December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

The Courtesies of Cypherpunks
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: jazz(a)hal.com (Jason Zions) >It's also common courtesy. You can have significant disagreements with a >person, yet still honor their simple requests. I owe no courtesy to someone who forfeits any respect in their atrocious misbehavior. This is as simple as the maxim, if you are a criminal your rights are diminished. If you mailbomb me, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you email my postmaster a complaint about me before contacting me, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you lie to me, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you fail to adequately respond to my personal accusations of impropriety or criminality, especially meeting them with evasion or stonewalling, you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you have ever sent me mail as a Snake of Medusa or a Tentacle of a Monster, you have forfeited your `right to privacy' -- under ALL your pseudonyms and identities. If you ridiculously condone and endorse any such reprehensible behaviors under such patent idiocy as `respecting copyright' or `common courtesy', you have forfeited your `right to privacy'. If you have done any of the above to *anyone*, you have forfeited your `right to privacy' with respect to EVERYONE in your society! I also think you have forfeited your right to speak in that society as well -- maybe only temporarly -- but in situations where these kinds of outrageous behaviors are condoned by a corrupt moderator, no recourse except leaving or starting a new list is possible. In particularly obnoxious cases of criminal abuse, I will attempt to shame you into repentance by ridiculing you in front of people who appear to be your friends and community (presuming you actually have any), if all other measures have failed. (Even this may be ineffective, but if you have no shame, you have no humanity.) That is the Detweiler Code of Cyberspatial Ethics and Privacy. If it is incompatible with the Cypherpunk Code of Chivalry, my heartfelt condolences go out to you. Perhaps you would like to elucidate me as to which of the above practices require my RESPECT. As I was saying, psychopunks have elevated their religion of `privacy' and `pseudospoofing' to perverse extremes. ``The cypherpunk agenda is becoming indistinguishable from raw criminality.'' May you choke on your own poisons. Already, you wallow and drown in them and defile the naive, trusting, honest, and innocent daily on your list. Frankly, I can barely stand to be in the same Cyberspace with you. The `psychopunk core' of the cypherpunks is nothing but a fanatic, brainwashed religious cult. No wonder you guys identify with David Koresh. I assure you, future Cyberspace will not be big enough for the both of us. Go ahead, CENSOR me! For the crime of writing `FLAMEBAIT' or, equivalently, YELLING THE TRUTH. What depraved hypocrisy, that some psychopunks attempt to CENSOR ME indirectly by mailing my postmaster (who could care less about your sniveling whinings). You guys really do have *some* ethics, don't you? ``Don't ever DIRECTLY CENSOR ANYTHING!'' ``NEVER GET CAUGHT or be PERSONALLY ACCOUNTABLE or RESPONSIBLE for ANYTHING!''

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Fractal cryptography
by hfinney＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There have been some discussions on sci.crypt within the past few months on nonlinear/chaotic algorithms and their use in cryptography. Fractal cryptography sounds like it might be related. The problem is that unless an algorithm was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to prevent an intelligent adversary from defeating it, the chances of it being an effective cryptosystem are limited. Just because nonlinear systems produce complex-looking results does not mean that these results are unpredictable given enough data. Now, maybe this particular fractal cryptosystem idea will actually work well. I don't know; I haven't seen it. But the point is that these complex types of systems have not provided a good foundation for crypto- graphy in the past. sci.crypt messages are available on (at least) ripem.msu.edu, in /pub/crypt/sci.crypt. In that directory there is a file "subjects", which lists all the subject lines by message number, as well as a collection of files each of which holds a couple of months' worth of messages. You can grep the subjects file to find those messages which might be i{terested. The archives appear to go back a couple of years. Hal

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Re: Key Servers
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I would like to remind you that a great deal of the noise on this list >is seeded by your posts. I dont disagree with everything you say but >your assessment of this list is incorrect. Mr. Newsham, please tell me how you know this list is not a HOTBED OF PSEUDOSPOOFING. What, because no *honest* people would do such a thing? because it would take too much time, patience, and money to insideously manipuate other's trust? what policy can you point to on the list that discourages pseudospoofing? `wherever there is trust, there is betrayal.'

