December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: anonymity and e-cash
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:28 PM 2/12/97 -0800, Hal Finney wrote: >From: Sean Roach <roach_s(a)alph.swosu.edu> ... >> Another idea that has been festering. If we could get a CPA involved in >> this forum, I would be willing to have h[im/er] sign my key, (which is >> seldom used, mostly because this is the only place I use e-mail), for that >> reasonable fee that CPA's can charge. I know that it is not a standard, or >> even legally recognized, post for CPA's, but I think that enough people >> would trust them. > >The big question with identity certificates is what procedures were followed >in verifying the identity when the cert was issued. If the CPA publishes >some standard method, and his reputation is strong enough that people will >trust him to follow it, then it might well be worth money to you to have >him sign it. This is the traditional role of the Certification Authority. > >> This would take care of some of the "newly minted" key problems. Since >> getting someone who is trusted to sign your key is a recognized method of >> getting people to believe you are who you say you are. > >It depends on the circumstances where you expect to use your key. Within >a small to medium circle of associates there may be some group members >who sign keys and are trusted by other members of the group. There is >no particular reason for it to be difficult. If you want a signature which >will be accepted by everyone in the U.S. you have a harder problem. As far as I am aware, a CPA is supposed to require a photo ID. Since this is the method by which absentee voting is accomplished. A supposedly anonymous system, (using two envelopes, the postmaster only knows that you voted, the vote counter only knows that it came by mail, the public only knows how many people are absentee voters, and who, the voter assumes that the system works), requiring the CPA as a witness to the identity of the voter. The problem would be getting the public to recognize the CPA as a key signing authority. This would presumably require a public announcement, the backing of existing trusted users, etc. Personally, I think that the netherlands? toying around with the post office would be ideal for keys used solely for signing. I just wouldn't trust the government to have access to the one I used for encryption. Maybe that's a better idea. Let's all use a government accessable key for signing, making it as long as possible to reduce identity theft. And use homebrew, super encryption for the actual secrecy. Let GAK be our CPA.

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Re: Procmail during the transition, anyone?
by Adam Shostack 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A while back, I experimented with a technique for adding an md5 based message-id at the top of my procmailrc. Never got it working. I'll give it another shot middle of March, when I get back from FC '97*, and catch up on stuff. Someone could of course, beat me to it. The flow was: all messages get piped into md5, then use formail to set a new header. Adam Derek Atkins wrote: | Anil Das <das(a)sgi.com> writes: | | [snip] | > It detects duplicates by Message-Id. | | Unfortunately, the messages that make it through to the cypherpunks | list have their MessageID changed when they get approved. So, | checking for duplicates by MessageID fails, given the current approval | mechanism. :( | | I've informed Sandy of the problem, but he doesn't know how to | preserve the original MessageIDs. | | -derek | | -- | Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory | Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) | URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/ PP-ASEL N1NWH | warlord(a)MIT.EDU PGP key available | -- "It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -Hume

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Remailer Network Under Attack
by Wazoo MixMaster 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It looks like a new round of attacks against the remailer network is underway. Once again, the provocation is "abuse". Unknown persons have been using anonymous remailers and mail2news gateways to "plant" e-mail addresses in various NGs for the spam-bots to harvest and deluge with spam. The original intention appears to have been to "poison the well" for spammers by planting addresses that they'd get in trouble for sending their junk mail to. It appears that one or more copy-cats is now using the same methodology to plant the addresses of people who they'd like to see spammed. (I'm using the term "plant" rather than "forge" since the messages seem to contain sufficient disclaimers that the From: addresses are not genuine. Sufficient for a normal HUMAN reader, but not an automated address harvester, that is.) Within the last week or so, a chorus of complaints has arisen about this practice, orchestrated by about a half dozen individuals who meet an interesting criteria -- they all hold dual accounts on both Netcom and a small ISP known as DataBasix.com. The scenario is quite similar each time this has happened in the past, such as with the cross-posted pro-smoking/anti-smoking threads last year. One of the complainers politely asks that the abusers be identified and their abuse stop. This is, of course, impossible because the perpetrators are posting anonymously. The second step, which follows the first very closely, is a demand that the remailer be shut down with threats being CCed to sysadmins and upstream providers. Given the variety of addresses being "spam baited", the only logical target of this abuse is the remailers themselves. Both sides of certain heated controversies report being made the target of this spam bait, each side accusing the other of being responsible. The only question is whether the main group of complainers (the Netcom/DataBasix group) are merely innocent bystanders or whether they may have initiated the "abuse" as an excuse to shut down the remailers in furtherance of some unknown agenda. Either that, or someone else is attacking the remailer net and it's just a coincidence that a group fitting such a curious pattern (dual accounts on the same two ISPs) should step in and demand the dismantling of several elements of the remailer/m2n-gateway infrastructure. HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION: Would mentioning the "Reichstag Fire" invoke Godwin's Law prematurely? <g>

