December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

No Subject
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 5 Sep 96 at 14:31, Anonymous wrote: > This can lead into a long argument about just _when_ violence is > initiated, where opinion is more important than fact, but IMO: Agreed, if you live in a world of fantassy.... > Mr. Bell, if he follows through on his scheme, *will* be initiating > violence. You urge us not to get into the argument about "just_when_violence is initiated" and proceed to state the "Mr. Bell... ...*will* be initiating violence". What is that english word? Dogmatic? Nahhh, there must be a more precise one. Please help me here... > There are two roads to take in life, convincing and coercing > others. Looters of all persuasions have always counted on that and it worked for them for thousands of years. > I worry that abuse of the very young and weak (for > now) anonymity system for the purpose of initiating, rather than > exposing, violence will lead to more government violence than we > already have. You could worry all you want, but your only way to assess wether or not it will happens is not through your feelings but trhough the use of your rational mind. Stop "feeling" and start thinking. > Perhaps I am wrong and there is no hope; but if so, > that means another revolution. Revolutions are very romantic > sounding, to those who have not been in a war. I suppose that this refers to AP. If so, go RTFM because you conclusions and the workings of AP are not compatible. AP would not lead to a war, per se. Neither a civil war. > I urge everyone to > read "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" by Jeffrey Rogers > Hummel for a look at what our last revolution got us (hint: it was > *not* less government). I urge you to have a look at what is at the root of the growth of govt. It is not things but ideas, basic premises about life and the interaction between individuals. Ultimately, basic premises about the nature of Man is what brought us more govt. To understand govt excess, you've got to understand what is into the brain of the govt peoples. jfa "One of theses centuries, the brutes, private or public, who believe that they can rule their betters by force, will learn the lesson of what happens when brute force encounters mind and force." - Ragnar Danneskjold :) Jean-Francois Avon DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultants physicists, technologists and engineers. PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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DC lock and key, from HotWired
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.hotwired.com/muckraker/ Muckraker By Brock Meeks More DC Lock and Key The Clinton administration will unveil new encryption legislation, dubbed the Key Recovery Initiative, as early as 9 September, Muckraker has learned. The bill's title is an exercise in Orwellian redirection - nothing more than an attempt to make the threadbare "key escrow" encryption concept, which was spawned via the infamous Clipper Chip, more vanilla-sounding. The Key Recovery Initiative is political hardball, calculated to split an industry currently reluctant to bow to pressure from the FBI and the National Security Agency to voluntarily adopt the key escrow encryption scheme. In making its pitch, the White House is "offering some sweetheart deals to a number of companies," says an industry source familiar with the administration proposal. Those "sweetheart deals" involve relaxing export controls on encryption software only for certain industries - finance, insurance, and health care, industry sources say. Such a move essentially leaves companies such as Netscape isolated. It's a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. In return for relaxing the export controls, the White House will ask companies in the targeted industries to provide concrete assurances that they will endorse a government-devised system of "key recovery encryption" in which the decoding keys to any scrambled data are turned over to a "trusted third party." Those third parties, of course, must first be verified and approved by the government via as yet undefined criteria. The decoding keys made available under this plan would be accessible to any law enforcement agency that could prove to a judge that it needed them to carry out an investigation. If that ambiguous level of "proof" can be provided, your keys are handed over without debate or recourse on your part. The administration's legislation will propose a "framework" based on "a global key management infrastructure," according to a little-publicized statement released by the White House on 12 July. A spokesperson from the vice president's office confirmed that the legislation will be drawn from this outline. The bill is an attempt to forge alliances with US trading partners so that data can be accessed and decoded across international borders. The legislation's blueprint includes: - Liberalizing export controls for encryption products dealing with financial, insurance, and health-care data. - A standards-setting procedure for "key recovery systems and products" that will be "eligible for general export licenses," and standards for products that the government will buy. - Transfer of export control oversight from the State Department, which currently maintains that encryption technology is a "munition," to the Commerce Department. [...]

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Re: Whistleblowing on the Internet
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com" "Bill Stewart" 3-SEP-1996 06:43:40.27 I would note that most unions are mostly run by populists of various varieties, who are generally against individual liberties - whether liberal or conservative populist doesn't make any real difference in the long run. To me, Pat Buchannan and Adolf Hitler look rather similar. >While some unions are clearly run by and for thugs, some employers have >also hired thugs to attack union organizers, and both unions and employers >have convinced government thugs to attack their opponents, though unions >generally have convinced governments to write laws with fines attached, >while employers have often had actual Federal troops shooting union strikers, >and have had police refrain from defending strikers from attack. I object to union members getting beaten up for union membership, striking, etcetera, just as much as I object to members of any other non-governmental organization being beaten activity. But there's a difference between the right not to get beaten up and someone claiming that union membership - still less not working - isn't a perfectly legitimate reason for firing someone. The state should not be interfering in this matter, in either direction. >In a free market, there wouldn't be laws requiring or forbidding union >membership, and some unions would prosper by providing good service to their >members and to the employers that hire them, while others wouldn't. Quite.... but unions that survive under a free market will look a _lot_ different from today's unions. -Allen

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Re: Reputations
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

gregburk(a)netcom.com (Greg Burk) writes: > mccoy(a)communities.com (Jim McCoy) writes: > > Greg Burk writes: [...] > > Go read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (a good book to read anyway :) > > and examine the nature of the computer network "discussion groups" he talks > > about: a classic example of reputation markets in many-to-many discussions. [...] > I have read it, a long time ago. Frankly, it's a spectacularly bad > example. He writes of the two child-protagonists gaining reputations as > great philosophers on a sort of Usenet. (At the time I believe OSC was a > member of Delphi, UNCLEORSON) > > Look around on the real Usenet. OSC could not have been more wrong. If you look closer you would probably be surprised to see things starting to move in this direction. As the number of participants has grown the "noise" in most newsgroups has grown to an unmanageable level. Now most newsreaders allow you to score authors or article threads so that you can keep individual reputation and interest files. I am actually an anomoly at my company, a collection of very net-savvy people, because I actually still participate in a few newsgroups; most of the interesting net discussions now take place on mailing lists which allow further reputation filtering (most mail agents have better and more flexible filters than news agents) and most bleeding-edge traffic happens in private mailing lists where one cannot even participate unless they have already established their reputation. If these lists were gatewayed to read-only newsgroups you would have what Card was talking about. > > > As an "asset", it is extremely non-liquid: > > > > > > How exactly would you "convert" your reputation into other capital? > > > Would you accept bribes and tell lies? Seems to me you would only get a > > > one-shot "conversion" and it couldn't possibly hope to equal your > > > investment. > > > > Tell that to Walter Cronkite, Siskel & Ebert, Moody's and others who have > > converted reputation capital into large piles of money [...] > > You don't seem to realize you are actually including at least one major > example of a counterfeit reputation here. > > I speak of Siskel & Ebert, whom I have caught at least once giving a > strikingly dishonest review. I had seen the movie (See You In The > Morning) on opening day, before they reviewed it. It stunk. No, this is just an example of how reputations are not global values, each reputation is modified by the perspective of the user. _You_ disagreed with the review and have probably used your experience to weight the values of future reviews by those particular reviewers. This is why there are hundreds of different sources of reviews for movies, people weight the recommendation given by the reviewer with > Conclusion: They knew it stunk, but for some reason I won't speculate on > they wanted to say they liked it so they misreported it, and covered > their butts with a review that would look mixed later but sound like a > rave now. I see a counterfeit reputation. Incorrect. One thought it was a good film and the other disagreed. You did not find it to be a good film and have since modified your weighting of the Siskel & Ebert reputation value to reflect this. It is highly improbable that there were any behind-the-scenes machinations between the movie backers and the reviewers: such a person has a value which is directly proportional to being viewed as impartial and once they have established a reputation the value in maintaining the reputation outweighs the value a potential briber could gain by trying to influence the review (nothing will drop the reputation faster than getting caught cheating, and a single reviewer does not have enough influence on the public to impact a films box office returns enough to make the bribe worthwhile.) It is more likely that you just disagreed with the review and you have since learned your lesson and now seek multiple review sources or else switched to a different source for movie review information (dropping your personal weighting of Siskel & Ebert down below other sources.) > > No, I think that you just don't understand the mechanics of reputations and > > how they interact with the most important resource in most people's lives: > > time. > > I'm tempted to tit-for-tat, but I will not refute your points by telling > you you just don't understand. I guess I could have been more diplomatic, but it seems that you just do not understand that reputations are not a global value, rather they are a weighted value which is modified over time as the user seeks to determine a balance of raters and reviewers which most closely represents their particular viewpoints, interests, and experiences. There is no one single reputation which a given person has, all reputations are dependant upon the source of the reputation and the context in which that particular reputation is used. > > time. Instead of thinking of "reputation" look at it from the other end and > > consider the "attention marketplace." > > Fine, but resolving good vs counterfeit reputations takes time too. *Sigh* There is no such thing as a "counterfeit" reputation. When someone joins a network with a particular set of interests they will start off by finding a reputation service(s) which they think, though various channels ranging from advertisement to word of mouth, closely matches their interests and views. This is the only time that outright deception can influence a person and it is also the point at which deception is least profitable (because the deceiver will be easily revealed once the user compares the reputations with what they expect to see and because most new users will choose multiple services to perform comparison shopping.) There may even be reputation services which rate other reputation services to let people know how the service compares to its stated viewpoints and advertisements. A reputation service gains income by establishing a long-term replationship with the customer, so it is in the services interests to maintain credibility with its users. If they do not then that reputation service will have a negative weighting depending on what the user is interested in, so the problem of correct vs. incorrect reputations will itself be handled by reputation services. An individual will have multiple reputations depending on which service is providing the reputation and the context in which the reputation is being used. "Tim May" may have a relatively high reputation in most services on cryptography and crypto-anarchy issues but this reputation will not apply to football predictions or articles posted to soc.culture.swedish. Someone may try to burn a reputation to pass off a false statement as truth, but this is as unlikely to work as it is for Peter Jennings to tell all of his viewers that this afternoon Bill Clinton appointed me his senior domestic policy advisor; people now have a wide variety of news and information sources to use for comparing the veracity of the statement, getting caught diminishes his reputation and this has a monetary value to him, and because his audience is larger due to his increased reputation there is a greater chance that others will investigate the matter and so his chance of getting caught is higher. > > Right now reputation markets have a > > limited presence on the internet (mostly through killfiles) because the > > tools required are not integreated into the tools used to browse the > > information. In time this will change. > > How? I ask for something more specific than In The Future Everything > Will Be Done Right. Version 0.1 (coming to a news server near you by the end of the year) will take the form of a service whereby you can subscribe to a usenet filtering service which will present your newsreader with a database of articles which have already been filtered by the reputation service to remove off-topic and "me too" posts (or perhaps based upon other filtering criteria.) The agency making this service possible will also sell to individuals or groups the ability to start their own service on this news host and perform whatever filtering they want, this will also include adaptive filters (if I can ever get the little bastards to use an internal weighting function which does not converge too quickly) which will attempt to learn the general weighting criteria are so that the people running reputation filtering need only update the filters occasionally and not score each and every posting. The hard part, and the part which is slowly gaining enough momentum to make this possible, is the integration of cryptographic signatures into messages so that one can determine the authenticity of a message and thereby assign a reputation value to a real identity instead of an easily forgeable email address. jim

