December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

American Banker article on DigiCash bankruptcy
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: rah(a)pop.sneaker.net Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 07:36:45 -0500 To: Digital Bearer Settlement List <dbs(a)philodox.com> From: Robert Hettinga <rah(a)shipwright.com> Subject: American Banker article on DigiCash bankruptcy Sender: <dbs(a)philodox.com> Precedence: Bulk List-Subscribe: <mailto:requests@philodox.com?subject=subscribe%20dbs> X-Web-Archive: http://www.philodox.com/dbs-archive/ --- begin forwarded text Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 12:23:36 +0100 (MET) From: Somebody To: rah(a)shipwright.com Subject: American Banker article on DigiCash bankruptcy From: Somebody Else To: Somebody Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 05:41:36 -0500 <Somebody>, This is the American Banker article on the subject: Digital Frontiers Tuesday, November 10, 1998 Electronic Commerce: Bankrupt Digicash to Seek Financing, New Allies By Jeffrey Kutler & Carol Power Digicash Inc., which invented a virtual cash concept for the Internet, now must reinvent itself. With the announcement last week that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Digicash has embarked on yet another phase of a corporate saga that has won it acclaim and admiration in both the banking and Internet communities -- but precious little business. Shielded for the moment from creditor pressures, the Palo Alto, Calif., company will attempt to find the financing and forge the strategic relationships it needs to widen the appeal of its eCash product, said interim chief executive officer Scott Loftesness. The company also has a significant "intellectual property portfolio," he said, that could prove useful in other applications requiring privacy and anonymity, such as electronic voting. Mr. Loftesness indicated that Digicash has never exploited the full potential of its patents to generate licensing income, which now might help turn the operation around. Bankruptcy is but the latest of many turns for an eight-year-old venture created by David Chaum, a former University of California professor and expert on data encryption who was among the first to see a need for a cash-like payment mechanism on open networks. The design of eCash and its anonymity principles attracted widespread attention in 1994 and 1995 as banks and other corporations began exploring the Internet's commercial potential. Through a series of consulting projects and demonstrations, Digicash came close to assembling a network of banks to issue and manage the virtual currency. But the licensee group -- including Deutsche Bank, Den Norske Bank, Bank Austria, Advance Bank of Australia, and Mark Twain Bank of St. Louis -- never got beyond pilot stages. Things were looking up in 1997 when Digicash attracted venture capital interest from, among others, David Marquardt of August Capital, who was an early backer of Microsoft Corp. Digicash also reconstituted its board with Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Nicholas Negroponte as chairman, and hired "professional management" led by CEO Michael Nash, a former American Express Co. and Visa International executive. Mr. Chaum remained as chief technology officer. The headquarters was moved from Mr. Chaum's base in Amsterdam to Silicon Valley. Many in the banking technology world took positive note of the fact that in June 1998, former Wells Fargo & Co. president William Zuendt joined Mr. Negroponte, Mr. Marquardt, Mr. Chaum, Toon den Heijer of Gilde Investment Funds, and others on the board. This past August, Mr. Nash was succeeded by Mr. Loftesness, who also has Visa in his background. The part of the operation that remained in Amsterdam was closed, and the staff was cut significantly from its peak of about 50. Mr. Loftesness said last week that he intends to see the Chapter 11 process through. He described eCash as "important and inevitable" for the maturity of electronic commerce. Throughout its struggles to prove it was not too far ahead of its time, Digicash has been followed closely by analysts and treated seriously by competitors. Many were impressed by the technology's cash-like anonymity and an accountability system that prevents any of the virtual coins from being spent twice, yet without compromising personal privacy. "There is a great lesson in it," said Richard Crone, vice president of Cybercash Inc. and general manager of PayNow, its version of an electronic check. "You must match the payment type to the application that is being sold." He called Digicash "a payment type in search of an application, rather than an application in search of a payment." So far in Internet consumer payments, particularly in the United States, credit cards have won the day. "We've done such a good job deploying credit cards and reassuring consumers that the security is present," Mr. Crone said, that there is no compelling need for eCash. (Cybercash's cybercoin product ran up against the same reality, but the Reston, Va., company is active in several payment modes, including credit cards.) Cybercash's inroads in markets outside the United States with lower credit card penetration -- Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom -- were due to financial institution partners, Mr. Crone said. "Digicash did not have the support we did." David Stewart, vice president of Global Concepts Inc., Norcross, Ga., criticized Digicash for not bridging the physical and virtual worlds. He said as currently configured, eCash compares unfavorably with MasterCard International's Mondex venture, the Belgium-based Proton system, or Avant of Finland, which are smart cards with an Internet transmission component. Because eCash "needed on-line validation of tokens spent, clearing of the transactions required authorization like a credit card," Mr. Stewart said. Another strike against eCash, he said, was the lack of major financial institution support in the United States, where there are constituencies for Mondex, Visa International's Visa Cash, and Proton, which is part-owned by Visa and American Express Co. "Digicash needs to come up with an off-line electronic cash scheme and have the backing of a serious player in the payments world," Mr. Stewart said. The one U.S. participant, Mark Twain Bank, was acquired by Mercantile Bancorp. of St. Louis 20 months ago. Larry Kirschner, Mercantile Bank senior vice president of foreign exchange, said eCash "was not profitable from the moment we inherited it. "We tried to figure out how to make it profitable and for it to appeal to our corporate and retail customers, to very little success," he said. The bank ended its three-year experiment in September. It had 5,000 eCash customers, about 20% of them in Mercantile's eight-state Midwest territory and the rest on the two coasts. They held "significantly less" than $100,000 in eCash accounts, Mr. Kirschner said. "We didn't see a strategic fit for eCash," he said. "The revenue stream was not there, the demand was not there, and quite frankly, it wasn't going to be there." The banker said eCash suffered because the public "did not have any insecurity and did use their credit cards on the Internet." But Mr. Loftesness said Digicash's board and backers have not lost faith that "eCash is inevitable. The length of time and the amount of financing to get there remain the key open questions." --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: Guy, anti-copyright hacker (Re: Advertising Creepiness)
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > > Information Security <guy(a)panix.com> writes: > > Declan writes: > > > Willfully redistributing copyrighted material in violation of fair > > > use principles is, depending on the value, also a federal > > > crime. Redistributing a $1 article to thousands of people would be > > > a felony. (Note I don't endorse this law, but it's useful to know > > > what the law is.) > > > > I guess that qualifies as a request for more color. > > > > In the local Panix Usenet groups, I've reposted quite a few whole articles, > > often from the IP list. > > > > Finally, a couple people made a stink, and officially complained to Panix. > > > > [snip panix owner backing down and not interfering with Guy's posts of > > whole supposedly copyrighted material] > > Nice one Guy! > > The zen approach, it reminds me of a tactic to do with USENET cancel > forgeries used by a recentish poster to this list who you made much > a-do about being a terminator of. Ugh, um, ...but he was a nutter, unlike me. ;-) The other half of the reason I chose the IP list is because of my dislike of its owner, nutter Michele Moore. She is trying to profit from a book claiming various government agencies knew full well the OK Murrah building was going to be blown up, and purposely did nothing. Trying to profit from other's misery. (At least my nutter anti-ECHELON "Cryptography Manifesto" is free.) She also terminated my list subscription when I made a single post asking for people not to make homophobic posts. She was 100% unforgiving on this, even though I promised not to make such a post again. She described the homophobic posts as "Christian". (This was around the time Pat Robertson made comments about Florida's Disney being hit by God with hurricanes because of its "gay days" promotion.) It's also a very high-volume list, and I recently asked her about posting about car antennas... # From believer(a)telepath.com Fri Oct 30 06:47:36 1998 # To: Information Security <guy(a)panix.com> # Subject: Re: IP: New Radio Antennas May Cool Car Interior, Defrost Car Windows # # Dear Guy: # # Regarding: # >What does this have to do with IP's charter? # >---guy # # Once again, as you are a non-subscriber receiving posts by forwarding # (which is fine), it's none of your business. Enjoy the posts that you # receive, feel free to forward them wherever you wish, but please do not # contact me again for any reason. Bitch. > > Then, the Digital Copyright Massive Federal Interference Act... > > > > > Fair Use vs. Intellectual Property: The U.S. Congress > > > passed the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a bill designed to > > > distinguish between fair use and protected intellectual property > > > in cyberspace. > > > > > > <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:s.01146:> > > > > I chose the IP list as the next-level test case... > > I'm curious ... how have you faired since the millenium copyright act > with panix? Any results? Or is this still on-going? I've been snipping down articles a bit since then. As far as I know, no one has complained about my posts relative to the new law. ---guy

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Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 10:28:10 -0500 > From: Soren <sorens(a)workmail.com> > Subject: Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force (fwd) > I used to be an anarcho-capitalist, but concluded I was far too selfish. In fact, if > you'd read the first line about the libertarian compromize, rather than looking for > hooks, you'd see that I was attempting rapprochement. Mostly I'm not at all > interested in being drawn into political wastings of energy, life is too short. I > made my choice 25 years ago, and have been (largely) free and untaxed for that time. > Harry Browne's "How I found freedom in an unfree world" came along at about the same > time I cut loose from the nation-state. You're speaking of federal taxes, or you don't own property in your own name. I suppose you wouldn't call the fire dept. if your house caught on fire since you don't pay taxes. You wouldn't call the police if there was a problem either. > Why the pejorative use of "anarcho-whatever" and the whole personal level at which you > pitch your responses? Is it your intent to stir up anger by using imflammatory > rhetoric? No, my intent in wording is to get at the core of what is being proposed. A characteristic of anarcho-whatever and lawyers is they never say what they mean. If they did very few would give them the attention they get now. > Or (more likely) is this an example of newspeak? Whatever, it comes across > as mean-spirited and sad. An indicator perhaps, of someone who loves to "go for the > jugular". A common "small man" trait. Are you a small man Jim? Do you need the power > of the state to make you feel big by proxy? IROFL. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 01:25:02 +1000 > From: Reeza! <howree(a)cable.navy.mil> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the > Foregone (fwd) > I think there may be a finer distiction- it lies in corruption of the > enforcing body. Your right, let me spell it out. Free-markets as depicted by anarcho-whatever theories legitimize theft, physical violence, extortion, etc. They further a priori abandon any precept of social institution and leave it all on the shoulder of the individuals. Additionaly they abandon such concepts of justice, equity, etc. because they describe no mechanism to handle these issues. And finaly, they don't even attempt to recognize the international interactions and cultural differences that drive them. They make the same mistake as every other form of non-democratic system, they assume because it works for one it works for all. > This is the same sort of tactic imho as the war on drugs(tm). Big show, > little enforcement, extract money from the money holders. Money exchanges = > leniency. Not even hardly. At least citizens can change the laws under a democracy. Under an anarcho-whatever it is strictly lump it or like it unless you're willing to fund a bigger gun. > Aside from the comment on honesty, the rest of this reply is sophistry. > Petro was asserting a point, which Jim acknowledged, then procedes to > assassinate with particulars of questionable relevance. In a true anarchy, > who is to say that trade in human lives and stolen property must be stopped > in that "true free market"??? Ask the humans who are being traided or the peson the property was stolen from. I'm going to stop now, this particular vein of discussion is bereft of any and all positive attributes when one tries to justify slavery and theft. Like I said, at least your more honest than the rest of these wanna-be thieves. You might want to see doctor about that hole you shot in your foot while it was in your mouth. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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17 Dec '03

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NPR is at it again...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some commie law professor broad :-) is talking about how there oughtta be a law against anonymous remailers, deja news, and various forms of "illegal" email... The ganglia twitch... Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Locking physical memory (RAM) under Windows
by Jim Adler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

SCNSM 1.0 Beta, a non-swappable memory allocator for Windows 3.x/95/98, is available and can be downloaded from http://soundcode.com/content/download/products/scnsm/default.htm (docs) http://soundcode.com/content/download/products/scnsm/scnsm10b.zip (source) The SCNSM driver supports allocation of non-swappable memory on Windows 3.x/95/98. The principal design goal of SCNSM is to provide memory that will not be swapped to disk, under any circumstances. Typically, security applications require such memory to store private keys, passwords, and sensitive intermediate results of cryptographic calculations. SCNSM uses the same technique as allocating DMA buffers for hardware device transfers. The idea being that Windows doesn't swap DMA buffers and therefore won't swap this buffer either. The SCNSM source-code is copyrighted freeware. The intent here is to end the perennial nuisance of having sensitive security data swapped to disk which undermines the public's confidence in commercial security products. Please send any questions or bugs to me or support(a)soundcode.com. Jim ================ Jim Adler Soundcode, Inc. www.soundcode.com