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks"
by Leonard Janke 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ichudov(a)algebra.com (Igor Chudov @ home) writes: > > Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote: > > [...] > > Timmy has a valid point: the reason why a comp.* newsgroup might have less > > cross-posted and "off-topic" crap is because net.cops would be more > > likely to complain to posters' sysadmins. [...] > > As for net.cops, check out what Scott Nudds does in comp.lang.c++ > [...] Yes, Scott Nudds is a good example of how dedicated flamers (or maybe he is just a flamee trying to defend himself, I came too late to say for sure), and those who fuel them on, can cause even a comp.* newsgroup to be as noisy as this list. (Btw, if you think comp.lang.c++ is bad, check out comp.lang.asm.x86, sometime!). I think it is, thus, important to distinguish between noise from "outsiders", and noise caused by "insiders" who actually read the newsgroup but disrupt it for fun or grudges, or what not. A comp.* newsgroup will help reduce the former noise, for the reasons Dr. Vulis cites, but not so much the latter, since many insider trouble-makers are often their own adminstraters or providers, or who have found providers or who now have admins who will not cut them off. That being said, I fully support the idea of a comp.* newgroup, over an alt.* group. The important advantages are the greater propogation many have described, and the reduction in "outsider" noise. I also think that people interested in computing in general might be more likely to stumble onto the newsgroup, since the comp.* hierachy is so much smaller than the alt.* hierachy. I do worry, however, that some of the more mischevious people around this list might try to disrupt the voting process with forged e-mail, or turn the discussion over creation into a less than civil debate. In this unlinkely worst case scenario, however, not much would be lost since we could still fall back to alt.cypherpunks, and it would, later, make for good net.legends. :) To be fair, though, I doubt that anyone would seriously try to disrupt the creation, given the dedication I am seeing people putting into finding a new home (or homes!) for the list, and that there does not seem to be anyone dedicated to distrupting that process as John Gilmore worried there would be. (And I am on the unedited list, too!) Let's give it a shot! Leonard