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Edited Edupage, 5 Sep 1996
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"educom(a)educom.unc.edu" 5-SEP-1996 22:55:23.70 >************************************************************ >Edupage, 5 September 1996. Edupage, a summary of news about information >technology, is provided three times a week as a service by Educom, >a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of leading colleges and universities >seeking to transform education through the use of information technology. >************************************************************ [...] >AOL BLOCKS JUNK MAIL SITES >America Online is blocking all electronic mail sent from five Internet sites >that have been used to send hundreds of thousands of unsolicited messages to >AOL customers. In turn, Cyber Promotions Inc., which is associated with >three of the sites, has accused America Online of hypocrisy for "censoring" >commercial messages sent from other sites but allowing AOL itself to sponsor >commercial promotions. AOL dismisses the charge as an "apples and oranges >comparison." (New York Times 5 Sep 96 C2) There's been a court suit to stop AOL from doing so, which appears to have gotten a temporary injunction to that effect... I'll forward the details. >CHINA SCREENS OUT "SPIRITUAL POLLUTION" ON THE NET >The Beijing government has begun blocking as many as 100 Internet sites that >offer material the government deems unsuitable for its citizens -- including >dissident viewpoints from Hong Kong and Taiwan, sites sponsored by U.S. >major media organizations such as CNN and the Washington Post, and sexually >explicit sites such as Playboy and Penthouse. An official described the >blocked sites as suspected purveyors of "spiritual pollution." (Wall Street >Journal 5 Sep 96 B12) Hmm... funny similarity between Chinese objections of "spiritual pollution" and ASEAN objections of "cultural" problems, isn't there? [...] >Edupage is written by John Gehl <gehl(a)educom.edu> & Suzanne Douglas ><douglas(a)educom.edu>. Voice: 404-371-1853, Fax: 404-371-8057. >Technical support is provided by Information Technology Services at the >University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. >************************************************************ >Edupage ... is what you've just finished reading. To subscribe to Edupage: >send mail to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu with the message: subscribe edupage >Roy Lichtenstein (if your name is Roy Lichtenstein; otherwise, substitute >your own name). ... To cancel, send a message to: listproc(a)educom.unc.edu >with the message: unsubscribe edupage. (If you have subscription problems, >send mail to manager(a)educom.unc.edu.)

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Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I wouldn't personally use AOL in any event, but their use of their computers is their business. I do have some doubts as to whether AOL subscribers necessarily signed on for this - as noted on the list-managers list, a consent arrangement would thus be preferable. The other argument of the Cyber Promotions jerks is nonsense - how does AOL blocking affect the rest of the Internet? -Allen >PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (Sep 6, 1996 12:23 p.m. EDT) -- A federal judge has = >ordered America Online to stop blocking up to 1.8 million "junk" e-mail = >files flooding subscribers' electronic mailboxes daily from a = >Philadelphia marketing firm. [...] >Pending a trial tentatively scheduled for Nov. 12, U.S. District Judge = >Charles R. Weiner ordered AOL Thursday to lift the block on Cyber = >Promotions' mailings. Weiner is presiding over a suit Cyber Promotions = >Inc. filed accusing AOL of trying to drive it out of business. >Cyber Promotions controls three of the five sites blocked by AOL. The = >others -- one that distributes software to create bulk e-mail lists and = >one that had sent out ads for Internet video porn -- were not affected = >by Weiner's order. >AOL attorney David Phillips said the company was considering an appeal. = >He said AOL customers had been "complaining vociferously about Cyber = >Promotions' junk mail." >Sanford A. Wallace, the president of Cyber Promotions, was pleased about = >the decision. >"We feel that America Online has violated the civil rights of their = >members and has violated our rights to send e-mail through the Internet, = >which AOL does not own," he said. >Although unsolicited mail sent through the post office in the United = >States is not considered illegal, the rules have yet to be defined in = >cyberspace. The larger services -- AOL, Prodigy and Compuserve -- all = >have policies forbidding mass junk mailings

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Indeed. It appears the Unabomber has taken away the privelege of >dropping stamped mail weighing over 16ozs into street-side mailboxes. >One is now instructed to take these packages to a post-office mail >clerk for mailing. So switch to Fedex. The P.O. gives lousy service anyway. Privitize. DCF

