December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:32 PM 7/8/96 -0500, you wrote: >Tim writes about Ritalin: > >>I've been over visiting my friend to see some of this. The Ritalin-sodden >>kid arrives like a zombie. When the Ritalin wears off, he's rambunctuous, >Alex, our 8 year old son, uses Ritalin. He doesn't need Ritalin to >concentrate. He can get caught up in a building project for hours and >create a masterpiece. He can focus so thoroughly you can't pry him >loose. > >What Alex *can't* do is get comfortably through a day of grammar >school. I sympathise -- I was the same way when I was that age. I had Errrrr. Ever hear of home schooling? Seems like if your child needs drugs to go to school than perhaps school is the problem not that your child's body lacks Ritalin. Sheesh. So it happens that I was talking with a fellow Saturday who grew up on Ritalin. He's 36 now and strung out. Life with Ritalin prepared him for drugs, you know. They were natural. Like the body is made for different laboratory made molecules with dubious effects. He never got into the hard stuff (like the opiates) like the anti-drug people promised though. Also turns out that he now has a neurological disorder that is untreatable and uncurable. So now he's goes through his days in constant pain courtesy of the best childhood his wealthy Pacific Palisades Parents could buy. I wonder if there are any other Ritalin side affects that don't become prominent until 30 years later? But than someone who thinks milk is wholesome needs some lessons is nutrition, anatomy and physiology. --j

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perry(a)piermont.com (perry e. metzger) In a message dated 96-07-08 19:21:11 EDT, you write: << Human stupidity is never a surprise. Perry >> I know. Just look at your posting a private message to a newsgroup because of something thats just beyond your use. So... you can't handle it and become like a baby.. and start something so utterly pointless as this.. by writing me back to begin with. You dont like the program..or think its so trivial (which it is... big fuc*in deal ) then thats fine. EVERYONE has their opinion. Some people find a use out of it...obviously you dont. Its Ok man. Just take some prozac (or is the topic ritalin now??) and youll be A OK

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-07-08 23:10:44 EDT, perry(a)piermont.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes: << > Youd be surprised at the # of requests from people who actually had a good > use for it, and didnt have the time to spend writing it themselves. Human stupidity is never a surprise. Perry >> Just goes to show.look at the name right above. It says PERRY Didnt I say it was rude to post private email to group? Guess an arrogant very self-opinionated asshole such as yourself doesnt care.

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:34 AM 7/9/96 -0400, you wrote: > >John F. Fricker writes: >> Seems like if your child needs drugs to go to school than perhaps school is >> the problem not that your child's body lacks Ritalin. >> >> Sheesh. >> >> So it happens that I was talking with a fellow Saturday who grew up on >> Ritalin. He's 36 now and strung out. Life with Ritalin prepared him for >> drugs, you know. They were natural. Like the body is made for different >> laboratory made molecules with dubious effects. > >Yeah, you know, I bet your body doesn't get infected for lack of >penicillin, either. I suspect that taking Penicillin prepares you for >drug dependancies. Why, next, you might take insulin to deal with >diabetes, or worse! > >Thank god most of those heroin addicts never had Ritalin as kids -- you >never know how much worse off they might be now. And if they'd gotten >antibiotics, why, forget it. > >Quit from modern medicine cold turkey. Its the only way. > >Perry > Perry, you're typically vitriolic wit fails you. What's up? Lost your prescription? Snide pills spill in the toilet again?

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Secure Computing extends deal with NSA for E-mail system
by Lou Zirko 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Jul 09 00:01:32 1996 Following is an article from PC Week that some might find of interest. Also available at this URL - http://www.pcweek.com/news/0708/08escc.html Secure Computing Corp. has signed a $15 million deal with the National Security Agency to develop the agency's secure network server system for Department of Defense employees' E-mail. Officials of the St. Paul, Minn., company announced that Secure Computing will take about a year to complete the project, which will ensure security within the Defense Department E-mail system. The agreement is an extension of a deal Secure Computing first signed with the National Security Agency in 1992, according to company officials. Lou Zirko (502)383-2175 Zystems lzirko(a)c2.org "We're all bozos on this bus" - Nick Danger, Third Eye -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 iQEVAwUBMeHntstPRTNbb5z9AQEAfggAmM16zuktn2KeIsr4WNIYP69LZ1lZ4veY bqllaZfccr17NIvffqSINrxY62Xl5daVHnLcpy7y0QSMa3pksj3+FKT5X8C+GYQ6 tCOlTPO8VC0mXONXAmsZSvHEqQrHYHwJDZ9ljciXOyjajaPoElzTm3XScKLGR9p9 tac+3HIMuKmdXrVJ23Z8OmEvvKAiUqQdZtgS+FE+hwP2vzVh68Tqv+yUM5Ac6gAS i3Z5YxJ+0Ycugqa0BLyoJi1aOe2PqC6EbEzPI0LG2WNPA25MRFSDMJxWr2pulEas pBqZmzbAVSVI/JqaMU50LRKFIGb58gl+47QLFmCWqFWKlarDs6NcvA== =LbOA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: What remains to be done.
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:32 AM 7/9/96 +0100, Andy Brown wrote: >On 09 July 1996 02:04, John F. Fricker[SMTP:jfricker@vertexgroup.com] wrote: > >> One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few >> "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around >> but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source >> for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the >> Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. > >You can do this with the existing device driver kit since they supply the >entire source code to the AT hard disk driver. I took a look and decided >that it would be too much work for me alone. They also seem to suggest that >you can write "filters" that extend the capability of existing drivers. > >> So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT >> programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. > >I'm one of them, but this low level device driver stuff makes me shudder! > > >- Andy > > That's why the IFS SDK is so important. Writing device drivers is one thing and nasty at that but the IFS is higher level and exactly what is needed to create a PGPDrive that could exist on scsi, ide, tape, network drives, floppies, cd-roms, etc. A device driver implementation would be married to a particular controller type. --j