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Re: (2) More on Digital Postage
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 8:10 PM +0000 2/13/97, Attila T. Hun wrote: >+Attila is free to hire agents to screen his mail so he does not receive >+spam. He is not free, in a free society, to force such screeners upon >+me. > > very true. if you if define that your freedom includes the free > abuse of your freedoms by others. freedom is a two way street; > freedom in my book says that I can do anything I wish which does > not infringe on the rights of others. now, that implies that I can As this relates to "unwanted mail," I think calling this an "abuse of freedom by others" is misleading, and a slippery slope. On this same slippery slope lies the claims by some women, as an example, that images in Playboy "abuse their freedoms" (I'd've thought a different kind of abuse is involved, but I won't get into that here). Is unwanted physical mail also an abuse of freedom? How about unwanted personal letters? How about unwanted conversations in a Cypherpunks meeting? The answer to all of these issues lies outside the State. Invoking the power of Men with Guns to stop these "unwanted contacts" is simply wrong. Attila seems to be arguing that the State has a legitimate role in censoring certain contacts, whereas I argue that technology and contracting can almost always do a better job. I repeat: Attila is free to hire a censor, or nanny, or personal secretary to screen his calls, to sift through his mail to pass on only the most relevant stuff, and so on. Many celebrities and busy people do just this. (In the CompuServe case which triggered this thread, CompuServe certainly could have offered a "filtering" service to its members. This would be unexceptionable, and the right way to go, contractually and technologically.) Attila is not free, in a free society, to claim (*) that his freedoms are being infringed when people send him mail he is not interested in. (* He can certainly _claim_ it, but he cannot bring the State in to enforce his dubious claim about his freedom being infringed.) By the way, I think the "junk fax" and "junk phone call" laws are clearcut violations of the First Amendment. I understand why the herd _wants_ these laws, as it reduces the costs involved in replacing fax paper, running to the telephone only to find someone trying to sell something, etc., but it is quite clearly a prior restraint on speech, however well-intentioned. (There are technological solutions to these problems as well. The laws shield people from having to deal with these solutions, however.) --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Remailer Network Under Attack
by Homer W. Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Given the variety of addresses being "spam baited", the only logical > target of this abuse is the remailers themselves. Both sides of > certain heated controversies report being made the target of this > spam bait, each side accusing the other of being responsible. Allegations of responsibility are a serious charge and should be looked into immediately. GOOD GUYS AND BAD GUYS, circa 12/95 There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that divide people into two kinds and those that don't. With that in mind, I present to you the following over simplification. There are two kinds of people in the world, the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys speak with the Voice of Truth, and the bad guys speak with the Voice of Lies. I believe that anonymity is the foundation of freedom in the known universe. Anonymity is the ability to speak either the voice of truth or the voice of lies without anyone knowing who you are. Accountability is the opposite of Anonymity. Accountability means that everyone knows who said what and can take them to task for it. Both sides can use force to silence the other side, but usually its the bad guys who use force to silence the good guys, good guys use more voice of Truth to expose the bad guys. Although some would claim that in general accountability is a good thing, I would point out that ALL members of the controlling party of the emerging police state are adamantly FOR absolute accountability at all times for all their citizens. That should give one pause to wonder. Anonymity is actually very hard to maintain, and absolute anonymity for all people at all times is very difficult indeed. Therefore by observation a society or oganization is usually operating at some gradient scale of anonymity between the extremes of total anonymity and total non anonymity. It can come to pass that certain gradient levels of anonymity end up benefitting the bad guys more than the good guys. In these situations, the bad guys tend to start winning and the good guys perceive that the bad guys are winning BECAUSE of anonymity. Rather than use the weapon of anonymity themselves to protect against the bad guys, the usual convulsive reaction on the part of the good guys is to try and close down the channels of anonymity to keep the bad guys located and corralled, rather than to open up the channels more and use it themselves. This does not occur to them, or if it does they are beset with visions of the bad guys getting away with more than they are now. The logic for closing down the channels of anonymity goes something like this. Since our country is ruled by an Omni Intelligent and Omni Beneficent God King, if we can track every communication down to the person who said it, the God King will be able to tell the good guys from the bad guys, and silence the bad guys for us. The problem with this logic is that our country is not run by a God King, but by human beings who tend to elect each other into power based on outrageous criteria. As the bad guys see themselves getting corraled with accountability, they simply run for office and get themselves elected into the positions of power where THEY are the ones taking action against the bad guys. Of course they take action against the good guys instead. It is for this reason that the temptation to tighten accountability when anonymity is abused is always an error and leads to a terrible trap worse than any tar pit. Namely only the bad guys get to speak, and the good guys get to remain silent fearing for their lives. Which is why when the police ask if you have something to hide after you have refused to let them spot search your belongings, you must always say, "Of course, I have EVERYTHING to hide. FROM YOU!" Anyhow as an ISP it is my job to provide the channels of communication between people. That's what I do, I provide the CHANNEL. This includes standard accountable channels and not so standard anonymous channels. People who communicate with each other tend to get into fights with each other over what they are communicating about. Usually they take their fights out on each other. But when anonymous channels are used, they can't get to each other, they don't know who each other is, so they take it out on the provider of the channel instead. That's me. It's enough to make you want to throw anonymity in the waste basket. Providing a communication channel is a difficult job, it usually involves a precarious balance between allowing the good guys to speak and making sure the bad guys don't get away with the gold. It is very hard to maintain that balance with both sides pulling and tugging on you because they can't pull and tug on each other. One of the main purposes of the Subscriber Agreement is to make sure that people pull and tug on each other, and leave me out of it even if they got no one to target at the other end. Homer

