December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Pedophiles everywhere!!!
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)imsi.com>: > > The drumbeat against all those anonymous pedophiles continues.... > > _Wall Street Journal_, 6/30/94 > > PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY by Walter S. Mossberg > > "Keeping Your Kids Away From Creeps As They Play Online" > > They aren't the only ones talking about it. I've seen three articles > about this in the past week. Even the Clipper article in the Economist, who should know better, that appeared a few weeks ago talked about pedophiles abounding in a Clipper-less world... I think the pedophilic possibilities of the Internet capture the imaginations of the media -- their deepest desires, perhaps. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

1 0

Re: WHAT MOTIVATES FORWARDERS?
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

perobich(a)ingr.com: > IMHO a more serious and prevalent problem is the onslaught of spam > whenever EFF, CPSR, EPIC, NSA, or EIEIO issue press releases even > tangentially related to crypto. Not only do I usually get a copy in my > main inbox (since my filter doesn't catch it because it's not via I had cribbed about this a while ago, after I received 6 copies of an EFF release. I suggested that we agree on individuals responsible to forward posts from different sources. IAC the major ones - EFF, EPIC, CPSR... seem to have cypherpunks(a)toad.com on _their_ lists, and many of us subscribe to them independently. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rishab Aiyer Ghosh "Clean the air! clean the sky! wash the wind! rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in take stone from stone and wash them..." Voice/Fax/Data +91 11 6853410 Voicemail +91 11 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

1 0

Re: What motivates crypto-folk?
by jamiel＠sybase.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 1:28 PM 07/01/94 +0200, Mats Bergstrom wrote: >anarchy. And I don't think any ultra left-wingers are lurking on >cypherpunks. That epithet should be saved for people believing in Depends on what you call ultra-left. You have a very serious socialist here... I don't advertise it much becuase too many libertarian types spam me trying to tell me why I'm wrong. Maybe I am the only one that gets tired of those arguments... [tame but promising aproach to social welfare deleted] >But such a pinko-green approach to privacy does not, and should >not in my humble opinion, have to extend to public funding of >education, libraries, minorities, arts, infobahns or other soft >issues. And it gives no one a right to pry into my software >collection or drug cabinet. Well, you were doing well for a while...:) And this pinko agrees 110% with the last statement. My own personal opinion is that waiting for governments to collapse due to crypto and tech is gonna have you waiting a long, long time. I prefer doing something with the tools at hand to dreaming. And the government isn't all bad, as is; just mostly bad. Heck, let me be so optimistic as to say maybe even fixable, at least to what I want to see. >Mats Bergstrom Jamie "Is a Mayist Like a Janist?" Lawrence -- "Blah Blah Blah" ___________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence <jamiel(a)sybase.com>

3 2

Illegal Acts & Crypto
by Duncan Frissell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The dumbest question of all: "But if you aren't doing anything illegal, why do you need crypto? (or have to worry about stop-and-frisk, or need legal due process protections.) Only lawbreakers have to worry if their privacy is violated." Great thought. Now tell me what will be illegal in 40 years in all the jurisdictions in which I will live. In addition, tell me what (legal) behaviors or characteristics of mine will nonetheless cause me to lose social approbation//jobs//friends//etc in all of the societies in which I will live. Statistics say I've got 40 years left. Forty years ago, smoking was a virtue and sodomy a vice. Twenty-five years ago, money laundering was as legal as church on a Sunday and every bank in America offered defacto secret bank accounts. Given the speed with which things are changing, in twenty-five more years, participating on a crypto mailing list like this could be punished by the death penalty under the Krypto Kingpins Kontrol Act of 2005. Or if things go another way, advocates of government key escrow systems could be subject to outlawry and instant public "vector control measures" if they accidentally wander onto the land of the wrong proprietary community. You never know. In the last 200 years of human history, people have been killed at one time or another in one place or another simply because they had any human characteristic you could name or indulged in any human behavior. You name the characteristic or behavior and I bet I can name the time when people somewhere were died because of it. Giving up your privacy is too great a risk. What do you gain. Besides, if we are all equal then the rulers are equal to us and we don't have to give up our autonomy to them. DCF --- WinQwk 2.0b#1165

