failed to recognise that you have every right to discrimate as you do and are justified in doing so. They are probably either homosexual and feel threatened or they are censorous and feel they must protect people from being "defamed" etc... > > If you want to fight censorship effectively, going around telling > > people "You're a shit-eating faggot you fucking cock-sucking homo > > censor" in public forums is not going to win you many points. > > Look sonny, I am not out to win any points. I have two Doctorates and > 22 years of experience. I speak with authority and only to those who > have the intelligence to understand. I was a perfect 4.00 in > College, and am probably the most intelligent body-politic analyst in > the world. Now let's face it: Faggots are BAD news. They are most > always censors! And that is the truth you can never get around. I agree, I have no prejudice against homosexuals. Rather I have formulated a low opinion of them as a group due to their censorous behaviour. I think it is because they feel threatened by straight people. Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Vin McLellan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's always interesting to see how another person, particularly a writer, filters and reshapes an experience you shared with them . Differences in the telling are inevitable -- but I perceived the recent experience of the C'punks List quite differently than what Declan described and implied in his column. My understanding of Sandy's effort, for instance, was that he was to filter out the sludge of spam and contentless name-calling with which some idiots were flooding the list. My impression was that he was passing along any posts with content (ideas, pro or con, on almost anything) but filtering out the empty obscene name-calling and slurs (many of which seemed anon or forged, with varied and misleading titles, to duck my kill-file filters.) I, for one, was appreciative. I don't mind flames (and I expected to still be able to recieve them, from whatever POV -- and it seemed that I did!) but I also want a little meat somewhere amid the smoke. Who did the filtering (at the minimal level I expected) was almost irrelevant. If the filtering was on content, I'd be unhappy -- but I was eager to see some effort to cut out the empty hate messages. I even suggested to Dale, off-list, that he take it on for awhile. To me, the issue was whether this community could develop some mechanism to defend itself against a willful and intentional effort to destroy it. I think we failed to do so, despite the creative search for alternative venues -- and I think the triumphant cackling I read on what's left of the List is quite out of place. It may be that ideological purists were able to develop dynamic local filters on their PCs which satisfied them, but my filters just could't do enough. It was clear that the fecal-buckshot attacks on the List were designed to evade them. I'm still here, but it was more than a minor annoyance. (A year ago, I knew maybe five friends and acquaintances who subscribed to C'punks, but they all ran out of patience with the unchecked flow of sludge and unsubscribed... months before John tried to introduce his moderation experiment.) If 700 dropped off right after the moderation experiment was announced -- which I somehow doubt -- I wonder how many were battered into unsubscribing in the six or eight months prior? And, of the fleeing 700, how many became bored with the obsession of some (exhaustively prolific) writers with the "Moderation & Me" -- and went off to find some discussion of cryptography, politics, and ideas elsewhere? (Gawd knows, on the then-Moderated List I never found any lack of overwrought attacks on Sandy or John. I even read them for a week or two;-) From this whole experience, I carry away something different than those who gleefully celebrate Gilmore's surrender. I think something unusual and valuable is being killed. I'm now convinced that virtually all mailing lists will soon be forced to either limit posts to authenticated subscribers or introduce some sort of moderation -- just to deal with the spam threat and the problem of concerned attacks by those who decide they hate or dislike or simply want to destroy that particular List community . By the logic of Tim and others, a clever and dedicated crusade against Cypherpunks by any minimally-organized group, bir or small -- your local coven, CoS, RC bishops, FBI, Romanian Govt, , whomever! -- could have destroyed the List at any time in the past. I'm glad they never realized how vulnerable we were; I've enjoyed this Community greatly in its current manifestation. I also hate to think of how gleeful the sociopaths who mail-bombed us into the choice of submission or suicide must be today. I think it is a particularly henious crime to destroy a virtual community; something akin to book-burning, but maybe more like arson -- like burning village schools. There was a willful attempt to destroy C'punks, an attack of depth and volume which led many of us (even those who had ignored at least three earlier efforts to offer filtered subsets to the List) to welcome the Moderation Experiment. Unfortunately, the