December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

An asshole using PGP
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just received a PGP-encryptd message from Douglas Floyd, just after explaining carefully the work that's needed to decrypt PGP messages. I dutifully clipped the article, moved the text into my text editor, fired up MacPGP, entered my key, etc. The message was banal, and is included below: ---begin his message--- What's wrong with putting your private key on a UNIX box? (Obviously, I AM root on the boxes I have the key on, and the boxes are firewalled to boot.) ---end his message--- There was no need for this to be PGPed, no need even to ask it, period, as I had already made the point about the dangers being for boxes one is *not* root on, etc. I conclude from this that Douglas Floyd is just an asshole. One I don't plan to ever respond to again. Only a prick would make a point to send me a PGP message, encrypted to my published key, only to make such a point. For some reason the number of fools and lightweights around here has jumped dramatically in recent months. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Easy PGP use from the Mac
by doug＠OpenMind.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For all those who have been complaining about the inconvenience of using PGP to sign their messages, decrypt received messages, etc., and who primarily use a Macintosh for their private mail reading... I use a set-up which is as simple as: 1) Type a message into a Eudora window 2) Double click on a desktop icon 3) Wait about 15 seconds, and the message in the window is replaced with a signed and/or encrypted version of the original message. (Plus typing in a recipient into dialog box for encryption, and entering a passphrase for signing -- or the passphrase can be "saved"). Decrypting and signature verification is almost as easy... but the decrypted text appears in a text editor window instead of a new Eudora window. No big deal. All disk based plaintext files can be automatically wiped during this process. All you need is: 1) Commercial Eudora for the Mac (costs about $50) 2) Applescript 1.1 (buy it now, or provided with System 7.5, due out soon) 3) MacPGP 2.6ui 4) Some carefully written scripts for combining the above three components. I found it necessary to tweak the scripts that someone else had written to do all of the above, but now it's all working great. The main disadvantage that I can see is that MacPGP 2.6ui is required to make this work (the "USA-domestic" MacPGP 2.6 does not have the required scripting support). But since you can configure 2.6ui to pretend to the outside world that it is regular 2.6, this doesn't seem like much of a problem for most people. By the way, Eudora comes with Unix-mail program interface scripts that enable many people to use it in combination with a terminal Unix account (such as a standard Netcom account). I'll be happy to provide more details/help on request, or to send a copy of my slightly modifed scripts. The desktop icons I alluded to in the beginning are just aliases to the scripts. Doug ___________________________________________________________________ Doug Cutrell General Partner doug(a)OpenMind.com Open Mind, Santa Cruz ===================================================================

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Re: Nuclear Weapons Material, Truly?
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by perry(a)imsi.com ("Perry E. Metzger") on Wed, 24 Aug 9:10 AM >(I'm not sure >that people outside of the bomb building industry >really know *for sure* what the geometries used in the >atomic weapon that sets off the fusion reaction.) Perhaps. However, there is much detailed design and production info in the "Nuclear Weapons Databook" series: U. S. Nuclear Warhead Production, Volume II, 1987. U. S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles, Volume III, 1987. Soviet Nuclear Weapons, Volume IV, 1989. And others. The series provides pretty detailed textual and graphic descriptions of the entire history of design, production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons. These are written by the folks at Natural Resources Defense Council and are available there and from Ballinger Division, Harper and Row, New York. The beloved McGeorge Bundy is quoted on the covers: "A powerful antidote to the simplistic deceptions peddled with such zeal from high places . . . contains more facts about the past, present and future of [U. S. nuclear] forces than have ever been put in one place before . . . meticulous and responsible . . . the effect is overwhelming." They are mesmerizing. But then maybe they were written only for the ignorant. John

