December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Politics on the List?
by dmandl＠lehman.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: sommerfeld(a)orchard.medford.ma.us (Bill Sommerfeld) > > But the vast majority of the 500+ folks on this List are either not > writing crypto code, or are keeping silent about it. > > There are undoubtedly a fair number of the latter; probably better > than 50% of the cypherpunks subscribers I know around here (including > myself) get paid to (among other things) work on software related to > network security through cryptography. I've always had problems with the slogan "Cypherpunks write code." It's a cute pun (if it was intended that way), but I think too many cypherpunks are techie-snobs. Writing code is all well and good, even crucial, but there are plenty of other things that can and should be done to further cypherpunk goals. Many many people have found out about cypherpunk developments through sympathetic articles in Wired, the Village Voice, etc. I've done long interviews with Tim May and Phil Zimmerman on my radio show. (And Perry Metzger and I are going to be giving a talk on crypto anarchy here in NYC in January. This is being sponsored by a local anarchist group. More details on this later.) Everything helps. I was moved to invite Tim May to be on my show last year not because of any beautiful code he'd written, but because I was inspired by some of his political/theoretical writing. You don't have to write cypherpunk code to be a cypherpunk. You don't even have to write code at all. There are plenty of other things to do that are just as important and just as exciting. P.S.: I'm not being defensive. I write code for a living, just not cypherpunk code (yet). --Dave.

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Bandwidth limitations
by gtoal＠an-teallach.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In article <9311121650.AA03375(a)snark.lehman.com> pmetzger(a)lehman.com writes: > The human genome fits nicely in 1GB. Mere Gigabit networks could allow > you to send your whole genome in seconds -- and fiber can do many > orders of magnitude better than that. > > A complete MRI scan can be sent on a gigabit network in mere moments, > too, and again, fiber can do far better than that. > > If you can send a thousand video signals down your fiber at once, > sending complete plans for a factory to build Fords, and the complete > plans for the cars, will likely take a wink of an eye. Perry, I did understand your remark; I don't think you got the point of mine; give me a fiber and a computer fast enough to use it and sufficient disk space, and trust me, I'll find something to fill it with. Capacity increases to fill the available bandwidth/disk space/ whatever. Just because you don't have the imagination to think of how we'll use an essentially new medium in the future, don't write it off already. Here's one suggestion that is quite sensible given vast resources: instead of linear TV, we have parallel TV. I don't mean dial-on-demand download a program - I mean every single program ever made and every single movie ever made are broadcast down fiber simultaneously; - you want to see the 59th episode of Star Trek, you switch to the 59th episode of Star Trek channel, where it's going round and round as fast as it can be transmitted. Now, you do the sums. How much fiber does *that* need? (When you've done that one, add on the volume of transmitting a high-res scan of every page of every book in the world...) This may seem like an outrageous or stupid application *at the moment*, but I guess the guy at Manchester in the 50's who thought his computer would be enough to satisfy the needs of all our Universities over here would have thought that using the entire resources of his 64K giant machine to play Pacman on was totally insane, yet only 30 years later the same power was available in hand-held toys costing $20. G -- Personal mail to gtoal(a)gtoal.com (I read it in the evenings) Business mail to gtoal(a)an-teallach.com (Be careful with the spelling!) Faxes to An Teallach Limited: +44 31 662 4678 Voice: +44 31 668 1550 x212

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Re: Privacy, Property, Cryptography (long)
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Mike Godwin <mnemonic(a)eff.org> said: >This quotation needs to be debugged a little bit. The actual quotation [...] >as against the government, the right to be let alone--the most [...] >(Note in particular that it's "let," not "left.") It's always nice to get quotations down correctly, but surely the original "let" translates in today's speech to "left"? If not, I'd like to hear about the difference. Doug

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Re: Bandwidth limitations
by Clark Reynard 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Perry writes: [Elegant refutation of all examples I give in original article.] Point taken. Obviously, I took a few elementary examples, which are quite achievable even today. Perhaps some true bandwidth stretchers: Complete maps of all the known universe, with spectrographic assays, gravitational information, particle densities, motion/vector analysis of areas of high matter concentration, spin and orbital velocity graphs, etc. being zipped back and forth between relay satellites, earthbound observatories, and individuals needing such information. Complete records of all genomes of all humans born after this becomes standard. Copyright information, and rights transfers for all living humans; what portions of the genome are for sale, or if replication is prohibited. Perhaps black market genes will be hid, steganographically, in horrendously large files which appear to be garden variety vr porn. Voiceprints and retina scans for all living and dead human beings. Increasingly-detailed weather maps, down to the molecular level. Of course, what actually will happen will probably be stranger. When we had parchment, we had very narrow bandwidth, with very little to transmit.. Today, we have wide bandwidth, but a lot more ways to use it. I'm sure someone will find a way to use vast chunks of it; until we need come to a new standard. ---- Robert W. F. Clark PGP Key Available Upon Request rclark(a)nyx.cs.du.edu clark(a)metal.psu.edu