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A case for 2560 bit keys
by David F. Ogren 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Mon Jul 08 23:06:11 1996 Here is a few thoughts on RSA key sizes. There is nothing new or revolutionary herein, but I think it does provide a good case for using large RSA keysizes. Traditionally, we examine the threat model and determine the approximate ability of the attacker to factor secret keys. Then a keylength is selected that exceeds the attackers ability to factor in a reasonable amount of time. For example, if we assume that the NSA can factor any number with the speed of the special number sieve, and has 10^9 mips of computing power (doubling every 1.5 years) we can make the following estimations:_1_ Using these assumptions, the NSA could crack a 1024 bit key in ~11 days, a 1536 bit key in 10 years and a 2048 bit key in 26 years. _2_ Note that this would require the full resources of the NSA, however. Thus, even the mighty resources of the NSA could only crack 42 1024 bit keys in 1996 (including Moore's law). _3_, _4_ Similarly, a large corporation with 10^7 mips in computing power (and the same super-efficient factoring algorithm) could crack a 1024 bit key in 2 years, a 1536 bit key in 20 years, and a 2048 bit key in 36 years. My interpretation of these results: 1024 bit is probably safe for most reasonable threat models. Only individuals with extremely high threat models should be concerned about 1024 bit keys in 1996. Even those with extremely high threat models should be satisfied with 1536 bit keys. Despite the above, there are convincing arguments for longer RSA keys. Instead of asking "Why should we have longer keys?", perhaps we should be asking "Why _shouldn't_ we have longer keys?" In a hybrid cryptosystem such as PGP, very little of the computational process is consumed by RSA encryption. Only a tiny fraction of the message is RSA encrypted (the session key), and thus the time-critical operation is the symmetric crypto system (IDEA for PGP). As an experiment generate a 2047 bit PGP key and a 512 bit PGP key. Encrypt a file (preferably of a reasonable size) using both keys. Depending on the computer you are using, the time difference between the two keys will be a matter of few seconds or even a fraction of a second. And so we have to ask ourselves, why _not_ use a 2047+ bit key. It has greater longevity and greater security. Why not be overcautious when the cost is so small? It seems foolish that we use RSA keys that are less secure than our IDEA session keys. Our RSA keys are much more valuable than our session keys. I will use my RSA key to encode hundreds of messages. Each session key I will use only once. An attacker who learns one of my IDEA session keys can decrypt only that message. An attacker who learns my RSA key can decrypt any of my messages, past or present. (He can also impersonate my signature, but that's another discussion entirely.) If I send one message weekly that my attacker is interested in, and change my RSA key every two years, my RSA key is at least 104 times more valuable than any individual key. Does it not make sense that the RSA key should ideally be 104 times more difficult to crack? If increasing the RSA keylength was overly cumbersome to the process then designing the RSA keylength to meet minimum acceptable standards could be understood. But since increased RSA keylengths are cheap in terms of computing power, would it not be better to pick RSA keylengths that are more secure than the session keys? And thus, 2560 bit keys are not unreasonable. They are not significantly slower to use (most of PGP's time is spent IDEA encrypting), and yet are effectively invulnerable. By "invulnerable" I mean that any attacker capable of cracking your RSA key would have an easier time hacking your individual IDEA session keys, and would never have any need to hack the RSA key itself. And if you have threat models this severe you are a) hopelessly paranoid, b) SOL. Footnotes: _1_ These approximations of factoring difficulties and the computing resources are taken directly from Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier, page 161. _2_ Taking into account Moore's law, the amount of processing power spent during a period of time is the integral of Power * 2^(t/1.5)dt (from 0 to x) = Power * 1.5 / (ln 2) 2 ^(t/1.5) (also evaluated from 0 to x). Which is approximately equal to Power * 2.164 * (2^(x/1.5) - 1). Thus in three years a corporation starting with 10^7 mips could produce 10^7 * 2.164 * (2^(3/1.5)-1) = 6.492 * 10^7 mips-years. _3_ Any attempt to determine the computing power and cryptanalysis power of the NSA should be taken with a grain of salt. There are several very critical and arbitrary assumptions made in order to obtain these numbers. _4_ Additionally, any attempt to discern the future of cryptanalysis should also be taken with a grain of salt. Who can tell what computers will like be in ten years? - -- David F. Ogren | ogren(a)concentric.net | "A man without religion is like a fish PGP Key ID: 0x6458EB29 | without a bicycle" - ------------------------------|---------------------------------------- Don't know what PGP is? | Need my public key? It's available Send a message to me with the | by server or by sending me a message subject GETPGPINFO | with the subject GETPGPKEY -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMeHMpOSLhCBkWOspAQH4gwf+NiP184ve2W06ClO92uEfjbaHpn3l9zAz 1ckt8PE8kMxkq8etcq/NM/IZ3QuTIBbeOr4ey6dIptQafmarb7sSMAx0KGgPALp8 v6a77as2RUCaJYjjviYlXh/0OIt+c7c+w9HbVZCmgpru/VQjT7++6eAa1f4K+225 K12wEX2TXou4s8+qYVUAT3B0iesuq/Z2iBzO942+v3u7rkCHLMghYlLIXR+SP43l E15IQRez5nHkMb7VB9kL8ku/aDlXfKjURDQji8LBm+V+3i/9tcR/9+4EjKAqo1nB qnXCFBKrzWRev4bbI9tbVnTc83VWeJRXGZxlpXhzc40kov7GbrT9Bg== =B0h0 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: What remains to be done.
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 96 at 18:04, John F. Fricker wrote: [..] > One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few > "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around > but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source > for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the > Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. > > So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT > programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. Coughing up a mere $200-500 (depending on the cmpany) to write a few freeware drivers for Windows NT/95 or OS/2 is a bit much for poor hackers like myself. A GNU/FSF project should be to develop freeware DDKs for Windows or OS/2. There'd be many grateful people out there. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:10 PM 7/8/96 -0500, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Ben Holiday wrote: >> If you have access to a shell, and to the news spool, you can generate >> some quick lists by hopping into the directory of any newsgroup that >> interests you and doing: >> >> cat * | tr -cs A-Za-z '\n' | tr A-Z a-z | sort | uniq > my-big-ol-wordlist >> >> With most unixes that will generate an alphabetized list of all the unique >> words in your source text, converted to lowercase. I've had some problems >> with tr on a few machines, however. Adding a '-c' after 'uniq' will tell >> you how many times each word occured (useful for grepping out words that >> appear too infrequently, or too frequently) .. > >Actually I am fairly sure that your selection of words will be mediocre >at best. There are words (such as nethermost, insatiable, insufferable) >that are almost never used in news. If the purpose is for use with "Crack" or some similar program, it might be better than you would think. You won't get the "unusual" words, but you will also get the words in common usage that do not appear in dictionaries. (Such as fnord, jedi, killfile, and the like...) You will also get alot of proper names, which may have been used as passwords. The idea is that words in common usage may be more likely to be used as passwords. Another thing to look for when choosing dictionaries/wordlists for crack is not sticking to english. If you have a userbase that is known to have a certain percentage of people of a non-english background, you will want to find lists of words from that background. (I had a sysadmin asking me about Yiddish and Hebrew wordlists for just that reason.) These can be a bit harder. (Especially for unusual languages.) But knowing your userbase can make all the difference in what it might take to crack the passwords from the outside. --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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ACLU: NJ Alert! Personal Data Chip in DL! (fwd)
by Julian Assange 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: >From notes(a)igc.org Tue Jul 9 15:12:01 1996 Date: Mon, 08 Jul 1996 19:48:10 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: Moderator of conference "justice.polabuse" <bwitanek(a)igc.apc.org> From: Bob Witanek <bwitanek(a)igc.apc.org> Subject: ACLU: NJ Alert! Personal Data Chip in DL! To: Recipients of pol-abuse <pol-abuse(a)igc.apc.org> Message-ID: <APC&1'0'a9f989e8'c0a(a)igc.apc.org> X-Gateway: conf2mail(a)igc.apc.org Errors-To: owner-pol-abuse(a)igc.apc.org Precedence: bulk Lines: 32 Posted: sspnj(a)exit109.com *Computer Chips in Driver Licenses?* NEWARK, N.J. -- The Associated Press reported today that drivers may soon be using a new high-tech driver's license to pay tolls and do banking in New Jersey. The soon to be tested "Smart Card" will carry a data packed computer chip that will provide authorities with access to private information including fingerprints and medical records. The pilot cards will be limited to standard driver's license information. By the time the cards are issued to all New Jersey drivers in July 1997, they would also contain fingerprints and an "electronic purse" to be used to pay bus and train fares, the AP said. Civil libertarians said the new licenses raise privacy concerns. Ultimately, the AP said, the license will contain arrest records, medical records, vehicle registration, and could be used as a debit card to pay for groceries and do banking. "I think citizens should be extremely scared about loss of privacy," David Rocah of the New Jersey ACLU told AP. "They could store tax data. They could store medical data. They could store driver's records, insurance data, virtually any data in the government's possession." The ACLU also warned that the potential for misuse of the information --government surveillance or telemarketing research - - could pose potential problems. ---------------------------------------------------------------- -- "Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis, _God in the Dock_ +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+ |Julian Assange RSO | PO Box 2031 BARKER | Secret Analytic Guy Union | |proff(a)suburbia.net | VIC 3122 AUSTRALIA | finger for PGP key hash ID = | |proff(a)gnu.ai.mit.edu | FAX +61-3-98199066 | 0619737CCC143F6DEA73E27378933690 | +---------------------+--------------------+----------------------------------+

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>AwakenToMe(a)aol.com, in a profound display of stubbornness, continues >to insist that his program to enumerate all possible words of length N >(that is, aaaaa, aaaab, aaaac, etc.) is somehow interesting. I am >therefore forced to drive in the nail with a sledgehammer. Forgive me. >------Cut Here------ >/* > This could be more elegant, but the point is obviousness. >*/ >#include <stdio.h> > >int main() >{ > char i[6]; > > for (i[0] = 'a'; i[0] < 'z'; i[0]++) > for (i[1] = 'a'; i[1] < 'z'; i[1]++) > for (i[2] = 'a'; i[2] < 'z'; i[2]++) > for (i[3] = 'a'; i[3] < 'z'; i[3]++) > for (i[4] = 'a'; i[4] < 'z'; i[4]++) > printf("%s\n", i); >} >------Cut Here------ > >Perry I agree with you, but it could also be correct. Since the char array is allocated on the stack as an auto, its contents are not guaranteed. So i[5]='\0'; is needed as the first statement. And of course it will never include a 'z' because the '<' will not permit it. Replace all the '<' with '<='. Plus there is the small matter of non-ASCII character representations breaking the increments and comparisons. Oh, and don't forget that main() returns an integer. This will generate at least a warning from the compiler, since the code does not return anything. It may well return a random number or something that will be interpreted as an error code. (also less than a minute's work) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | Technology (n): | | A substitute for adulthood. stevenw(a)best.com | Popular with middle-aged men.

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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FUD-Con V: DC
by Deranged Mutant 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 8 Jul 96 at 14:10, winn(a)Infowar.Com wrote: [..] > Historically, civil defense has meant to protect citizenry against hostile > military actions. Today, with the specter of Information Warfare representing > new challenges to late-industrial and information age nation-states, the rules [..] Are these really "new" challenges? > - The Power grid is the basis of most of modern society. With it gone, > not much else happens. If you think this is just a matter of building more > generators, think again--what happens if the factories that *make* the > generators are taken down, too? You haven't lived in a hurricane prone area and lost your electricity for most of a month, have you? Many of the generators are already in place. The power grid is not centralised, so it's difficult to take down everything for a long period of time (long enough to be truly detrimental to a lot of people) quickly enough (that would require some non-informational real-life bombing and warfare). > - The Communications infrastructure: land, sea, air and satellite. 95% > military communications go over the public networks, and 100% of all financial > and industrial communications. Is it worth protecting? Is it so easy to take a whole network down? What about various radio operations (HAMs, Marineband, FM, etc.)? And don't forget automobiles and roads as last-resort communications. > - The Global Financial structure depends upon the first two > infrastructures, and is perhaps the most vulnerable to theft and denial of > service attack. 99+% of all "wealth" is digital--what happens if it vaporizes? I'm skeptical of that figure (many institutions maintain several printouts and have contingencies to do things by hand... for no other reason than computers go down without human interference). > - Transportation systems rely upon the other three. The air traffic [..] Not really. Automobiles and buses rely on very little. In major disasters there are ways to keep limited air and train traffic running. > Without all of these infrastructures properly and reliably functioning, the > private sector and the national security community cannot function. No heat, no [..] You sound as if you have not been in a place hit by natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, major floods, etc. These cause much more damange to infrastructures as well as human life than any organized action could, save for an all-out physical war. Life still manages to go on. > air conditioning, no food distribution, no light, no radio or TV, no Internet. > Are we prepared? Do we have a a crisis response for the day money as we know > it vanishes? Isn't that what FEMA is for? Do you want FEMA involved with the 'net? Or would you rather get the DoD, NSA, FBI also involved with "Emergency Management"?!? > Electronic Civil Defense will soon become a critical component of any nation's > well being while the needs of both the private sector and government converge. > The convergence of military and civilian interests that Mr. Schwartau predicted Yes... it's called key escrow. > two years ago is happening before our eyes. Defensive and commercial postures > have so intertwined as to make them indistinguishable. That still implies empowering the state rather than allowing entities (individuals and corporations) to protect themselves. I'm skeptical of much of the InfoWar hype. Yes, there are important security issues (data integrity and preservation). But these also cross over with non-info disaster preparations. I also question whether large corporations and banks have compatible interests with individuals. It seems entirely possible that measures could be taken to protect the former at the expense of the latter. It's also dangerous to give LEA's another bogeyman to use. Very dangerous. Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl(a)unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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Metered Phone
by Jerome Tan 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Does anyone have any ideas about this metered phone? I am from Philippines and heard some news that it will be existing in 1997. Quite a big problem! Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured...

