December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 15:42:48 -0800 > From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> > Subject: Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd) > I disagree strongly that a controversial or legally troublesome list (or > other data stream) should be closely associated with a business. No. IS the business. > (Also, what is the "right" thing to do where a particular exercise of free > speech looks like it has serious potential to harm the business, thereby > harming or eliminating the list which makes the speech possible? Isn't > every choice a person could make in such a situation reducible to > "censorship"?) Get somebody else to do the marketing, your current promoter is incompitent. I don't think I can accept "personal choice" == "censorship". To my mind personal choice is a decision I make based on my wants and needs. Cencorship is a decision about my want and needs made by somebody else. Distinction is pretty clear to me. > Every "forum" for free speech occurs exists in the context of economic and > political relationships - and there will always be some message which > threatens (to some degree) the stability of those relationships, and by > implication, the forum itself. Unless we can eliminate economics and > politics (ha, ha) I think that will always be the case - and there will > always be some messages which raise "conflict of interest" problems. But > some forums rest on less stable relationships (like, for example, most > small businesses) and are more easily threatened by difficult messages. Everthing exists in a context of economic and political relationship, and religous ones, and intellectual ones, and historic ones, and cultural ones, and sexual ones, etc. Life is inherently unstable, what makes anyone believe that ANY forum is not under constant threat of extinction? If from nothing else sheer boredom. Life ain't that simple. If there were no "conflict of interest" problems we wouldn't have our interests in the first place. Also, why do you believe that conflict doesn't have a market as well? > It's much easier to disrupt the income stream of a small business than to > disrupt the income stream from a portfolio of investments or savings. Depends on where that income stream comes from. > But > even a system whose upkeep was funded by something as unremarkable as > interest on a savings account or a CD would still theoretically be > "conflicted" were someone to use the system to propose or carry out a > scheme to, say, overthrow the U.S. Government, or eliminate the FDIC and > loot various savings & loans. Would one of the persons be a owner? > The threat(s) to systems providing transport/storage for controversial > messages are not limited to liability after a judgement; it is becoming > more common for civil plaintiffs to seek (and get) discovery of the actual > hardware owned and used by defendants, in order to look through the storage > media for discoverable information, including "deleted" files. The tactics > the Co$ used against its critics were shocking but also legal (modulo some > irregularities). It's certainly not unimaginable that similar tactics would > be used against a remailer or majordomo operator were the list to pass > traffic that someone didn't like. And if a computer system is the target of > a search warrant in the criminal arena, you'll be lucky if you get to keep > your electronic alarm clocks after the search. Count on everything with a > chip in it going away in the police van. Irrelevant. Whether the system were private or business would make no difference to the warrant. The question is, "Since I run a system on the Internet and may become involved through no fault of my own with legal difficulties because of my activities how do I pay for the legal bills and various other consequences?" Another question affecting financing is, "Whether I am doing this for fun or business the cost will be the same. From a effort and resources perspective, including the realities of the tax code and cash flow, which is in my best interest?" I would also offer that it isn't in the best interest of any party to shut a Internet site of some report down. Consider the cypherpunks mailing list. Assume for a moment that the remailer was to mysteriously disappear tonite at midnite. If Sandy or somebody didn't put something up within a day or two entirely too many people would start asking "whaz up?" The most successful strategy would be to impose some sort of continous drain on the business until it seemed to fold of natural causes. I contend that a business will hold out much longer than most individuals will. > Most businesses don't want to expose themselves to the threat of civil or > criminal seizure or discovery, especially not at random times and for > non-business reasons. Exactly! It isn't a weakness, it's a strength. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Re: Cypherpunks Mailing List
by Kevin Hoogheem 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

GET ME off this list!