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17 Dec '03

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IPINFO: Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed
by Vladimir Z. Nuri 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: believer(a)telepath.com Subject: IPINFO: Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:08:39 -0600 To: oldbat <bucsplace(a)cchat.com>, ignition-point(a)majordomo.pobox.com NOTICE TO LISTEES: If you are forwarding materials to the IP list that include URLs, *PLEASE* check them for accuracy before posting. Regarding: -------------------------- >>Subject: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed >>http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ts/story.html?s=v/nm/19981107/ts/guns _3.html >> >> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton directed his government Saturday to >> find a way to close a legal loophole that allows speakers/journalists to >> express their ideas at public places with no questions asked. -------------------------- The above "story" is either a spoof of satire, or else an incorrect URL was given to accompany the article. If you access the link above you DO NOT find a story about free speech, but rather, the material below. If materials you send are not factual but are humorous or satirical in nature, please note that for the readers so we don't have a bunch of unfounded rumors floating around about new draconian measures that were actually only jokes to begin with. If there is a real story about Clinton's opposition to free speech, someone please send the correct URL. Here is the REAL story that accompanies the link above: Saturday November 7 12:46 PM ET Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Gun Law Closed WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton directed his government Saturday to find a way to close a legal loophole that allows dealers to sell guns at gun shows with no questions asked. In his weekly radio address, Clinton said a ``dangerous trend'' is emerging at gun shows because the Brady handgun control law permits some firearms to be sold without background checks at these shows. ``Some of these gun shows have become illegal arms bazaars for criminals and gun traffickers looking to buy and sell guns on a cash-and-carry, no-questions-asked basis,'' Clinton said. He directed Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Attorney General Janet Reno to report back to him in 60 days with a plan to close the loophole and prohibit any gun sale without a background check. ``I believe this should be the law of the land: No background check, no gun, no exceptions,'' Clinton said. In a fact sheet, the White House said that every year about 5 million people attend an estimated 5,000 gun shows at convention centers, school gyms and on fairgrounds. The Brady law requires a five-day waiting period for gun purchasers in order for a background check. On Nov. 30, the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System is set to take effect to allow quicker checks and approve gun sales within minutes. In addition, on Nov. 30 the law will be strengthened in two ways: purchases of all firearms, not just handguns, will be subject to Brady background checks as will pawnshop redemptions, which are four times as likely to involve a prohibited purchase. Overall, the White House said, it is estimated that the number of background checks conducted nationally will increase from 4 million to between 10 and 12 million. Unregulated sales at gun shows were ``an open invitation to criminals,'' said Sarah Brady, who chairs Handgun Control Inc. The Brady law was named after her husband, James Brady, who was wounded in an attack on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. California and Maryland regulate ``flea market'' gun sales, said Brady. Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment Tuesday giving counties the power to require a waiting period and a background check for sales at gun shows and other public places. Copyright © 1998 Reuters Limited. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- **************************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo(a)majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address or (un)subscribe ignition-point-digest email@address **************************************************** www.telepath.com/believer ****************************************************

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
by Albert P. Franco, II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:33 10/11/98 -0500, you wrote: >>>> Albert P. Franco, II wrote: I've been lurking on this thread for a while, and I am amazed by the level of utopist muck that is being spewed here by you. Without some government the Bad Guys will be the only ones with anything. It is only with the threat of losing their power that leaders do good. If they had no power which could be lost or taken they will always do what's best for them in the short term, which is usually to shit on the peons. Dictators (like Pinochet and Gates) do their dirty deeds because they feel no need to placate the masses. And the Bad Guys don't have everything already? Are they in any danger of losing their power? <<<< They don't have my car, my computers, or my house and other belongings. They not in as much danger as they should be, but they can be impeached and loose elections. >>>> This anarcho-capitalist spew is so much crap that the bullshit indicators are blaring at top volume. If the people can't control a constitutional government, known for having peacefully free elections for over two hundred years, then how the hell do think you can convince somebody that the people are going to be able to control warlords and monopolies. It's called, "You don't like it? Bang, Bang, you're dead!" And this differs from living in in a 1st world state, how? <<<< Where do you live? I know LA and some other big cities are pretty bad, but come on no one seriously believes that under "civilized" governments (1st World State) that this is ubiquitously the way it is. Under the anarcho-capilist system proposed it would be the ubiquitous state of affairs. >>>> Try to lift yourself out of the bullshit of your theory and give us at least one REAL example (current or historic) of a large scale, long lasting anarcho-capitalist society. Hippie communes are too small, and make sure it's capitalistic. If you can't think of one in the next year or so then come back and tell us. Is there some specific reason they need to be large scale or long lasting? By definition, anarcho-capitalism is constantly changing -- perhaps as much as between extreme individualism, to the current state of feudalism that has pervaded the world since the birth of agrarianism. <<<< Peace and prosperity require stability. If your system is ever changing then there will never be long term investments and thus no new technologies or products. Barbarism (anarcho-free market-etc. but never capitalism since capital investments are only made where a return can be guaranteed) will never serve as a basis for investment and development since there is no way to reasonably expect to be around long enough to get the pay back. If it isn't large scale it's just more bullshit on the already smoldering pile dumped on this list to date. Because it works for twelve people in an isolated environment in no way signifies that it will scale to level of a nation. Sorry, if ain't large scale and long lasting it ain't real. >>>> I agree with you that most utopianist ranting here carries a strong whiff of frustration and steam venting. To those anarcho-capitalists, I recommend the course of action I took 25 years ago. If you don't like the state you live in, don't patronize it. There are many save harbors in the world that better approach your ideals, and are more amenable to change, than the Union of Socialist Americans. "Educate, don't agitate". <<<< I left the good ol' USA too. I now live in a European country with a strong socialistic government and I actually find very little interference in my day to day life. In fact there seems to be a much higher awareness that each individual is responsible for his and her actions. At the very least there aren't as many lawyers claiming everyone is a victim of something or another (ie. too hot coffee, slippery floors, home owners that shot the poor intruder who didn't get a warning first, etc.) Ain't no where perfect, anarcho-whatever was done about 4000 years ago, I generally prefer to look forward... APF

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Re: Off Topic But Truly Beautiful
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I didn't think of this before but add together bees, wind and rampant tree sex and this stuff will definitely spread. It could even become a bit of a "problem". The people who have packets of seeds should distribute those quickly to friends before the buggerers get the mailing list and start confiscating seeds. BTW - I believe that citrus hybridize freely, rather like mentha in that respect. Wild and cool. I think he should do apples next. Then strawberries. Peaches. Beans. A whole fucking farmer's market.

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
by Michael Hohensee 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Albert P. Franco, II wrote: > > I've been lurking on this thread for a while, and I am amazed by the level > of utopist muck that is being spewed here by you. I love you, too. > Without some government the Bad Guys will be the only ones with anything. > It is only with the threat of losing their power that leaders do good. If > they had no power which could be lost or taken they will always do what's > best for them in the short term, which is usually to shit on the peons. > Dictators (like Pinochet and Gates) do their dirty deeds because they feel > no need to placate the masses. If they wield no real power, and proceed to do whatever is best for them in the short term, they will be screwing themselves over in the long term (or short term, if doing what they want results in someone shooting them in self defense). And precisely what dirty deeds has Mr. Gates ever done? Excluding those actions in which the judicious use of state regulation was involved. > This anarcho-capitalist spew is so much crap that the bullshit indicators > are blaring at top volume. If the people can't control a constitutional > government, known for having peacefully free elections for over two hundred > years, then how the hell do think you can convince somebody that the people > are going to be able to control warlords and monopolies. It's called, "You > don't like it? Bang, Bang, you're dead!" Yah, and then somebody else points a gun at Mr. would-be warlord and goes Bang, Bang, he's dead (it's unsafe having warlords about --sorta like scorpions). That is, if Mr. would-be manages to shoot me without being shot himself. > Try to lift yourself out of the bullshit of your theory and give us at > least one REAL example (current or historic) of a large scale, long lasting > anarcho-capitalist society. Hippie communes are too small, and make sure > it's capitalistic. If you can't think of one in the next year or so then > come back and tell us. It hasn't happened yet. But then, neither had the USA, before 1776. The above is not a reasonable argument. You can, of course, as me how it *could* happen. And unfortunately, you're partially correct, it couldn't happen under current conditions. The amount of personal firepower that is easily accessible by everyone is not sufficient to back up the soverignity of each individual. It's all linked to whether weapons technology is such that individuals can operate weapons which are just as effective as those wielded by highly trained and specialized groups. The pendulum of weapons tech. swings back and forth over time. During the American Revolution, the pendulum was on the side of individuals, as can be shown by the fact that the revolutionaries were carrying better weapons than those carried by professional soldiers, and could use them to equal or larger effect. Today, of course, the pendulum is on the other side. Tanks, fighter planes, aircraft carriers, etc are where it's at. Read "Weapons Systems and Political Stability" by Carroll Quigley, for an interesting analysis on the subject. Of course, the pendulum keeps on swinging, and there are some indications that it's moving back. For example, anti-aircraft missiles have gotten so small that they can be carried by one man. In any modern war, planes had better be damned careful of what they fly over, lest they get a missile up their rears. So, all we need right now is to produce either a convienient impenetrable shield, or perhaps high-energy weapons. When one man can take out a tank with an inexpensive handweapon, we'll be all set. :) Michael Hohensee

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 09:38:55 +1000 > From: Reeza! <howree(a)cable.navy.mil> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd) > >Like I said, at least your more honest than the rest of these wanna-be > >thieves. > > Your earlier reply on honesty was to Petro, I think you are confusing me > with him. Then the two of you are more honest than most of the anarcho-whatever folks I've come across. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Off Topic But Truly Beautiful (fwd )
by Michael Motyka 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Clyde wrote: > > Long but fascinating... > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > 9 November 1998 > > DATELINE--Tallahassee, Fla. > Oranges that get you high > =========================== > > A Florida Biochemist designs a citrus tree with THC. > > In the summer of 1984, 10th-grader Irwin Nanofsky and a > friend were driving down the Apalachee Parkway on the way > home from baseball practice when they were pulled over by > a police officer for a minor traffic infraction. > > After Nanofsky produced his driver's license the police > officer asked permission to search the vehicle. In less > than two minutes, the officer found a homemade pipe > underneath the passenger's seat of the Ford Aerostar > belonging to the teenage driver's parents. The minivan > was seized, and the two youths were taken into custody on > suspicion of drug possession. > > Illegal possession of drug paraphernalia ranks second > only to open container violations on the crime blotter of > this Florida college town. And yet the routine arrest of > 16 year-old Nanofsky and the seizure of his family's > minivan would inspire one of the most controversial > drug-related scientific discoveries of the century. > > Meet Hugo Nanofsky, biochemist, Florida State University > tenured professor, and the parental authority who posted > bail for Irwin Nanofsky the night of July 8, 1984. The > elder Nanofsky wasn't pleased that his son had been > arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia, and he > became livid when Tallahassee police informed him that > the Aerostar minivan would be permanently remanded to > police custody. > > Over the course of the next three weeks, Nanofsky penned > dozens of irate letters to the local police chief, the > Tallahassee City Council, the State District Attorney > and, finally, even to area newspapers. But it was all to > no avail. > > Under advisement of the family lawyer, Irwin Nanofsky > pled guilty to possession of drug paraphernalia in order > to receive a suspended sentence and have his juvenile > court record sealed. But in doing so, the family minivan > became "an accessory to the crime." According to Florida > State law, it also became the property of the Tallahassee > Police Department Drug Task Force. In time, the adult > Nanofsky would learn that there was nothing he could do > legally to wrest the vehicle from the hands of the state. > > It was in the fall of 1984 that Biochem 101: How to > John Chapman Professor of design a > Biochemistry at Florida State Cannabis-equivalent > University, now driving to work citrus plant > behind the wheel of a used Pontiac > Bonneville, first set on a pet Step One: > project that he hoped would Biochemically > "dissolve irrational legislation isolate all the > with a solid dose of reason." required enzymes for > Nanofsky knew he would never get the production of > his family's car back, but he had THC. > plans to make sure that no one > else would be pulled through the Step Two: > gears of what he considers a Perform N-terminal > Kafka-esque drug enforcement sequencing on > bureaucracy. isolated enzymes, > design degenerate > "It's quite simple, really," PCR (polymerase > Nanofsky explains, "I wanted to chain reaction) > combine Citrus sinesis with Delta primers and amplify > 9-tetrahydrocannabinol." In the genes. > layman's terms, the respected > college professor proposed to grow Step Three: > oranges that would contain THC, Clone genes into an > the active ingredient in agrobacterial vector > marijuana. Fourteen years later, by introducing the > that project is complete, and desired piece of DNA > Nanofsky has succeeded where his into a plasmid containing > letter writing campaign of yore a transfer or T-DNA. > failed: he has the undivided The mixture is transformed > attention of the nation's top drug into Agrobacterium > enforcement agencies, political tumefaciens, a gram > figures, and media outlets. negative bacterium. > > The turning point in the Nanofsky Step Four: > saga came when the straight-laced Use the Agrobacterium > professor posted a message to tumefaciens to infect citrus > Internet newsgroups announcing plants after wounding. The > that he was offering transfer DNA will proceed > "cannabis-equivalent orange tree to host cells by a mechanism > seeds" at no cost via the U.S. similar to conjugation. > mail. Several weeks later, U.S. The DNA is randomly > Justice Department officials integrated into the > showed up at the mailing address host genome and will > used in the Internet announcement: be inherited. > a tiny office on the second floor > of the Dittmer Laboratory of > Chemistry building on the FSU campus. There they would wait > for another 40 minutes before Prof. Nanofsky finished > delivering a lecture to graduate students on his recent > research into the "cis-trans photoisomerization of olefins." > > "I knew it was only a matter of time before someone sent > me more than just a self-addressed stamped envelope," > Nanofsky quips, "but I was surprised to see Janet Reno's > special assistant at my door." After a series of closed > door discussions, Nanofsky agreed to cease distribution > of the THC-orange seeds until the legal status of the > possibly narcotic plant species is established. > > Much to the chagrin of authorities, the effort to > regulate Nanofsky's invention may be too little too late. > Several hundred packets containing 40 to 50 seeds each > have already been sent to those who've requested them, > and Nanofsky is not obliged to produce his mailing > records. Under current law, no crime has been committed > and it is unlikely that charges will be brought against > the fruit's inventor. > > Now it is federal authorities who must confront the > nation's unwieldy body of inconsistent drug laws. > According to a source at the Drug Enforcement Agency, it > may be months if not years before all the issues involved > are sorted out, leaving a gaping hole in U.S. drug policy > in the meantime. At the heart of the confusion is the > fact that THC now naturally occurs in a new species of > citrus fruit. > > As policy analysts and hemp advocates alike have been > quick to point out, the apparent legality (for now) of > Nanofsky's "pot orange" may render debates over the > legalization of marijuana moot. In fact, Florida's top > law enforcement officials admit that even if the > cultivation of Nanofsky's orange were to be outlawed, it > would be exceedingly difficult to identify the presence > of outlawed fruit among the state's largest agricultural > crop. > > Amidst all of the hubbub surrounding his father's > experiment, Irwin Nanofsky exudes calm indifference. Now > 30-years-old and a successful environmental photographer, > the younger Nanofsky can't understand what all of the > fuss is about. "My dad's a chemist. He makes polymers. I > doubt it ever crossed his mind that as a result of his > work tomorrow's kids will be able to get high off of half > an orange." > > Copyright 1994-98 San Francisco Bay Guardian.