attempt at moderation just twisted our own energies against ourselves. We were, perhaps predictably, quite easy to manipulate. If I have any criticism of John et al, it is that our List-Owner (a statement of function, rather than property) never gave the List Community an overt option to vote for minimal moderation. A tactical error. That that allowed the anarchists, nihlists, and others pure of heart to focus their ire on toad.com and Sandy -- rather than on those of us who (when John finally acted) might have gladly re-subscribed to another version of the List in order to obtain minimal spam and slur filtration. So now we ourselves burn the village in order to save it. <nostalgic sigh> How American! Suerte, _Vin At 11:23 PM 2/13/97 -0800, you wrote: >Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:24:37 -0800 (PST) >From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> >To: fight-censorship(a)vorlon.mit.edu > >The Netly News Network >http://netlynews.com/ > >A List Goes Down In Flames >by Declan McCullagh (declan(a)well.com) >February 12, 1997 >

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Re: Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 3:07 PM -0500 2/14/97, Vin McLellan wrote: > My understanding of Sandy's effort, for instance, was that he was to >filter out the sludge of spam and contentless name-calling with which some >idiots were flooding the list. My impression was that he was passing along >any posts with content (ideas, pro or con, on almost anything) but filtering >out the empty obscene name-calling and slurs (many of which seemed anon or >forged, with varied and misleading titles, to duck my kill-file filters.) Well, Vin, your understanding was flawed. Many thoughtful, "non-sludge" posts were filtered out. Some never made it to either the "main" list nor the "flames" list, as all posts were supposed to do. (John Gilmore acknowledged this in his message. Anyone subscribing to only the Flames list, as I was for a while, would see some posts not making it to the Main list (viewable via the archive sites) nor to the Flames list.) Even my very long and thoughtful (I think, and others have said as much) essay on why I had been off the list for several weeks was _almost_ censored by Sandy, by his own words. Because he disliked some turn of phrase I used in describing the ramblings of Toto, Dale Thorn, and Vulis, he said he almost killed the entire piece, ultimately letting it through as a "judgment call." This is what I call a "chilling effect." Never knowing whether one's essays will pass muster with the Chief Censor is not exactly a reason to spend a lot of time composing a long piece. And was my article the kind of "sludge of spam" and "countless name-calling" you thought the Moderation experiment was all about? And what of the four or five of my posts a week ago which never made it to either the Main list or the Flames list? The contained no "sludge of spam" nor "countless name-calling." What they dealt with was a claim (like this one) that some posts were not being passed on to either of the two lists, and that perhaps a conflict of interest was developing. Does this still match your "understanding of Sandy's effort"? By the way, I can forward to those who are interested these four or five posts which got "Meta-Censored." (Unless too many people request them...I'll promise to forward them to the first five people who request them...then some of you can repost them to the list and see if they make it through.) > By the logic of Tim and others, a clever and dedicated crusade >against Cypherpunks by any minimally-organized group, bir or small -- your >local coven, CoS, RC bishops, FBI, Romanian Govt, , whomever! -- could have >destroyed the List at any time in the past. I'm glad they never realized >how vulnerable we were; I've enjoyed this Community greatly in its current >manifestation. The list was not destroyed when S. Boxx/Pablo Escobar/anon12054/Detweiler/vznuri was blasting us with dozens of messages a day screaming that "tentacles were eating his brain" and that Cypherpunks were out to destroy him. Believe me, for those who were there, that was a topic of much greater daily discussion than the insult-a-day stuff is today. (And yet, because journalists now frequent the CP list in greater numbers than 2-3 years ago, at least two journalists are sniffing around for a story on the current situation, where essentially none were very interested in the Detweiler episode a couple of years ago, which was good. I recall John Markoff asking me about it at Hackers, in 1993, but he didn't see it as an especially significant story. I agree with this.) > I also hate to think of how gleeful the sociopaths who mail-bombed >us into the choice of submission or suicide must be today. I think it is a >particularly henious crime to destroy a virtual community; something akin to >book-burning, but maybe more like arson -- like burning village schools. > > There was a willful attempt to destroy C'punks, an attack of depth and >volume which led many of us (even those who had ignored at least three >earlier efforts to offer filtered subsets to the List) to welcome the >Moderation Experiment. Unfortunately, the attempt at moderation just twisted >our own energies against ourselves. We were, perhaps predictably, quite >easy to manipulate. On this I agree with Vin. The "censorship" episodes were the predictable outcome of such attacks, and this "psy-ops" experiment is a victory by whoever it was who was attacking. Detweiler failed to get the list to start censorship and "limitations of anarchic freedoms," but the current attacker has succeeded. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Fuck UseNet