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Re: alt.cypherpunks
by Eric Cordian 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mr. Blatz writes: > alt.cypherpunks has been newgroup'ed, and I belive rm'grouped. Smart, > consiencous newsadmins probably did not honor the rmgroup, as > alt.cypherpunks should be acceptable, but most newsadmins are too > overworked to actually look at most of the crap that comes through. > For example, it hasn't received any messages on my news server, > probably because the one upstream removed it. I haven't seen any rmgroups for alt.cypherpunks. Paul Bradley's newgroup for alt.cypherpunks is nowhere to be found, but Mike Duvos' newgroup made it onto the Net, and was reposted the next day by usenet(a)news.myriad.ml.org. Meanwhile, Paul Bradley seems to have finally figured out newgrouping and has created... alt.cypherpunks.announce alt.cypherpunks.social alt.cypherpunks.technical and, of course... alt.fan.paul.bradley The latter has been rmgrouped because it was not discussed in alt.config. I might suggest that deliberately tweeking the whiskers of the Cabal by gratuitous newgrouping is unlikely to bode well for alt.cypherpunks. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

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Re: Dale disses gays.
by ichudov＠algebra.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dale Thorn wrote: > Huge Cajones Remailer wrote: > > :and I've had plenty of White friends, and an equal percentage of :Black friends given the number of Black people I've known, but I've :never had a friend who was gay or lesbian, as far as I know, and I :think I could tell. > > > How, Dale, by the smell? > > I worked for a gay man in Beverly Hills and Encino for 3 years. I > learned a lot about "signals" during that time. Bigot? I don't > think so. One of my favorite customers, a nice lady who is Jewish > (and who grew up where I did) told me she could spot 'em every time. This is a typical case of overconfidence on her part. If she thought about it for longer, she would realize that she cannot benchmark her gay-spotting performance very well. If you presented her with, say, 100 unknown men and 50 of them were gays and she'd identify everyone correctly, I would be impressed. A truly great and simple book that talks about this stuff is ``Decision Traps: the ten barriers to brilliant decision making''. > BTW, my browser has a problem with your lines that have no c/r after > every 70 or so characters. Other people will undoubtedly confirm that. Yes, we will. - Igor.