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No Subject
by dfloyd＠runner.utsa.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To whom it may concern: In a previous mailing called "An Asshole using PGP" which does have a valid message and my signature, he basically killfiles me in the worst manner possible. Before sentence is passed, and the sound of a thousand plonks is sent in my direction, I would like to speak my part. In an earlier mailing, Mr. May was mentioning how annoying it is to obtain a PGP encrypted message, download it to their home machine, and then find a message like "wow... pgp's kwl man.". I composed the reply that Tcmay so generously posted for everyone to marvel at. I signed it, but re-read it, and DID found it to be as one would put it "nitrogenous cow waste." I composed another reply in the same directory as the original, which is irrelevent now because of this ad hominum attack. To make a long story short, I mailed the wrong file. If tcmay feels that I am such a low life that I am worthy of the plonk sound, so be it. I refuse to have judgement passed on me by the whole of this list without speaking my part. Tim May definitely has more clout than I do, and the people on the list respect him, while I am less anarchistic, more conservative about the way the government is. (I do NOT like the pressure of GAK and the Klinton Klown stuff though, let me make this clear.) Again, I am not asking for anything, but you not to killfile me for a mistake, though stupid it may be. I apologize to you, Mr. May, but I find it rude for you to take something out of private mail, and onto this list. Unless there is some major change in circumstances, consider this the last mailing from me on this as I will NOT trouble this list, and go on personal flamewars. My mailing address is dfloyd(a)runner.jpl.utsa.edu, and if you have any problems, please take this to me. I will not have this mailing list, the only mailing list I've really participated on polluted by petty ad hominum attacks. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLlsHoXDkimqwdwa5AQFZSAP8CPzDk8g8HZcQ0KH1O33k2mNgABTGslPG q2YSmuQqn6SKoNRt5VNVSlZJNrLcVbx4umo+1tw0xTSWJBQlHr57B8/+innhop3m ErNK1Pais/xnkRU3Mw0D9ya+Oy+CLM7nwEhE/IYSxYAU9l7Nd3fKqLD13nZJij8w diyNr7WVzI4= =F2jA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Voluntary Governments?
by Jim Dixon 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <9408232042.AA18345(a)fnord.sybgate.sybase.com> Elton Wildermuth writes: > Here's the closest applicable dictionary definition of "government", The closest "applicable" definition is not the SOLE definition, it is only definition 1 in your dictionary, and even then [I won't go into boring detail] the dictionary meaning is wider than the narrow reading you are trying to apply to it. > "Rule", or "political ... control" are only ever exercised through force. > People keep using that word, "enforce", without looking carefully at it. > >From the same dictionary: "to put or keep in force; compel obedience to." Have you never admired someone so much that that person's displeasure was a compelling force? > >I grew up in a small town of 5,000. It had a city government. The > >county government was in the same town. No one denies that California > >has a government, I think. And then there was the US government. And > >we had city police, the sheriff's office, the Highway Patrol, and the > >FBI paid an occasional visit. > > Uh ... you _do_ understand that that's a specious argument, yes? Uh ... you _do_ understand that that is a silly comment, yes? I was illustrating some of the common uses of the word. Linguistic arguments are best met with linguistic replies, not political bullshit. Your insistence that there is only one 'true' government in the United States, and that all other governments are in some sense derivative, does not agree with my reading of the US Constitution, but this is not a matter that I, for one, will pursue. > Here, someone will surely object that by this definition, the Mafia can > be considered a government. Well, yes, of course. It has quasi-governmental functions in southern Italy. > Well, if they can successfully kick the > existing thugs off of some plot of ground, and then defend it against > all comers, then yes: that's exactly what they'll be. How else do you > suppose that governments become established? This is supposed to be a revelation? -- Jim Dixon

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Actually using strong crypto on a routine basis.
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Responding to msg by jkreznar(a)ininx.com (John E. Kreznar) on Wed, 24 Aug 4:30 AM >Stick to your guns, Rick. Even cypherpunks founders >can become corrupted. No. Tim says: Don't do what I do, do what I say. Do your homework. Clean your room. You embarass me. Get a job. Get a haircut. Get a life. Don't talk back. When I was your age . . . Listen to me . . . Shut the fuck up. I'm sorry, I love you. Every parent of rambunctious kids talks like this. Sigh. John