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J. Gilmore on Pseudospoofing
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I appreciate Mr. Gilmore informing me of his opinion on pseudospoofing. He does not specifically address the issue of whether he is personally aware of any on the cypherpunks list, unfortunately. Many people still don't get the pseudonymity vs. pseudanonymity. >I think that your artificial distinction between "pseudonyms" and >"pseudospoofing" is the root of where your thinking took a wrong turn. clearly, a pseudonym on a book cover does not involve active lying. more treacherous uses of pseudonyms, which I have described in detail, *do*. there is a difference between `not being obligated to reveal who you are' (anonymous or pseudonymous) and `lying about who you are' (pseudoanonymous). but I see I have failed to convince you of that. ===cut=here=== Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 02:31:26 -0800 From: gnu(a)toad.com Subject: Re: RISKS15.25 To: "L. Detweiler" <ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu>, gnu(a)toad.com Hi... I just took the time to read your rant in RISKS 15.25. I think you're way off base on several counts. * Electronic media are no different from paper media in making it possible to use multiple names. Talk to Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss, Alice Cooper, Poor Richard, Paul French, or Franklin W. Dixon if you don't believe me. My experience is that references among aliases in literary works are seen as `in-jokes', which only the truly educated (in that particular realm, like science fiction) can notice and chuckle over. It's legal to use multiple names as long as you don't use them to defraud people. I use multiple names daily. Each magazine I subscribe to, or organization I belong to, knows me as "EE Gilmore" or "CPSR Gilmore". Then when I get a mailing from some random place, I know which organization sold my name to them, and if the volume of trash becomes excessive, I can write to the offending organization to have my name removed. My girlfriend didn't do this, and she now has a foot-deep stack of glossy catalogs that were mailed to her over the last month. And she doesn't know how to stop them coming (and we don't have a woodstove :-). * Your examples imply that some of the people on cypherpunks are using pseudonyms to deceive people: > I have become aware of these serious abuses possible with pseudoanonymous > posting from my long affiliation with the Cypherpunks, an allegiance I have > now severed because of my realization of their basic hidden agenda in > promoting the practice of pseudospoofing, or using pseudoanonymous identities > in the aforementioned ways to manipulate and systematically deceive others in > cyberspace. I think that you mistake an honest advocacy of the right to use multiple names, for an advocacy of deceit. The main reason to use multiple names is so that your "enemies" cannot correlate your activities so that they can punish you in one part of your life for things they don't like in some other part. For example, if you are gay, you might use a pen name when writing for local gay publications, so your prejudiced employer won't fire you. If you drive a car, you might want to use a different name on your driver's license so that "smoke a joint, lose your license" laws will not find a record of your license if they catch you with a joint. (There is no correlation between marijuana smoking and hazardous driving -- it's simply a punishment technique that happens to be considered legal because the "right to drive" is not a right guaranteed in any constitution nearby.) Another reason to use multiple names is to track what is being done with the name you supply, as in my example above. David Chaum was the first person I noticed advocating the use of a different pseudonym for transactions with each different organization. (This was automatically done by a smart-card in his design.) Is he part of the evil conspiracy too, or does he have a point worth hearing? How would *you* turn back the trend toward having every bit of information about each person accessible to anyone who knows their name, date of birth, fingerprint, license number, license plate, vehicle ID number, passport number, genotype, bank account number, retina print, credit card number, photo, or social security number? Or do you think that this is a *good* thing? I'm not sure why you trust _me_ in this, actually, if you think that Tim May and Eric Hughes are fake people or possibly the same person. I think that your artificial distinction between "pseudonyms" and "pseudospoofing" is the root of where your thinking took a wrong turn. People are under no obligation to tell you whether the name you know them by is their only name -- the same way that they don't have to tell you that though you only know them as "captain of the baseball team", they are also "clerk in the bank" and "father of three". By assuming that "the right way for things to be" is for everyone to have a single name, uniformly used, you have found a conspiracy where there was simply a difference of opinion. You can quote this (in its entirety) to the cypherpunks if you want. Copyright 1993 John Gilmore. Reproduction permitted only in entirety. John