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Off Topic But Truly Beautiful (fwd ) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:11:21 -0800 > From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka(a)lsil.com> > Subject: Off Topic But Truly Beautiful (fwd ) > > A Florida Biochemist designs a citrus tree with THC. Geesh, it's about time. I was wondering what the hell was taking these folks so long to map those mechanisms over into other organisms. Good for him! ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: fuck copyright (Re: Advertising Creepiness) (fwd)
by Information Security 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > > Jim Choate writes: > > > > Ah, true but I was addressing the last sentence about the cost being so low > > nobody will charge for it.....sounds like the nuclear industry marketing > > speal of the 50's.... > > One barrier to such an enterprise is the domain name recognition, > people want wired, they type wired.com; what do they type if they want > the lower priced mirrors? Uno momento... http://www.altavista.com Ask AltaVistaTM a question. Example: "Where can I find information on bicycles?" Okay, let's give it a spin... Where can I find information on low priced mirrors? Results AltaVista found about 1,045,119 Web pages for you. 1. In this site you'll find low priced computer hardware including Pentium CPU 2. Pasadena Pins & Patches - Low Priced Jewelry - Die Struck Enamel 3. Pasadena Pins & Patches - Low Priced Jewelry - Photo-Etched 4. BUSINESS BOOK SALE! Excellent online, low-priced books here! 5. Low Priced Beanie Baby Link List Guide 6. Pentium Computer Systems and Low priced computer components 7. Inexpensive Software Cheap Software Low Priced Software 8. D&R Computer - Your source for great low priced home PCs and business systems. 9. THE UNDER $10 STOCK REPORT - Low Priced - High Yield Stocks 10. Spider Web Designs - low priced web-site design, development, hosting, and cre Hmmm, let me try that again. The "+" is a meta-search character, meaning required. Where can I find information on low priced +mirrors? 1. Miscellaneous Optical Suppliers. Polarizers. 2. The Bronze Face Mirror is a large (14 x 12 cm) mirror made out of clay. 3. The Eye Rings that have a diameter of 2cm are made from a special clay. 4. This Mermaid of Flower ? make up shelf (24 x 84cm) is made from wood. 5. This large (20 x 30 cm) Corset mirror is made from clay and wood. 6. The Large Space Ship Mirror is now made from wood (70 x 45 cm) 7. Gold-Leafed Oval Mirrors. Original designs, sophisticated finishes, and remarkable wholesale prices. [ DING DING DING DING! ] 8. These Wooden Lips are available in Red, Pink and Purple (76 x 53 cm). 9. The Little Devil is a large (14 x 16 cm) face mirror made out of clay. 10. Goderich Chrysler Plymouth Dodge Trucks, Goderich, Ontario, Canada, new and used vehicles Wow. Just like 4th-generation development languages put programmers out of business, these search engines will eliminate the need for any other form of advertising. ---guy

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PiCoBello-Web-Speed-Installation-Instructions
by PCBSUPPORT＠PICOBELLO.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Thanks for downloading our software.Please go through download-instruction. PiCoBello Web-Speed wird vorerst wie eine volle Version laufen. Nach 20 mal Abspeichern, oder nach 30 Tagen ab Installationsdatum, folgt ein passives Demonstrationsprogramm ohne die Funktionen Speichern und Drucken. Bei Bezahlungen mit Kreditkarte gewährt PiCoBello Web-Speed für 2 Wochen eine Geld zurück Garantie. Sollten Sie Probleme haben, schreiben Sie uns bitte eine Email,wir helfe Ihnen gerne. Ihr PiCoBello Web-Speed Team. http://www.web-speed.com