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Re: Doing away with govt. people
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:13 PM 9/6/96 -0700, Dale Thorn wrote: >Gee, if we could just prosecute "the govt." under auspices of the >"three strikes" legislation: > >Gehlen Deal MK/ULTRA >"That 'Bay of Pigs' thing" ZR/RIFLE >Watergate MH/CHAOS >Iran/Contra Phoenix Program >BCCI/BNL COINTELPRO >INSLAW Waco, etc. You've probably heard of the "RICO statute," or "Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations" law. It's both criminal and civil: You're supposed to be able to bring a RICO lawsuit against an organization and get triple damages. Maybe somebody should try it and name the federal government as defendant...There's certainly plenty of evidence. >Just say "Three strikes and you're (what?)" "Dead," preferably. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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More identification laws
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"rre(a)weber.ucsd.edu" 2-SEP-1996 22:33:17.31 [The new welfare bill in the US has profound privacy implications and will require major new identification systems and databases. See the article on the front page of today's (9/2/96) New York Times for some details. (There's a bunch of useful Internet stuff in the business section too.) This issue of the Privacy Forum, which I've abridged and rearranged, includes three items on Social Security Numbers and another on fingerscanning. This is really it: pressures for universal identifiers are growing exponentially from a hundred directions as we speak. I wish I knew how to communicate the magnitude of it. If half the stuff currently being launched in this area really happens then the world is going to be completely different a year from now -- give it two if the system development projects choke as per usual on their overambition. I hope you're not sick of this topic, because you'll be hearing lots more about it this autumn. Educate, agitate, organize. Please. Speaking of which, I've also enclosed a note about a Privacy International web page on national identification cards.] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). Send any replies to the original author, listed in the From: field below. You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use the "redirect" command. For information on RRE, including instructions for (un)subscribing, send an empty message to rre-help(a)weber.ucsd.edu =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Date: Sun, 1 Sep 96 18:14 PDT From: privacy(a)vortex.com (PRIVACY Forum) Subject: PRIVACY Forum Digest V05 #16 PRIVACY Forum Digest Sunday, 1 September 1996 Volume 05 : Issue 16 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 10:51:45 -0700 (PDT) From: jd(a)scn.org (Janeane Dubuar) Subject: NCSL ALERT: Driver's Licenses and Birth Certificates This alert came by mail from the National Conference of State Legislatures in Washington, D.C. I added an update which includes the names of House-Senate conferees. The federal immigration bill (H.R. 2202) is expected to emerge from conference committee some time during the first week of September. Now is the time to act. TOWARD A NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION CARD AND MORE RED TAPE: CONGRESS MANDATES CHANGES TO DRIVER'S LICENSES AND BIRTH CERTIFICATES On May 2, 1996, the U.S. Senate passed S. 1664 (now called H.R. 2202 - Senate version), a bill to reform illegal immigration, that proposes monumental changes to all driver's licenses and birth certificates (section 118). These changes will force most U.S. citizens to obtain and pay for new driver's licenses and birth certificates; compromise each citizen's right to privacy; violate state and local control over driver's licenses and birth certificates; and invite discrimination against minorities. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the federal driver's license mandate alone will shift up to $20 million in costs to states and localities. The House also passed an immigration bill, H.R. 2202. The House bill does not contain the driver's license and birth certificate mandates. Both House and Senate immigration staff are currently reconciling the two bills in an informal conference committee. Phone calls to House and Senate Leadership are urgently needed to demand that the driver's license and birth certificate mandates be deleted from the final bill. What Does the Senate Version of H.R. 2202 Require? 1. Driver's Licenses - State driver's licenses and identification cards MUST CONTAIN THE APPLICANT'S SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER. The federal government will also create new federal standards for the application process and design of all driver's licenses and ID cards. States that currently retain and verify an applicant's social security number but do not place the number on the cards are initially exempt from the social security number mandate. According to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, of the 38 states that do not require the social security number to be on their driver's licenses, only Massachusetts would qualify for this exemption; all other states would be required to place social security numbers on driver's licenses and ID cards. All states are required to conform to the other federal standards. States with cycles of renewal longer than six years must start October 1, 2006. After October 1, 2006, NO ONE may use a driver's license or ID card for identification purposes that does not meet these federal standards. 2. Birth Certificates - All birth certificates must be printed on federally-approved safety paper and be certified by the issuing agency. The federal government will also issue additional provisions requiring other security features in the future. Starting in 1999 (three years after the bill's enactment), birth certificates that do not meet these federal standards cannot be accepted by any federal agency or by any state or local agency that issues driver's licenses or ID cards. Who Needs a New Driver's License? Anyone who wants to use their driver's license as a valid form of identification after October 1, 2006. If you need to use a driver's license to vote, to apply for a passport, to qualify for a federal school loan, license, contract or public assistance program or to meet any other federal, state or local requirement you will need a new driver's license. Will I Have to Put My Social Security Number on My Driver's License? Yes. While most states currently give applicants the option of not using this number on their driver's license or prohibit its use outright, the new federal requirements will force almost every American to put their social security number on their license or ID card. Many citizens are concerned by laws that increase the circulation of their social security number. The social security number is a key which provides access to vital personal information, which could be misused if it fell into the wrong hands. Others believe that proposals making driver's licenses uniform, including social security numbers, are a significant step toward a national ID card. Finally, many minorities contend that they will be disproportionately affected by the new requirements because they will be asked to show their documents more often than other Americans. Who Needs a New Birth Certificate? Anyone who wants to use their birth certificate as a valid form of identification after October 1, 1999. If you need to use your birth certificate to establish citizenship, apply for or renew a driver's license, passport or other identification documents, obtain a marriage license, register to vote, change your name, or many other purposes you will need a new certificate. No matter how old you are, if you need to use your birth certificate it must conform to the new federal standards, otherwise it is invalid. Fees will almost certainly be charged for new birth certificates to pay for the new federal requirements. This will impose a significant hardship on elderly and low-income Americans. THE DRIVER'S LICENSE AND BIRTH CERTIFICATE MANDATES IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BILL H.R. 2202 (Senate) WILL... ...INCREASE SOCIAL SECURTY NUMBER FRAUD. H.R. 2202 (Senate version) will require the vast majority of automobile drivers in the U.S. to put their social security numbers on their driver's licenses. In the future, whenever someone shows their driver's license they will also be exposing their social security number. With the social security number accessible to so many people, it will be relatively easy for someone to fraudulently use your social security number to assume your identity and gain access to your bank account, credit services, utility billing information, driving history, and other sources of personal information. This new federal law will compound and exacerbate a disturbing trend reported by banks and credit card companies that social security number-related fraud is already on the rise. ...INVADE PRIVACY AND THREATEN CIVIL LIBERTIES. According to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, when social security numbers were first issued in 1936, the federal government assured the public that use of the numbers would be limited to social security programs. The driver's license and ID card provisions in H.R. 2202 (Senate version) violate this promise, and will dramatically increase the circulation of the social security number and its use as a national identifier. Now more corporations, creditors, insurance companies, government officials and others will be able to get easier access to vast amounts of personal information that can be used to support marketing schemes, determine insurance and loan eligibility, gain an advantage in a lawsuit, etc. ...PREEMPT STATE LAWS AND SHIFT COSTS TO STATES AND LOCALITIES. According to the Automobile Association of America, 38 states do not require drivers to put their social security numbers on their driver's licenses. Legislation has been introduced in a number of states (including Mississippi and Hawaii) that require social security numbers on their driver's licenses to take the numbers off the card because of fraud and privacy problems. The new federal law would require all but Massachusetts to change their laws, taking this option away from the majority of the nation's drivers and limiting state authority to decide whether this policy is appropriate for their residents. The bill also gives the federal government wide latitude to develop new and more costly requirements for state driver's licenses, ID cards and birth certificates in the future. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the new unfunded federal mandates in the law will shift up to $20 million in costs to states and force states and localities to increase fees for birth certificates to pay for new federal requirements. ...LEAD TO A NATIONAL ID CARD THAT DISCRIMINATES AGAINST MINORITIES. By requiring states to tie the social security number to state-issued identification documents, the proposal marks a dramatic shift toward using the number as an identifier. Today's mandate that the states follow federal requirements in their identification documents will lead to tomorrow's mandate: that the federal government issue the identification documents itself to ensure uniformity and reliability. Make no mistake: this provision is a key building block for national identification documents, and the national ID card. If such an ID card is mandated, Latinos, Asians, and other Americans who "look foreign" or speak with an accent will be expected to produce this document far more often than other Americans, especially if they live in border areas. Increasing discrimination against our own citizens is no way to deal with the problem of illegal immigration. ...TANGLE CITIZENS IN GOVERNMENT RED TAPE. The federal bill requires any citizen that needs to use their birth certificate for official identification to get a reissued birth certificate from their place of birth by October 1999. Senior citizens that intend to apply for Medicare will need to obtain a new birth certificate. Couples engaged to be married will need new birth certificates for a marriage license and to change their names. Professionals traveling internationally for business or families going on vacation overseas will need new birth certificates to obtain passports. With millions of citizens requesting new birth certificates, lines and waits for federally-approved birth certificates will be long. All recipients will be charged a fee for their new birth certificates. ------------------------------- UPDATE: To study the full text of the Senate's version of H.R. 2202, go to http://thomas.loc.gov and look up S.1664, section 118. Write or call conferees and your own member of the House. As of Thursday, 8/29/96, 4:30 pm EDT, Senate conferees on the immigration bill were: Feinstein, Dianne - California Grassley, Chuck - Iowa Hatch, Orrin - Utah Kennedy, Edward - Massachusetts Kohl, Herb - Wisconsin Kyl, Jon - Arizona Leahy, Patrick - Vermont Simon, Paul - Illinois Simpson, Alan - Wyoming Specter, Arlen - Pennsylvania Thurmond, Strom - South Carolina Likely House conferees include: Becerra, Xavier - California (30) Berman, Howard - California (26) Bono, Sonny - California (44) Bryant, Ed - Tennessee (7) Bryant, John - Texas (5) Conyers, John, Jr. - Michigan (14) Frank, Barney - Massachusetts (4) Gallegly, Elton - California (23) Goodlatte, Bob - Virginia (6) Hyde, Henry - Illinois (6) McCollum, Bill - Florida (8) Smith, Lamar - Texas (21) Please do not wait to contact House conferees. The conference report could be issued within as little as 24 hours of their final selection. To be most effective, letters should be postmarked by Saturday, August 31st, or faxed early the following week. Members' offices also may be reached by phone through the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121. Thanks for your help. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 16 Aug 96 15:24 EST From: Robert Ellis Smith <0005101719(a)mcimail.com> Subject: Alternatives to Social Security Numbers [ From Risks-Forum Digest; Volume 18 : Issue 35 -- MODERATOR ] Last spring, I asked readers of RISKS for suggestions on alternatives to Social Security numbers in organizations with large data bases of information about individuals. Many such organizations find they do not need to use SSNs, and avoid privacy problems associated with using them. For a copy of all of the responses, send a request to us and specify whether you want hard copy or electronic edition of our August issue, and provide postal address or e-mail address. Robert Ellis Smith, Publisher, Privacy Journal newsletter, Providence, RI, 401/274-7861, e-mail 5101719(a)mcimail.com. Excerpts from the suggestions follow: * FROM WASHINGTON, D.C.: Maryland uses Soundex (of name and birth date concatenated [linked in a chain]) both for driver and vehicle registrations. * FROM CAMBRIDGE, MASS.: "Against Universal Health-Care Identifiers" in the JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL INFORMATICS ASSOCIATION 1:316-319, 1994, by Dr. Peter Szolovits of MIT and Dr. Isaac Kohane of Children's Hospital in Boston, discusses a number of ways in which cryptography- based health care identifiers can be used to preserve privacy while remaining manageable for typical medical purposes. This is publication #49 (in Postscript format) at http://medg.lcs.mit.edu/people/psz/publications.html. * FROM YARDLEY, PA.: One way is to use a simple scheme like three letters from last name, the first initial, and some digits; another is just to use sequential numbers. Another is an MD5 hash of the full-name string [a one-way mathematical function as a stand-in for the name that makes translation back to the original name impossible]. This is always unique for a unique string, so you might need to add some numbers. * FROM MADISON, WISC.: When I was working on the development of the Wisconsin Student Data Handbook - we tried to develop what we called an "SSN surrogate," also of nine bytes per individual. It involved an algorithm which combined year, month, and date of birth with sex and two consonants each extracted from the first and middle names. * FROM CYBERSPACE: I worked with a banking software company that set up employee records simply by exact hire date and time. Since they never hired anyone at exactly the same time, it gave each person a unique number. You could do the same for any data base in which records are added gradually one at a time - just number them based on exact date and time added. * FROM PALO ALTO, CAL.: At Stanford University we made a decision long ago not to use SSN for identification except where required by law (payroll taxes, for example). We use a unique Stanford University ID (SUID), which is a lifetime number and applies to all students, alumni, faculty, staff, and patients. It serves all the same purposes that the SSN would do if it were used. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 24 Aug 1996 00:25:15 -0400 From: Monty Solomon <monty(a)roscom.COM> Subject: SSN and Welfare Legislation Excerpt from EPIC Alert 3.15 ======================================================================= [3] Welfare Legislation Signed by Clinton ======================================================================= On August 22, President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. The bill includes a number of sections that expand the use of the Social Security Number and create new databases of personal information. The bill requires that states obtain individuals' Social Security Numbers for many state documents. It provides that on "any application for a professional license, commercial driver's license, occupational license, or marriage license [the SSN] be recorded on the application." The new bill also creates a national database of every employee in the United States. States are also required to create databases of "new hires." The state databases would be uploaded to a federal registry and the Social Security Administration would verify the SSNs. The Commissioner of Social Security is required to develop "a prototype of a counterfeit-resistant social security card" made of tamper proof materials for proving citizenship, and to issue a report on the cost of issuing a new card to all citizens over a three, five or ten year period. More information on the welfare bill, the Social Security Number, and efforts to expand its use is available at: http://www.epic.org/privacy/ssn/ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1996 10:34:03 -0700 (PDT) From: jd(a)scn.org (Janeane Dubuar) Subject: fingerprinting by banks SEATTLE WEEKLY Copyright 1996 - used with permission July 24,1996 - "Quick and Dirty" column by Eric Scigliano Thumbprint, retinal or body-odor scan, sir? If you think those "Go to Jail" charity slumber parties are a scream, you may get a kick out of cashing checks after September 11. That's when US Bank will start requiring that non-customers cashing its checks consent to be finger--or, rather, thumb--printed. Other local banks are expected to join US Bank on the new security frontier in September, and at least one, Seafirst, plans to start taking thumbprints next year in step with its California parent, Bank America. The thumbprinting scheme is being pushed by the Washington Bankers Association, which wants all its members to take the plunge together. As Dan Doyle, regional manager over US Bank's Western Washington branches, notes, "I'm not sure any one bank wants to be the one to step out and do it--it probably sounds cold, hard, and not very customer-friendly." Indeed. "But it's really to protect customers." That protection is supposed to come from deterrence. Very few, if any, check forgers actually get caught via thumbprints in those states (most notably Texas, Nevada, and Arizona) whose banks already take them. Tellers can't (yet, anyway) check the prints for known forgers; the prints will merely be saved (on the checks themselves) for investigation in the event of a bounce. But Bruce Koppe, the Bankers Association's executive director, reports that bogus-check losses have declined by 40 percent in those states. Doyle says US Bank has charted 45 percent reductions in states where it's tried the system, and fewer than 1 percent of those asked decline to give prints. Some retailers, and reportedly at least one local credit union, are already taking prints on checks. Customers can at least be reassured that they won't have to bear the telltale black stains of traditional fingerprinting; the new "inkless" printing leaves no visible mark on the skin. Still, fingerprinting is, in the words of American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist Jerry Sheehan, "the archetypal metaphor of criminality, along with the mug shot and lineup." Some tellers are already grumbling at the prospect of having to do it. The banks take heart that they won't be demanding prints of their current customers. But the ill will may still come around to bite them; those are all potential customers they stand to infuriate, and account-holders may not like the idea of their checks being valid only when backed by thumbprints. And thumbprinting may be just the nose under the tent. That mixed bodily metaphor suits the brave new world of "biometric" identification in which we will, very soon, find ourselves. Down in Olympia, a working group of the joint Legislative Transportation Committee is considering what kind of biometric and/or computer technology to adopt in upcoming "smart" driver's licenses; its findings are due in December, preparatory to the next legislative session. Possibilities include a bar code or magnetic strip; a store scrutinizing your check or a cop writing a ticket could scan your full digitalized profile. All the drivers' license data that now fills a state warehouse could be consolidated in a single data base. And all those sci-fi and privacy-protectionist warnings about personal bar codes and instant snooping will come true. Transportation Committee staffer Jennifer Joly says that fingerprinting is still the most common form of biometric ID. But more exotic techniques are coming in: hand geometry scans, retinal scans, iris scans, computerized facial recognition, and (I am not making this up) body odor measurement. It seems unlikely that those who take IDs will stop at thumbprinting checks. Joly reports that bankers, retailers, and law-enforcement groups have joined in a coalition to weigh in on the new drivers' licenses. "We'll be pushing for legislation imposing severe restrictions" on fingerprinting, the ACLU's Sheehan vows. And they'll "continue to resist these pressures to create uniform identification papers from a document intended for driver's certification." [...] July 31, 1996 - "Quick and Dirty" column by Eric Scigliano [...] They want to know it all If you feel queasy about being fingerprinted by a bank, imagine how tellers feel about all the information they're supposed to disclose. US Bank asks employees to fill out an "extortion readiness card" listing all their cars (by number and "markings") and neighbors, the names, schools, and daily routes and schedules of their children, and any meetings they themselves regularly attend. US Bancorp spokeswoman Mary Ruble says taking such data is a longtime standard banking practice done for the employees' "own safety," to protect them in "hostage situations" and to help authorities "follow up if a claim of kidnapping is made." She adds that US Bank has never encountered such a situation, but believes other banks have. The cards are kept confidential in a central office, and filling them out is "voluntary for employees." But one bank worker who objected recalls being told to fill out the card anyway, and got the feeling, despite the explanation, that the intent was really to guard against crimes by, rather than against, employees. "The extortion readiness card has nothing to do with embezzlement," says Ruble. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Internet PRIVACY Forum is a moderated digest for the discussion and analysis of issues relating to the general topic of privacy (both personal and collective) in the "information age" of the 1990's and beyond. The moderator will choose submissions for inclusion based on their relevance and content. Submissions will not be routinely acknowledged. All submissions should be addressed to "privacy(a)vortex.com" and must have RELEVANT "Subject:" lines; submissions without appropriate and relevant "Subject:" lines may be ignored. Excessive "signatures" on submissions are subject to editing. Subscriptions are by an automatic "listserv" system; for subscription information, please send a message consisting of the word "help" (quotes not included) in the BODY of a message to: "privacy-request(a)vortex.com". Mailing list problems should be reported to "list-maint(a)vortex.com". All messages included in this digest represent the views of their individual authors and all messages submitted must be appropriate to be distributable without limitations. The PRIVACY Forum archive, including all issues of the digest and all related materials, is available via anonymous FTP from site "ftp.vortex.com", in the "/privacy" directory. Use the FTP login "ftp" or "anonymous", and enter your e-mail address as the password. The typical "README" and "INDEX" files are available to guide you through the files available for FTP access. PRIVACY Forum materials may also be obtained automatically via e-mail through the listserv system. Please follow the instructions above for getting the listserv "help" information, which includes details regarding the "index" and "get" listserv commands, which are used to access the PRIVACY Forum archive. All PRIVACY Forum materials are available through the Internet Gopher system via a gopher server on site "gopher.vortex.com". Access to PRIVACY Forum materials is also available through the Internet World Wide Web (WWW) via the Vortex Technology WWW server at the URL: "http://www.vortex.com"; full keyword searching of all PRIVACY Forum files is available via WWW access. ------------------------------ End of PRIVACY Forum Digest 05.16 ************************ Date: 2 Sep 1996 13:52:18 -0500 From: "Dave Banisar" <banisar(a)epic.org> To: "Interested People" <interest(a)epic.org> Subject: National ID Card Web Pages EXTENSIVE NATIONAL ID CARD WEB SITE IS NOW ON LINE The London-based human rights watchdog Privacy International (PI) has just opened an extensive web page on National ID cards. The initiative comes in the wake of pending efforts in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom to implement national ID card systems. The page contains a 7,000 word FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on all aspects of ID cards and their implications. Also included in the PI documents is a paper describing successful campaigns opposing to ID cards in Australia and other countries. The page also has links to numerous other sites and documents. PI Director Simon Davies said he hoped the page would help promote debate about the cards, "ID cards are often introduced without serious discussion or consultation. The implications are profound, and countries planning to introduce them should proceed with caution." "The existence of a card challenges important precepts of individual rights and privacy. At a symbolic and a functional level, ID cards are often an unnecessary and potentially dangerous white elephant. They are promoted by way of fear-mongering and false patriotism, and are implemented with scant regard for serious investigation of the consequences." he said. The URL is : http://www.privacy.org/pi/activities/idcard/ PI has also set up an auto response function for the FAQ document. Its address is: idcardfaq(a)mail.privacy.org Privacy International is an international human rights group concerned with privacy and surveillance issues. It is based in London, UK. For further information contact the Privacy International Washington Office at +1.202.544.9240 or email pi(a)privacy.org. PI's web page is available at: http://www.privacy.org/pi/ _________________________________________________________________________ Subject: National ID Card Web Pages _________________________________________________________________________ David Banisar (Banisar(a)privacy.org) * 202-544-9240 (tel) Privacy International Washington Office * 202-547-5482 (fax) 666 Pennsylvania Ave, SE, Suite 301 * HTTP://www.privacy.org/pi/ Washington, DC 20003