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RE: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Mike Duvos Of course, no amount of reason will disuade the True Believers from embracing yet another disease model, and we shouldn't expect that it would. But I think it is clear to many people that the forced medication of children for the convenience of those who take care of them is getting a bit out of control. ........................................................................

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RE: What remains to be done.
by Andy Brown 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 09 July 1996 02:04, John F. Fricker[SMTP:jfricker@vertexgroup.com] wrote: > One of these days Microsoft will officially release NT's IFS SDK. A few > "preliminary" and incomplete copies of a 1993 beta release do float around > but for a mere $50K there's a company that will sell you the complete source > for an IFS. It's a crime that Microsoft hasn't shipped this SDK yet as the > Installable File System is one of the great powers of NT. You can do this with the existing device driver kit since they supply the entire source code to the AT hard disk driver. I took a look and decided that it would be too much work for me alone. They also seem to suggest that you can write "filters" that extend the capability of existing drivers. > So, if someone is interested in coughing up the $50K I know a couple NT > programmers just chomping at the bit to build cool IFS's like PGPDrive, etc. I'm one of them, but this low level device driver stuff makes me shudder! - Andy

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RE: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Perry E. Metzger I suppose you don't understand what it might be like for someone to be unable to do their work no matter how heavy the threat against them if they don't, and no matter how easy it is. There are people out there who can't get themselves to pay a phone bill or throw out the newspapers for months on end -- they just can't get themselves to dance around into the task no matter how hard they try, no matter how great the threat (job loss, etc) to them is. ...................................................................... Drugs create a picture of coercion - where the mind is coerced into a state arrived at not by thoughtful consideration, but by round-about ways of achieving the desired result. This is what makes some people wary of them, but make them appealing to others who find this very feature attractive - that they can get results without having to think about it. There are times when people have been totally unmotivated to take care of themselves or the mundane matters in life because they were not involved in the pursuits which were of true value to them, and life "lost its meaning". Putting one's priorities into perspective can do a lot towards feeling motivated to attend to life's minor contingencies, while elevating the lesser items to the top of the hierarchy can totally dissipitate one's energies and interest. What if someone was working at a "practical" kind of job, living the kind of life prescribed by someone else, when what they really wanted to do was something related to fine art or other field, living a different kind of "life-style"? This could be so depressing that subconsciously they would finally rebel from supporting that false existence, and find themselves with no energy to move. Maybe Ritalin could make them forgot their true interest which was lying dormant, pushed away by who-knows-what kind of arguments against it, and help them to start paying attention again to those mundane, irrelevant aspects of existence. Maybe it could help them forget the *point* of their existence and they could attend to ordinary things which are easily understood and accomplished without too much creative energy. Maybe Ritalin could help force them to pay attention, in spite of the protest from their submerged psychology. Maybe. In taking 'beneficial' drugs there's always a question of whether someone's mind is being helped into awareness or overpowered into submission, even if the results seem to be acceptable to everyone. You're right, Perry, that no one should be making that decision for others. I do think, though, that achieving self-command by a conscious knowledge of what is right for one's nature is actually the most beneficial (and less controversial). (But I wonder how this would apply to crypto. Hmmmmmmm - only in reference to those evil old men in the govmt who......might allow it to be prescribed indiscriminately.) .. Blanc

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> says: >Timothy C. May writes: >> At 1:14 PM 7/7/96, Simon Spero wrote: >> >On Sat, 6 Jul 1996, Timothy C. May wrote: >> >> >> >> When the mother (a single mother, as this is California) drops her son off >> >> with my friend (also single, of course), she includes several "Ritalin" >> >> capsules with instructions on how to dose her son with this >> >> depressant/behavior modification drug. >> > >> >Er... Tim... Ritalin is an amphetamine. >> >> Whatever. It acts as a calmant/tranquilizer/depressant on many. > >Only those who have ADD, which you claim doesn't exist. > >> (As with many drugs, there are apparently paradoxical effects. Alcohol is a >> downer for some, and upper for others.) > >Alcohol is a CNS depressant for all. Lowering inhibitions tends to >make people relax and "party", but it doesn't have particularly >paradoxical effects. > >.pm > Sorry, but that's wrong. There must be some understanding of what's actually going on. Brain is not just a simple linear device. It's complex. And that goes to Tim's original point: Society is made by humans with brains that are complex but which try to use simple models to understand reality. Let me show with your own example. Alcohol *is* a depressant. But it doesn't act equally on all the CNS. It acts faster on one part of it whose role is to depress all the rest of the CNS. So, first alcohol depresses a depressor and therefore acts as a stimulant. If you maintain your levels of alcohol there the rest of your brain will be above its threshold and keep stimulated. Only if you pass that threshold the rest of the brain will be depressed. That's what alcohol drinking cultures like mine call "knowing how to drink". But then we don't know about taking cocaine (like some centroamerican cultures do) for instance. Same happens when you take other drugs (in their own context). It's only when you simplify or make a generalization that it gets dangerous. And same goes for society. If you have a society that teachs people how to drink you'll have less problems than one that doesn't. Or that teachs how to eat coca leaves avoiding the pure drug. Or that teaches you that curare is OK eaten -as it is- but letal in the blood (which allows survival for many tribes). That's were Tim's argument comes into cypherpunkish arena. If you teach people that it is easier to calm down hyperactive people, or solve all problems by increasing mind control and surveillance you can't complain of a police state. OTOH if you can teach people were to stop (as with alcohol) and that simple models just don't work you'll be on the road to a better system. I agree there is people that can benefit from drugs. But being a MD PhD myself too, I also know that the amount that really needs them is a minuscule proportion. Most times it is just a convenience for doctors, family, fathers or society. Though good doctors agree it would be better if they could avoid the drugs at all in most cases of mental disease. Same happens with surveillance: we benefit from some control to stop those few, exceptional, deep criminals that are better stopped in advance, but we don't really need as much as we have. There are better solutions, but it's far more convenient for power-holders to increase surveillance than to really address the underlying problems. But, IMHO, as long as we keep allowing many people to use simple and "convenience" models to quickly fix symptomps instead of addressing the real problem (like, e.g. making a greater effort in the education of their children), we are stating the basis for a future, more restrictive, controlling and "convenience" system. We need both, to educate people on a more responsible course of action, and develop tools to stop or make more difficult or less convenient the easy and fast solution of increasing surveillance instead of addressing the underlying problem. And that's where cryptography comes to help equate the balance and increases presure on power-holders into worrying more by decreasing the convenience of surveillance. That is, all in my most very humble opinion. jr

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by William Knowles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On July 8th, 1996 Herr Doctor Duvos wrote: >Medicating a disease is fine. Recreational uses of relatively >harmless intoxicants and are also fine. It is the inappropriate >use of strong medicines with serious side effects by clueless >people for vague criteria like "reaching his or her potential" >that I have a problem with. I have a problem with people like Mike Duvos who think that folks like myself and others on this list with ADD use having ADD as a crutch for being fidgety, not getting their work done on time, or worst yet, Fired. I wish people like Mr. Duvos could walk a mile in my shoes before making off the cuff remarks, I wish I could get jobs done on time, I wish that I could finish one project before starting three more! My office looks like someone tossed a hand grenade in it, Proposals to the left, Job quotes to the right, jobs is various states of completion, Lost jobs to my inattentivness to my clients, Lost good clients because of having ADD and not knowing it! I wish I would have known about ADD eariler than now, I might not have been the complete fuck-up that I was in school, and worst than that, The nearly ten years after high school. One of my wishes did come true, and that was finding out that I do have ADD. Ritalin has been a godsend, I am able to dialin when I have to. Ritalin is not the only drug for treating ADD, Prozac works for some. There are times when I need the boundless energy to find time to be creative and I stop taking my meds, but its only for short periods, I remember all too well what I was like without knowing what the problem was with work, love, and life in general. Below is a list of famous people with Attention Deficit Disorders and/or Learning Disorders, and I'd be willing to bet that Perry Metzger either has, or knows someone with ADD. Albert Einstein, Galileo, Mozart, Wright Brothers, Leonardo da Vinci, Bruce Jenner, Tom Cruise, Charles Schwab, Henry Winkler, Danny Glover, Walt Disney, John Lennon, Winston Churchill, Henry Ford, Stephen Hawkings, Jules Verne, Alexander Graham Bell, Woodrow Wilson, Hans Christian Anderson,Beavis, Nelson Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Gen. George Patton, Agatha Christie, John F. Kennedy, Whoopi Goldberg, Rodin, Thomas Thoreau, David H. Murdock, Dustin Hoffman, Pete Rose, Russell White, Jason Kidd, Russell Varian, Robin Williams, Louis Pasteur, Werner von Braun, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robert Kennedy, alberto Tnmba Prince Charles, Gen. Westmoreland, Eddie Rickenbacker, Gregory Boyington, Harry Belafonte, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Steve McQueen, George C. Scott, Tom Smothers, Lindsay Wagner, George Bernard Shaw, Beethoven, Carl Lewis, Jackie Stewart, "Magic" Johnson, Weyerhauser family, Wrigley, John Corcoran. One can only wonder how much more great some of the people on this list would be today if they knew ADD back then. William Knowles erehwon(a)c2.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMeI+wgURbnwsNLz5AQHM6AP/Zln3eu50jKdhkER4Go3uBp0a4zlVUYti pW71AHLR8VydFaMM7iJFhYmv7vgFeuA1cAo27Hq1Pb8LZ/uucPRACKI8ku/XsVHh 9wdPsEKXMo0pHftnVHmuFb3dVtAA9jYKfGw3SwpktNkACQMvGHU2Z5+DkbetvSZm xrMSjCpxlvM= =ucXF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- William Knowles <erehwon(a)c2.org> PGP mail welcome & prefered / KeyID 1024/2C34BCF9 PGP Fingerprint 55 0C 78 3C C9 C4 44 DE 5A 3C B4 60 9C 00 FB BD Finger for public key --