2 1

RE: Politics and crypto
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: Michael Wilson The political Left had the belief that while you, an individual, should have the right to do what you want with your body. . ., they wanted to control what you did with your money. . . The political Right had the belief that you should have the right to do what you want with your money . . , but not with your body. . . . .................................................. True! ....programs such as healthcare, Clipper, national ID cards, national information infrastructures, and so forth are all direct yet subtle attacks on such basic freedoms. It creates both the motive *and* mechanism for tyrrany. .................................................. Thus the Administration would undermine the motives & mechanisms for privacy. Everyone wants the advantages for themselves and not for their enemies; it would be useful to be able to distinguish enemies from friends, but this is not an easy task when everyone's philosophies & politics are so mixed up & inconsistent & counterproductive. At some point, it becomes unavoidable to conclude that in reality, it's "every man for himself"; i.e. - anything which helps individual, independent competence is a valuable & valid pursuit. Blanc

1 0

Password Difficulties
by kentborg＠world.std.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hey folks, passwords are hard to choose! It boils down to this: I can't remember as many bits as the TLAs can crack by brute force. Starting with a bunch of coin tosses I tried ways of coding them: hex, ASCII, and words off word lists. Horrors! The hex is too long, the ASCII is too long and too obscure, words words chosen by those bits too many and too obscure. Sorry, there is no way regular people are going to remember pass words or phrases with more than about 50-bits worth of information in them--and even doing that well is going to be rare. We need to slowdown password testing? Obvious things come to mind. 1) Try to pair up short passwords with slow hardware, like a smartcard that can only consider a few passwords a second. 2) Try to hide behind an expensive operation. (Does encrypting my private key 1,000,000-times equal encrypting it once with a key 20-bits longer?) What do we do? (What are you folks doing right now?) -kb, the Kent who occasionally considers practicalities -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg(a)world.std.com kentborg(a)aol.com Proud to claim 31:15 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!

5 4

Clipper "voluntary" like taxes are?
by Vincent.Cate＠FURMINT.NECTAR.CS.CMU.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On the front page of the 6/29/94 WSJ there is mention of the fact that the IRS chief refers to the US tax system as "voluntary". I had heard this "voluntary" before. So at about 3:20 today I called the IRS at 1-800-tax-1040 to ask if this was correct. After about 40 minutes on hold (fortunately I have a computer to keep me busy) I got someone. They said that, yes, the US does have a "voluntary compliance" tax system. They said that I could find the tax codes saying this in the local library. I tried to pin down why they used the word "voluntary". After asking a couple questions I said, "but if we don't comply there are penalties, right?", they said yes, then I said, "so why is it voluntary?" and they hung up on me. Since this same government says that Clipper is "voluntary" I am worried that they mean some new Orwellian definition of "voluntary" and not the old fashioned "voluntary" many of us might have assumed. Voluntary used to mean things like "without legal obligation" and such (see below). Get a copy of PGP while you can, -- Vince Word voluntary (VAHL'uhn-ter'ee) adj. Definition --adj. 1. a. Arising from one's own free will. b. Acting on one's own initiative. 2. Acting or serving in a specified capacity willingly and without constraint or guarantee of reward. 3. Normally controlled by or subject to individual volition. 4. Capable of exercising will; volitional. 5. Proceeding from impulse; spontaneous. 6. Law. a. Acting or performed without external persuasion or compulsion. b. Without legal obligation, payment, or valuable consideration: a voluntary conveyance. c. Not accidental; intentional: voluntary manslaughter. --n., pl. - ies. 1. Mus. Solo organ music, occasionally improvised, that is played usually before and sometimes during or after a church service. 2. A volunteer. voluntarily (-taruh-lee) --adv. voluntariness --n. Etymology ME < Lat. voluntarius < voluntas, choice < velle, to wish. Domain Literature, Rhetoric, Philosophy, Law, Music Synonyms voluntary, intentional, deliberate, willful, willing, spontaneous. These adjectives mean unforced. Voluntary is applied in several related senses to what is done by choice, to physical movement subject to regulation by the will, and less often to action that is not only of one's choice but premeditated. The last-named sense is more basic to intentional and deliberate; in addition, deliberate stresses the idea of action taken with full awareness of the consequences. Willful can mean merely in accordance with one's will but often implies headstrong persistence in a self- determined course of action. Willing suggests acceding to a course proposed by another, without reluctance or even eagerly. Spontaneous refers to behavior that seems wholly unpremeditated, a natural response and a true reflection of one's feelings.