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Re: German Government censors dutch site www.xs4all.nl
by tank 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded: a letter by Felipe Rodriquez, Managing Director XS4ALL Hello, This is an email I just wrote to Michael Schneider, the guy that adviced German Internetproviders to censor www.xs4all.nl and www.serve.com. He will probably forward the text to the German Public Prosecutor General, who should also read it. I try to make them understand that censoring is not very effective on the Net, and that they should stop it right now. At the same time I threathen to sue both of them for free-speech infringement and damages. We'll see what happens. Censoring the Net is _the way_ to make bestsellers, when will the governments understand ? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello Michael, > http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm > > It now contains a digest of the complete occasion including parts of the > letters I wrote to the Public Prosecutor General. I read it yesterday. Thanks. > I would appreciate, if you portray the activities of ICTF entirely and > exactly. I consistently state that the German providers where forced to censor by the Public Prosecutor. This is also what people understand from the press-releases we sent. Evenso the entire www.xs4all.nl website is blocked, with 3100 pages, in order to censor 1 single homepage. Regardless who is responsible for the censor-actions, it is an outrage that 3100 xs4all customers are censored by Germany. Without a single phonecall, fax, email or letter to Xs4all internet or the user that placed the Radikal pages on our website. If there are pages that are not accepted by Germany, then Germany can always confront us, or the website owner, in a Dutch court of law. It may interest you to know about some developments: There are a number of mirrors for the Radikal site. All sorts of people have spontaneously started to copy the websites to their own system: http://burn.ucsd.edu/%7Eats/RADIKAL/ http://www.jca.or.jp/~taratta/mirror/radikal/ http://www.serve.com/~spg/ http://huizen.dds.nl/~radikal http://www.canucksoup.net/radikal/index.html http://www.ecn.org/radikal http://www.well.com/~declan/mirrors/ http://www.connix.com/~harry/radikal/index.htm http://www.ganesa.com/radikal/ http://www.denhaag.org/~radikal There are more mirrors than just these, but i did not get the entire list. According to the German General Prosecutors opinion these sites would also need to be blocked. Expect the list of mirrors to grow, and expect to be forced to block that growing list of sites on the Net. Realize that a lot of internetusers consider it a sport to redistribute censored information. The way to write a bestseller on the Net is to have it censored by some government. It has the opposite effect. The entire issue 154 of Radikal has been posted in German newsgroup by anonymous users. German users can still use remote (non-german) proxy-servers to access all the Radikal information on Internet. People have posted information about these remote proxyservers in German newsgroups. Xs4all uses rotating IP-numbers for its services. The IP-numbers of certain sites and services are changed every couple of hours. A static ip-filter would certainly not be enough to block www.xs4all.nl. We have asked our parliament and department of Foreign Affairs to help us fight this blunt German censorship. We have also asked the EFF, CPSR and EPIC for advice, and to spread our press-release. A fax was also sent to CNN, Wired, and other press-services. We have discussed starting legal procedures against Germany and the ICTF with our lawyer. If any political and diplomatic actions fail to stop this act of blunt censorship, then we will most probably start litigation against the German government and the ICTF, for damages and violation of the European right on free-speech. It is clear that censoring 3100 pages, to prevent one of them from being published, is an infringement of European free-speech legislation. We have adviced the provider behind www.serve.com, that is also censored, to engage in the same kind of procedures. Please inform the German Public Prosecutor General that the censoring actions have been ineffective, and that Radikal is now on many different websites and is being distributed widely on the entire Internet. Continuing to block this growing list of sites would be an impossible task, what happens if Germany demands to block AOL, EFF, Compuserve, Prodigy, The Well, Netcom and Demon Internet next week ? Providers would be forced to block large part of Internet. I don't think that's what anyone would like to happen. Kind regards, Felipe Rodriquez -- Felipe Rodriquez - XS4ALL Internet - finger felipe(a)xs4all.nl for http://xs4all.nl/~felipe/ - Managing Director - pub pgp-key 1024/A07C02F9

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Job for netescrow ? (was Secure anonymouse server protocol...
by peter.allan＠aeat.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In the talk about replyable nym-mailers I haven't yet seen netescrow mentioned. You DID all read this ? > Oblivious Key Escrow > Matt Blaze AT&T Research > mab(a)research.att.com > 12 June 1996 > > Abstract > We propose a simple scheme, based on secret-sharing over large-scale > networks, for assuring recoverability of sensitive archived data e.g., > cryptographic keys. In our model any one can request a copy of the > archived data but it is very difficult to keep the existence of a > request secret or to subvert the access policy of the data owner. This all hinges on a policy to be followed by archive holders defining the conditions under which they release their shares. This could be receipt of a signed request from the owner (remailer). Maybe the table relating nyms to reply addresses could be stored in netescrow style so that captured remailers reveal nothing. The problem of operator coercion is not addressed by this. Police investigations might apply "angry mob cryptanalysis" to find a sender - convincing a sizable number of operators that a crime had been committed with some particular piece of traffic. Anybody want to estimate traffic + storage requirements ? Or number of participants needed for a viable scheme ? -- Peter Allan peter.allan(a)aeat.co.uk