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)piermont.com> says: Mike Duvos writes: > Perry Writes: > > > Most people would have no particular urge to stop a child with > > diabetes from taking her insulin. Your friend seems to have the sick ... ... > Since diabetes has an organic cause, this analogy with syndromes and > disorders defined solely by behavioral percentages fails. 'fraid not. ADD has an organic cause, and can be detected with reproduceable biological tests. Agreed, but the point is IMHO that not everybody that takes it do actually need it, and that it is worst for them as well as for the rest of us (indirectly). And I don't think there's any point in denying there is a strong and widespread abuse of "easy solutions" (like government mandated key scrow for instance). >Admittedly, ADD is nonfatal, and I will agree that the analogy breaks >down there. I will also agree that it may be overdiagnosed -- that is, >misdiagnosed by sloppy practitioners. That does not mean it isn't real. > That's it. Agreed again. .... >Has it occurred to you that many of the children in question are happy >being medicated, as are many adults? In any case, who are you to tell >other people what's good for them? > >Perry Wrong. Many people feel happy taking antibiotics for a cold. But it is worst for the vast majority of them. A cold is produced by viruses on which no antibiotic is effective. But they kill their natural baterial barrier, making them more prone to a serious disease. And they select AB-resistant bacteria which will spread to other innocent people later. Anyway, I'm nobody to tell them to stop killing themselves. But *I* am ENTITLED to tell them not to kill *ME* by selecting resistant microorganisms when they take antibiotics they shouldn't. For *I* will have to stand those myself later. I don't tell them what's good for them. I do tell them what's BAD for ME. As well as I tink I'm not entitled to forbid anyone to smoke, but I am to expect they not to in my presence and to respect my health if I politely ask them so. I am not entitled to say which crypto anyone has to use. But I am entitled to expect no one will force me into using one that will be worst for me in the long run. And would rather prefer if people knew what they do and the extent on which they can rely on crypto when they use it. jr

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey Perry, I think you are taking this too far. I believe that almost nobody (there are always some exceptions) will deny the existence of disease. And while Tim may not be a great doctor and even totally wrong in the case he stated, the original point was not to discuss a specific medical case. You may -or not- agree that there is abuse. You may -or not- be esceptical on the statistics. But there is no point in denying that it is far easier in most cases to fix the symptoms than actually solve the problem. Not that I say doctors do. God forbids. And from the very onset Tim explained his point in not building a mental control society. And there's no point in denying that it is far easier for most societies to have full mental control of their subjects (to which technology aids) than to fix the big social problems. If you can't see the parallel, I'd advise a visit to the doctor. Not to consult him, but to stay with her or him for a while and see what patients demand and how well educated is our society into looking deep to the problems instead of taking shortcuts. My experience as MD before I switched to computing was very illustrating. Long ago, granted, but interesting indeed. jr

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >Yeah, you know, I bet your body doesn't get infected for lack of >penicillin, either. I suspect that taking Penicillin prepares you for >drug dependancies. Why, next, you might take insulin to deal with >diabetes, or worse! > Or worse! You could take penicillin for an infection. Why the hell do you think we need doctors? And antibiotics beyond penicillin? Just because too many damn schmuck take it for almost anything, and have been creating resistences giving the rest of us worst, resisting diseases that were originally easy to treat and are now letal. >Thank god most of those heroin addicts never had Ritalin as kids -- you >never know how much worse off they might be now. And if they'd gotten >antibiotics, why, forget it. > >Quit from modern medicine cold turkey. Its the only way. > >Perry The thing to remember is always that there's a place for everything under the sun, but that one shouldn't allow it to extend beyond reasonable ground or look upon it as some magic solution to everything. There's a place for crypto. It's been OK while only a few guys used it because only a few guys needed it. But when we talk about allowing the government to impose a crypto policy that will allow them to have more power than needed, we are stating the basis for future, worst diseases. You speak of insulin. Most diabetics can just manage with a good diet. Even insulin dependant ones can make dietary excesses from time to time if they know how to. Giving those who don't need it insulin or forbidding the occasional party to those who depend on insulin -as has been done by doctor for years- is teaching people to depend on "doctor's control magic" or "drug control magic". It's as bad encouraging people who don't need a drug to take it as encouraging people to believe doctors won't make mistakes. It's as bad to let people believe that strong crypto for them will solve their problems as encouraging them to believe that they should leave all crypto control on the government's hands because they won't make mistakes or abuses. So what? We need strong crypto as we need strong antibiotics, but we also need to teach people when and how to use it, what its pros and cons are, and form people into a more conscious use of technology and not to believe in crypto- drug- or technology-magic at all. jr

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by gdunn＠sciborg.uwaterloo.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:32 96.7.9 -0700, William Knowles wrote: >Below is a list of famous people with Attention Deficit Disorders >and/or Learning Disorders, and I'd be willing to bet that Perry Metzger >either has, or knows someone with ADD. > >Albert Einstein, Galileo, Mozart, Wright Brothers, Leonardo da Vinci, >Bruce Jenner, Tom Cruise, Charles Schwab, Henry Winkler, Danny Glover, >Walt Disney, John Lennon, Winston Churchill, Henry Ford, >Stephen Hawkings, Jules Verne, Alexander Graham Bell, Woodrow Wilson, >Hans Christian Anderson,Beavis, Nelson Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, >Gen. George Patton, Agatha Christie, John F. Kennedy, Whoopi Goldberg, >Rodin, Thomas Thoreau, David H. Murdock, Dustin Hoffman, Pete Rose, >Russell White, Jason Kidd, Russell Varian, Robin Williams, Louis Pasteur, >Werner von Braun, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Robert Kennedy, alberto Tnmba >Prince Charles, Gen. Westmoreland, Eddie Rickenbacker, Gregory Boyington, >Harry Belafonte, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Steve McQueen, George C. Scott, >Tom Smothers, Lindsay Wagner, George Bernard Shaw, Beethoven, Carl Lewis, >Jackie Stewart, "Magic" Johnson, Weyerhauser family, Wrigley, John Corcoran. > >One can only wonder how much more great some of the people on this list would >be today if they knew ADD back then. > > >William Knowles >erehwon(a)c2.org OTOH, one could argue that their lack of attention to daily matters was what allowed them to be 'great' in the first place. Picture a Mozart on Ritalin. Boss - "Hey, Wolfgang, thanks for getting that presentation together so quick, it really impressed our client. And that was a really snappy jingle you wrote for the opening slide show, too ..." So, he's a 'great' worker at the office, and undoubtably undergoes nowhere near the mental stress he would off Ritalin. But I cannot, for the life of me, imagine _this_ man writing the music that the non-medicated Mozart did. So should the medication you take be decided by the area in which you want to be successful ? (or even better, vice versa: Personality engineering, here we come). Regards, Graham Dunn --- No PGP signature. Who would _want_ to impersonate me ?

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Re: Transforming variable- to fixed-length keys
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>For iteration-0, CFB (or some other feedback mode)-encrypt the passphrase from >the input buffer to the output buffer (assuming the library doesn't require >that the plaintext and ciphertext be in the same buffer) This doesn't work because the input and output buffer will almost always be of different lengths. >Questions: Are you using the previous chaining-variables/hash for each >successive chunk? No. Each chunk is a new hash with <whatever>, where <whatever> defaults to SHA1. Since (for SHA1) 64 bytes of input affect each 20 bytes of output, I don't think there's much need for chaining. I'm trying to keep the specification as simple and easy to check as possible (one of the problems with the PGP data management was that it was rather complex and hard to follow. I suspect it would be difficult to implement a compatible version going only from a written specification). >How do you pad passphrases that are smaller than the minimum input for a hash >function? The input wraps, just like the output, so for example the letter "a" would be hashed as: <length>a<length>a<length>a<length>a<length>a<length>a[...] >Hash the user's input, prepended with a 0x00. Use this for the first 0..160 >bits of key. If more than 160 bits is needed, write over the 0x00 with 0x01. >Hash again. This is much like your solution, but no wrapping. Note there is no >problem truncating hash output. That's another possibility. The only thing here is that you're only changing one byte for each pass, and I'm not sure if this is healthy. I'll see what the sci.crypt crowd (those who've survived the spamming) has to say about this - it may actually be stronger than my increment-by-one method if you're worried about related-key cryptanalysis. Peter.