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 10:40:16 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone > (fwd) > No, I am saying that since EVERY government at one time or another > treats its citizens like roaches, it's time to radically change the nature > of it so that it basically can't be called a government any more. The problem isn't government, it's the people who enforce the government that abuse it. > >Well actualy it's whether it has a tax stamp whether you sell it out of a > >storefront or a truckbed is irrelevent. Considering the number of people wh= > Wanna bet? Absolutely. I happen to know a whole passel of beer, wine, and liqour makers. Austin as aswim in micro-breweries. I'd be more than happy to pass your email address to the enibriated set and let them argue the point with you. > Most states have fairly strict laws concerning where liquor can be > sold. Actualy it's not the states (at least Texas and Louisiana), it's the local cities. The state of Texas doesn't care as long as you pay your liquor license and don't sell to minors and obey the local zoning ordinances. Texas Alchohol and Drug Abuse Commission 9001 N. IH-35, #105, 78753 512-349-6600 Texas Attorney General Office Taxation: 512-463-2002 Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission 512-458-2500 > Which is completely irrelevant as to wheter or not it is currently > black market or not, which is the context I was working in. > > Stay on target. I am on target. The fact that a unregulated alcohol industry led to death, debilitation, and financial hardship justified the imposition of regulation on alcohol and its related operations. You just don't want the entire picture painted because it cast a harsh light on the premise that un-regulated economies are good things. > >Not necessarily. The doctor has to have a medicaly supportable reason to > >dispence those drugs. Otherwise it's just as black market as Joe's. > > Quibble Quibble. You know EXACTLY what I meant. Yeah, you meant to commit an act of ommission so that your position looks more favorable than it actualy does. > >Didn't think of theft? Jesus H. Christ, you gotta be on Joe's drugs. The > >vast majority of material sold on *ANY* black market is stolen from its > >rightful owner. It is *the* example of black market trading that most folks > >think of first. > > No, the vast majority (in terms of dollars) of stuff sold on the > black market is Drugs. Really? Drugs are what $10B US a year or so. I bet stolen automobiles when taken as a whole gross more loss than that. And what makes you think that the vast majority of that drugs aren't purchased at the street level with funds gotten from theft? The drugs may not be stolen, the dollar that they were bought with was in most cases. > Treat theft like any other economic activity, and figure out how to > make it unprofitable. Let me know when you figure that one out. > >How the hell do you sell something on the black market if you don't have > >possession of it? And exactly who is going to prosecute anyone for > > Easy, it's called a Con. > > Seriously tho, I said that the _selling_ of stolen goods might not > be illegal, but the possesion of such things, and the stealing of them are > seperate acts to the selling of them. Still doesn't answer my question. > There isn't a need to. Shoot them. Ah, so you admit that the general mechanism to settle inter-personal dispute under your plan is to allow people to run around shooting each other. Well, at least we've got an honest admission that murder would be legal in this system. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 11:13:07 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone > (fwd) > Really, you are saying they couldn't possibly recognize the > benefits of teaming up and co-locating fire stations, or that they wouldn't > sub-contract to a company that handled fires? So, you want to sub-contract out which is going to raise the cost and doesn't alleviate the insurance company from regulatory and supply issues. It'd cost a fortune. > This could still be more effcient than government. I'd love to see your cost breakdown... > "reasonable" in cost? There is a LOT if inefficiency in the system > that competition could eliminate. Yep, and a lot of people the competition would eliminate as well. I'll live with the inefficiency as long as the cost is affordable for the quality of service delivered. I don't mind fireman sitting around eating bar-b-q unless somebodies house burns down. > Read that last bit. They got so carried away, that they spent > themselves out of existence. That is one example, I know of several fortune 100 companies that are equaly extravagant. The problem with Compu-Add was they shot their whole wad. > Governments just raise taxes, there is no penalty for ineffcientcy, > or lousy spelling. Sure there is, it just takes longer than a rifle bullet to settle. > Ok, so you limit the senators and congressmen, then the unelected > beaureacrats have the power since they know the system and run the system. Not at all, they are limited in what they can do by the laws. It's not like they're running around sending bills to people out of the blue and making up the system as they go along. Despite your protestations to the contrary the system just don't work that way. > Wearing a painted leather jacket & ripped up blue jeans is NOT a > reason to get hauled off the street, searched and questioned. If it happened to you and you didn't file a harrassment complaint then you got what you deserved. If you don't use the system it won't work. Never happened to me or anyone I knew unless they were in particular places at particular times. If a cop busts people at a corner every nite for breaking the law it isn't the cops fault, it's the stupid people who keep doing the same damn thing at the same place knowing full well the consequences. > Looking different is not illegal. > > Thinking different is not illegal. Nobody said it was and it isn't. Now if you happen to fit the description of another perp well that's just too damn bad. > With a bunch thrown in at the federal level. Federal Matching Funds > & etc. Oh, malarky (and stay away from my business books). It's obvious you never do accounting. The matching funds are for roads outside of the city or for highways that transit cities. They are not supposed to be used for city street or FM or RM roads. > Then why do they keep building them? Because we still hav an Army whose job it is to defend this country you nit-wit. If we didn't keep fixing them and expanding the system as people move around and expand the Army might find it a tad hard to do their job when called to it. And yes, I know the Militia is the one who is supposed to be called in for that sort of stuff - that's a whole other topic. > Promote does not mean "give away", it means "promote", do things > which incourage. Absolutely. While I agree that there are some particular issues that need fixing in a major way that is not the same (as you would have us believe) as saying as a result the whole system should be scrapped. > They were the heads of the governments. The skills and abilities it > takes to get to that level insure that the people who get there have no > concern for those underneath them. Oh, you mean insanity, egotism, neurosis, etc.? > There is no making up my mind. I never claimed the a government > could or should, rather I am claiming that it can't and won't, and to > expect it to be able to, much less willing to is foolish. Ah, but it does try and in some cases it succeeds. So my expectation is not completely without merit. > So we agree that any government is doomed from the start, since > w/out people of honesty and integrity no system will work properly. No, *all* people are not such. Most people I know are honest and have integrity. What has to happen is a set of checks and balances, which we are admittedly short of at the moment. The system isn't perfect, never claimed to be (read the 1st paragraph if the Constitution), and if it remains so then it's *OUR* fault and not the systems. > No, that face that stares back from the mirror makes every effort > to be as honest and forthright as it can. It causes grief sometimes, but > it's the principle. You claim to be honest yet promote a system that allows slavery, murder, theft, and other horrendous crimes against man.... ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 16:40:11 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the > Foregone(fwd) > I left the good ol' USA too. I now live in a European country with a strong > socialistic government and I actually find very little interference in my > day to day life. In fact there seems to be a much higher awareness that > each I find very little interference in my daily life as well (except when one of you anarcho-cooks starts dropping bombs and threatening people). > Crap. They take 60+ percent of your income in taxes, that means > that they take 60+ percent of your working day. They take 40% of my income, or are you talking of France taking 60% of your income. Disagreement over the level or specific policies for spending it do not justify eliminating the system. > They (at least france) throw up HUGE barriers to anyone wanting to > start a business, especially if they will need to hire workers. This not > only makes it difficult for you to start a business (which would never > happen since you've indicated you like someone else making decisions for > you) but also increases unemployment (prevents others from creating jobs > rather than just begging for them). And you find that a better place to live then the US? > individual is responsible for his and her actions. At the very least there > aren't as many lawyers claiming everyone is a victim of something or > another (ie. too hot coffee, slippery floors, home owners that shot the > poor intruder who didn't get a warning first, etc.) What is the percentage of lawyers in France to the total population? > Ain't no where perfect, anarcho-whatever was done about 4000 years ago, I > generally prefer to look forward... > > So, the fact that it hasn't been tried in 4000 years means it will > never work? > > I guess it's a good thing the wright brothers didn't take that > attitude, nor Robert Goddard. We tried anarchy, it's called cave men. As to Wright and Goddard, they had ample evidence in physics (that's been around what 4.5B years) to build their expectations on. In the field of politics and social system the only thing we have to go with is our imagination, patience, understanding, and past practice. 5k years or a little more. All of those say anarcho-anything systems won't work. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 16:35:16 -0500 > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248(a)nyu.edu> > Subject: Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force (fwd) > No, the intent *is* to make the system better and more equitable. It's > just that we don't favor the socialist definition of "equitable". Taxation doesn't imply socialism, socialism is the state ownership of property. In case you didn't know it, Russians didn't pay taxes because they dind't have to. The Chinese still don't pay taxes (except for businesses that are licensed by the state). > We support voluntary systems, not coercive ones. The US is a voluntary system, you can always leave. > Except that it's personal improvement for *everyone* (except for tyrants > and other politicans, but we didn't like them much anyway). And those who are stolen from, killed in petty disputes, wronged in business deals gone bad with no legal recourse and no hope of future legal ramifications for the perps, starve to death because some asshole who values a dollar more than a human life won't give somebody a meal, those who can't start businesses because the existing markets have locked up the necessary resources, etc. > Our proposals do not leave things up to chance any more than the current > system does. In fact, it can be argued that our system leaves less up > to chance than yours does. Lets do a comparative analysis. It leave a lot up to chance, the chance of making a profit in the market with no regulations or other mechanism to stop abuse or other wrongs. The implication is that the vast majority of participants won't be the one making the profit and will as a consequence suffer because of it. > 1: Social Ill exists. > 2: Social Ill is identified by someone. > 3: That someone makes a lot of noise, and lobbies the state to supply > money to finance the correction of the Social Ill. This is done by > convincing a majority of voters in some election or other, which may not > take place for at least a year, that this Social Ill is very important > --more important than all the other Social Ills. No, it simply says that the current society has recognized a need, determined that it can be addressed and chooses to do so. > 4: Someone who wants the Social Ill corrected gets into power, and > proceeds to try to correct the Social Ill with a huge rumbling > centralized governmental machine. This often excacerbates the Social > Ill, rather than correcting it. Well actualy the huge rumbling centralized government is a result of the economic impact of business on government, not the folks who want to address social ills. The vast majority (well over half of each tax dollar) goes to military or military related issues, not social ills. This is a strawman. > The net result: The Social Ill is not likely to be corrected until the > next election, and will be paid for by taking more money away from > everyone else (since the state gets its money from taxpayers, and cannot > create value out of thin air). Even worse, the person lobbying for the > correction of the Social Ill may not get into power, since he may have > lost the election to someone who used lots of money to make him look > bad. Thus, the Social Ill may not get corrected for some time, if ever. > Under a truly free system: > > 1: Social Ill exists. And in spades. > 2: Social Ill is identified by someone. > 3: That someone makes a lot of noise, alerting everyone else to the > existance of this Social Ill. Those who agree with the first someone > will contribute time, money, and resources to correcting this Social > Ill. And what if that noise is contrary to the interest of a the business that is perpetrating it. Since there are no protections of speech and press under your system what keeps somebody from simply shooting the loud-mouthed trouble maker? Historicaly there is plenty of evidence for this sort of behaviour in un-regulated markets. Why would a business allow such a vociferous display? > 4: Social Ill is dealt with in the most effective manner possible, since > people will be free to try to correct it in any number of ways, and will > of course prefer to contribute their money to an effort that has the > best effect. The most effective manner is to never have it happen in the first place. While it's clear it isn't possible to legislate individual behaviour past a grossly crude point it is possible to put breaks on the sorts of laws that a given government can pass and enforce. At least with a bill of rights we have a guide that we can use to measure extant and future legislation against. This can occur now under the present system, why doesn't it happen more? There is absolutely no regulations that would prevent such activity; hell the currrent system will even allow you to be exempt from taxes and give you loans, will yours? But to address the point, given that there are no courts, laws, etc. How does one go about addressing the social ill? Buy the company out? How realistic is it to expect the human slave to have the resources to buy themselves out? Not very damn likely. > This is an improvement upon today's system. Only if you believe your smarter and faster on the draw than everyone who is alive and will be alive during your life. Ain't gonna happen, there is always a bigger fish, and they're hungry. We no longer need to have > the majority of voters approval to start correcting the Social Ill. All No, you simply need to have the majority of social participants (I don't think we should call them citizens) involved first person. The time drain alone of that is enough to guarantee that nothing will be done. > of the Social Ill. This makes the most sense, since we obviously don't > need to draw on *everyone'* resources to correct every Social Ill. (of > course, some rare Social Ills will be that large, but the larger the > Social Ill, the more people wil recognize it as such.) They will? Historicaly the majority of social ills have been recognized as such by a minority and were corrected by a political mechanism that recognizes things like civil liberties and limits on government purvue a priori. > Better yet, frivilous problems (i.e. those invented for the advancement > of some politician's career, or out of sheer stupidity) will not have > large amounts of resources wasted upon them. And what makes you think that under your system a silver tongued devil won't be able to garner the same sorts of support? People are social animals and will follow the leader they believe will get them to where they need to be. Whether that is government or a marketing puke is irrelevant. > So, is it now clear to you why your above statement was somewhat > premature? It is clear to me that you neither understand human psychology, politics, economics (macro or micro), or what freedom means. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: fuck copyright (Re: Advertising Creepiness) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 21:09:38 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: Re: fuck copyright (Re: Advertising Creepiness) (fwd) > One barrier to such an enterprise is the domain name recognition, > people want wired, they type wired.com; what do they type if they want > the lower priced mirrors? The same question can be asked of the shopper who wants the lowest priced tomato's. It isn't the vendors responsibility to provide those sorts of mechanism for the consumer (or user of a system). The interpretation of what lowest price means is so varied that trying to talk of it as some sort of universal given is like talking about rational consumers. It's a non-sequitar. If the consumer wants the lowest price (in their personal estimation) goods then they have several choices (at least): - They can look for it themselves - They can ask a friend - They can pay somebody else to look for them - Or they can sit back and wait for the relevant production sites to contact them (eg Wed's glob of shiney adverts) There is also the very real question of why would wired allow a 3rd party sell their product at a lower cost than they can sell it themselves? Not a rational or good business practice anyway you look at it. > service. Therefore one might (somewhat weakly) argue that they > deprive wired (and others) of click through revenue and they charge > you thus diverting funds wired et al might otherwise have got. Yeah, so? Just because I window shop in HEB down the street doesn't mean I am required to buy anything. And if I walk past a shop and don't register their window display doesn't mean the store lost anything from me - the very fact that I ignored it means they weren't going to get my money at that point. Now if they follow me down the sidewalk and bellow at me I can guarantee that I (and most other folks) won't buy there even if the price is lower. I'd say "quit your whinning". ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 16:05:08 -0500 > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248(a)nyu.edu> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd) > > Explain how the system works. Explain how the various systems operate, how > > the costs are calculated, and how they're paid. I want to see the same level > > of *specificity* that I and others have agreed to provide you in our > > examples. > > Do you have any idea what you're asking for? More than you can produce apparently. > Quite frankly, I do not have the time (nor the space) to explain to you, > in detail, how an entire civilization operates. In fact, any attempt by > me to explain such a system would fail, since there are doubtless many > innovations which specialists in the respective fields would make, and > there are many more which have already been made, which I am not > necessarilly aware of. If you can't explain your system to me in sufficient detail then perhaps it's because you don't understand it. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Your Web Site location
by poc＠searchengine-secrets.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Re: charity at the point of a gun (Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 13:28:11 -0700 (MST) > From: Jim Burnes <jvb(a)ssds.com> > Subject: Re: charity at the point of a gun (Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone) (fwd) > (1) Social transfer payments at the point of a gun are involuntary > compassion. > > (2) Involutary compassion is usually called rape. No, thats' lust not compassion. Involuntary lust is called rape. > Combine this with the US Govt defining a sex life as a "right" > (witness free Viagra) and you come up with some pretty > chilling scenarios. > > (do people have the "right" to a sex partner?) Read the 9th Amendment. I'd say so. > Whats to stop rape of selected human beings by agents of > the federal government? (ok, maybe thats going a little > too far The 4th Amendment among others. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 15:57:04 -0500 > From: Michael Hohensee <mah248(a)nyu.edu> > Subject: Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd) > > Without some government the Bad Guys will be the only ones with anything. > > It is only with the threat of losing their power that leaders do good. If > > they had no power which could be lost or taken they will always do what's > > best for them in the short term, which is usually to shit on the peons. > > Dictators (like Pinochet and Gates) do their dirty deeds because they feel > > no need to placate the masses. > > If they wield no real power, and proceed to do whatever is best for them > in the short term, they will be screwing themselves over in the long > term (or short term, if doing what they want results in someone shooting > them in self defense). If they have that kind of power they will have the shooter shot, look at the history of leaders and assassinations. The reality is that the vast majority of them fail. There is the other aspect that if one is willing to assassinate (murder in plain english) simply because somebody else murdered then we are in fact trading one tyrant for another. > And precisely what dirty deeds has Mr. Gates ever done? Every un-fair market practice he could get away with (why is it that anarcho-whatever types always leave that 'fair competition' out of their discussion?). Why do you believe the Halloween documents are so enlightening? Because they demonstrate without a shadow of doubt that Billy wanted to exist as the sole market force, not a force limited by fair competition. The concept of fair-competition is anti-thematic to the world-domination memes that are currently making the rounds. > Excluding those > actions in which the judicious use of state regulation was involved. Hell, if we just look at the business practices within the context of a market with fair competition it's clear he's so far out in left field he's playing by himself. > Yah, and then somebody else points a gun at Mr. would-be warlord and > goes Bang, Bang, he's dead (it's unsafe having warlords about --sorta > like scorpions). That is, if Mr. would-be manages to shoot me without > being shot himself. Well I'd say if you're running around shooting people for any reason other than immediate self defence you deserve what you get. > > Try to lift yourself out of the bullshit of your theory and give us at > > least one REAL example (current or historic) of a large scale, long lasting > > anarcho-capitalist society. Hippie communes are too small, and make sure > > it's capitalistic. If you can't think of one in the next year or so then > > come back and tell us. > > It hasn't happened yet. But then, neither had the USA, before 1776. > The above is not a reasonable argument. It is at least a start, there was ample evidence historicaly that democracy (you ever hear of the Dutch?) was tried to varying degrees. It seems to work out better than any other system we've developed. If you want to see a discussion of democracy prior to the US check out: On the improvement of the understanding; The Ethics; Correspondence Benedict de Spinoza ISBN 0-486-20250-x $7.95 (Dover) They were written in the mid to late 1600's (shortly before the birth of the founding fathers). > You can, of course, as me how it *could* happen. And unfortunately, > you're partially correct, it couldn't happen under current conditions. > The amount of personal firepower that is easily accessible by everyone > is not sufficient to back up the soverignity of each individual. So, in your mind the only way to defend oneself is to have a bigger dick..um I mean gun than the other guy.... I've a couple of quotes for you to ponder: Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% persperation. T.E. Edison If Mr. Edison had though smarter he wouldn't have had to perspire as much. N. Tesla ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: most of what govts do can be done by business, and done (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 18:00:44 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: Re: most of what govts do can be done by business, and done > better (Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force) > Roads are the easiest (assuming a government model) things to apply > road use taxes to, simply tax gasoline, oil, and tires. Scale your tire tax > based on weight and apply it to bicycles as well, then everyone (execpt > peds) who uses pays. Screw that, tax the shoes. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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most of what govts do can be done by business, and done better (Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 20:39:05 GMT > From: Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> > Subject: most of what govts do can be done by business, and done better (Re: How to solve the tax problem w/o anarchy or force) > Even when government does sub-contract, the inefficiency is usually I > think pretty horrendous by industry standards: The same can be said for business in general as well (especialy if there is no competition). ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 12:33:04 -0500 > From: Petro <petro(a)playboy.com> > Subject: RE: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the (fwd) > Theft, violence and extortion are already legitimate, not only does > the government use them all the time, but corporations and indivuduals do > as well. True, at least under a democratic system we can prevent some of the more gross abuses by government and can address the inter-personal issues with something besides a nylon jacketed .357. Your anarcho-whatever doesn't even provide that. > There is no (or little) justice under the current system. When was > the last time a cop went to jail for a murder that he/she committed while > on duty. Is OJ behind bars? Several cops in Houston were fired (they got no-billed by the Grand Jury) just last week because of a similar issue. There are two cops here in Austin who went to jail because of a murder (they held a kid down on a water bed and he suffocated) charge. The current public overwatch group was the result of a police call that got out of hand last year and the police had two choices - either give the people what they asked for or end loose the civil rights case. The two cops who beat Rodney King ended up doing time. Nobody proved to the jury beyond a shadow of a doubt he was guilty. It is far better to let a dozen guilty men go free than to imprison a single innocent one. Our legal system may have its problem but I guarantee that a lot more guilty people get off scott free than innocent people end up in jail. There is more than a little justice under the current system (OJ being the perfect example - like it or not). > We have courts of Law, Justice is ashamed to show her face. Somehow I doubt that. If justice is ashamed of anything its that citizens of this country don't participate more and express their views with more conviction. > We recognize that these interactions exist, but guess what, for any > sort of anarchy to exist, it has to happen globally. We are as concerned > about the people on the other side of the planet as we are about the people > in the next city over. Just not much. Which, considering that anarchic systems permit murder, theft, rape, extortion, etc. without reprisal or limits, means that the vast majority of people are probably going to sleep a sounder sleep knowing they don't have to go out and buy a tank tomorrow just to make sure they have a home to come to in the evening. > No, we assume the opposite, that nothing works for large numbers of > people, and everyone should be free to find their own level. If nothing works for large numbers of people then why should this? Anarchy isn't freedom, it's opportunity to make huge profits with no responsiblity and at the expence of others (who are treated as a market commodity and not human beings). ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Off Topic But Truly Beautiful (fwd )
by Petro 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:11 PM -0500 11/10/98, Michael Motyka wrote: >> In the summer of 1984, 10th-grader Irwin Nanofsky and a >> friend were driving down the Apalachee Parkway on the way >> home from baseball practice when they were pulled over by >> a police officer for a minor traffic infraction. ... >> As policy analysts and hemp advocates alike have been >> quick to point out, the apparent legality (for now) of >> Nanofsky's "pot orange" may render debates over the >> legalization of marijuana moot. In fact, Florida's top >> law enforcement officials admit that even if the >> cultivation of Nanofsky's orange were to be outlawed, it >> would be exceedingly difficult to identify the presence >> of outlawed fruit among the state's largest agricultural >> crop. Once again technology makes the laws irrelevant. Gotta love it. -- "To sum up: The entire structure of antitrust statutes in this country is a jumble of economic irrationality and ignorance. It is a product: (a) of a gross misinterpretation of history, and (b) of rather naïve, and certainly unrealistic, economic theories." Alan Greenspan, "Anti-trust" http://www.ecosystems.net/mgering/antitrust.html Petro::E-Commerce Adminstrator::Playboy Ent. Inc.::petro@playboy.com

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Question about insurance managed fire services...
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

How does company A guarantee that company B won't begin to burn down the customers of company A so that the economic impact on A is sufficient they can't participate in the market? ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Strange brew (was Off Topic But Truly Beautiful)
by Frederick Burroughs 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Michael Motyka wrote: > Clyde wrote: > > > > Long but fascinating... > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------- > > > > 9 November 1998 > > > > DATELINE--Tallahassee, Fla. > > Oranges that get you high > > =========================== > > > > A Florida Biochemist designs a citrus tree with THC. [savagely pruned] > > Copyright 1994-98 San Francisco Bay Guardian. Satirization or prophesy, the walls are coming down. Whether they be the borders of nationstates or the dna of species, the boundaries that once defined are now dissolving. Look for transgenic terrorists to engineer terror down to the genetic level. Psilocybin from Saccharomyces, now that'll make a heady wine. Developments along these lines are advancing in Brazil and South Africa. Freeze dried packets (with psychedelic holographic label designs) are available via mail order to csychomimetic enologists.