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Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About: 6 Sep 96 at 18:04, E. Allen Smith wrote: > list-managers list, a consent arrangement would thus be preferable. The > other argument of the Cyber Promotions jerks is nonsense - how does AOL > blocking affect the rest of the Internet? It's affecting the rights of these fine spammers, Cyber Promotions. That affects spammers everywhere. More rules by our government affects all of us. > >PHILADELPHIA, Pa. (Sep 6, 1996 12:23 p.m. EDT) -- A federal judge has = <<<<SNIP>>>>> > >"We feel that America Online has violated the civil rights of their = > >members and has violated our rights to send e-mail through the Internet, = > >which AOL does not own," he said. > > >Although unsolicited mail sent through the post office in the United = > >States is not considered illegal, the rules have yet to be defined in = > >cyberspace. That's the real point I have always made. No rules and we should not want rules. Why are we INVITING the government into OUR internet??? Just cause we have to read spam? That is just plain stupid!!! Just cause we have to read spam, oh well, let the government come on in. Do we let the government into our bedrooms because our wife says no to sex tonight or because we don't like to make our beds?? Everyone on this list seems to want to limit government intervention EXCEPT when it comes to spam, then every one just holds the door open wide and let them in. If they get that inch, they WILL take the whole 9 YARDS!!!!!! Get a clue, delete or killfile those who spam and keep the government out of cyberspace!!!!!! By the way, I get about 2 or 3 spams a day in my mailbox and it is not killing me! Don't get the wrong idea, I don't like it. I like the government WAY LESS!!!!! =========== Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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Re: Race Bit: C
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On 6 Sep 96 at 10:50, jim bell wrote: > Since red liquid running in the streets is generally so reviled, one > of the things which mystifies me is why there aren't more > simulation-type programs used to test out hypotheticals, for example > a "SimEconomy." For example, you'll occasionally hear about a > media news organization gathering a dozen or so volunteers in a > room, and asking them to solve a problem like "The Budget Deficit" > or some such. The result of their interplay is generally used to > explain why these problems are hard to solve. Why do you suppose that solving the problem they created is their goal? On a more fundamental level, why do you assume the their goal is to improve life at all? Ask yourself if this is what they truly want. jfa Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultant physicists, technologists and engineers PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by Jean-Francois Avon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A maybe usefull program would be a little tsr that constantly overwrite unused sectors of the entire drive with random patterns (maybe seeded with a fast keyboard interval timer). Like at the very moment I am writing this, my HD has been idle for several minutes... One more of my silly ideas JFA Jean-Francois Avon, Montreal QC Canada DePompadour, Societe d'Importation Ltee Limoges porcelain, silverware and crystal JFA Technologies, R&D consultant physicists, technologists and engineers PGP keys at: http://w3.citenet.net/users/jf_avon ID# C58ADD0D : 529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891

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Re: PRESS RELEASE: GERMANY CENSORS DUTCH WEBSITE WWW.XS4ALL.NL
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>A Modest Proposal: > >* as Germany is bent on blocking sites which carry this subversive >pamphlet, "Radikal," let us mirror it on thousands of sites around the >world. > >* when the Germans went into Danmark and insisted Jews wear badges, >ordinary citizens (and the Danish Royal Family, as I recall) also took to >wearing these Star of David badges. Add this plug to signatures and web pages: ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Lebt und lest radikal! http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Then, your messages are "promoting a terrorist organization" (cf. http://www.anwalt.de/ictf/p960901e.htm) and may no longer be carried in Germany. [It just says to live radically, and to read "radikal". But "radikal" is a terrorist magazine after all.]

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GAM_lin
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

8-8-96. Wash Tech: "Internet Betting Spurs Regulatory Interest." A new commission to investigate the nation's $40 billion gambling industry will initiate Congress' latest effort to curb the fast-growing gambling industry, and may open up additional efforts to regulate the burgeoning Internet industry. Extra legislation is not needed to suppress on-line gambling, said Bernie Horn, National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling. "If the Justice Department wanted to, it could make things unbearable for companies offering on-line gambling from outside the country," he said. ----- http://jya.com/gamlin.txt (5 kb) GAM_lin Thanks to BC.

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Re: Cellular phone tracing
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:49 PM 9/6/96 EDT, E. Allen Smith wrote: > From comp.risks: > >Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 22:24:13 -0400 (EDT) >From: glassman(a)sunsite.unc.edu >Subject: FedEx monitoring of cellular phonecall locations > >[...] nowhere near either of those places, so I did not bother to mention my >current location to the operator. The next day, Saturday, I called FedEx >with the same cell phone from Blowing Rock to arrange the pickup. The >operator immediately asked if I wanted them to come to the intersection that >I had placed my call from the day before. > >Two days later, a FedEx operator confirmed that they are getting "new >systems" at some locations that are able to record the locations from which >cellular calls are placed. > >I have now asked Cellular One three times to explain to me why they do not >tell subscribers that they pass this location information through the >system, but to no avail. [...] > >========== end fwd. You should DEFINITELY start worrying when the FexX operator says something like, "I see you're the guy in the red shirt and brown pants." Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Junk Phone Calls, Metered Usage, and Cellphones
by Martin Janzen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)got.net (Timothy C. May) writes: >I am about to start worrying about "junk phone calls" more so than I have >been. I just bit the bullet and bought a digital cellular phone, with a >nifty rate plan called Digital Flex: I get unlimited free airtime from 7 >p.m. to 7 a.m. weekdays, and unlimited free airtime all weekend. From south >of Salinas to north of Santa Rosa and as far east as the Central Valley. In >other words, the entire Bay Area and outlying communities. I can send and >receive calls over this entire region, from anywhere in the region (of >course), without any charges. > >The downside is that calls _from_ or _to_ my phone during "business" hours >are charged 42 cents a minute, airtime (tying up a channel and all), plus >whatever other fees may be applicable at each end. Thus, every "junk call" >I get trying to get me to buy aluminum siding, or to vote Democratic, or to >switch my long-distance carrier (!), costs me a minimum of 42 cents, >depending on how fast I can realize who they are and get rid of them I have a similar plan. My cell phone company includes call forwarding in the package, so I deal with the possibility of junk calls by forwarding calls from my cell phone to my regular number (which has voicemail) during the day, then turning off the cell phone. This way, the calls are intercepted right at the switch (I assume), so no airtime is used, and no charges are incurred. Works for me... -- Martin Janzen janzen(a)idacom.hp.com

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Re: Metcalf and Other Net.Fogies
by Alan Olsen 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:27 AM 9/5/96 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >Robert Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3COM, and how >publisher of "Infoworld" and sailing enthusiast, was interviewed on CNBC a >few minutes ago. He repeated his prediction of an "Internet collapse" in >1996, based on overuse, on bad pricing models, on lack of controls, and on >other concerns. Some are griping just to gripe. Metcalfe may have a valid prediction here. I have a machine that I use for work that is connected to the net via ethernet. No 28.8k bottlenecks involved. Most of the time I am lucky if I can exceed 14K bps to anything outside the local area. When I run traceroutes, the blockage is in MCI or Sprintnet land. (Except for the one to ftp.funet.fi early this week where where two of the machines somewhere in California were caught in some sort of weird DNS loop.) The bandwidth to the net has been oversold. If the government were *Really* concerned about "protecting the net", they would be on MCI and Sprint's cases, not looking for virtual terrorists. (Virtual Terrorists are to Terrorists the same way that Virtual Reality is to actual reality.) There have been days where you could not move anything at any reasonable speed from certain areas of the country. Yes, people have been predicting the end of the net (GIF/JPEG/WAV at 11!) since it was founded. In this case, I think that the person has enough network experience to be right. With the way things are now with oversold bandwidth, the DNS numbers getting close to being used up, many of the routers needing to be replaced and/or upgraded, and software that uses bandwidth like candy (phone conversations, video conferencing, huge interactive web page animations (like shockwave), real audio, and more as the marketing droids can sell you on it.), the chances of a west coast power-system style collapse does not seem that far from reality. (There are many who I know in the industry that are amazed that it has lasted this long.) On a smaller scale, those collapses happen in a small regional area, get fixed and things go on. But just like the earthquakes in California, everyone is waiting for "the Big One". (At least this one is preventable. Lets hope that the fixes can occur before the government gets involved, otherwise the net *IS* really doomed.) --- 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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Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by AwakenToMe＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-09-06 23:31:06 EDT, rwright(a)adnetsol.com (Ross Wright) writes: << Everyone on this list seems to want to limit government intervention EXCEPT when it comes to spam, then every one just holds the door open wide and let them in. If they get that inch, they WILL take the whole 9 YARDS!!!!!! Get a clue, delete or killfile those who spam and keep the government out of cyberspace!!!!!! >> Tell me about it. Im on AOL. WHO CARESSSSSSS if ya get one MAYBE two pieces of mail you take LESS than a second to delete them both with the handy delete key. These people are wasting more time complaining about it than they will ever do actually deleting it.

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:50 AM 9/7/96, Jean-Francois Avon wrote: >A maybe usefull program would be a little tsr that constantly >overwrite unused sectors of the entire drive with random patterns >(maybe seeded with a fast keyboard interval timer). Like at the very >moment I am writing this, my HD has been idle for several minutes... > The NSA STM method is related to reading _very subtle_ variations in magnetic domain modifications. Jitter in read-write head positions can be thought of as a noise (N) added to some signal (S)l. Extraction of signals in low S/N ration environments is a well-developed science. Not to start another round of "thermite bomb" posts, but I would not trust n-pass erasures. Of course, this is about the least of my concerns. If the Feds are planning to use STM probes on your seized drives, you've got more serious problems. (The oft-discussed possibility of more secure dongles, or secret decoder rings. is still off in the future. Most of us just enter our various passwords, and our local disk drives reveal all.) --Tim May We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About: 6 Sep 96 at 23:16, Damaged Justice wrote: > > This is utter horseshit. AOL, like any private individual or organization, > has the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason, or > even for no reason at all. Sure. I agree with that, no shoes no shirt, if you are on AOL you accept "internet-lite". > The gubmint isn't doing SQUAT, except forcing > AOL to allow the spammers access. Right now. Yet it has been apparent to me that many people are begging for restrictions to be put in place. Restrictions on spammers. The government saying anything about regulation of the internet is bad... Yet people still scream about a couple of unwanted e-mails. I'm saying that this spammer thing could be the "kink in our armour" that lets the government into our little playground here. Just suck it up and delete those messages. Jog it off. Ross =========== Ross Wright King Media: Bulk Sales of Software Media and Duplication Services http://www.slip.net/~cdr/kingmedia Voice: 415-206-9906