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Re: In Search of Genuine DigiCash
by rah＠shipwright.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:08 PM 8/23/94 -0400, Jason W Solinsky wrote: >Well we agree that the selling point is economic efficiency. But "anonymity >reduces overhead" ? I keep getting tangled up in that. I'll try again. Anonymity is not the issue. Strong Cryptography is the issue. Anonymity comes from strong crypto. Like I said before, anonymity is the byproduct of using strong crypto to build a digital cash system. It's like what I said about flight in this same thread. It turns out the best way to go really fast is to fly (at least until someone builds an evacuated tunnel with a magnetic levitation train in it, anyway). In inventing aviation, we discovered how to go really fast. It turns out that going really fast is a cheaper way to do things if time is valuable. Being able to fly, while an end in itself, is also a byproduct of wanting to get somewhere fast, at least in economic terms. It turns out that in creating an anonymous digital cash system, you can do very cheap, irrefutable transactions offline in an internetworked environment. That's cheaper for a whole lot of reasons, a relatively minor one being the ability to pool the cash without a lot of transaction recordkeeping. You don't have to know who gave you each piece of money in order to find who stiffed you, if it happens. The reduced overhead increases economic efficiency. There are other reasons for not doing on-line transactions. Including credit checks, interest calculations on outstanding balances, vendor reserve requirements, transaction threading, on-line wait states and bandwidth, etc. It's considerable. In addition, I'll forward to you off-line the Eric Hughes postings that got me started on this. They were put here on 8/19 at 12:20, 1:02, and 4:24 and 4:43. Cheez, looks like I'm citing scripture here. I feel like one of those fundamnmentalists you see in football endzones on TV. You know, the guys with the sign that says "John 6:66". ;-). > There are alot of reasons why I think anonymity is important, but I fail >to see any significant economic advantage that anonymity confers to a person >who otherwise couldn't care less about it. I think like stellar formation, evolution and economic progress, the privacy of digital cash may be a happy accident resulting from the activities of a random process (internet commerce) looking for a way to make itself more efficient. It happens. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923

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Computer Security Conference & Exibit
by Claborne, Chris 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Has anyone been to the Computer Security Conference & Exhibition? If so, what did you think of it. I am thinking of goin to the 21st annual on Nov 14-16 in Washington D.C. PGP key signing party??? 2 -- C --

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Pentium pitch
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

NY Times sez: Intel will pitch the Pentium chip on comedy shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "Frasier." The challenge of the new campaign will be to talk about technology without having viewers laugh it off as so much technobabble. Stuart Elliott: Advertising. [D16]. Email copies available. John

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Re: Credit cards, false names, and important details
by frissell＠panix.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:25 AM 8/23/94 -0500, Jim Hart wrote: > >How is this simple? A credit card company sure as hell wants >to known who you truly are and where you truly live. It must >be able to collect its debt and mark your credit rating. >Applying for a credit card with false name or Social Security >number is fraud, with heavy punishments. Or are there, yet >again, numerous details you are neglecting to mention? > >Jim Hart >hart(a)chaos.bsu.edu There is no such thing as a false name. You can still call yourself anything you like (and spell it any way). If you are trying to pretend to be another actual person, there may be fraud involved. No one's busted the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus -- Kawize(sp?) Infume -- for using a name other than his birth name. The issuers of secured credit cards vary in the amount of info they want about you. Citibank's secured credit card app asks for almost as much info as their normal app. Some secure card issuers just want to know your name address and SS #. The overseas issuers of bank debit Visa cards don't want your SS# but usually these days want a bank reference. Using a nome de guerre and an accomodation address is not fraud. They asked for your name and address and you supplied it. It is an interesting question as to whether or not using a phoney SS# would be fraud. This is particularly uncertain if the bank would have issued you a secured credit card even if you gave your "real" SS#. If you are just trying to protect your privacy, and not trying to induce the bank to do anything that it would not have done anyway, is there fraud since the "lie" is not material to the granting of credit in the case of secured credit cards? It will not come up in any case. Note too that the SS# requirement is there not because the bank wants it but because the *government* requires it. (A credit card account is actually a bank account.) You are not lying to the credit card issuer but to the State that is forcing them to invade your privacy. Lying to the government is not fraud because you (or I at least) am not attempting to get anything of value from them. The "Necessity Defense" can always be used to justify lying to the government. DCF "You speak Treason!" - The Lady Marion Fitzwalter "Fluently!" - Sir Robin of Loxley Not from the politically correct version.

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