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Question about anarchic systems and natural disasters
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What would be the responce of a anarchic system that was based on profit in regards something like Mitch's impact on Ctl. America and their plea for food and aid? ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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secF9.html
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

F.9 IS MEDIEVAL ICELAND AN EXAMPLE OF "ANARCHO"-CAPITALISM WORKING IN PRACTICE? Ironically, medieval Iceland is a good example of why "anarcho"-capitalism will not work, degenerating into de facto rule by the rich. It should be pointed out first that Iceland, nearly 1,000 years ago, was not a capitalistic system. In fact, like most cultures claimed by "anarcho"-capitalists as examples of their "utopia," it was a communal, not individualistic, society, based on artisan production, with extensive communal institutions as well as individual "ownership" (i.e. use) and a form of social self-administration, the thing -- both local and Iceland-wide -- which can be considered a "primitive" form of the anarchist communal assembly. As William Ian Miller points out "[p]eople of a communitarian nature. . . have reason to be attracted [to Medieval Iceland]. . . the limited role of lordship, the active participation of large numbers of free people . . . in decision making within and without the homestead. The economy barely knew the existence of markets. Social relations preceded economic relations. The nexus of household, kin, Thing, even enmity, more than the nexus of cash, bound people to each other. The lack of extensive economic differentiation supported a weakly differentiated class system . . . [and material] deprivations were more evenly distributed than they would be once state institutions also had to be maintained." [Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland, p. 306] Kropotkin in Mutual Aid indicates that Norse society, from which the settlers in Iceland came, had various "mutual aid" institutions, including communal land ownership (based around what he called the "village community") and the thing (see also Kropotkin's The State: Its Historic Role for a discussion of the "village community"). It is reasonable to think that the first settlers in Iceland would have brought such institutions with them and Iceland did indeed have its equivalent of the commune or "village community," the Hreppar, which developed early in the country's history. Like the early local assemblies, it is not much discussed in the Sagas but is mentioned in the law book, the Grágás, and was composed of a minimum of twenty farms and had a five member commission. The Hreppar was self-governing and, among other things, was responsible for seeing that orphans and the poor within the area were fed and housed. The Hreppar also served as a property insurance agency and assisted in case of fire and losses due to diseased livestock. The Hreppar may have also have organised and controlled summer grazing lands (which in turn suggests "commons" -- i.e. common land -- of some kind). Thus Icelandic society had a network of solidarity, based upon communal life. In practice this meant that "each commune was a mutual insurance company, or a miniature welfare state. And membership in the commune was not voluntary. Each farmer had to belong to the commune in which his farm was located and to contribute to its needs." [Gissurarson quoted by Birgit T. Runolfsson Solvason, Ordered Anarchy, State and Rent-Seeking: The Icelandic Commonwealth, 930-1262] However, unlike an anarchist society, the Icelandic Commonwealth did not allow farmers not to join its communes. Therefore, the Icelandic Commonwealth can hardly be claimed in any significant way as an example of "anarcho"-capitalism in practice. This can also be seen from the early economy, where prices were subject to popular judgement at the skuldaping ("payment-thing") not supply and demand. [Kirsten Hastrup, Culture and History in Medieval Iceland, p. 125] Indeed, with its communal price setting system in local assemblies, the early Icelandic commonwealth was more similar to Guild Socialism (which was based upon guild's negotiating "just prices" for goods and services) than capitalism. Therefore Miller correctly argues that it would be wrong to impose capitalist ideas and assumptions onto Icelandic society: "Inevitably the attempt was made to add early Iceland to the number of regions that socialised people in nuclear families within simple households. . . what the sources tell us about the shape of Icelandic householding must compel a different conclusion." [Op. Cit., p. 112] In other words, Kropotkin's analysis of communal society is far closer to the reality of Medieval Iceland than David Friedman's attempt in The Machinery of Freedom to turn it into a capitalist utopia. However, the communal nature of Icelandic society also co-existed (as in most such cultures) with hierarchical institutions, including some with capitalistic elements, namely private property and "private states" around the local godar. The godar were local chiefs who also took the role of religious leaders. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica explains, "a kind of local government was evolved [in Iceland] by which the people of a district who had most dealings together formed groups under the leadership of the most important or influential man in the district" (the godi). The godi "acted as judge and mediator" and "took a lead in communal activities" such as building places of worship. These "local assemblies. . . are heard of before the establishment of the althing" (the national thing). This althing led to co-operation between the local assemblies. Therefore we see communal self-management in a basic form, plus co-operation between communities as well. These communistic, mutual-aid features exist in many non-capitalist cultures and are often essential for ensuring the people's continued freedom within those cultures (section B.2.5 on why the wealthy undermine these popular "folk-motes" in favour of centralisation). Usually, the existence of private property (and so inequality) soon led to the destruction of communal forms of self-management (with participation by all male members of the community as in Iceland), which are replaced by the rule of the rich. While such developments are a commonplace in most "primitive" cultures, the Icelandic case has an unusual feature which explains the interest it provokes in "anarcho"-capitalist circles. This feature was that individuals could seek protection from any godi. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica puts it, "the extent of the godord [chieftancy] was not fixed by territorial boundaries. Those who were dissatisfied with their chief could attach themselves to another godi. . . As a result rivalry arose between the godar [chiefs]; as may be seen from the Icelandic Sagas." It is these Sagas on which David Friedman (in The Machinery of Freedom) bases his claim that Medieval Iceland is a working example of "anarcho" capitalism. Hence we can see that artisans and farmers would seek the "protection" of a godi, providing their labour in return. These godi would be subject to "market forces," as dissatisfied individuals could affiliate themselves to other godi. This system, however, had an obvious (and fatal) flaw. As the Encyclopaedia Britannica points out: "The position of the godi could be bought and sold, as well as inherited; consequently, with the passing of time, the godord for large areas of the country became concentrated in the hands of one man or a few men. This was the principal weakness of the old form of government: it led to a struggle of power and was the chief reason for the ending of the commonwealth and for the country's submission to the King of Norway." It was the existence of these hierarchical elements in Icelandic society that explain its fall from anarchistic to statist society. As Kropotkin argued "from chieftainship sprang on the one hand the State and on the other private property." [Act for Yourselves, p. 85] Kropotkin's insight that chieftainship is a transitional system has been confirmed by anthropologists studying "primitive" societies. They have come to the conclusion that societies made up of chieftainships or chiefdoms are not states: "Chiefdoms are neither stateless nor state societies in the fullest sense of either term: they are on the borderline between the two. Having emerged out of stateless systems, they give the impression of being on their way to centralised states and exhibit characteristics of both." [Y. Cohen quoted by Birgit T. Runolfsson Solvason, Op. Cit.] Since the Commonwealth was made up of chiefdoms, this explains the contradictory nature of the society - it was in the process of transition, from anarchy to statism, from a communal economy to one based on private property. The political transition within Icelandic society went hand in hand with an economic transition (both tendencies being mutually reinforcing). Initially, when Iceland was settled, large-scale farming based on extended households with kinsmen was the dominant economic mode. This semi-communal mode of production changed as the land was divided up (mostly through inheritance claims) between the 10th and 11th centuries. This new economic system based upon individual possession and artisan production was then slowly displaced by tenant farming, in which the farmer worked for a landlord, starting in the late 11th century. This economic system (based on a form of wage labour, i.e. capitalistic production) ensured that "great variants of property and power emerged." [Kirsten Hastrup, Culture and History in Medieval Iceland, pp. 172-173] During the 12th century wealth concentrated into fewer and fewer hands and by its end an elite of around 6 wealthy and powerful families had emerged. During this evolution in ownership patterns and the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few, we should note that the godi's and wealthy landowners' attitude to profit making also changed, with market values starting to replace those associated with honour, kin, and so on. Social relations became replaced by economic relations and the nexus of household, kin and Thing was replaced by the nexus of cash and profit. The rise of capitalistic social relationships in production and values within society was also reflected in exchange, with the local marketplace, with its pricing "subject to popular judgement" being "subsumed under central markets." [Ibid., p. 225] With a form of wage labour being dominant within society, it is not surprising that great differences in wealth started to appear. Also, as protection did not come free, it is not surprising that a godi tended to become rich also. This would enable him to enlist more warriors, which gave him even more social power (in Kropotkin's words, "the individual accumulation of wealth and power"). Powerful godi would be useful for wealthy landowners when disputes over land and rent appeared, and wealthy landowners would be useful for a godi when feeding his warriors. Production became the means of enriching the already wealthy, with concentrations of wealth producing concentrations of social and political power (and vice versa). Kropotkin's general summary of the collapse of "barbarian" society into statism seems applicable here - "after a hard fight with bad crops, inundations and pestilences, [farmers]. . . began to repay their debts, they fell into servile obligations towards the protector of the territory. Wealth undoubtedly did accumulate in this way, and power always follows wealth." [Mutual Aid, p. 131] The transformation of possession into property and the resulting rise of hired labour was a key element in the accumulation of wealth and power, and the corresponding decline in liberty among the farmers. Moreover, with hired labour springs dependency -- the worker is now dependent on good relations with their landlord in order to have access to the land they need. With such reductions in the independence of part of Icelandic society, the undermining of self-management in the various Things was also likely as labourers could not vote freely as they could be subject to sanctions from their landlord for voting the "wrong" way. Thus hierarchy within the economy would spread into the rest of society, and in particular its social institutions, reinforcing the effects of the accumulation of wealth and power. The resulting classification of Icelandic society played a key role in its move from relative equality and anarchy to a class society and statism. As Millar points out: "as long as the social organisation of the economy did not allow for people to maintain retinues, the basic egalitarian assumptions of the honour system. . . were reflected reasonably well in reality. . . the mentality of hierarchy never fully extricated itself from the egalitarian ethos of a frontier society created and recreated by juridically equal farmers. Much of the egalitarian ethic maintained itself even though it accorded less and less with economic realities. . . by the end of the commonwealth period certain assumptions about class privilege and expectations of deference were already well enough established to have become part of the lexicon of self-congratulation and self-justification." [Op. Cit., pp. 33-4] This process in turn accelerated the destruction of communal life and the emergence of statism, focused around the godord. In effect, the godi and wealthy farmers became rulers of the country and "the old form of government became modified in the course of time." This change from a communalistic, anarchistic society to a statist, propertarian one can also be seen from this quote from an article on Iceland by Hallberg Hallmundsson in the Encyclopaedia Americana, which identifies wealth concentration in fewer and fewer hands as having been responsible for undermining Icelandic society: "During the 12th century, wealth and power began to accumulate in the hands of a few chiefs, and by 1220, six prominent families ruled the entire country. It was the internecine power struggle among these families, shrewdly exploited by King Haakon IV of Norway, that finally brought the old republic to an end." This process, wherein the concentration of wealth leads to the destruction of communal life and so the anarchistic aspects of a given society, can be seen elsewhere, for example, in the history of the United States after the Revolution or in the degeneration of the free cities of Medieval Europe. Peter Kropotkin, in his classic work Mutual Aid, documents this process in some detail, in many cultures and time periods. However, that this process occurred in a society which is used by "anarcho"-capitalists as an example of their system in action reinforces the anarchist analysis of the statist nature of "anarcho"-capitalism and the deep flaws in its theory, as discussed in section F.6. As Miller argues, "[i]t is not the have-nots, after all, who invented the state. The first steps toward state formation in Iceland were made by churchmen. . . and by the big men content with imitating Norwegian royal style. Early state formation, I would guess, tended to involve redistributions, not from rich to poor, but from poor to rich, from weak to strong." [Op. Cit., p. 306] David Friedman is aware of how the Icelandic Republic degenerated and its causes. He states in a footnote in his 1979 essay "Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case" that the "question of why the system eventually broke down is both interesting and difficult. I believe that two of the proximate causes were increased concentration of wealth, and hence power, and the introduction into Iceland of a foreign ideology -- kingship. The former meant that in many areas all or most of the godord were held by one family and the latter that by the end of the Sturlung period the chieftains were no longer fighting over the traditional quarrels of who owed what to whom, but over who should eventually rule Iceland. The ultimate reasons for those changes are beyond the scope of this paper." However, from an anarchist point of view, the "foreign" ideology of kingship would be the product of changing socio-economic conditions that were expressed in the increasing concentration of wealth and not its cause. The settlers of Iceland were well aware of the "ideology" of kingship for the 300 years during which the Republic existed. However, only the concentration of wealth allowed would-be Kings the opportunity to develop and act and the creation of boss-worker social relationships on the land made the poor subject to, and familiar with, the concept of authority. Such familiarity would spread into all aspects of life and, combined with the existence of "prosperous" (and so powerful) godi to enforce the appropriate servile responses, ensured the end of the relative equality that fostered Iceland's anarchistic tendencies in the first place. In addition, as private property is a monopoly of rulership over a given area, the conflict between chieftains for power was, at its most basic, a conflict of who would own Iceland, and so rule it. The attempt to ignore the facts that private property creates rulership (i.e. a monopoly of government over a given area) and that monarchies are privately owned states does Friedman's case no good. In other words, the system of private property has a built in tendency to produce both the ideology and fact of Kingship - the power structures implied by Kingship are reflected in the social relations which are produced by private property. Friedman is also aware that an "objection [to his system] is that the rich (or powerful) could commit crimes with impunity, since nobody would be able to enforce judgement against them. Where power is sufficiently concentrated this might be true; this was one of the problems which led to the eventual breakdown of the Icelandic legal system in the thirteenth century. But so long as power was reasonably dispersed, as it seem to have been for the first two centuries after the system was established, this was a less serious problem." [Op. Cit.] Which is quite ironic. Firstly, because the first two centuries of Icelandic society was marked by non-capitalist economic relations (communal pricing and family/individual possession of land). Only when capitalistic social relationships developed (hired labour and property replacing possession and market values replacing social ones) in the 12th century did power become concentrated, leading to the breakdown of the system in the 13th century. Secondly, because Friedman is claiming that "anarcho"-capitalism will only work if there is an approximate equality within society! But this state of affairs is one most "anarcho"-capitalists claim is impossible and undesirable! They claim there will always be rich and poor. But inequality in wealth will also become inequality of power. When "actually existing" capitalism has become more free market the rich have got richer and the poor poorer. Apparently, according to the "anarcho"-capitalists, in an even "purer" capitalism this process will be reversed! It is ironic that an ideology that denounces egalitarianism as a revolt against nature implicitly requires an egalitarian society in order to work. In reality, wealth concentration is a fact of life in any system based upon hierarchy and private property. Friedman is aware of the reasons why "anarcho"-capitalism will become rule by the rich but prefers to believe that "pure" capitalism will produce an egalitarian society! In the case of the commonwealth of Iceland this did not happen - the rise in private property was accompanied by a rise in inequality and this lead to the breakdown of the Republic into statism. In short, Medieval Iceland nicely illustrates David Weick's comments (as quoted in section F.6.3) that "when private wealth is uncontrolled, then a police-judicial complex enjoying a clientele of wealthy corporations whose motto is self-interest is hardly an innocuous social force controllable by the possibility of forming or affiliating with competing 'companies.'" This is to say that "free market" justice soon results in rule by the rich, and being able to affiliate with "competing" "defence companies" is insufficient to stop or change that process. This is simply because any defence-judicial system does not exist in a social vacuum. The concentration of wealth -- a natural process under the "free market" (particularly one marked by private property and wage labour) -- has an impact on the surrounding society. Private property, i.e. monopolisation of the means of production, allows the monopolists to become a ruling elite by exploiting, and so accumulating vastly more wealth than, the workers. This elite then uses its wealth to control the coercive mechanisms of society (military, police, "private security forces," etc.), which it employs to protect its monopoly and thus its ability to accumulate ever more wealth and power. Thus, private property, far from increasing the freedom of the individual, has always been the necessary precondition for the rise of the state and rule by the rich. Medieval Iceland is a classic example of this process at work.