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USF_avv MS's Martha Stewart
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For MSerfs and groupies: A NYC local rag has a salacious article, "Microsoft's own Martha Stewart," on Michael Goff, the newly appointed editor of Cityscape, MS's upcoming urban-slurp-fuck-and-vomit vanity. Excerpts: The key to why Bill Gates hired Mr. Goff may lie in the fact that Mr. Goff is a marketing maniac, a self-confessed "media whore." "He became more of an egotistical asshole overnight than anyone I'd ever seen when the magazine [Out] came out," said one prominent gay journalist and acquaintance. Mr. Goff is indeed a family man, of sorts: He confirmed that he is considering donating his services to two lesbian friends who want to raise their own child. He bristled at being pigeonholed for being gay, rather than being recognized for his creativity. "It has nothing to do with me being gay or not," he said. "I've always been focused on doing mass consumer media." Besides, he added, "They're not paying me like that. I don't have a jet or anything." ----- http://jya.com/usfavv.txt USF_avv

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Re: Race Bit: C
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:49 PM 9/6/96 +0000, jonathon wrote: >On Fri, 6 Sep 1996, jim bell wrote: >> used to test out hypotheticals, for example a "SimEconomy." For example, > > They are very hard to program, and the ones that do exist are > based on the usually flawed assumptions that the designers make. > EG: taxation is a requirement for government stability A few months ago, somebody posted onto CP a phony story, which claimed that "somebody" had developed an artificially-intelligent program which would take the place of the judge and (?) jury in the (so-called) justice system. It was an obvious phony, but I thought it was even more obvious, even if we assumed the existence of a program which is smart enough to interpret evidence and laws. The problem is, the "legal system" is practically saturated with unwritten biases which favor the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, and the government over everybody else. Any program which read the Constituion and the laws wouldn't see those biases, and would start writing decisions...respecting the Constitution! It would presumably view the violation of someone's Constitutional rights as a criminal act, and it would be hard for the cops to stay out of jail. The standard for conviction, "beyond a reasonable doubt," when religiously adhered-to would make convictions difficult to obtain. The program would look for Constitutional justification for anti-drug laws, and finding none, would ignore such violations but would convict anyone trying to enforce them. Likewise, it would read the second amendment (and the lack of authority for regulating guns in the rest of the Constitution) and conclude that guns were un-regulatable. The program would see that nothing in the Constitution requires people to testify for the prosecution. The program wouldn't see any justification for the judge-written concept of judicial civil immunity, or government-employee immunity in most cases. The program would notice that double-jeopardy is prohibited, and would prohibit any retrials in which there are "hung juries" or government errors. In other words, the government would actually have to start OBEYING THE CONSTITUTION! Ask most lawyers, and they'll say, 'No, that's not the way we do things.' In a sense, they're right! That's NOT the way they do things. And that's the problem! This would be considered unacceptable; the program would be declared "broken" and "useless." Sure, it could be fixed, but they'd have to qualify and quantify all of the biases currently present in the system, and write them into the program in the form of subroutines. The problem is, nobody who actually supports these biases would want to acknowledge what they are and why they're there, and nobody who opposes these biases would agree to keep them. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>(Used to be they just kept stuff secret; now they patent some of it.) > >United States Patent Patent Number: 5264794 > Date of Patent: 23 Nov 1993 > >Method of measuring magnetic fields on magnetically recorded media using a >scanning tunneling microscope and magnetic probe > >Inventor(s): Burke, Edward R., Silver Spring, MD, United States > Mayergoyz, Isaak D., Rockville, MD, United States > Adly, Amr A., Hyattsville, MD, United States > Gomez, Romel D., Beltsville, MD, United States >Assignee: The United States of America as represented by the Director, > National Security Agency, Washington, DC, United > States (U.S. government) That isn't NSA research, it was merely sponsored by the NSA. Those are all university people who have published their work on MFSTM in journals, papers, and theses (I used some of it in my paper at the Usenix Security Symposium, and two of the images in my talk were provided by one of Mel Gomez' students). What the NSA is doing in this area is still classified (although I suspect the techology isn't much different from what's publicly available), in this case all they were doing was protecting their investment (just like the various PKC patents originally assigned to universities). Peter.

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

wb8foz(a)nrk.com writes: > > So switch to Fedex. The P.O. gives lousy service anyway. Privitize. > > > > Try & mail an anonymous FedEx package. Just lie on the sender label, isn't that obvious? I know people who actually use "codeword" sender labels, in case FedEx or federales ask about a package they can tell by the sender mentioned which to disavow :) > Try and pay cash in most Fedex offices. I always do and as long as I have exact change I have never been hassled. jim

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Re: Metcalf and Other Net.Fogies
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perry(a)piermont.com writes: > Alan Olsen writes: > > Metcalfe may have a valid prediction here. > > Metcalfe is talking out his ass. He's reached the "old geezer who's > impeding his own field" stage. Many of his articles seem to be written > as though no one was trying to fix problems. Well, having talked with people involved with the problems I can assure you that they are real. The net brownouts when MAE-East dumps its BGP core or the fact that when one of the NAPs upgraded to FDDI it soon found that by the time people had installed the upgrades to the routers the bandwidth was already saturated should indicate that there are problems. Most of the problems are in the routers, even the top of the line Cisco boxes can only handle so much. The sky is not falling, but these sorts of problems are cracking the whip behind IPv6 and pushing the companies that make the routers pretty hard (Have you ever tried to buy even a lowly Cisco 2401? Do you know what the wait is on delivery? I really wish I had bought Cisco stock earlier...) > > When I run traceroutes, the blockage is in MCI or Sprintnet land. > > How do you manage to determine where you are losing bandwidth using > traceroute? That must be a mighty powerful traceroute to do that -- > most traceroutes I've seen are hard pressed just to find out what the > connectivity path is. Then you should probably upgrade your traceroute, preferably to one which allows source routing of the packets and then couple the output to a nice udp source routing script which will bounce a few packets between links with slow response times. Most of the problems are at the exchange points where packets go from one company's network to another. It seems that users have the annoying habit of wanting to talk to other people's customers...imagine the nerve :) > > The bandwidth to the net has been oversold. > > Always the case. Big deal. Bandwidth is still increasing pretty > fast. There are, naturally, growing pains, but the outages and > bandwidth situation are pretty good, all things considered. Compared > to the way things were eight or nine years ago they are amazing; > compared to four years ago they are still astoundingly better. Bandwidth may be increasing quickly, but demand for it is increasing even faster with every moron wanting tose the web while the routers to hook it all together and make it work are still very expensive and not being produced fast enough to satisfy the demand. Compared to the way things were even a few years ago the aggregate bandwidth that one person can expect is decreasing, it seems that no one writing internet protocols passed an Intro to Sociology/Poly Sci course and assumed that the tragedy of the commons did not apply to them. The upside of all of this is that it is creating a demand for value-added services which offer users dedicated bandwidth and faster response time in return for a little coin. This will probably push micro-currency on to the net faster than any other consumer demand... jim

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Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by mccoy＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

frogfarm(a)yakko.cs.wmich.edu writes: > This is utter horseshit. AOL, like any private individual or organization, > has the right to refuse service to anyone at any time for any reason, or > even for no reason at all. The gubmint isn't doing SQUAT, except forcing > AOL to allow the spammers access. AOL has a service agreement with their customers, and they are not allowed to change the rules just because they feel like it (I believe that this is called a contract :) This is the jist of the injunction. jim

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Re: Conservation Laws, Money, Engines, and Ontology (fwd)
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 6 Sep 96 14:04:51 -0500, Andrew Loewenstern wrote: >> I don't think any one step will solve all our spam problems >> but I wouldn't mind spending, say, 5 cents for each real piece >> of mail I sent outside my company and if end machines charged >> 5 cents per piece of ouside mail received, I think spamming >> would be crippled. (Note that with bad guy lists, you could >> collect the money and then just throw away the mail.) >So would you be willing to pay $50.00 for this message you sent to >cypherpunks? If there are a thousand recipients and each one charges $0.05 >for the priveledge of you sending it e-mail.... It seems like such a scheme >would not only cripple spam, but public discussion lists like this one. It's likely his $.05 would go to the list owner. When signing up for the list you would forfeit the right to collect on junk mail. Charging spammers would be up to the list... - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 06 Sep 1996 11:59:18 -0500, John Deters wrote: >I hope some hardware hacker who knows their low-level stuff will be able to >write a secure disk wiper. They have: it's called a bulk tape eraser. <g> I'd just store everything sensitive on a floppy. Those are easy to erase with a heavy duty magnet (not a wimpy refrigerator magnet). I understand slagging one in the microwave is also effective <g>. - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by Adamsc＠io-online.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Fri, 6 Sep 1996 14:03:43 -0700, Timothy C. May wrote: >>A maybe usefull program would be a little tsr that constantly >>overwrite unused sectors of the entire drive with random patterns >>(maybe seeded with a fast keyboard interval timer). Like at the very >>moment I am writing this, my HD has been idle for several minutes... >The NSA STM method is related to reading _very subtle_ variations in >magnetic domain modifications. Jitter in read-write head positions can be >thought of as a noise (N) added to some signal (S)l. Extraction of signals >in low S/N ration environments is a well-developed science. > >Not to start another round of "thermite bomb" posts, but I would not trust >n-pass erasures. It's still likely that if you left it running after a month or so it would be next to impossible to do (assuming the NSA didn't get lucky - you still have to worry!) >Of course, this is about the least of my concerns. If the Feds are planning >to use STM probes on your seized drives, you've got more serious problems. Such as asking why you didn't use some very strong crypto software? Work out some sort of parallel port dongle that could be connected, the software generates a random key, the parallel port device is written and then removed. Further access would involve connecting. The code & chips needed have been provided in many places; DDJ for one. Allows a very convincing "Well it was encrypted and your goon stepped on the key!" >(The oft-discussed possibility of more secure dongles, or secret decoder >rings. is still off in the future. Most of us just enter our various >passwords, and our local disk drives reveal all.) This is too true. - "'Anonymity is bad,' says a source who wishes to remain anonymous." - Nuff' said. * Home: Chris Adams <adamsc(a)io-online.com> | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp * Autoresponder: send email w/subject of "send resume" or "send PGPKEY" * Work: cadams(a)acucobol.com | V.M. (619)515-4894 | (619)689-6579 * Member in good standing of the GNU whirled hors d'oeuvre

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[NOISE] Propaganda Bit: C
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:50 AM 9/6/96 -0800, Jim Bell wrote: >Since red liquid running in the streets is generally so reviled, one of the >things which mystifies me is why there aren't more simulation-type programs >used to test out hypotheticals, for example a "SimEconomy." For example, As someone else pointed out recently, this depends _so_ strongly on the assumptions built into your model, both explicit and implicit. SimHealth, for instance, was a propaganda piece put out for the last election so people could play with different approaches to managing other peoples' health care. If Duncan were to write something like that, anybody who tinkered with the economy would make it go downhill. If Ross Perot wrote it, anybody who started making the deficit larger would find his picture at the bottom of the screen having the ears grow larger. I assume that if Jim wrote it, anybody who did anything to the economy other than decrease government involvement would find a bunch of nasty little dwarves throwing stone knives at them.... # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> # You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto