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privacy/property
by Dark 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -> As I recall, Dark, INS v. AP is copyright/First Amendment case, not a privacy case. (International News Service was cribbing from AP stories.) What does Brandeis say in this case that seems to be a reservation about privacy rights? <- Although the basis for the case was superficially a copyright case, because it involved injunctive relief, the Justices had to reach for a protection of property rights to uphold the injunction. This was my point, that privacy should be linked to property rights so as to open the way for more than simple forced transactions by entitlement and monetary damages in relief. Consider Justice Brandeis' comments at the beginning of his dissent: No question of statutory copyright is involved. The sole question for our consideration is this: Was the International News Service properly enjoined from using, or causing to be used gainfully, news of which it acquired knowledge by lawful means [...] _International News Service v. The Associated Press_, 248 U.S. 215, at 249 (Brandeis, J., Dissenting). As for the hook in on property and privacy, consider: The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions - - knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas - become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use. Upon these incorporeal productions the attribute of property is continued after such communication only in certain classes of cases where public policy has seemed to demand it. _International News Service_, 248 U.S. 215 at 250 (Brandeis, J., Dissenting). This is just in 1918. Even here we see the public sphere taking the lead role. Enter the progressives of the 20's. This was a touch beyond my point, however. My focus was more that even back then there was a recognition that intellectual production had to be guarded with property rights. Applying the law of capture to intellectual pursuits like the news? If privacy rights existed, why go so far? Business and proprietary news protected by a long stretch of property rights? To me this is just a bridge to jump the missing privacy rights gap. Granted this is not an ideal case, but it illustrates the attitude (and it was the only Brandeis case that jumped to mind when replying quickly to your note :) ) - -uni- (Dark) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLONAHRibHbaiMfO5AQFiGAP/Ud06AWsAgqXQSYX5P3DNxtTgqv7HO+OJ QZnj93GuzQSETJmWNBaVCEbD/5xPQC3MKt1h9gbPY9Fai9rx+8djiocWKWF1UXFH i/4tkKEUN4YwcOJWPoO6EFS/ykgLo25NRiJkLEbhxm4ge/34VX3CxQ5FfNSdRI3o m5Be07dvFJk= =fsg8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Should we oppose the Data Superhighway/NII?
by doug＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Lyle_Seaman(a)transarc.com said: >I think Doug believes that demand for bandwidth due to new >technologies (image, higher definition audio, etc etc) will grow >faster than the ability to provide more bandwidth. Perhaps, but I >don't envision running out of aggregate bandwidth in my lifetime. You >can put a lot of optical fibers in a very small space. I only ask that you remember my bizarre prediction over the next decade. I believe that history will vindicate me. The problem is that history has vindicated me a number of times in the last 15 years, but no one remembers by the time that the future rolls around. Clearly I'm not taking the right approach even now, given that. I'll keep working on it. Doug

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RE: Mounting a "Secure" filesystem in UNIX
by Dave Hart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- | From: Sameer <netmail!sameer(a)uclink.berkeley.edu> | | I was wondering if it was possible to mount a "secure" | filesystem/partition using Linux or some other free version of UNIX, | so that it's inaccessible if logged in remotely, but accessibly when | logged in locally. I know you want to do this with UNIX, but Windows NT allows you do this quite nicely. One of the "groups" of users is INTERACTIVE, another is NETWORK. You can specifically prohibit network users from accessing a file by adding "NETWORK - No Access" to the p ermissions list in File Manager. I do this with secring.pgp and secring.bak, on top of the restriction which allows only me to access the file. So even if someone guesses my password, they can't snoop on my private key except by physically being at my machi ne. == DaveHart(a)microsoft.com == Opinions are mine, not Microsoft's. == -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a iQCVAgUBLOPOM+mFbAJWprWtAQFihAQAoHfErGrFffPkJHeSdStjH8y+zHUAPv8I b9QP85l/jN545PKDB9iRBpqc6708DeXoR7Brm6vydElYDlvShzfpotcUxHtOO9bH vCGXd/lFKyF3d81Rhckn2DGqH9ab1yw587ofXfAKKzdt3tLpYDCLUdz8eMGLIZCD ILPaiKYryPI= =Nnzg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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RE: Mounting a "Secure" filesystem in UNIX
by jim＠Tadpole.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I can't even begin to imagine the kinds of calls that Microsoft support will get with this 'feature' in place. "But it worked yesterday, and I haven't changed ANYTHING!" Jim

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digital timestamping
by peb＠PROCASE.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I seem to have lost all information about how to use the Bellcore timestamper. Neither could I find their hash code in the Sunday NYT, last I looked (perhaps that was a slow week). Please post information on this, if you have it. Paul E. Baclace peb(a)procase.com

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RE*2: (fwd) Netcom adds access in Denver area
by P.V.McMahon＠rea0803.wins.icl.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> these capabilities is far beyond my budget. I can't understand why England > is so far ahead of the U.S. in this regard. Do you refer here to its inexpensive private Internet access services (like demon)? Apologies if there was an antecedent in previous mail under this subject, but I have now deleted it. > No offense intended, but I > always thought of their telecommunications and computing infrastructure as > being several years behind the U.S. What aspect of the UK infrastructure did you perceive as lagging the US ? pvm Ps. I believe that the natural home for this thread isn't on this list.

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