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Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 19:25:40 -0800 (PST) > From: b!X <bix(a)geekforce.org> > Subject: Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed > Yeah yeah all very well and good parody except that the 2nd amendment > contains the word "well-regulated" and the 1st doesn't. > > (And yes I know I'm asking for a shitstorm of trouble saying that on THIS > list of all places). ARTICLE I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. ARTICLE II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. I'd say that 'shall make no law' is a clear as 'shall not be infringed' and pretty equivalent in meaning. See, no shit-storm (they reserve that for me...;). ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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More on blind signal demodulation
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There's at least one firm which makes this stuff commercially, their products are available via http://www.appsig.com/prods/index.html. This looks like a one-stop ECHELON shop: you take one or more of their products (pick your type, intended target, and budget), plug as many E1's or E3's or whatever into one side as you can handle (the most impressive one does 16 E3's or 7680 voice/ data channels) and all modem, fax, and voice comms going through the circuit are available on the other side. They have products to do automatic channel/ signal scanning, demuxing, decoding of various data formats, processing of satellite and radio signals ("combines tuning, demodulation, descrambling, decoding, demultiplexing, and output formatting in one chassis"), every kind of mobile phone signal you've ever heard of, digital microwave links, decoding of higher-level protocols like V.42/V.42bis, X.25, HDLC, PPP, every Internet protocol worth doing, etc etc (their terminology is pretty neat, they have for example a 1.5-44.7Mbps "modem for on-the-move applications" :-). Much of the hardware claims to be built to TEMPEST specs. One interesting point is that most of their stuff is for E1's and E3's even though they're a US company. Hmmm.... Peter.

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Elder Kennedy ordered to tesify to Grand Jury (if you can call it that) [CNN]
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > X-within-URL: http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/10/kennedy.testimony.ap/ > STAMFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- A Florida judge on Tuesday ordered the > elderly brother of Ethel Kennedy to testify before a Connecticut grand > jury investigating a 1975 slaying in which his two sons are suspects. > > Rushton Skakel, 74, of Hobe Sound, Florida, was ordered to testify > about what he knows about the slaying of Martha Moxley, a 15-year-old > Greenwich girl who was bludgeoned to death with a golf club. ... > The case stalled for years but was revived this spring by the > appointment of a grand jury consisting of a single judge. [remainder deleted] Now if that isn't unconstitutional I don't know what is. He and his lawyer should be screaming bloody murder (figuratively). ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Important news from DAVOC (-flash3 site-)
by jake 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings from the Underground...... this message is presented to you by the U.S. http://www.DAVOC.com

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GOST still used?
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Can anyone report whether GOST is still used anywhere?

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Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 05:27:11 -0800 (PST) > From: b!X <bix(a)geekforce.org> > Subject: Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed > And notice also that the 1st begins with "Congress shall make no law" while > the 2nd begins with "a well regulated militia". > Becos the attempted paraody was lame in the same ways that all attempts to Hey, can I use that spelling of 'because'? I want to irritate a particular wanna-be-english-teacher subsribed to the CDR...;) > nonrationally support 2nd amendment freedoms by calling down the gods of 1st > amendment freeomds always are nonrational. (And no, that's not me saying > supporting 2nd amendment freedoms is irrational; it's me saying using the > 1st amendment to do so is irrational). Yep, you have to use the 9th and 10th as well. In for a penny end for a pound. ARTICLE IX. The enumeration of the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. ARTICLE X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: charity at the point of a gun (Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Anonymous writes: > > Adam Back <aba(a)dcs.ex.ac.uk> wrote: > > > What is annoying is "charity" (social security) at the point of a gun. > > Our "conscience" is being decided by government which is acting as a > > broker for those lobby for their "need" and for your assets to be > > stolen and redistributed to them. > > > > What people aren't willing to pay for shouldn't happen. Period. If > > that means people starve well those complaining loudest had better > > dig deeper into their pockets. > > Imagine one of your kids had an accident and needed more expensive care > than you can pay for. Would you accept government "charity"? This is why I buy insurance. But let's go with your example: imagine that I didn't buy insurance (because I didn't want to or couldn't `afford' it or whatever), would I then be entitled to go around the neighborhood (gun in hand) and demand `charity' from all my neighbors? What if my house burns down? Again, can I demand `charity' at gunpoint from my neighbors? What if another motorist hits my parked car and totals it? Can I demand that my neighbors help me buy a new car? What if a $5 million (or use $5 billion if you prefer) operation would save my 88 year-old mother from the cancer that is killing her? Who can I find to pay for that? What if my self-esteem suffers because of frown lines in my forehead? Can I demand `charity' to pay for the plastic surgery? The question isn't and shouldn't be about whether you would `accept' charity (after all desperate people will do lots of things they might not ordinarily do or even believe in), but whether your fellow citizens ought to be REQUIRED to fund the `charity' you would like to receive.

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Re: Question about anarchic systems and natural disasters
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate writes: > > What would be the responce of a anarchic system that was based on profit in > regards something like Mitch's impact on Ctl. America and their plea for > food and aid? `Their plea for food and aid' is just that: a plea; it no more creates an _obligation_ to help them than my plea for your money to help rebuild my burned-down house should. Still, in an anarcho-capitalistic system, Mitch would be responded to by private individuals through charitable aid organizations such as the Red Cross (much as it is now). Your asking the question implies that you believe we have or should have an obligation to help Mitch's victims; one that justifies the use of tax money - money that is, in effect, collected at gunpoint from all of us citizen units. By the way, since you're so fond of quoting the US Constitution, please show where the document authorizes the Men With Guns to take their captives'^H^H^H^H^H^Hcitizens' money and give it away to help victims of natural disasters in foreign countries. (Also consider that Mitch is merely one in a long line of natural disasters that have been and continue to be inflicted on various peoples of the world. Some we hear about and some we don't, based on the vagaries of the news media's inclinations and their judgement of how interested the American public will be. We don't end up bailing them all out; only those which one politician or another has decided will make them look `compassionate'. If an equivalent disaster occurred in a less favored nation - say, an earthquake in Iran - you can bet that the US's governmental response would be much less generous.)

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Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 05:30:22 -0800 (PST) > From: b!X <bix(a)geekforce.org> > Subject: Re: IP: Clinton Wants Loophole In U.S. Free Speech Closed (fwd) > > I'd say that 'shall make no law' is a clear as 'shall not be infringed' and > > pretty equivalent in meaning. > > Same comments as before. Utiizing the text of the 1st to defend one's > approach to the 2nd is nonrational, which is what the lame parody attempted > to do, and what I was criticizing. I'm not using the 1st to justify the second, all I'm saying is the two related phrases are equivalent within the context of the Constitution. It's semantics. Or are you saying that if you go slow enough it's as good as a stop? How slow is slow enough? ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Question about insurance managed fire services...
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate writes: > > How does company A guarantee that company B won't begin to burn down the > customers of company A so that the economic impact on A is sufficient they > can't participate in the market? How does it do so now? Fucking idiot. Do you imagine that the customers of company A (and their police, security force or other guardian) will stand idly by while their homes (the implied target) are burned?