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Re: Cypherpunks-announce? Do we need to recreate this?
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:51 AM 2/13/97 -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: >So far it's carried 1-2 announcements per month. >Should we create it as a mailing list, moderated or unmoderated, >or as a newsgroup? (It's been a moderated mailing list, run by John and >Hugh.) Deja-News now carries both alt.cypherpunks and alt.cypherpunks.announce. There was never a problem with cypherpunks-announce. Whoever volunteered to run the monthly meeting just emailed to Hugh, who posted the announcement. I would suggest to avoid fixing what isn't broken and make alt.cypherpunks.announce a moderated list with Hugh and Eric as the moderators. The cypherpunks* lists on toad.com could be set up as mail-to-news gateways (I volunteer to do so if needed) and all current subscribers unsubscribed after a suitable warning outlining ways of accessing USENET. If the list owner should so desire, I volunteer to write the tutorial. -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 15:42:48 -0800 > From: Greg Broiles <gbroiles(a)netbox.com> > Subject: Re: Recommendation: Creation of "alt.cypherpunks" (fwd) > I disagree strongly that a controversial or legally troublesome list (or > other data stream) should be closely associated with a business. No. IS the business. > (Also, what is the "right" thing to do where a particular exercise of free > speech looks like it has serious potential to harm the business, thereby > harming or eliminating the list which makes the speech possible? Isn't > every choice a person could make in such a situation reducible to > "censorship"?) Get somebody else to do the marketing, your current promoter is incompitent. I don't think I can accept "personal choice" == "censorship". To my mind personal choice is a decision I make based on my wants and needs. Cencorship is a decision about my want and needs made by somebody else. Distinction is pretty clear to me. > Every "forum" for free speech occurs exists in the context of economic and > political relationships - and there will always be some message which > threatens (to some degree) the stability of those relationships, and by > implication, the forum itself. Unless we can eliminate economics and > politics (ha, ha) I think that will always be the case - and there will > always be some messages which raise "conflict of interest" problems. But > some forums rest on less stable relationships (like, for example, most > small businesses) and are more easily threatened by difficult messages. Everthing exists in a context of economic and political relationship, and religous ones, and intellectual ones, and historic ones, and cultural ones, and sexual ones, etc. Life is inherently unstable, what makes anyone believe that ANY forum is not under constant threat of extinction? If from nothing else sheer boredom. Life ain't that simple. If there were no "conflict of interest" problems we wouldn't have our interests in the first place. Also, why do you believe that conflict doesn't have a market as well? > It's much easier to disrupt the income stream of a small business than to > disrupt the income stream from a portfolio of investments or savings. Depends on where that income stream comes from. > But > even a system whose upkeep was funded by something as unremarkable as > interest on a savings account or a CD would still theoretically be > "conflicted" were someone to use the system to propose or carry out a > scheme to, say, overthrow the U.S. Government, or eliminate the FDIC and > loot various savings & loans. Would one of the persons be a owner? > The threat(s) to systems providing transport/storage for controversial > messages are not limited to liability after a judgement; it is becoming > more common for civil plaintiffs to seek (and get) discovery of the actual > hardware owned and used by defendants, in order to look through the storage > media for discoverable information, including "deleted" files. The tactics > the Co$ used against its critics were shocking but also legal (modulo some > irregularities). It's certainly not unimaginable that similar tactics would > be used against a remailer or majordomo operator were the list to pass > traffic that someone didn't like. And if a computer system is the target of > a search warrant in the criminal arena, you'll be lucky if you get to keep > your electronic alarm clocks after the search. Count on everything with a > chip in it going away in the police van. Irrelevant. Whether the system were private or business would make no difference to the warrant. The question is, "Since I run a system on the Internet and may become involved through no fault of my own with legal difficulties because of my activities how do I pay for the legal bills and various other consequences?" Another question affecting financing is, "Whether I am doing this for fun or business the cost will be the same. From a effort and resources perspective, including the realities of the tax code and cash flow, which is in my best interest?" I would also offer that it isn't in the best interest of any party to shut a Internet site of some report down. Consider the cypherpunks mailing list. Assume for a moment that the remailer was to mysteriously disappear tonite at midnite. If Sandy or somebody didn't put something up within a day or two entirely too many people would start asking "whaz up?" The most successful strategy would be to impose some sort of continous drain on the business until it seemed to fold of natural causes. I contend that a business will hold out much longer than most individuals will. > Most businesses don't want to expose themselves to the threat of civil or > criminal seizure or discovery, especially not at random times and for > non-business reasons. Exactly! It isn't a weakness, it's a strength. Jim Choate CyberTects ravage(a)ssz.com

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Good Bye Cypherpunks!
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Friends, I have been on the list since May 1993, after reading about it in Wired 1.2. The list impacted my life more than any other medium. I knew little about cryptography when I joined the list. Now I work in the field. Some of the subscribers on this list have become my personal friends. Many have become co-workers or clients. The list has been good to me. But it is time to move on. Cypherpunks(a)toad.com has come to an end, and perhaps it was time. See you all on USENET mailto:cypherpunks@toad.com is dead. Long live news:alt.cypherpunks Umsuscrive message follows ;-) -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred "I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence." Mahatma Gandhi

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Re: crypto restrictions
by anand abhyankar 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Jeremiah A Blatz wrote: thanx for ur answer but then i have another question. 1) is it illegal to develop an encryption tool (s/w) outside the US which uses > 40 bit size session keys and then import that s/w inside of the US. anand....

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

17 Dec '03

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

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Re: Rubber hoses
by nobody＠wazoo.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dildo Vegetable K[ondom] Of The Minute grew a beard to look like his mother. (~\/~) /~'\ /`~\ _ _ `\ /'( ` ) ( `\/' ) `' `\ /' `\ /' Dildo Vegetable K[ondom] Of The Minute `\ /' `\/' '

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