by paul＠fatmans.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should > be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored > automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal? Absolutely, It is really, as far as I see it anyway, just a stop-gap measure. The caballers haven`t got enough room to do their censorship on the 18000 or so big 7 groups so they decide to fuck up the alt. heirachy as well ;-) Hopefully Igor and co.`s network of Majordomo's should be fully operational soon (as I understand it two are up and a third is on it's way) then we can move back there. Might even get it finished before the 20th????? Datacomms Technologies web authoring and data security Paul Bradley, Paul(a)fatmans.demon.co.uk Paul(a)crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul(a)cryptography.uk.eu.org Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/ Email for PGP public key, ID: 5BBFAEB1 "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"

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Congress is at it again; renewed defenses of the CDA
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Sen. Coats has been ranting about the CDA again. I have more in the Afterword section of http://netlynews.com/ -- "As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments next month in the Communications Decency Act case, morality crusaders in Congress are launching a renewed defense of the law..." -Declan ------------------------- The Netly News Network Washington Correspondent http://netlynews.com/

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Re: [Declan McCullagh: "A List Goes Down In Flames," from Netly]
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:31 AM -0800 2/14/97, Martin Minow wrote: >What bothers me more than anything else about the "solutions" I've >seen proposed to the death of Cypherpunks is that they rely on >technology -- and reject human judgement -- to solve what is, in >reality, a social problem. (One can certainly make the same argument >about the V-chip, browser porn filters, and similar hacks.) Au contraire, Martin! Many of my posts have _explicitly_ pointed to the human filtering services offered by Eric Blossom, Ray Arachelian, and perhaps others. Arranging to have others edit or filter the information flow is a fine and dandy thing, and it's a very "anarchist" thing to do. The "anarchy" of the restaurant business, the book business, and so many other markets and sectors, where end-users are forced to look for filtering mechanisms (such as restaurant reviews, advice of their friends, advertisements, etc.) works pretty well. And, I believe, the Cypherpunks list was doing pretty well before the Moderation thing happened. The noise from the 'bots was no worse than the noise of 2-3 years ago from Detweiler. The claims that "the list has become unusable" were bogus, in my opinion. (Hence the claims that "you Cyherpunks only complain" are also bogus. I for one was not complaining and demanding that John and Sandy "do something" to "fix" the list. I accepted the nonsense spouted about me and John and others as just part of the chaos expected in any forum. I just filtered and deleted such nonsense.) It is true that some signal producers have either moved on to other things--in many cases to crypto-related companies directly or indirectly spawned by the Cypherpunks list and contacts!--or are not writing as many basic essays as they once did. Such is to be expected. People get tired of writing explanatory articles, and handling newbies. The key to improving signal is to increase the amount of signal, not to just suppress noise so as to make the S/N ratio look better. I can easily hit the "delete" key to remove noise, but I can't hit the "create" key to increase signal. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re:
by Omegaman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > > Is it legal or illegal to send a > > PGP encrypted message from the US to someone in another country? > > Yes. > > No it's not. Where do you get this? It would be illegal to send them a copy of the PGP program. But sending encrypted messages is not illegal. Please, cite your source --------------------------------------------------------------------- Omegaman <mailto:omegam@cmq.com>|"When they kick out your front door, PGP Key fingerprint = | How are you gonna come? 6D 31 C3 00 77 8C D1 C2 | With your hands upon your head, 59 0A 01 E3 AF 81 94 63 | Or on the trigger of your gun?" Send email with "get key" as the| -- The Clash, "Guns of Brixton" "Subject:"to get my public key | _London_Calling_ , 1980 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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