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Re: Question about insurance managed fire services... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 14:50:12 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: Question about insurance managed fire services... > Jim Choate writes: > > > > How does company A guarantee that company B won't begin to burn down the > > customers of company A so that the economic impact on A is sufficient they > > can't participate in the market? > > How does it do so now? Insurance regulatory agencies who monitor the behavior, investigation by a reasonably impartial fire dept after every fire. That's at least two. > Fucking idiot. Do you imagine that the customers of company A (and > their police, security force or other guardian) will stand idly by > while their homes (the implied target) are burned? What police and security forces? You mean the ones the same insurance company co-oped? What makes you thing that Company A or B will even advertise their actions? Who says the homes will be burned when the residents are even home? It isn't like anyone is going to ask their permission. And I'm the 'fucking idiot'. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: DCSB: Risk Management is Where the Money Is; Trust in DigitalCommerce
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text To: dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Subject: Re: DCSB: Risk Management is Where the Money Is; Trust in Digital Commerce Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 23:40:49 -0500 From: Dan Geer <geer(a)world.std.com> Sender: bounce-dcsb(a)ai.mit.edu Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Dan Geer <geer(a)world.std.com> <per several requests> -----------------8<----------------cut-here----------------8<----------------- Nominal delivery draft ------------------------------------- Risk Management is Where the Money Is ------------------------------------- Digital Commerce Society of Boston 3 November 98 Daniel E. Geer, Jr., Sc.D. Senior Strategist, CertCo, Inc. 55 Broad Street, NYC, and 100 Cambridgepark Drive, Cambridge geer(a)certco.com Given my biases, I am going to describe where the future of the security marketplace is and where it is not. I will argue that the financial community is and remains the place to look for "first light" for new security technology. I will give you a rundown of what's new while I predict what little time is left for many of today's products, purveyors and regulators. I will argue that, in many ways, the party's over for the security field as we know it now. I will range broadly because security, as a concept, is universal. "Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come." For security technology, that time is now. IBM calls the three requirements of the "e-business" future as: #1 security, #2 scalability, and #3 integration. Forrester, Gartner, META, Yankee and all the other analysts agree -- the most important enabling technology for electronic business, besides network connectivity itself, is security. AD Little estimates that security, privacy and the legal issues of digital signature together constitute over half of the quantifiable barriers to electronic commerce. There are whole venture funds whose investment focus is around security. Security startups are everywhere; so are security books. The word "security" is hardly rare in employment advertisements. You cannot walk a trade show and not see the word "security" in screaming big type. The number of security meetings is preposterous. Presidential Commissions are busy spending real money on security for the information systems that run the country. "In the future, everyone will each get 15 minutes of fame." That applies to security,too. Today's security specialty companies cannot all survive; they can be eclipsed by the platform vendors too easily. Only platform vendors can deliver security that is integrated enough to scale and invisible enough to ignore. Even the Justice Department knows that once something is in the operating system, any independent market for it collapses. Yes, security's time may well have come, but in a Warhol world, that would mean that it is about time to go. The focus of "security" research today is the study of "trust management" -- how trust is defined, created, annotated, propagated, circumscribed, stored, exchanged, accounted for, recalled and adjudicated in our electronic world. This is natural because security is a means and not an end. This is mature because all technology differentiates along cost-benefit lines. All the security technology that you can buy today enables some aspect of trust management and novel variations show up daily. You can walk out of this hall and buy systems that use passwords that get local machines to trust you enough to let you in. You can buy smart cards that can do your cryptographic calculations for you, respond to challenges, hold your keys inviolable or, more interestingly, have identities of their own and serve merely to introduce you on their own terms. You can buy biometric devices that look at your voice, your face, your retina, your fingerprint, or even the idiosyncrasies of how you learned to type and so say, "Yep, that's the guy." You can get systems that are sufficiently hardened that you can rely on them if for no other reason they are so nearly useless no one would want to break in. You can still get your hands on security systems in the raw and roll your own directly from source-code. You can, anywhere, anytime, spin-up virtual private networks that are trustworthy protectors of your confidentiality however hostile the intervening wires are. You can even deliver privacy between strangers -- nearly a matter of creating trust in order to propagate it. You can put a document into the Eternity Service and trust that it can never be erased or you can put it into a cryptographic file system and trust that it can never be found. Simple? Yes; academics and entrepreneurs alike are busy supplying ways to propagate trust. They have it all wrong. If you ever took a course in probability then you know that many problems are solved by calculating their dual -- the probability of "not X" can be a whole lot more tractable than figuring Pr(X) directly. If you're in a security-based startup company, then you'll know that making money requires making excitement, even if the excitement is somebody else's public humiliation. And all of you can agree that the more important something is, the more it must be managed. Trust management is surely exciting, but like most exciting ideas it is unimportant. What is important is risk management, the sister, the dual of trust management. And because risk management makes money, it drives the security world from here on out. Every financial firm of any substance has a formal Risk Management Department that consumes a lion's share of the corporate IT budget. The financial world in its entirety is about packaging risk so that it can be bought and sold, i.e., so that risk can be securitized and finely enough graded to be managed at a profit. Everything from the lowly car loan to the most exotic derivative security is a risk-reward tradeoff. Don't for a minute underestimate the amount of money to be made on Wall Street, London and/or Tokyo when you can invent a new way to package risk. The impact of Moore's Law on the financial world is inestimable -- computing has made that world rich because it has enabled risk packaging to grow ever more precise, ever more real-time, ever more differentiated, ever more manageable. You don't have to understand forward swaptions, collateralized mortgage obligations, yield burning, or anything else to understand that risk management is where the money is. In a capitalist world, if something is where the money is, that something rules. Risk is that something. Security technology has heretofore been about moving trust around as if risk is definitionally undesirable and reliable trust management simply obviates the issue of risk. It does not come close. In two years time the "trust-hauling" market will be somewhere on the down-slope between legacy and dead. Risk management is going to take over as the dominant paradigm because risk management can subsume trust, but trust management cannot subsume risk. The Internet has made this so. The Internet is irresistible because it lowers barriers to entry on a global basis -- global in both space and time. Ever more important parts of the world's economy exist only in cyberspace, and lead times have entirely collapsed. Every professional fortune teller is bidding geometric increases in the dollar volume of electronic commercial activity. But when there is enough booty available, even absurdly difficult attacks become plausible. This is the world we are in. It will never be possible to really do the job of trust management any more than it is possible to really win an arms race or really preclude your car from being stolen. But risk management -- that is doable and it is doable at a profit. The proof is all around us. We are a score of years down this road. 1978 was a vintage security year; the remarkable papers by Rivest, Shamir & Adleman and Needham & Schroeder were published, both in CACM as it happens. The former introduced public key ideas and the latter created Kerberos. The counterpoint between these two technologies is instructive. Both symmetric cryptosystems, like Kerberos, and asymmetric cryptosystems, like RSA, do the same thing -- that is to say they do key distribution -- but the semantics are quite different. The fundamental security-enabling activity of a secret key system is to issue fresh keys at low latency and on demand. The fundamental security-enabling activity of an asymmetric key system is to verify the as-yet-unrevoked status of a key already in circulation, again with low latency and on demand. This is key management and it is a systems cost; a secret key system like Kerberos has incurred nearly all its costs by the moment of key issuance. By contrast, a public key system incurs nearly all its costs with respect to key revocation. Hence, a rule of thumb: The cost of key issuance plus the cost of key revocation is a constant, just yet another version of "You can pay me now or you can pay me later." Because of the tradeoffs between who pays for what part of the systems cost and who gets the benefit, secret key systems and public key systems have different fields of use. Secret key systems are fast and offer revocation at no marginal cost. Public key systems are slow but they enable digital signature and thus enable proof of action, non-repudiation as it is called. Secret key systems are the default choice within an organization while public key systems are the default choice between organizations, i.e., secret key for where security is an intramural concern intramurally arbitrated, and public key for where security is extramural thereby requiring recourse to a third party judge in cases of dispute. The relentless blurring of what is intramural and what is extramural will favor public key over time. Because a trust management paradigm says that a digital signature is only as valid as the key (in which it was signed) was at the moment of signature, it is only as good as the procedural perfection of the certificate issuer and the timely transmission of any subsequent revocation. **These are high costs.** In fact, the true costs of general public key infrastructure are so extraordinarily high that only our collective ignorance of those costs permits us to propel ourselves toward a general PKI as if it were a panacea. When, not if, the user community at large realizes this, we "security people" will have but two choices, compromise on (gloss over) the quality of trust that public key can deliver or back off from the claims of full trust cheap. In other words, we'll have to fit the benefit to the endurable cost or fit the cost to the requisite benefit. Since, as a rule of thumb, to halve the probability of loss you have to at least double the cost of countermeasures, any finite tolerance of cost means an upper bound on how much security you can get. In the fullness of time, security technology will be evaluated on the same cost-benefit-risk tradeoff on which other technologies are evaluated. This is the price of maturity; this is the price not yet paid. Do not misunderstand me; public key technology, secret key technology, security technology in general are daily reaching new levels of protective capability. What they cannot protect against is being over-sold, and they are being over-sold. Why is that? The days when the Internet was a toy are gone even if a high percentage of its new investors are still coming in merely to avoid looking dowdy. The real question on the table is: When does the Internet become more like the data center. And what does making the Internet more like the data center mean? At a minimum, it means metered use. Discussions are already widespread about requiring Internet postage; large ISPs will probably demand it, existing postal services would love to sell it and data centers, such as the financial giants, will get a better handle on what goes in and out the door. At least one Wall Street bank already does charge-back for network bandwidth consumption and their internal electronic security regime plays a role in assigning those costs just as, in turn, their security group manages the user database via incremental updates rather than fresh full copies so as to minimize their bandwidth charges. That's not postage, but it is close and it is now. Incremental use charges are but one example, interesting mostly because they are a near term step toward making the Internet into a data center. The fundamental value of the data center is the information it holds. The past few years have seen data warehousing, data mining and now connection of the data center to the Web, data publishing if you will. MVS, for example, has a really good web server and someone in the audience will have to convince me that there is a difference between a 1970's central time-share machine and an MVS web server in a swarm of "thin clients" on fast networks. It certainly isn't the direct wire connection -- SSL simulates that well enough. It surely isn't the management model; the MIS director who had declared defeat in desktop configuration management will, you can be sure, rejoice at getting control back. In the mainframe world, you move the computation to where the data is. In a client server world, you move the data to where the computation is. Web servers front-ending corporate databases attached to virtual private networks full of some universal client like a web browser sure sounds like a resurgence of the data center to me. The IBM 390 is a good machine and the Wintel cartel has pretty much ensured that no upstart will enter their space. From Wintel's point of view, using all those desktop cycles for display functions is just fine. Could it be that simple? Financial markets made SUN what it is today and vice versa -- SUN's first big win, the first big demonstration that computing power had risen to such a degree that moving the data to where the computing is made sense, "the network is the computer" and all that. Financial markets, in the sense of traders going head to head, used that power to replace whom you knew with what you know and set off a technology-as-weapon metaphor that has overtaken most of the business world. Financial Markets, in the sense of Exchanges, now rely on a dense spread of computing that exceeds what most of us have to deal with; more than one major bank has 15,000 FTP jobs a night just moving data to or from its data center. Plenty of staff at the NYSE lose $1000 apiece for every 15 minutes the Exchange is late opening due to IT unavailability. No computing equipment is too expensive when trumped with "I can make that back on the first trade." No small country runs its currency anymore. There was once no question that the fundamental purpose of an exchange was to provide "an advantage of time and place" to those who would trade on it and, in so doing, establish efficiency and liquidity baselines against which others would be judged. Beginning first with the "Paperwork Crisis" in the 60's and reaching a crescendo after the "Crash of '87," the Exchanges have been fully committed to electronic commerce before that phrase meant anything. But since the Internet, time and place are meaningless and the Exchanges know it. They are working hard to make oversight, fair play and quality of service into new baselines. Clearly, security technology is #1 in their list of requirements followed closely by scalability and integration. Security in a financial world market that is both nowhere and everywhere is a difficult thing to define well enough to solve, but if there is anything to engineering as a discipline then it is that the heavy work is in getting the problem statement right. So, to return to my central premise, if new security technology is a result of investment and if the investment in security technology is naturally centered within the financial community, what is the problem statement? ** If we get that right, we can predict the future. ** I submit that the problem statement is how to bring a transactional semantic to the Internet. This is not a new problem, but it is an as yet unsolved one. The existing financial markets want transactions because transactions are what they are about and transactions are what they know. Upstarts like the payment vendors want to be the first to deliver transactions and disintermediate the financial firms. Technical legal beagles reason that there is no transaction without recourse, no recourse without contract, no contract without non-repudiation and no non-repudiation without digital signature. Anyone who wants to do business on the Web needs transactions. Hal Varian, an economist and Dean of the Information Management School at Berkeley, taught me that what the Internet changes more than anything else is that it brings the efficiency of auction to markets that never had that option. This is a cover story in this week's "The Industry Standard." Auctions need security technology because what makes an auction an auction is the ability to conclude a transaction which, by its own execution, "discovers" a price. In other words, the nature of the world's economy is changed by the existence of the Internet, but only on the condition that electronic transactions are up to job. So what do I mean by "transaction?" I mean a non-repudiable communication between two parties who can each verify the time-, value- and content-integrity of that communication, who can presume confidentiality of that communication, who can verify the authenticity and authorization of their counterparty and who can present all these evidences to third party adjudication should there be a need for recourse at any arbitrary time in the future. **Every single part of that definition begs the question of security mechanism.** It is on that basis I claim that the security technology of tomorrow will be crafted in response to the unmet needs of financial markets today. As an example, your handwritten signature on a check is what, in principle, authorizes that funds move from A to B. In truth, from a bank's point of view, actually verifying handwritten signatures is a transaction cost that is not worth bearing unless the cost of verification is less than the risk of loss. At the largest banks, the threshold dollar amount below which verification does not really happen is a closely guarded number, but it generally exceeds $20,000 and still they have platoons of people doing this all day, every day. Converting the means of signature verification from a manual process into a machine-able one would radically change the economics of check processing. It would add billions to lines and do it from the cost-avoidance side of the ledger. But that is not all. Some $300B of U.S. payments are made every day of which only $60B are in the form of checks; the balance is largely in cash transactions of $5 or less. From both the merchant's and the bank's perspectives, getting rid of cash would be a huge win because handling costs for small dollar amounts often exceed the profit margins on the underlying sales. While the consumer may well adopt cashless payment out of some sense of convenience, the financial side of the house will enable it to avoid costs. Only this morning, Frost & Sullivan released a study that defines e-commerce as "commercial transactions taking place over the Internet with exchange of value in real time." Web payment sparked numerous startups with numerous different mechanisms. It is too late for you to enter this market, but it is not too late for those payment-systems vendors to rethink what they are trying to do. All of them are suffering because the volume of Web-based retail business has not picked up as fast as their business plans had presumed. For the retail customer, the main thing the Web offers is product discovery; a good print catalog and an 800 number are otherwise hard to beat. It is clear that the real money in Web commerce is in business-to-business commerce, but there the supply chain has a lot more complication and the kinds of security mechanisms need to be better than those for buying a toaster oven. Whereas retail commerce is about small dollar amounts and stranger-to-stranger transactions through a financial intermediary like a credit-card company, business-to-business is more about relationships, the dollar value of the sale is much bigger, and banks play a direct role (through letters of credit, collateralized bills of lading, etc.) B2B commerce does not have a good solution yet. If you want to sell into this market, be aware that the customer will buy either to avoid costs he has now or to make revenue he doesn't have yet. In the case of saving costs, you'll have to sell him the technology on a turnkey basis -- he will not cut you into the transactional revenue stream. If you can really show that your technology will make him revenue he did not have a chance to make otherwise, you may be able to get a piece of the revenue stream, but do not underestimate the cost-avoidance focus of big buyers and sellers. As far out as 2005, over half the Internet-transactions will be transactions converted from paper and credit/debit cards, not new transactions. **When selling into a cost-averse market you automate rather than revolutionize, and you do not get a piece of the action.** Everyone likes to talk about "disintermediating the banks," that is making the intermediary role of banks in commerce less essential by performing that service in some other way. Bill Gates is widely quoted as saying that "Banks are dinosaurs." At the highest end, they are not dinosaurs and they are not about to be disintermediated. Whilst the banks have a natural affection for their income streams, that doesn't prevent disintermediation. Most wiseguys trying to disintermediate the banks misunderstand what banks do. This is what they do: They interpose their balance sheet between the expectations of the counterparties to a transaction and the risk of default on either of their parts. They undertake stop-loss protections against credit risk, insolvency, operational failure, currency fluctuation, diversion of funds delivery, etc. In other words, they manage risk because they can absorb loss. **Electronic commerce payment technology cannot absorb loss, so it cannot and will not disintermediate the banks.** Think of this this way: All public key technology is driven to make a digital signature verifiable, i.e., it is about quality control and guarantee on the signature itself. This is a stunning thing, but it is not the whole equation. The intermediation role that banks play is to guarantee the transaction, i.e., it is broader than just the verification of a signature. The bank's know-how and its balance sheet are not something that can be replaced by a cryptographic calculation. The ability to avoid loss never makes up for the ability to absorb loss. The cryptography guarantees the signature; the bank's capital guarantees the transaction. **Risk control encapsulates trust.** In the midst of this, you might say "What are the standards?" in the sense of "What do the formal standards groups have to say?" The banking world is regulation rich and standards rich, too, which begs the question -- "Which standards matter?" The world of the Internet is making some of the banking-centric standards passe' but, unlike the combination of standards and regulations the banks are familiar with, the standards groups of the Internet cannot take on accountability for the implications of conformance/non-conformance though they continue to define it for others. This makes Internet standards substantially difficult to swallow because there is no accountability, nor can there be. The absence of enforcement guarantees that the only Internet standards that will really get attention are those that promote interoperability across jurisdictional boundaries. Ironically, this is all the pioneers of the Internet ever wanted. What the banks want, and I assure you they will get, is a set of cryptographically sophisticated tools that move the risks of the Internet from open-ended to estimable. In a sense, this is like insurability. It is probably apocryphal, but the story goes that a major investment firm with a Web commerce idea went to a big insurance company to seek stop loss protection. The conversation supposedly went like this: "How big is the potential loss?" "We don't know." "How likely is a loss to occur?" "We don't know." "How much is your company worth?" "This much." "That's the premium; send it in." Whether true or not, it illustrates the point -- the issue is getting a handle on the risk such that it can be priced. Every one of you who has tried to sell security technology has discovered that the only willing customers are those who either (1) have just been embarrassed in public or (2) have just learned that they are facing an audit. Everyone else is an unwilling customer. We've been dumb about this; we've tried to sell security as a means to establish trust but we've done it by railing about threats. It's no damned wonder that we haven't sold much. I know I have often wondered if my market might not explode were I to get just one of the big loss-prevention insurers to make good security practices and technology into an underwriting standard. Then, just like "Do you have sprinklers?" everyone is forced to confront whether they want to pay for security or pay for non-security. I am confident that the insurers could soften up my targets a lot better than I can. Let me tell you, they are about to. Insurability of Web commerce is essential, and no insurer is going to accept "We don't know" as an answer. They will say "Send it all in" and they'll mean it. The demand side for security technology is exploding but it isn't quite the security technology we have on hand. If a digital signature has the uniquely irreplaceable property of providing proof to a judge, then the role of a "trusted third party" is going to become more important over time, not less. Think of it this way: when I get a certificate issued to me by a certifying authority, I do have some risk around whether the CA is well operated or not. This includes the probability they will issue a certificate with my public key but someone else's name and whether when I tell them that my key has been compromised they will spring into decisive action. Most of that risk I can handle by a combination of due diligence and contract. However, when I give my certificate to you and say "Hi, I'm here from Central Services to fix your system" it is you that's in a risky position. You have to say "Is this certificate valid?" That means you have to check that the certificate is not listed as revoked, that the signature on the certificate is well formed, that the certificate authority which issued this certificate itself has an identity certificate that is itself validly signed, that the certificate authority is itself not in any trouble with revocation, and and so forth, ** recursively. ** The full cost of revocation testing is proportional to the square of the depth of the issuance hierarchy. In other words, this exceeds the intellectual capacity of most certificate recipients. This means that most recipients cannot themselves rely on the security technology to establish trust beyond the shadow of doubt. Instead, if recipients are smart, they will turn again to the insurance world just as risk holders have done whenever they cannot afford to carry on their books the consequences of a remotely unlikely event. For the insurer, he will underwrite a guarantee on the transaction for a fee that will reflect his experience with the CA's practices, the kind of transaction undertaken, the dollar amounts involved, etc. This will seem sensible to all parties because it is so familiar. This is risk management underwritten by financial intermediaries. This is where we will shortly be. This is the card eight major banks and CertCo played ten days ago -- the formation of "a global network of compliant businesses that use a common risk management framework." **This is where we securitize the transactional risk of electronic commerce.** There is one potential fly in this ointment, and I do not intend to dwell on it, but I cannot get this far and not mention the threat to strong security apparati of having them undermined by key escrow. Corporate policies and laws alike have always been defined in a territorial way that relies on clearly identifiable borders, physical locations where the policy or the law come to an end. But in the electronic world borders are meaningless. In some sense, sovereignty, based as it was on the idea of a border, is less meaningful now than for some centuries. In its place is a different kind of sovereignty, because the only borders in an electronic world are cryptographic ones. As such, the debate over who may or may not have a key known only to themselves is a proxy discussion for who may or may not have sovereignty within a cryptographically defined space. There are hard questions yet to answer. Compromised keys are revoked effective not to the moment of suspicion of compromise but rather retroactively to the last known time when the key was safe. In the case of escrow, should not a key's owner retroactively revoke it to the moment of its seizure from escrow should the owner later discover that it has been so seized? Or if a revoked key is only revoked by the action of the certifying authority signing a revocation notice in a special key, can that revocation-signing key itself ever be revoked? If it could, would that not invalidate (reverse) any revocations signed in it and what does that mean? I only offer these so that you do not equate my argument about the near-inevitability of investment in public key technology and digital-signature-dependent activities with some presumed infallibility of the technology or our understanding of it. These questions will be settled one way or another, but they remain open as we speak here today, and there is money to be made. I have tried to lay out my estimation on which way the tide is running and which moon's gravity matters. I could be completely wrong, or merely overstating what my biases bring me, but I think not. I think that just as the best estimate of tomorrow's weather is today's, the best estimate of how the Internet and the financial behemoths will interact is for the Internet to be driven, as a side effect, by the cost-reduction and profit-incented strategies of those financial behemoths. They already transcend national boundaries and their investment decisions do run the world. Were this to get enough investment, it might make security a solved problem at least as I define "solved" to mean "consistent with risk management in the insurance style." Since that would collapse the market for novel security add-ons, I strongly suggest that as you prepare your business plans you figure out how to be, as Tom Lehrer would say, a doctor specializing in diseases of the rich. This is a very exciting time and it is a privilege to be a part of it. When we are all relics in rocking chairs, we will still know that we were present at the creation. I know that I will count myself particularly lucky, including for your close attention these past few minutes. Thank you for the honor of speaking with you. END For help on using this list (especially unsubscribing), send a message to "dcsb-request(a)ai.mit.edu" with one line of text: "help". --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah(a)philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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Re: dbts: Privacy Fetishes, Perfect Competition, and the Foregone(fwd)
by Albert P. Franco, II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> Without some government the Bad Guys will be the only ones with anything. >> It is only with the threat of losing their power that leaders do good. If >> they had no power which could be lost or taken they will always do what's >> best for them in the short term, which is usually to shit on the peons. >> Dictators (like Pinochet and Gates) do their dirty deeds because they feel >> no need to placate the masses. > >If they wield no real power, and proceed to do whatever is best for them >in the short term, they will be screwing themselves over in the long >term (or short term, if doing what they want results in someone shooting >them in self defense). > I re-read my original sentence and it seems that your interpretation is possible. I would like to clarify that the power I refer to is only that part of their power which might be lost or threatened. Clearly if they have no power they can't lose it. I want to say that if some or all of their power could be placed in jeopardy they would tend to better behaved. Why do you suppose Clinton spent so much time licking everybodys' boots and repeatedly embellishing his "apologies" to the "public". >And precisely what dirty deeds has Mr. Gates ever done? Excluding those >actions in which the judicious use of state regulation was involved. You obviously think that anything goes in business. Frankly Gates is a perfect example of why you anarcho-BS is doomed to failure. He will do anything (and has) he can to be the only player in every market he touches. He has destroyed otherwise perfectly good businesses and products just to increase his profits. He has violated workers rights to increase his profit. In short he has demonstrated that if you let him murder wouldn't be to far a step to reach his goals. He is the monster that proves that your ideas are actually very very old (caveman days) and are doomed by progress and civilization. Injecting capitalism (investment oriented markets) into barbarism doesn't change the fact that it is still barbarism, which in facts negates the ability to have investment oriented markets, or capitalism. Who would invest if someone with a gun could come and take it without out fear of retribution. > >> This anarcho-capitalist spew is so much crap that the bullshit indicators >> are blaring at top volume. If the people can't control a constitutional >> government, known for having peacefully free elections for over two hundred >> years, then how the hell do think you can convince somebody that the people >> are going to be able to control warlords and monopolies. It's called, "You >> don't like it? Bang, Bang, you're dead!" > >Yah, and then somebody else points a gun at Mr. would-be warlord and >goes Bang, Bang, he's dead (it's unsafe having warlords about --sorta >like scorpions). That is, if Mr. would-be manages to shoot me without >being shot himself. > And so everybody's so busy shooting each other that nobody is investing, and I have to ask, "What happened to the capitalism part of anarcho-capitalism?" >> Try to lift yourself out of the bullshit of your theory and give us at >> least one REAL example (current or historic) of a large scale, long lasting >> anarcho-capitalist society. Hippie communes are too small, and make sure >> it's capitalistic. If you can't think of one in the next year or so then >> come back and tell us. > >It hasn't happened yet. But then, neither had the USA, before 1776. >The above is not a reasonable argument. WRONG!!!! Parliaments and representative governments did exist in somewhat other forms. 1776 was NOT a revolution it was evolution. It comes from among other things the Magna Carta of England as well as many other concepts astutely compiled by the "forefathers". Your propositions emanate from a basis which existed before there were nations and well before investment and economic development began. In fact, anarchy had to be overcome before consistent development could occur. Once we organized our societies and brought long (relatively) periods of peace to the general populace economic and scientific development began to grow. Certainly you will find it impossible to site any anarchic or nearly anarchic "society" (oxymoron) which has brought sustained significant development. > >You can, of course, as me how it *could* happen. And unfortunately, >you're partially correct, it couldn't happen under current conditions. >The amount of personal firepower that is easily accessible by everyone >is not sufficient to back up the soverignity of each individual. It's >all linked to whether weapons technology is such that individuals can >operate weapons which are just as effective as those wielded by highly >trained and specialized groups. The pendulum of weapons tech. swings >back and forth over time. During the American Revolution, the pendulum >was on the side of individuals, as can be shown by the fact that the >revolutionaries were carrying better weapons than those carried by >professional soldiers, and could use them to equal or larger effect. > You whole thesis is based on violence, the exact opposite of what's required for sustained economic growth. You lose! Consistently wrong answers. You just don't get it. War does not produce wide spread economic growth in those zones affected by the war. It destroys the infrastructure that only an organized government is capable of maintaining. Granted, if you can be the one selling the weapons you might profit for a while. But eventually, those same weapons will be turned on you. The real answer is to keep the government focused on keeping the peace and maintaining the infrastructures using as light a hand as possible--which is never going to be an easy task. But no government is NO GROWTH. The libertarians have at least part of the equation correct. They go a little too far to one extreme. But this is good, they're mostly just extreme enough to pull a wondering government back into the middle where it should be. Your anarcho-spew is rubbish, poorly thought out, and without any real validation. I bet most of the most fervent defenders of gun ownership on this list actually hope never to have to make use of their tunnels, guns, and survival rations. War is simply not good economics, and anarchy is war--constant, festering, sometimes small scale, sometimes large scale, but always war. APF