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>One can only wonder how much more great some of the people on this list would >be today if they knew ADD back then. > That a fallacy. First, there's no way to know what they suffered if anything at all. Second, there's no way to know what would have happened. Third, there's what they themselves said. I know of many people who has your same signs. Hey you should see *my* office. And you should have seen it when I could devote myself to interesting things instead of XXXX(whateverI don't like) crap. Someone said about a kid not concentrating on grammar. Hell, I couldn't stand half of my professors in class, though I would perfectly listen to the same subject with other people. I don't know about you and don't pretend to tell you anything. But there are lots of cases in which the problem is *on the other side* (society, teachers, work, parents, priests, erroneous expectatives). I wonder how can we know from the external manifestations that those people were ADD and not just brilliant guys with dull teachers. As for those people you mentioned. Maybe if they had prozac they would have been perfect, quiet and compliant citizens, concentrated on what the power-that-be asked them to do. Think of Einstein happily working for Hitler, not worried about other themes (like ethical implications for instance). Thing is, it's very easy to keep everybody uniform. Easier than giving equal opportunities to less-good workers or allowing one to attempt many projects lest one succeeds and changes the stablishment! Let's make everyone into a uniform clone, and those who can't be made -say Down syndrome people- be exterminated. Let's enterprising people be forced into non-creative jobs, and if they don't like, be given drugs. Yeah! Let's monitor what everybody says, detect those guys who spend too much time at work reading cypherpunks or worrying about politics (which is not their job) and control them. Let's tap all their conversa- tions and force them to fit our idea of a uniform world of mediocre wits who just work perfectly in what we tell them and never question anything. I also wonder how those people you mentioned would have been allowed to do such great discoveries and destroy the grounds of their societies under the society we are heading to. "The World turning around the Sun? C'mon! Everybody knows it is flat and the Center of the Universe. That Galileo guy is obviously sick. Let's calm him down with some drugs so he can concentrate on Theology as it should well be"... Sorry, I think we need unfitted people, feeling unhappy about the society to make it evolve. jr

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by smith＠sctc.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:01 PM 7/8/96, John F. Fricker wrote: >Ever hear of home schooling? Home schooling has its own set of disadvantages. I've done enough teaching to respect it as a profession, especially when dealing with a small, evolving set of students. I also respect my own limitations. >Seems like if your child needs drugs to go to school than perhaps school is >the problem not that your child's body lacks Ritalin. I tend to agree, but it doesn't make the problem any easier to solve. Another alternative to Ritalin would simply be to let him struggle with school. It worked for me, I guess. >So it happens that I was talking with a fellow Saturday who grew up on >Ritalin. He's 36 now and strung out. Life with Ritalin prepared him for >drugs, you know. They were natural. I definitely see that as a risk. Without knowing how his parents and associated medical gurus (if any) were managing the drug, it's hard to tell if the situations are parallel. Life without Ritalin prepared me for a life as a coffee addict, I guess. Rick.

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stupid national security excuse again ...
by Ernest Hua 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ok. Not that I really care, at this point, who really killed Kennedy or whether there was this or that conspiracy, but I am really sick of this bull shit "national security" excuse. What kind of "national security" excuse could there be for the CIA to say whether they confirm or deny the employment of some guy (whom they could easily discredit by saying that they have nothing to do with him)? This sort of maneuvoring by (insert your favorite TLA) is just exactly why I am so against encryption regulation by the government. They can snowjob anyone just by saying "national security". Ern -------- COURT REJECTS BID FOR FACTS ON ALLEGED KENNEDY PLOTTER REUTERS SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court Monday rejected a bid to force the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to disclose whether it employed a man who claimed he was involved in the murder of President John F. Kennedy. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied an appeal by a California judge who sued to try to force the CIA to disclose information about Claude Capehart. Capehart, who died in 1989, claimed to have been a CIA agent involved in the November 1963 assassination of Kennedy in Dallas, according to the court ruling. In February 1992, David Minier, a municipal court judge in Chowchilla, California but acting as a private citizen in this case, made a Freedom of Information Act request to the CIA to say whether the agency had ever employed Capehart. Minier, 61, later asked the CIA for all records of the ''activities, assignments, actions and whereabouts of (Capehart) during the month of November 1963,'' according to the Appeals Court ruling. The CIA denied Minier's request, saying that to confirm or deny a relationship between the CIA and Capehart ``would jeopardize national security and compromise CIA sources and methods,'' the ruling said. ...

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CERT Advisory CA-96.13 - Alien/OS Vulnerability
by stevenw＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Subject: CERT Advisory CA-96.13 - Alien/OS Vulnerability From: CERT Bulletin <cert-advisory(a)cert.org> Newsgroups: comp.security.announce, rec.humor ============================================================================= CERT(sm) Advisory CA-96.13 July 4, 1996 Topic: ID4 virus, Alien/OS Vulnerability - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CERT Coordination Center has received reports of weaknesses in Alien/OS that can allow species with primitive information sciences technology to initiate denial-of-service attacks against MotherShip(tm) hosts. One report of exploitation of this bug has been received. When attempting takeover of planets inhabited by such races, a trojan horse attack is possible that permits local access to the MotherShip host, enabling the implantation of executable code with full root access to mission-critical security features of the operating system. The vulnerability exists in versions of EvilAliens' Alien/OS 34762.12.1 or later, and all versions of Microsoft's Windows/95. CERT advises against initiating further planet takeover actions until patches are available from these vendors. If planet takeover is absolutely necessary, CERT advises that affected sites apply the workarounds as specified below. As we receive additional information relating to this advisory, we will place it in ftp://info.cert.org/pub/cert_advisories/CA-96.13.README We encourage you to check our README files regularly for updates on advisories that relate to your site. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. Description Alien/OS contains a security vulnerability, which strangely enough can be exploited by a primitive race running Windows/95. Although Alien/OS has been extensively field tested over millions of years by EvilAliens, Inc., the bug was only recently discovered during a routine invasion of a backwater planet. EvilAliens notes that the operating system had never before been tested against a race with "such a kick-ass president." The vulnerability allows the insertion of executable code with root access to key security features of the operating system. In particular, such code can disable the NiftyGreenShield (tm) subsystem, allowing child processes to be terminated by unauthorized users. Additionally, Alien/OS networking protocols can provide a low-bandwidth covert timing channel to a determined attacker. II. Impact Non-privileged primitive users can cause the total destruction of your entire invasion fleet and gain unauthorized access to files. III. Solution EvilAliens has supplied a workaround and a patch, as follows: A. Workaround To prevent unauthorized insertion of executables, install a firewall to selectively vaporize incoming packets that do not contain valid aliens. Also, disable the "Java" option in Netscape. To eliminate the covert timing channel, remove untrusted hosts from routing tables. As tempting as it is, do not use target species' own satellites against them. B. Patch As root, install the "evil" package from the distribution tape. (Optionally) save a copy of the existing /usr/bin/sendmail and modify its permission to prevent misuse. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The CERT Coordination Center thanks Jeff Goldblum and Fjkxdtssss for providing information for this advisory. - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you believe that your system has been compromised, contact the CERT Coordination Center or your representative in the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). We strongly urge you to encrypt any sensitive information you send by email. The CERT Coordination Center can support a shared DES key and PGP. Contact the CERT staff for more information. Location of CERT PGP key ftp://info.cert.org/pub/CERT_PGP.key CERT Contact Information - ------------------------ Email cert(a)cert.org Phone +1 412-268-7090 (24-hour hotline) CERT personnel answer 8:30-5:00 p.m. EST (GMT-5)/EDT(GMT-4), and are on call for emergencies during other hours. Fax +1 412-268-6989 Postal address CERT Coordination Center Software Engineering Institute Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh PA 15213-3890 USA CERT publications, information about FIRST representatives, and other security-related information are available for anonymous FTP from http://www.cert.org/ ftp://info.cert.org/pub/ CERT advisories and bulletins are also posted on the USENET newsgroup comp.security.announce To be added to our mailing list for CERT advisories and bulletins, send your email address to cert-advisory-request(a)cert.org Copyright 1996 Carnegie Mellon University This material may be reproduced and distributed without permission provided it is used for noncommercial purposes and the copyright statement is included. CERT is a service mark of Carnegie Mellon University. -- Moderators accept or reject articles based solely on the criteria posted in the Frequently Asked Questions. Article content is the responsibility of the submittor. Submit articles to ahbou-sub(a)acpub.duke.edu. To write to the moderators, send mail to ahbou-mod(a)acpub.duke.edu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Steven Weller | Technology (n): | | A substitute for adulthood. stevenw(a)best.com | Popular with middle-aged men.

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by Rick Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim writes more about Ritalin: >From what I've read--and I'm no expert, having long had essentially the >_opposite_ of "attention deficit disorder," assuming it really even >exists!--most children getting Ritalin are just being sedated. Behavior >control in its purest form. While the kids stop their wandering attention >and constant physical motions, it's because they're in a mental fog, just >one step away from drooling. (The 8-year-old friend of my friend's son is >so zoned out he can't play video games well at all...until the drugs wear >off.) That's very interesting, especially the part about video games. It sounds like overdosing to me. My wife says that a Ritalin overdose can also affect your heart rate and ability to sleep. Regarding video games, we went through some elaborate assessment process before Alex ended up on Ritalin. The school people did an assessment declaring he wasn't "learning disabled" but may have ADHD. Then he saw a behavioral psychologist for a few hours of observation, yielding the diagnosis. Lastly a different psychologist measured his behavior using some computer based game/test. The actual dosage was calibrated according to his effectiveness on the game/test, which involved memory, coordination, and ability to concentrate on something fundamentally boring. The test was performed 3 times to compare his performance before and after dosage. The point of all this is that there are other ways of using Ritalin. I don't think I'd tolerate its use on Alex if I didn't trust my wife. She has a much better background in such things than I, as well as a family doctor's experience with seeing the results of drug abuse. >>BarelyObCrypto: ADD is more about lack of attention *control* than lack of >>attention itself. Hyperfocus is also a trait of ADHD, and computers tend to >>cause hyperfocus for a lot of ADDers. >BTW, I saw a comment that Bill Gates is almost certainly an ADD person...or >maybe the comment was that he is borderline autistic? This matches my own experiences with ADHD. That's the thing about the raw phenomenon and its overall lifestyle effect: you either find your niche and do OK, or you get sidelined. Rick.