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Re: (2) More on Digital Postage
by Attila T. Hun 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- on or about 970213:0902 "Timothy C. May" <tcmay(a)got.net> said: +At 5:00 AM +0000 2/13/97, Attila T. Hun wrote: +> unfortunately, until the irresponsible tone down their greed, we +> need the regulation to protect ourselves from the predators. +> +> in other words, I agree with you in my heart, but our society +> refuses to cooperate. +Attila and I have had this disagreement before (last time it involved +Attila's support for curfews). +Attila is free to hire agents to screen his mail so he does not receive +spam. He is not free, in a free society, to force such screeners upon +me. very true. if you if define that your freedom includes the free abuse of your freedoms by others. freedom is a two way street; freedom in my book says that I can do anything I wish which does not infringe on the rights of others. now, that implies that I can _personally_ exact justice on those who violate my space. this is a state of war which even Jim Bell's AP does not cover --AP is just an anonymous and chicken-hearted way of settling the score, and creates its own code even more absurb than the rules coming down from Washington. and, I can not imagine you really believe the basic animals of our society and the predators who attempt to feed upon us all do not need to be restrained in one way or another. you obviously have a solution: your .44 (I prefer a full choke 12 ga pump). maybe the comment in my sig line is an expression of the suppressed feelings of the frustrated members of our society who have been confronted by the inequities of our legal system when they expected redress was their right. +Talking about "irresponsible tones" and "greed" and how we need more +laws to protect ourselves from "predators" sounds more like something +from the Marin County limousine liberal set than from a Utah mountain +man Cypherpunk. I'm shocked, simply shocked. shocked, simply shocked? (:-}) marin county? I'm insulted <g> tell you what: you run afoul of us out here on the "mountain" where there is no need for social niceties --we just call it "range law." ___________________________________________________________attila_____ "Explain to me, slowly and carefully, why if person A, when screwed over on a deal by B; is morally obligated to consult, pay, and defer to, person C for the purpose of seeing justice done; and why person C has any legitimate gripe, if A just hauls off and smacks B around like a dead carp." ___________________________________________________________attila_____ "attila" 1024/C20B6905/23 D0 FA 7F 6A 8F 60 66 BC AF AE 56 98 C0 D7 B0 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: latin1 Comment: No safety this side of the grave. Never was; never will be iQCVAwUBMwN12b04kQrCC2kFAQG8AwP/fT3BgeMG8V9IKOGjFEpI+3gY8F5cSohh 8qqaMrHkYT7UU1WZcO/1pGJyUycvOUgzzlFJoTYZsxP6NvJhpkGopHg31EUBDfC+ 5lFDJR1hlX6ckyL8moDlxi3l0z7Dxf6VO+J5dsCetmJG+QxN7/0PzeplN5oN9Y1V nHzMG5/FD5Y= =G/Ag -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: NSA Rainbow Series.
by Genocide 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Wed, 12 Feb 1997, Tobin Fricke wrote: Turns out they were just late in gettin it to me, but I did get it. > > 1-800-688-6115 press 0 or just wait for the operator. My second > > order consisting of posters and video has not arrived either. It has been > > about 6 weeks. The Rainbow order was only 2 weeks. Be prepared that when > > you order the Rainbow series you will be getting a large box.Their are > > something like 30+ booklets in the series. > > There is a set of security posters that include a Santa > > poster.And there is also a video with two films on it (Acess Ins and outs > > adb Acess Control). > > How much does all this stuff from the NSA cost? > > Tobin Fricke > (please reply privately, tobin(a)mail.edm.net) > > Genocide Head of the Genocide2600 Group ============================================================================ **Coming soon! www.Genocide2600.com! ____________________ *---===| |===---* *---===| Genocide |===---* "Courage is not defined by those who *---===| 2600 |===---* fought and did not fall, but by those *---===|__________________|===---* who fought, fell, and and rose again." Email: gen2600(a)aracnet.com Web: http://www.aracnet.com/~gen2600 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. It is by the Mountain Dew that the thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion. ================================================================================

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unsubcribe
by George Leerhuber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

UNSUBCRIBE <lerhuber(a)joshuanet.com>

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Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s) (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 14:46:04 -0800 > From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> > Subject: Re: Private property & the cypherpunks list(s) > Is this the policy of the majordomo network, that individual list operators > can make their own policies for their subscribers, but may not/cannot > impose them on other list operators or the other lists' members? It sounds > very reasonable, but it would be nice to be clear about whether or not this > is the case. There is no policy at this point. We have not even agreed to a means to institute the network or its basic architecture. The only point of mandatory agreement is between any two individual list operators and the mechanism they use to transfer between those two nodes. This sort of policy distribution won't work, as to reasonable I think not. If everyone does their own thing with no compromise then nothing will get done. > Are there any rules (other than "no rules") which apply to all lists/list > operators/list subscribers? Can there ever be any? Who would write the > rules, and who must agree to them in order for them to take effect? There are no explicit rules at this point. Yes there can be all sorts of rules, both implicit (eg copyrights) and explicit. Anyone can write rules. Nobody must agree to anything other than implicit agreements, course the concept of 'agreement' sorta goes out the window with implicits. > Can individual list operators be forced to or forbidden to "peer" with > other machines, or are these "peer" relationships up to each list operator? Don't see how anyone can force the remailer to do anything. Can't speak for anyone else but can say with some degree of certainty that no participant in cpunks can stop me from subscribing whoever I want. There is certainly no mechanism envisioned to authenticate subscriptions with the remailer operators. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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