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IDC_ard
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9-8-96. NYP Mag: "The True Terror Is In the Card." Faced with rising crime, illegal immigration, welfare fraud and absentee parents, many bureaucrats and members of Congress insist that the nation would run more smoothly if we all had counterfeit-proof plastic identity cards. Let's be clear that this is a one-way street. Once having established a requirement to carry photo ID, it will be difficult if not impossible to reverse. Don't we realize the dangers of allowing the Government to establish identity and legitimacy? Isn't it, in fact, the responsibility of the citizenry to establish the legitimacy of the Government? ----- http://jya.com/idcard.txt (11 kb) IDC_ard

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Re: What is the EFF doing exactly?
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:20 PM 9/6/96 -0400, David Lesher / hated by RBOC's in 5 states wrote: >> >> So switch to Fedex. The P.O. gives lousy service anyway. Privitize. >> > >Try & mail an anonymous FedEx package. >Try and pay cash in most Fedex offices. Buy money order. Slip it into the plastic pouch with the airbill. Drop it into collection box. Works. DCF

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ASP_oil
by jya＠pipeline.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

9-7-96. FiTi: "Indian herb trick turns water into kerosene." A young, unemployed south Indian has flummoxed India's top government scientists by demonstrating an apparently simple recipe for producing a kerosene-like fuel by boiling a "mystery" herb in water: prospectively, he hopes, revolutionising the world energy industry. "We have no doubt we are sitting on something very big," said Mr Valangiman Ramamurthi, India's top science bureaucrat. Watching scientists professed little idea how or why the process worked, but said it conclusively produced "a clear oil separation in substantial quantities" which tests have identified as a hydrocarbon similar to kerosene. "Its properties make it better than petrol," said one. "Apparently the herb can grow widely in all types of soil -- it is very exciting." 9-7-96. WaPo: "More in the Pipeline." In the 1970s fear gripped the Western world that Earth was running out of oil. Since then, vast new reserves have been discovered that can be extracted with current technology. The known crude oil reserve now amounts to one trillion barrels -- enough for 45 to 50 years at current world production rates, and estimated reserves are at least one trillion barrels more. ----- http://jya.com/aspoil.txt (6 kb for 2) ASP_oil

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:18 AM 9/7/96 -0800, Adamsc wrote: >On Fri, 06 Sep 1996 11:59:18 -0500, John Deters wrote: > >>I hope some hardware hacker who knows their low-level stuff will be able to >>write a secure disk wiper. > >They have: it's called a bulk tape eraser. <g> > > >I'd just store everything sensitive on a floppy. Those are easy to erase with a >heavy duty magnet (not a wimpy refrigerator magnet). I understand slagging one >in the microwave is also effective <g>. Just remember that an AC-driven bulk eraser will be far more effective than a permanent magnet at erasing data securely. An oscillating magnet field re-magnetizes the floppy 120 times per second, as opposed to the single magnetization done by the permanent magnet. Each pass through the hysteresis curve brings down residual signals somewhat, maybe 10 db. With the AC field, it's hard NOT to have a good erase. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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forward secrecy in mixmaster
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since Peter Allen's discussion of mixmaster, I started doing something I'd been thinking of for a while, since noticing that it was on the mixmaster to-do list months ago (ie there is unfinished source to do this): direct socket connections and diffie-hellman key exchange for forward secrecy. I wrote the socket stuff yesterday evening, didn't take too long as socket programming is something I've done lots of. Now comes what do you actually send down the sockets. Question for Lance, and any others who were involved in mixmasters implementation: what did you have in mind as a way of negotiating the DH keys? I notice that mixmaster generates a DH key and stores it in file `DH.mix', but that this is not (as far as I can see from the source) included in the remailers public key block. (A couple of comments as an aside: I think that you should be able to have a much smaller generator without loss of security, this should reduce the overhead of a DH key exchange. Using 3 even I think is safe, without any extra precautions on prime generation. You can even go to 2, with a few precautions (PGPfone does this). Comment #2 I think 1024 may be a bit small, I don't have any figures handy for relative security of DH key lengths, but PGPfone offers 4096 bit DH for instance. Does rsaref have limits on prime lengths for DH, the same as it does for RSA?). There are lots of options for DH public key negotiation. First option is whether you have a common prime and generator for all remailers or not. If you have a common prime, accusations of the prime being `cooked' (chosen to have a weakness) can be mitigated by using a deterministic generation method based on the hash of a known phrase (a Jefferson quote perhaps), or PI or whatever. A common modulus may offer a fatter target for attack (for some precomputation attacks), but with large enough keys this probably isn't that bad, as there aren't that many mixmasters anyway. With a common modulus there is DH key negotiation needed, just include it with the source. For different modulii for each remailer, there are more options: a) include the DH key signed by the RSA key in the remailers public key (may break backwards compatibility with existing versions of mixmaster) b) send the DH public key at the start of each session c) send the DH public key on request There is also a question of which key do you use, the sender remailers or the recipient remailers. Negotiating DH public keys during execution also opens the possibility for periodic re-keying. Thats the end of my thoughts on direct socket mixmaster. Next message is some thoughts on non-interactive forward secrecy protocols. Adam -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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non-interactive forward secrecy
by Adam Back 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This discussion is driven by the desirability of having forward secrecy in mixmaster for the mix packets delivered by email where the interactive nature of normal DH is incovenient] Anyone have any ideas for a non-interactive forward secrecy protocol? Aside from actually doing the DH key exchange via email (painful), I have one suggestion for a protocol, perhaps people can improve on this: Assuming common prime p, and generator g: Two remailers A and B. A wants to send messages to B without having to wait for replies from B. B generates ys (y0,y1,...,yn), where y(i+1) = hash(y(i)) then computes Ys (Y0,Y1,...,Yn) where Y(i) = g ^ y(i) mod p B sends A Ys, and discards ys. Now A can send B n consecutive packets with forward secrecy before receiving any more packets from B. (B keeps y0, and overwrites it with y1 = hash(y0), etc, so that all B ever has to hand is the current y(i), and y(i-1) is hard to compute from y(i) because of the hash functions properties.) This isn't truly non-interactive, it just reduces the number of interactions, to an interactive exchange in 1 out of n cases. (you could randomly chose ys rather than having related ys, and delete y(i) after use, but this has higher storage requirements (n rather than 1 on the recipient)). Heres the obvious construction for a truly non-interactive forward secrecy protocol based on DH. (That is it only requires 1 interactive exchange). Aside from the obvious of having a huge n, and the above protocol, which would have large space requirements, what we're after is a way to do this with negligable space requirements. Say that we have the two parties Alice and Bob. Bob doesn't loose much by having his secret (x) related as above. 1. x(i+1) = f1( x(i) ) 2. X(i+1) = f2( X(i) ) 3. f1 is non reversible f1 should have hash-like properties (it should be non-reversible). Do functions f1 and f2 satisfying 1, 2 and 3 exist? Is there another way to achieve this? (My closest attempt so far, based on the hardness of discrete square roots: f1(x) = x^2 (mod p) f2(X) = X^2 (mod p) doesn't work because g^(x^2 mod p) mod p != g^(x^2) mod p) Adam -- #!/bin/perl -sp0777i<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<j]dsj $/=unpack('H*',$_);$_=`echo 16dio\U$k"SK$/SM$n\EsN0p[lN*1 lK[d2%Sa2/d0$^Ixp"|dc`;s/\W//g;$_=pack('H*',/((..)*)$/)

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Re: MUD anyone?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:06 AM 9/1/96 +0000, Rev. Mark Grant wrote: >On Tue, 27 Aug 1996, Jon Leonard wrote: >Protection Agencies >Escrow Agencies >Private Law Courts (probably controlled by players rather than the computer) >Reputation Agencies > >> What am I missing? Should there be direct support for Jim Bell's >> assasination markets? It'd provide a means of demonstrating its >> ineffectiveness as a means of social control. > >I think it should be incorporated, but I think that people can set them up >easily themselves. Perhaps we should have an NPC-run 'Assasins Inc' which >would run the lottery, and then players could do the actual 'wet work'. > >But yes, I'd really like to see how this would work in the game. As I >said I'm thinking of this more as a semi-scientific experiment than a >pure game. We have some idea of how this stuff should work in theory, but >little of how it works in practice. > >I do think though that we'd have to enforce some kind of rule against >'disposable characters', otherwise people could simply create a new >character every time they were killed trying to assasinate someone. There >would need to be some disadvantage to just going in guns-blazing and being >killed ten times in a row. Wouldn't it be more realistic if instead of representing individual characters, you created composites which had a "weight" based on how many of them exist in the country/world? For example, the character "buggy-whip maker" in 1900 would be weighted in the thousands, while his number would be drastically reduced a few decades later. This would avoid the "going in with guns blazing" scenario, or at least it would put it into perspective: the number of assassins would drop by "1" (or some proportion) if that happened, although correspondingly the number of targets would also drop. With this system, a character would never die, but his number would simply drop to an insignificant quantity. ("Government-thugs" comes to mind...) And that's not the only reason the number of characters would drop: If it suddenly became "unhealthy" to accept a public paycheck, and thus the risk wasn't matched by the rewards, presumably people would shift professions. Again, this would all be part of the simulation. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Re: Court challenge to AOL junk-mail blocks
by Will Rodger 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 12:27 PM 9/7/96 -0700, Declan McCullagh wrote: >If AOL wants to stop spammers, let them. They have every right to do so as >long as their agreement with their customers permits it. It's a matter of >contract law between AOL and its customers and should not involve the >spammers and a lawsuit brought by the spammers. > >It seems as though the judge was snookered by the spammers' claim of U.S. >Mail-like service, free speech, blah. The right to free speech does >extend to corporations; in that way, it includes the right *not* to speak. > Declan raises a good point. But I'm guessing it's a bit more complex than that. CyberPromo and AOL lawyers tell me the court slapped down AOL simply to "keep the status quo." Both sides used those very words, in fact. What's more, CyberPromo talks a good game on the First Amendment, but used computer fraud and unfair competition statutes - not the Bill of Rights - in its original filing against AOL. So what's going on? It seems Weiner is _very_ aware that this case deals with things never before argued in court. No one has really sorted out just how much e-mail - if any - an ISP is obligated to carry against its wishes. What Weiner decides this fall may not set the kind of precendent that the case of the Pentagon Papers did, but will be important for a while at least. Will -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBMjIIw0cByjT5n+LZAQFNWgf/Xb+yG9JDVZ6MN1Hz/K4IUCXL8hSgjeG3 +Ih+aXiod/vVAHXCJmktvBJFWWAJjpFjW/0WQljvsMULxXYpdXAYFDh4kiZZg4A3 7xkjCsT+Kpi8lDCRmFPciQfvoLyiEJxr8hI2l2qucE0THV0spysTKpgYueggLZI6 no5mC47ZGusfL9jWb7qrnbqjO1h+0mVZYgr0GRY8MVvyMsJGgylEDaiCh0KSaI1V TqEfTF+kcbzqtht0yG/M+QmCRertH4s1y9IWllWvJLMbAfwgFCxgGtamWoyXiHye keXAGLK0r2u8vTfwK5rJ91ZR774CGkZHulNi3wx53pZaFyYPJtYizA== =KS50 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Metcalf and Other Net.Fogies
by John Brothers 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:17 AM 9/7/96 -0400, perry(a)piermont.com wrote: > > <snip discussion of internet collapse> > >I'm "involved with the problems" too, you know. Don't teach granpaw to >suck eggs. OF COURSE there are problems. None of them, however, are >signs of "collapse". This whole thing makes me ill - maybe I'm just an idiot. What could possibly cause a collapse? More usage?? No - that would just mean that everyone's access would be slower. Do routers fail because they can't talk to other routers? no - they route around it. I consider myself reasonably educated when it comes to the layout of the internet, and I have never heard _anyone_ ever say what constitutes a collapse, and, if it means 'catastrophic permanent failure of the Internet', what could possibly cause that. These people are acting like one day, something is going to blow up, and the entire internet will follow, and stay down for a long long time. If all the DNS servers died, the internet would stop working for non-local access until they recovered. If there was a bug in Cisco routers that was set to go off on Thursday, September 12th, that would render them inoperable until power cycled, that would cause a major failure. If every building in MCI and Sprint's data network blew up, that would cause a major failure. If the usage increased so that the Internet was 'saturated', that doesn't qualify as a collapse. It qualifies as 'rush hour'. If the internet was in 'rush hour' 24 hours a day, it would be unfun to use, but unlike the highway system, we can add more lanes pretty much at will. (within reason). Will someone please explain to me what I'm missing? Thanks John --- John Brothers Do you have a right not to be offended?