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Put Uncle Sam in your Calling Circle
by Ray Arachelian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey guys, I just got a really cool poster from RSA. It's a big circle split off into several sections showing people talking to each other, the upper right hand corner shows two NSA dweebs looking like Bevis & Butthead in suits, one smoking, the other seated infront of an old 60's reel to reel audio tape recorder, a sign on the wall behind them says "Key Escrow" There are several logos for various government agencies including our friends at No Such Agency and the FBI, a small quote next to the Copyright (C) RSA notice says "One of a series of public relations posters that never made it out of Fort Mede." Very very funny! Many many thanks to the cool person(s) at RSA who sent it my way. ========================================================================== + ^ + | Ray Arachelian |FL| KAOS KERAUNOS KYBERNETOS |==/|\== \|/ |sunder(a)dorsai.org|UL|__Nothing_is_true,_all_is_permitted!_|=/\|/\= <--+-->| --------------- |CG|What part of 'Congress shall make no |=\/|\/= /|\ | Just Say "No" to|KA|law abridging the freedom of speech' |==\|/== + v + | Janet Reno & GAK|AK| do you not understand? |======= ===================http://www.dorsai.org/~sunder/========================= Key Escrow Laws are the mating calls of those who'd abuse your privacy!

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by Rick Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

erehwon(a)c2.org (William Knowles) writes: >Ritalin has been a godsend, I am able to dialin when I have to. >Ritalin is not the only drug for treating ADD, Prozac works for >some. I use coffee, or else I just managed to grow out of the worst effects. In any case, I drink more coffee than just about anyone I know, and it doesn't "wire" me at all. Rick.

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Re: stupid national security excuse again ...
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:10 AM 7/9/96 -0700, Ernest Hua wrote: >Ok. Not that I really care, at this point, who really killed Kennedy >or whether there was this or that conspiracy, but I am really sick of >this bull shit "national security" excuse. > >What kind of "national security" excuse could there be for the CIA to >say whether they confirm or deny the employment of some guy (whom they >could easily discredit by saying that they have nothing to do with >him)? It has always seemed to me that when they say "National Security" what they mean is "Job Security". Usually this involves some sort of behaviour that the government (or in-duh-viduals in it) do not want revealed, lest the scandal might drive them from their job or get them demoted. (Or their boss might demand "a peice of the action".) Sometimes it is just a relex action to a request for information. I remember such excuses being given during the Iran Contra hearings. They kept refering to "Country 1" and "Country 2", while the Pacifica commentator was in the background telling you what each country was and who most of the "unnamed players" were. The information was not unknown. It had been reported in the foriegn press already. It was known to other governments. The only people it was being kept from was the American people. Makes you wonder just who they are trying to remain secure from... --- Alan Olsen -- alano(a)teleport.com -- Contract Web Design & Instruction `finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ "We had to destroy the Internet in order to save it." - Sen. Exon "Microsoft -- Nothing but NT promises."

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Active Attacks on DC-nets
by janke＠unixg.ubc.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I haven't read the paper on active attacks yet, but here is an easy example that I thought of, that others might find illuminating: When there is a round with no messages the server sends garbage to all but one of the participants so they think collisions occured. The other participant is sent zero so that he or she thinks the channel is open. The participants who think colllisions occured are then likely to back off for a number of rounds, so that if a message is sent it is most likely from the participant who wasn't lied to. What do people think of the idea of clients signing all input to the dcnet and the server signing all output and keeping logs so that it could be verified afterward (after the damage was done! :) ) whether or not everything was carried out properly or not. With Schnorr signatures and precomputation the clients could still be reasonably quick. The server will have to do alot of work, but the signature verifications could be done in parallel on a multiprocessor computer. Verification of the proceedings would also be long, but it could be done off-line. -- Leonard Janke (pgp key id 0xF4118611)

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Re: Put Uncle Sam in your Calling Circle
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:15 AM 7/9/96 -0400, you wrote: >Hey guys, > >I just got a really cool poster from RSA. It's a big circle split off >into several sections showing people talking to each other, the upper >right hand corner shows two NSA dweebs looking like Bevis & Butthead in >suits, one smoking, the other seated infront of an old 60's reel to reel >audio tape recorder, a sign on the wall behind them says "Key Escrow" > >There are several logos for various government agencies including our >friends at No Such Agency and the FBI, a small quote next to the >Copyright (C) RSA notice says "One of a series of public relations >posters that never made it out of Fort Mede." Very very funny! > >Many many thanks to the cool person(s) at RSA who sent it my way. You got one too... I recieved one in the mail with no return address. There is another poster in that series which says "A good marketing organization listens to its customers... WE HEAR YOU!". The woman is being tapped by the same two government agents. The posters are done by Tom Tommorow, who also does a cartoon called "This Modern World" which appears far too infrequently in a number of papers and _Processed World_. Incredible political cynicysm... Thanks again to RSA for a couple of cool posters! --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by Perry E. Metzger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

blanc writes: > > I suppose you don't understand what it might be like for someone to be > > unable to do their work no matter how heavy the threat against them if > > they don't, and no matter how easy it is. There are people out there > > who can't get themselves to pay a phone bill or throw out the > > newspapers for months on end -- they just can't get themselves to > > dance around into the task no matter how hard they try, no matter how > > great the threat (job loss, etc) to them is. [...] > There are times when people have been totally unmotivated to take care > of themselves or the mundane matters in life because they were not > involved in the pursuits which were of true value to them, and life > "lost its meaning". Blanc, you really aren't listening. There are people out there who are desperately unhappy. They can't concentrate at all. They love what they do for a living, if only they could actually manage to do it four days out of five. They are not in the least scared of cleaning their homes, except for the fact that they are frightened of the fact that they can't manage to do it no matter what they try. They'd like to pay the light bill -- really -- but every time they start they get distracted, or they get distracted before they start. Sometimes they get bursts of hyperconcentration and they can work for two days straight on some project, and they end it and realize that the phone's been cut off because they completely spaced dealing with it or anything else. Sometimes they feel very pissed off because people tell them to just "apply themselves" more or "manage their time" better or "get a more motivating job". Such people aren't upset that life has lost its meaning. They are often perfectly intelligent, capable of being happy in their pursuits, and not bad individuals. They suffer, however, from an inability to keep from twitching. They ritualistically play with common objects -- rubber bands, paperclips, etc, folding and unfolding them, winding and unwinding them, etc. You can spot them -- they're the people who even as adults can be placed in a nearly empty room and will find a small object to play with. Their workspaces are littered with small fidget toys they have purloined or created. These people aren't unhappy with their jobs except for the fact that they wish they could get their work done, they sit in front of their work for hours on end, and can't get anywhere. They don't need new pursuits. Even with newere and "better" jobs, most people on earth have to occassionally maintain their attention long enough to pay their landlord or what have you. > Putting one's priorities into perspective can do a lot towards feeling > motivated to attend to life's minor contingencies, while elevating the > lesser items to the top of the hierarchy can totally dissipitate one's > energies and interest. Look, quit trying to tell people who have ADD that they are in the wrong jobs, that they are unmotivated, that they are "lazy", or whatever. Calling them "nuts" is actually far better. It at least acknowledges that there is something wrong that isn't readily fixed by the nostrums of people who have no idea whatsoever what they are going through. Perhaps, of course, we can just get all the suicidal people on earth to quit wanting to kill themselves by intoning to them "don't be sad" over and over again. I doubt it, though. > Maybe Ritalin could make them forgot their true interest which was lying > dormant, pushed away by who-knows-what kind of arguments against it, and > help them to start paying attention again to those mundane, irrelevant > aspects of existence. Or maybe, when they take it, the noise in their heads stops, the world focuses and clears up, and suddenly it doesn't seem like its so hard to finish that two paragraph status summary after all. Maybe they take it and suddenly they can function long enough to finish their resume and get another job. Maybe you should quit telling other people how to get through life when you haven't lived inside their heads. > You're right, Perry, that no one should be making that decision for > others. I do think, though, that achieving self-command by a conscious > knowledge of what is right for one's nature is actually the most > beneficial (and less controversial). Its always better to not need to use chemicals to help yourself out. However, we acknowledge in our society that when someone has an infected leg we decide that they aren't being "bad" by taking drugs to stop the infection. Perry