1 0

RE: MAIL: chained remailing strategy
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hal Finney wrote: > Here are the times at which my remailer has received messages > over the past week. (This is the only form of log which I keep, > except for messages titled "DEATH TO BLACKNET".) In return for > this information, please provide a histogram showing usage as a > function of time of day. Thanks - Hal Finney You're on, Hal. Thanks for the work you put into that, and I'll see if I can whip up a program to produce a histogram ... well, at least in tabular form. Thanks for the challenge... In fact, if you want, I can send you the source code (in "C"), privately. This mention of "DEATH TO BLACKNET" sounds intriguing. Is this some sort of abusive/harassing message you're trying to track down? With encrypted chaining available to hide the actual subject until the last link, it would seem that the sender is either naive, or else WANTS the Subject: line itself to send some sort of "statement". (What is "BLACKNET", BTW?) This brings up a related question, however. How often, if at all, are you asked to help trace down the source of a message handled by your remailer? Under what circumstances would you cooperate with such a request? I've noticed that you have a 510 bit public key for your remailer. Did you choose the shorter length to speed things up, or what? I tend to use a remailer with a longer key as my FIRST link in the chain. Maybe it's overkill, but why not? And, finally, as a chained remailer user, I've read the periodic "status reports" by fingering "ghio(a)andrew.cmu.edu" and your remailer must certainly rank as one of the promptest and most reliable. In fact, I think I'll include you *SOMEWHERE* on the chain for this reply... <g>

2 1

RE: Illegal Acts & Crypto
by Blanc Weber 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some collected thoughts & misc. impressions: Images of the psychology of crypto-users: . scurrying around like rats, hiding in the dark from regular interactions (regular = unconcerned) . fear of being onesself in the light, lacking courage . having a view of life which is not trusting, but suspicious and cynical . not identifying with the group, therefore keeping things from them, something akin to hoarding & not sharing (closed to the other members of the society, rather than open) . not necessarily "officially" illegal, but generally not really "one of us", as in hypocritical - "with us, but not *of* us" i.e., an individual, having separated themselves from the group from the use of an individuating tool/mechanism. Encrypted Info (Positive): . being particular & specific, exclusive ("for your eyes only") . channelling the sent info to arrive at the intended destination only . limited to those involved, rather than diffused throughout to others for whom it is meaningless or without value; relevancy . the info being the product of one's Own (mind, purpose), therefore also being the prerogative of one's own judgement to determine its dissemination Encrypted Info (Negative): . fear that it *will* involve others, having a negative, destructive potential to harm innocents . fear of not being able to control the developments from these and from its larger counterpart, organized "crime" . trying to beat them to the punch instead of having to deal with the after-effects . inadequacy of preparations for dealing with the element of surprise in cases of destructive, harmful influences: Consequential Circumstance: . insufficient self-reliance, having to wait for the cavalry to come over the hill to save oneself. . having to maintain a relationship with the saviours (the managers & real owners of the general welfare) which maintains the individual in a dependent, subordinate, infantile state Blanc

1 0

Re: (Fwd) What motivates Cryp
by jamiel＠sybase.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:55 AM 07/01/94 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote: >J >Similarly my motivations for >J >using cryptography come simply from a desire for privacy from >J >Govt. and other snooping but NOT from the 'cyber-survivalist' >J >inclinations that seem to motivate some in the US at least. > >Distinguish "desire for privacy from Govt." and "'cyber-survivalist' >inclinations" -- seems like the identical motive. It *is* government that >digital volunteerists (a friendlier term) seek privacy from. The same as "desire for safety from thugs" and "NRA-Nut". I don't subscribe to the theory that I need to have a gun to keep myself safe, and I am antigun, but such as the US is now, I can see myself buying one under some ocnditions and being first in line to hand it over when they are finally outlawed. But I don't need a flak jacket, grenades, a bullet prrof car, etc. I may need crypto to keep my privacy, even though I believe in theory that it shouldn't be nessessary, but I don't need all the other bullshit (sorry if I'm stepping on anyone) 'cyber-survivalist' indicates. -j -- "Blah Blah Blah" ___________________________________________________________________ Jamie Lawrence <jamiel(a)sybase.com>

1 0