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Re: [RANT] Death of Usenet: Film at 11
by attila 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In Cypherpunks, on 08/19/96 at 01:34 PM, mpd(a)netcom.com (Mike Duvos) said: =If Singapore bans alt.sex.hooters, you could simply post to =alt.culture.singapore.i.got.your.hooters.right.here. [snip] =It would also send the correct message that "newsgroups" are simply =one of many labels on an article, and are not cyberspacial tearooms =where bad people congregate and there is guilt by association. I don't fault your argument on "sending the correct message," but since when has an oppressive government ever been concerned with "the correct message?" LEA's could care less about the message; their only interest is another opportunity to behave like the jack-booted thugs they generally are. but public opinion, certainly the government interests in control, have already determined in the court of small minds that "we" are inherently evil (and beyond redemption without coercion). A repressive government can not afford publications from unredeemed (and unrepentant) cyber-anarchists with a world wide audience. Is the daily comics the last refuge of freedom; witness today's "Thatch:" "cubicle cliches are one of the few things we all share; they're one of the few things that unite us as americans!" "that and utter, corrosive contempt for our elected officials." sarcasm has always been a potent weapon, and one of the hardest to silence. ..in bits and pieces it can slowly undermine the target. why is it tolerated? I'm sure our malicious uncle wanted to shut Doonsbury down during Vietnam, but joe-six-pack rarely understood the underlying message. =The alternative to doing something reasonable like this is probably =to see mass migration from "banned newsgroups" to off-topic groups, =like Lolita pictures in rec.pets.cats, when the inevitable crackdown =comes. has not the crackdown arrived? and are not the various skirmishes between governments on one side and the ISPs & users on the other sufficient evidence of governmental intentions? =As long as people can post =anonymously, they will simply switch to another existing newsgroup =when the one they are posting to becomes blocked. Once the =inevitable reciprocal pissing contest between posters and censors =gets going, Usenet as we know it will likely be destroyed. let's put it this way, the first reaction will be to "eliminate" the anonymous remailers, then ban the "alt" groups which can be created at will. if there is migration from alt.sex.binaries to rec.cats, the government will eliminate the entire usenet and we will be forced back to the NWO controlled media conglomerates, or mail lists. of course, then the fascists will block or close down the list servers on some flimsy pretext such as violating the US postal monopoly and regulations.... Many companies block the alt groups; 15 years ago, even I blocked the alt groups during business hours (and usenet was only 1.5 MBytes per day then!), restoring them at 1800. --why? because the office staff spent *at least* all morning reading usenet, occasionally even refusing to talk to customers before their daily dose! My point is simple: I reacted by limiting the **time** of access, ** not access itself. ** On the other side, Reed, Buchannan &c. have decided *they* should judge what is fit (G rated) for our consumption; and, of course, Big Brother has determined they should be the judge of political correctness and all that shit which is numbing the minds of joe-six-pack until America is a controllable homogeneous bowl of putrid gruel. government, in and of itself, may be able to selectively prosecute cyberspace "violaters," but the real danger is big business. Print newspapers receive $64 billion in ad revenue, 80% of which is local. Virtually every major US newspaper (most owned by the group of 5) has a net presence --some very informative. And, even Mexico has more than a dozen of their papers on line. However, in the US the news is still the same collection of what the NWO wants us to hear/see. So far, the foreign press is not so inhibited and is often openly critical of US bumbling in foreign affairs, Bubba's alleged (alledged?) cocaine habit and criminal behaviour, --likewise critical of all fools. Where does this lead? Well, we've probably peaked on freedom; the rest is downhill as our "non-elected" government degenerates to deploying more and more thought control to maintain the oligarchic fascist form of what Jefferson thought they were creating as a representative republic. I for one enjoy tweaking their nose, but it only stiffens their resolve to squash me/us/whatever. How do you show resolve without being in their face? most regulation is created to "eliminate" abuse of a "public" privilege; unfortunately, we all suffer "collateral damage" to use their term. does voluntary compliance work? unfortunately, no. where does that leave us? confrontation, I guess. preserve our advantage as long as we can. we all know from münchen that Clement Atlee made a fool of himself appeasing Hitler for a false peace. might as well carry on with what we do best: rape, pillage, and burn... a scorched earth policy....

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Re: "The Bill of Rights can be dangerous...." (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hi all, Forwarded message: > Subject: Re: "The Bill of Rights can be dangerous...." > From: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM) > Date: Sat, 07 Sep 96 09:35:38 EDT > > I remember beig surprised to discover that the library computer at City > University of New York (state school where I got all my degrees) had an > (easily accessible) record of every book I've ever checked out in some > 15 years, And by the way you need to present A LOT of ids to take books > out of New York's public libraries, or to use the public-access > computers in them. And by the way you're asked to sign your name and > affiliation (fortunately, no ID is required) if you want to just enter > NYPL's Slavic division and use their reading room. Apparently this was > instituted during the cold war under the assumption that anyone > interested in Slavic Division's materials needs to be watched. In the very early 80's while I was attending UT Austin the FBI approached the libraries and requested access to the loan records. The libraries refused and went so far as to post a warning at each of the book checkout points on the event. Personaly, I was very proud of them for the refusal and the extra step of the warning. > A very good friend of mine does EE for a living, and in particular he > sells some EE equipment by mail order. He told me that every time he > sells something like the gizmo to write magnetic strips on credit cards, > he gets a phone call from los federales saying: you sold X who paid with > Y and shipped it to address Z - do you have any additional details? He > says every time they know as much about the sale as he does. :-) I have been dealing with security electronics for over 10 years and have never been approached by anyone regarding my activities. I make no secret of the fact that I do that sort of work as well as being able to build custom equipment if needed. I would suspect that there is a flag on your friend for something or someone from the past, not on his business in particular. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Choice of Words
by attila 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> --Tim May, who hopes he is never identified as the "John Doe" indicted, > tried, convicted, and sentenced in 1979 in Washington County, Oregon, for > the crime of unlawful foddering in a public place. > foddering? why, are you an indiscreet luncher? > 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." -- one of the few things we all share: the utter, corrosive contempt for our elected officials.

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Have at it. Username provided
by Kermit69 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey. Try this, whitman.gmu.edu a username = myost

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Deleted Message (fwd)
by <pstira＠escape.com> 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One must wonder about these military types. Hm... -millie ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 96 16:50:21 -24000 From: MAILER-DAEMON(a)mqg-smtp3.usmc.mil To: pstira(a)escape.com Subject: Deleted Message To: "Gary Howland" <gary(a)systemics.com> From: MQG-SMTP3@USMC_MASTERINET@Servers[<pstira(a)escape.com>] Subject: Re: PRESS RELEASE: GERMANY CENSORS DUTCH WEBSITE WWW.XS4ALL.NL Message in Transport deleted by: ADMINISTRATOR@USMC_MASTERINET@Servers

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Re: What the NSA is patenting
by jfricker＠vertexgroup.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 02:03 PM 9/6/96 -0700, you wrote: >At 12:50 AM 9/7/96, Jean-Francois Avon wrote: >>A maybe usefull program would be a little tsr that constantly >>overwrite unused sectors of the entire drive with random patterns >>(maybe seeded with a fast keyboard interval timer). Like at the very >>moment I am writing this, my HD has been idle for several minutes... >> > > >The NSA STM method is related to reading _very subtle_ variations in >magnetic domain modifications. Jitter in read-write head positions can be >thought of as a noise (N) added to some signal (S)l. Extraction of signals >in low S/N ration environments is a well-developed science. > This excerpt from a Wired article/interview http://www.hotwired.com/wired/3.10/departments/electrosphere/data.html "No data is totally safe," says Sharp, who runs his Data Recovery Labs from the coincidentally named town of Safety Harbor, Florida. "But you can recover data that's been overwritten up to nine times. The only way to permanently remove data is with programs that can do a 'severe security erase,' when the drive is over-written 10 consecutive times." Believe it or don't!

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/\/\/\/\/HELP\/\/\/\/\ !!!!!!!!!
by kickboxer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I really need help unsubscribing from the Cypherpunks list! it is imperative!

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No Subject
by raptrtrust＠sigmais.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello. I would like to know more about cryptography. Please snd me any information that you have. Thank you, RaptrTrust

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Re: /\/\/\/\/HELP\/\/\/\/\ !!!!!!!!!
by Ross Wright 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Or About: 7 Sep 96 at 16:46, kickboxer wrote: > I really need help unsubscribing from the Cypherpunks list! it is imperative! > HA HA HA HA HA HA!! That's soooo funny!!!

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