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:39 AM 7/9/96 -0500, Rick Smith wrote: >erehwon(a)c2.org (William Knowles) writes: > >>Ritalin has been a godsend, I am able to dialin when I have to. >>Ritalin is not the only drug for treating ADD, Prozac works for >>some. Prozac works on a different set of brain chemestry. (Prozac messes with the seretonin level of the brain and how it is reabsorbed.) There is a whole series of chemicals similar to Prozac that are prescribed. It takes a bit to determine just which one is best for the person involved. (I have far too many friends on variations of those drugs.) The reactions when they come off them is quite "interesting". Prozac is not a stimulant however. (Not in the usual concept of a stimulant.) >I use coffee, or else I just managed to grow out of the worst effects. >In any case, I drink more coffee than just about anyone I know, and it >doesn't "wire" me at all. "It is by caffiene alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that the thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffiene alone I set my mind in motion." You can build a resistance to caffiene. (As well as one hell of an addiction.) So far I am up to a gram a day of the stuff. Mix that with the Seldane-Ds I take every morning (for hay fever) and you get more than a small amount of stimulants. (I have found that the Seldane-Ds have a positive psychoactive effect as well. They seem to allow me to focus better. Probibly because I am not sneezing.) The long term effects of any stimulant is problbiy not very good. What needs to be looked at is what the long term benifits and risks are, for the individual, not just for the society. What these sorts of chemicals do to small children 10-30 years down the road is pretty unknown at this point. (If any of the things i have seen so far are any indication, they are not good.) But then, I suspect the government of drugging our kids with school lunches laced with lead paint, not with mind control drugs. (Lead paint is cheaper.) ]:> Alan Olsen Minister of Forced Caffinization - DNRC --- |"Computers are Voodoo -- You just have to know where to stick the pins."| |"The moral PGP Diffie taught Zimmermann unites all| Disclaimer: | | mankind free in one-key-steganography-privacy!" | Ignore the man | |`finger -l alano(a)teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key | behind the keyboard.| | http://www.teleport.com/~alano/ | alano(a)teleport.com |

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Re: Word lists for passphrases
by camcc＠abraxis.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:20 PM 7/8/96 -0400, you wrote: :Human stupidity is never a surprise. : :Perry Perry is a significant factor I include when I decide every day whether or not to check my cypherpunk's mail. I'm glad I did today. What a hoot! Alec

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Re: Style gettting in the way of clear reporting
by Ecgwulf 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: tcmay(a)got.net, cypherpunks(a)toad.com Date: Tue Jul 09 10:37:11 1996 In a reply to James A. Donald, Tim May wrote: > . . . You are probably right that journalism is becoming more florid as > "amateurs" flood the market. However, I don't quite buy the > concentration argument, as things were pretty concentrated in the > Hearst era, and the explosion of magazines in the past few decades has > not been as concentrated. I wonder what golden age of journalism these guys have in mind. Journalism is garbage and it always has been. After all, it is what connects you with your culture. It's a dirty job. > I still think of "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Economist," two of > my favorites, as being _careful_ in their reporting (careful is > different from unbiased). But my main focus in this thread was on the > _styles_, and this I think is more explained by faddishness. A couple of more fully fascist rags would be hard to find. Misinformation, disinformation and total lack of substance -- it's all style. The L.A. Times is a close runner-up with its one hundred year history of self interest, red-baiting of organized labor and political "enemies" broken only by a few periods of acting as a propaganda mill and inspiring a few race riots. Take a look at the masthead of, say, a 1943 edition. > Yes, and many of the newsletters we're seeing--as many are cc:ed or > forwarded to our list--are the kissing cousins of "zines." Same faux > style, same emphasis on "flash" over substance. Does 'faux style' mean 'fucked style'? If so, then kissing is appropriate. There are multiple issues of relevance: 1. The coding and decoding of messages in apparent plaintext. 2. Assumptions about the authenticity of sources and motives in message creation. 3. The separation of form and content in written language which I suggest cannot be separated. 4. The apparent political center of gravity of message subscribers. Let's say, this mailing list for instance. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a Charset: cp850 iQB1AwUBMeKYyj/g5HTtoLA5AQFBNQMA3F/njYiTvcRCkqrLqnD0Tqa3RIQoozYl LtNc82V+8Wkl1b2dgXFas4SjuNoSeB/hq1UwdgJz97GIOH3VvEMeYayFVHnD1IKi /W+7lVIJ+62bypryoTP+eQH7hVARztLB =Gnrt -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Offshore Information Services is Back after Bertha
by Vincent Cate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hurricane Bertha hit Anguilla just perfectly to do the most damage. Just north of the storm the counterclockwise spin and westward movements add for maximum destructive power, and we were just north of it. Don't know of any people or houses that were hurt, but a bunch of power and phone lines have been damaged. We lost power, ran for about 10 hours on battery, and then shut down. But about 24 hours later we are back online to stay. We are temporarily located in the Cable and Wireless building in town. Thanks Cable and Wireless! And thanks to everyone for your patience, Vince Cate Offshore Information Services Ltd Anguilla, Eastern Caribbean http://online.offshore.com.ai/

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:47 AM 7/9/96, JR(a)ns.cnb.uam.es wrote: >Hey Perry, > > I think you are taking this too far. I believe that almost nobody >(there are always some exceptions) will deny the existence of disease. And >while Tim may not be a great doctor and even totally wrong in the case he >stated, the original point was not to discuss a specific medical case. Indeed. In reading the comments here, it seems that some are setting up a straw man series of arguments, and then knocking them down: -- "Tim says Attention Deficit Disorder does not exist." -- "Tim says Ritalin does not work." -- "Tim claims to know better than doctors." -- "Tim is against using aspirin, penicillin, and other drugs." -- "Tim wishes to interfere with the choices of others." And so on. In actuality, I have made *none* of these points. Instead, what I recounted was a telling anecdote about the over-medication--in my opinion of course, based on direct observation--of the child of a friend of mine. And my larger point was the _hypocrisy_ issue, that we tell our children to "Just say No! to drugs" while popping pills in their mouths. We are teaching children to "self-medicate." Whether these children continue to self-medicate later in life is unknown. As to choice, I am not interfering in any way, despite a strange claim to the contrary. My friend simply refuses to be a pill dispenser to keep a kid "controllable," especially when he has seen the kid in an "unmedicated" state and finds him much more personable, happy, and eminently controllable. The mother, Vickie, simply cannot impose discipline on him and, in our opinion, uses his Ritalin dose to control him. Quibbling about whether Ritalin is or is not a depressant, or a stimulant, or whatever, misses the main points. I personally never got into the drug thing, and my only drugs of choice are caffeine (taken straight, in caffeine tablets) and alcohol (preferably in the form of bourbon or Kentucky sour mash). But if I were advising a child--my own, or others--I would never lie to them about how horrible all drugs are, and especially I would challenge "D.A.R.E." programs which use school time to brainwash them. I sometimes wear a t-shirt I bought over the Net: "D.A.R.E. I turned in my parents and all I got was this lousy t-shirt." (Explanation for non-U.S. persons: "D.A.R.E." stands for "Drug Abuse Resistance Education," a multi-week school program which brings in local law enforcement officers to explain the evils of all drugs and which teaches children how to contact school officials, local law enforcement, and Child Protective Services should they detect drugs in their homes. This part has been very controversial, as children turn in their parents for smoking pot. Even the schools and cops realized things had gotten out of hand when children were contacting the authorities for wine-drinking and other such legal drug consumptions. Not surprisingly, civil libertarians draw parallels with the case of Pavel Morozov, the "Young Hero" of the Soviet Union who turned in his parents to Stalin's secret police. Hence the message of the t-shirt.) Personally, I think these issues are related to Cypherpunk themes. Telling children to "Just say No! to drugs" without providing nuanced interpretations of which specific drugs are dangerous, and why, is esentially lying to them. Dosing them with uppers and downers contradicts the simplistic message. And teaching them to narc out their parents is despicable. Anyone for "C.A.R.E."? Crypto Abuse Resistance Education. "So, boys and girls, be sure to tell your teacher if you see your Dad or your Mom using any illegal computer codes. It's for their own good, and they'll thank you for helping them to be reeducated." > And from the very onset Tim explained his point in not building >a mental control society. And there's no point in denying that it is far >easier for most societies to have full mental control of their subjects >(to which technology aids) than to fix the big social problems. Indeed. My original points seem to be have gotten distorted by others. (And you ought to see a couple of foaming-at-the-mouth personal messages I have gotten, including one from a woman "on lithium" (no, not any of the few regular women posters here). Hey, if "lithium" works, fine. But I wouldn't pop lithium pills in a child's mouth without some real careful consideration.) My point about the mother I mentioned is that she _appears_ to be using Ritalin to make her child more sedate and more controllable, when my friend finds that old-fashioned methods work quite well. And my friend has no plans to be the dispenser of uppers and/or downers to his son's friends. Children on drugs will have to find their methods of delivery. And to all those on this list who assume I am "insulting" their ADD condition, go back and reread my post. I never claimed that ADD does or does not exist. Maybe it does. Maybe it is partly exaggerated. In any case, my point was that we cannot tell children that all drugs are evil and then give them mind-altering drugs. And believe me, most children are bright enough to eventually see the hypocrisy. (I should stop now, but I just have to mention the LSD scares of the mid-60s. As LSD hit the mainstream media, we were bombarded by stories of how people thought they could fly out of buildings while on LSD. One famous case, that of Art Linkletter (the Oprah Winfrey of his day). His daughter, he claimed, flew out of a building while on LSD. Many years later he admitted--as I recall--that she had long been suffering from major depression, and that it was most probably a standard suicide...tragic, but not really caused by LSD. In any case, people in the 60s heard these scare stories, saw the reality of how their friends behaved on acid, and realized they'd been fed a line of scare-mongering hype. The dangers of crying "Wolf!" falsely. This process was repeated a decade or so later with the media propagating tales of people on "angel dust" (PCP) putting babies in microwave ovens and committing suicide in horrific ways. True or not, for whatever twisted reasons, these cases were used to "manufacture consent" about the dangers of PCP. And then there were the "crack babies," which more recent analysis shows largely to be a myth. And so on. The Four Horsemen are riding high.) --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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MIT harassed over publication of PGP book
by Hal Abelson 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The following message is written on my own behalf; it is not an official statement of MIT. Over the past few weeks, MIT has been negotiating a research framework agreement with Sandia Labs. A framework agreement does not fund any particular piece of research. Rather it establishes policies and procedures under which future research will be funded and carried out. This saves MIT and Sandia the trouble of working out a separate agreement for each new contract. We have several such agreements in place with various organizations. Sandia has also set up agreements with universities in the past, and is currently setting then up with several more universities, including MIT. In the current round of negotiations, Sandia is requesting to add language to the agreement, giving them right of prior review over any publications arising from their sponsored research at MIT, in order that Sandia can review these for possible violation of US export control regulations. When our contract people queried this, they were put in touch with Bruce Winchell, a Sandia lawyer. Winchell told them that the State Department had "made it clear" to DOE that the Department was very concerned that "MIT did not have procedures in place to monitor the dissemination of material that is subject to export controls." Winchell went on to say that a recent MIT publication by "a Philip Zimmermann" came very close to violating export control laws. As far as we know, Sandia has not been discussing such a clause with other universities with which it is negotiating contracts. I assume that Mr. Winchell's comment above refers to the publication of the PGP source code book by MIT Press. Before publishing the PGP book, the Press wrote the State Department, informing them of our intent to publish the PGP book and giving them the opportunity to let us know if they thought this would raise an export control problem. We never received a response. Since publication, MIT has never (to my knowledge) heard from State that they had any objection to the PGP publication. Now, we learn of a back channel communication from State to DOE to Sandia, which has prompted Sandia to want to act as a policeman for MIT vis a vis export controls. This is troubling for what it says about how the State Department is dealing with export issues surrounding information about cryptography, and about the extent to which policies are being administered in a clear and above-board manner. Hal Abelson Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng. MIT -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBMeNIKviGKLV9Y6XFAQFeRwP6ArPEyMTY3IgfuAQGcCCfmbuc5D/505N/ +x/9hhVZOIv33sEummQ5UtJeSAyH9gLg0GMOxKCpQOqsBsed5YAO9xVRjIW3dXfQ Xgo975qFHHmlRA3cxa5EZFg7Q/39V3QVKlCrcZ8jyYW9ECgNJtbMSvcvaO3Qzgom lgo4OB6g7eo= =QABK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by mike＠fionn.lbl.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Jul 9, 9:21am, Rick Smith wrote: > >Seems like if your child needs drugs to go to school than perhaps school is > >the problem not that your child's body lacks Ritalin. One thing we need to remember is that life, not just school, is full of boring, repetitive tasks, even for the hi & mity. You have to figure out how to do them. This is one very difficult *lifetime* problem for those with add-like behaviors. Also, add people need credentials & good jobs like everyone else, so they have to be able to perform well enuf in school to get good recs & good marks in subjects that interest them. They didn't make this system, but they do have to adapt to it somewhat.