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Re: Question about insurance managed fire services...
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jim Choate writes: > > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > > > Jim Choate writes: > > > > > > How does company A guarantee that company B won't begin to burn down the > > > customers of company A so that the economic impact on A is sufficient they > > > can't participate in the market? > > > > How does it do so now? > > Insurance regulatory agencies who monitor the behavior, investigation by a > reasonably impartial fire dept after every fire. That's at least two. You really are naive, Jim. Do you think that insurance regulatory agents follow around after all of the insurance companies' employees to ensure they aren't starting fires? Or do you suppose that in an anarcho-capitialistic society (unlike the current sainted `democratic' society), company A would be so stupid as to make the burning of competitors' houses an official company policy which would be found out `if only' there were a government regulator watching it? How long do you suppose that company A can get away with burning down the homes of its competitors before its agents are caught in the act (by company B's investigators if no one else)? No, Jim, such behavior would clearly not be in the best interests of company A's stockholders (that is, it would not be `profitable'). Any why, in a private contractual situation, would the `fire department' not be impartial? How does the government-provided fire department have any advantage in impartiality? > > Fucking idiot. Do you imagine that the customers of company A (and > > their police, security force or other guardian) will stand idly by > > while their homes (the implied target) are burned? > > What police and security forces? The police or security force that the customer contracts with to protect their home of course. Idiot. These exist now in cooperation with government-provided police (though some might naively imagine them to be redundant). Either you are simply being disingenuous or you really are this stupid. > You mean the ones the same insurance > company co-oped? Context, Jim, context. This makes no sense whatsoever without more context. What insurance company are you talking about? And why does an insurance company necessarily have a direct relationship with a security service provider? Or did you mean `co-opted' (a different word altogether)? > What makes you thing that Company A or B will even advertise their actions? > > Who says the homes will be burned when the residents are even home? It isn't > like anyone is going to ask their permission. Indeed. So what prevents anyone from doing this now? I suggest you pretend you had a brain and try to think this through for yourself. There simply isn't anything magical about government-provided services. (While you are doing so, it might be instructive to remember that prior to the late 18th century, there was no such thing as a government-provided police force. Yet, people were still able to have houses without insurance companies burning them down.) > And I'm the 'fucking idiot'. This you have amply and repeatedly demonstrated.

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Re: Question about insurance managed fire services... (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 15:59:32 +0100 > From: Anonymous <nobody(a)replay.com> > Subject: Re: Question about insurance managed fire services... > You really are naive, Jim. Do you think that insurance regulatory > agents follow around after all of the insurance companies' employees > to ensure they aren't starting fires? No, and exactly how you managed to derive that is truly humorous. > Or do you suppose that in an anarcho-capitialistic society (unlike > the current sainted `democratic' society), company A would be so > stupid as to make the burning of competitors' houses an official > company policy which would be found out `if only' there were a > government regulator watching it? How long do you suppose that > company A can get away with burning down the homes of its competitors Until somebody either squeels (not likely since they're dead shortly afterward or let loose and nobody will hire then from then on, not in the business' best interest.) or they do get caught and a connection is made (not very likely since the perp won't be carryin an employee badge). And since company A is the company that will be prosecuting (their own under-the-table employee) the consequences are pretty predictible. How commen is it now for business' to partake in illegal activities in order to further their business ends? How often do you suppose, given that rate, they are caught? I'd say not a lot. I see no reason to suspect that in a anarcho-whatever society that rate will be one whit better. > before its agents are caught in the act (by company B's investigators > if no one else)? Oh, they'll get caught occassionaly but then again, the strategy of forcing company B to keep investigators on call and monitoring their customers property is a good strategy to raise their cost of doing business and as a result their coverage rates. This increase will help convince user of B's service that A looks like a better bang for the buck. > No, Jim, such behavior would clearly not be in the > best interests of company A's stockholders (that is, it would not be > `profitable'). Sure it would, it decreases the cost of doing business and increases the potential market for future consumers of the services. It happens all the time now, it won't go away. > Any why, in a private contractual situation, would the `fire department' > not be impartial? How does the government-provided fire department > have any advantage in impartiality? Because their funds and income is from a known source. Ask yourself this, what happens if a police officer or a fire inspector suddenly starts driving a Porche around and moving out into the uppity neighborhoods and doesn't have a good explanation for it? > The police or security force that the customer contracts with to > protect their home of course. Idiot. These exist now in cooperation > with government-provided police (though some might naively imagine > them to be redundant). Either you are simply being disingenuous or > you really are this stupid. > > > You mean the ones the same insurance > > company co-oped? > > Context, Jim, context. This makes no sense whatsoever without more > context. What insurance company are you talking about? And why does > an insurance company necessarily have a direct relationship with a > security service provider? Or did you mean `co-opted' (a different > word altogether)? Apparently I've strained your short-term memory here, go back and read it again. Which insurance company is obvious - all of them. I'm done now, this isn't about anarcho-anything, this is about you getting your jollies off trying to take cheap shots at me personaly. Whoopie. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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ebanking - What's up with that?
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi, Anyone got a pointer other than the CNN article on the announcement by Excite Inc. and Bank One about their offering a full line of banking services online? I'd be interested in anything on the particulars of the services and he protocols they intend to impliment. Danke. ____________________________________________________________________ Lawyers ask the wrong questions when they don't want the right answers. Scully (X-Files) The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage(a)ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------

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