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Re: [RANT] Giving Mind Control Drugs to Children
by JR＠ns.cnb.uam.es 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I bet you go up to people in near suicidal states and tell them "hey, >get a life", don't you. > Sorry, Perry, but that's a cultural matter. Here we consider one has right over his/her own life up to decide to suicide. And so it is not ilegal here. What that reflects is that I respect their right to dispose of their lifes. I do care though, and if I can help I'll do my best. That's why I studied Medicine in the first place. Just as I try to convince people to learn, increase their political awareness, overcome their limitations and get better. That's why I defend defensive use of crypto against technological mind-control. I still won't force anyone into using this or that algorithm or taking this or that drug. As long as they have a free will. Then comes disease, when one is not able to decide by him/herself. If I were to make a blood transfusion to someone refusing it on religious grounds I wouldn't be much different from the gov't imposing some crypto scheme on the basis of its own moral grounds. Is it that what you are proposing? It would be quiet another thing if I saved the life of someone who can't tell me at all his/her religious beliefs. Not to say I wouldn't 'cos I'd. But I don't think goverments can say we are not able to express our preferences, do they? In short, I may think otherwise and try to convince people not to suicide, even do my best. But in the end it's their choice. Just the same I believe the gov't can try to convince us, but it should be in the end our choice to chose how we live (or what crypto we use). So, are you saying that to avoide the society collapsing by terrorism and go to its suicide we should give the government total control? jr

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[Poster] Add Uncle Sam to Your Circle of Friends and Family
by Michael Froomkin 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.rsa.com/rsa/gallery/circle1.gif A. Michael Froomkin | +1 (305) 284-4285; +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) Associate Professor of Law | U. Miami School of Law | froomkin(a)law.miami.edu P.O. Box 248087 | http://www.law.miami.edu/~froomkin Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA | It's hot here. And humid. PLUS: Bertha Watch

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Contracts, Responsibilities, and Drug-Dispensing
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There have been some statements here that "Tim is interfering in the choices of others." In particular, Perry has been saying I am a hypocrite, that I wish to interfere with the choices of others, and so and so forth. Let's make something clear: -- I have no "contract" to supply drugs to anyone, nor does the friend I have been discussing, who makes a choice _not_ to dose the friends of his son who are in his house. -- This "contractarian" analysis should be important to any libertarian or believer in civil rights. -- If someone makes a contract, formal or informal (with some caveats), to supply a dose of drugs, alcohol, whatever, at some specified time, then this is fine. But if no contract exists, not supplying the drugs is not interference in choice. (Is, for a example, a Mormon interfering in the rights of a friend by refusing to supply a drink to a visiting friend? Am I interfering in the choice of others by refusing to allow cigarette smoking in my home? Examples like this are easy to find.) -- If someone claims there is an _implied_ contract in this case, this falls apart after the first "refusal" to supply the dose. That is, Vickie, the mother, is well aware that my friend is returning the Ritalins to her unused, in the kid's backpack. That she continues to send the kid over, absent the drug dose she would have preferred her son to be given, means she has effectively made a choice that maybe the Ritalin dose is not so important after all (or at least that my friend is able to "control" and "handle" the kid without the drug...maybe this is giving her some second thoughts about dosing the kid into compliance even on the weekends?). [A cynic might suggest she is letting the alleged violations of her son's rights "pile up" so she can bring a lawsuit and get some of his money! :-}] So, I reject the straw man arguments that I am interfering with the "rights" of others. My house, my rules. My friend's house, his rules. And one of his rules is that he refuses to become a pill dispenser for mind-altering drugs. Vickie can accept these rules, or not. Her choice. (And part of this, as perhaps I did not make clear enough, is that he doesn't like the idea of his _own_ son seeing his Dad dispensing mind-control drugs to make a kid more compliant and passive. He is obviously well within his rights to refuse to be a drug supplier. His house, his rules. Would this apply if the visiting kid needed an injection of insulin? Maybe, maybe not. It would depend. Speaking for myself, I would refuse to supply injections of insulin to a child--I'd tell the mother or father to not expect me to administer medical treatments beyond simple things like aspirins or band-aids on cuts and scrapes. My house, my rules.) It's always useful in discussing "rights," as Perry is doing, in terms of contracts and agreements. To paraphrase Lysander Spooner, I can't find my name or the name of my friend on any contract about supplying drugs to visiting children. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Rep. Sonny Bono speaks at NPC on online copyright
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 15:07:41 -0500 To: fight-censorship+(a)andrew.cmu.edu From: declan(a)well.com (Declan McCullagh) Subject: Rep. Sonny Bono speaks at NPC on online copyright I just got back from hearing Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Calif) speak at the National Press Club this afternoon. The topic was "Intellectual Property" -- timely enough since Bono sits on the House subcommittee considering the online copyright bill (HR2441) I've railed against in the past. As a former member of the entertainment industry, he's a stauch supporter of that ill-advised legislation, which is opposed by the Digital Future Coalition. Given the topic of his speech, I kinda expected him to talk about, well, maybe intellectual property. I was wrong. He spent most of an hour rambling incoherently about his life ("I had to lug beef to get started in the music business") and how he really wasn't a politican after all. Not to put too fine a point on it, he's a bit of a dimwit. (Someone sitting at my table told me that a recent Washingtonian mag dubbed him the dumbest member of Congress.) Bono is one of the few politians that could make Bob Dole sound intelligent and eloquent. I brought a friend along to the banquet. (Since I'm a member of the NPC -- actually the first cyber-journalist to be admitted to the club -- I can bring one guest.) She slipped me a note halfway through: "He is honest. If he were smarter, and honest, probably no one would listen to him." She's right. Bono did seem honest. He was truly convinced, in some kind of inchoate way, that intellectual property piracy online was really a problem. So he supports this wretched legislation without grokking what it would do to the Net. Unfortunately, the question I submitted ("What are the major concerns the entertainment industry has regarding copyright and the Net?") didn't get asked, so instead we were treated to hearing Bono talk about Cher. "I hope she doesn't put on any more tattoos." And if he'd sing a song for the audience: "I've got you babe!" *sigh* -Declan

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Re: Metered Phone
by eli+＠gs160.sp.cs.cmu.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <+cmu.andrew.internet.cypherpunks+wlsUPSm00UfAA10MIt(a)andrew.cmu.edu>, Jerome once again writes: >Every dial will be counted, every seconds will be measured... Every gratuitous repost will be *penalized*...

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