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Re: Key Servers
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>I dont think this list should have a policy against "pseudo spoofing". >Even if it did, there would be virtually no way of upholding such a >policy. If you are so concerned by this phenomenon then you should >come up with a technological solution. there isn't a solution to enforcing honesty. that's why we have criminals. do you think there is a `code of ethics' in maintaining privacy among cypherpunks over their email? why can't we insert into that, `thou shalt not pseudospoof your fellow cypherpunks'? I can't wait to see the Cypherpunks Code of Ethics. hee, hee. Suddenly I am having visions of snowballs and Hell. I would volunteer to start a list of everyone who agrees not to pseudospoof each other on this list or in private email and distribute it. But I won't, because the pseudospoofers (esp. those at the top) will not apply. The pseudospoofers were quite amused by my pseudospoofing survey. Imagine -- even revealing that they are doing it, without revealing the identities? What kind of idiot do I think I am? Hey pseudospoofers -- you are nothing but hypocrites wrapping yourselves in the flag of privacy while urinating on it. *maybe* you have a right to imaginary identities in quarantined playpens, like the Pseudospoofing Game, but not in any serious forum. But why are you such slime in not revealing to others that you are doing it? because you want to embezzle, and part of embezzlement is never getting caught. You think you are getting back at Big Corrupt Businesses. But you are doing nothing but betraying *everyone* you come in contact with, with your little identity arsenal fantasies. The Psychopunk Code of Ethics Nothing Is Wrong. Nothing I Ever Do is Wrong. I can Never Admit To Anything because I have Never Done Anything Wrong. Privacy is Sacred -- Even if You are a Criminal -- Especially if You are a Criminal. bastards. I used to think that 1/3 of the Royalty was Pure. But it is 3/3rds Corruption. Not only rotten *at* the core, rotten *to* the core. <vomit>

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Re: Privacy/Money Orders
by Jef Poskanzer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>You can get some information on bills via telnet to locis.loc.gov, >the Library of Congress Information Service. Still a few bugs in this system - amusing transcript appended. --- Jef Script started on Fri Nov 19 17:42:01 1993 % telnet locis.loc.gov Trying 140.147.254.3... Connected to locis.loc.gov. Escape character is '^]'. L O C I S : LIBRARY OF CONGRESS INFORMATION SYSTEM To make a choice: type a number, then press ENTER 1 Library of Congress Catalog 4 Braille and Audio 2 Federal Legislation 5 Organizations 3 Copyright Information 6 Foreign Law * * * * * * * * * * * * 7 Searching Hours and Basics 8 Documentation and Classes 9 Library of Congress General Information 12 Comments and Logoff Choice: 2 FEDERAL LEGISLATION These files track and describe legislation (bills and resolutions) introduced in the US Congress, from 1973 (93rd Congress) to the current Congress (the current Congress is the 103rd). Each file covers a separate Congress. CHOICE FILE 1 Congress, 1981-82 (97th) CG97 2 Congress, 1983-84 (98th) CG98 3 Congress, 1985-86 (99th) CG99 4 Congress, 1987-88 (100th) C100 5 Congress, 1989-90 (101st) C101 6 Congress, 1991-92 (102nd) C102 7 Current Congress, 1993- (103rd) C103 8 Search all Congresses from 1981-->current 9 Search all Congresses on LOCIS 1973-->current Earlier Congresses: press ENTER 12 Return to LOCIS MENU screen. Choice: 7 FRIDAY, 11/19/93 08:43 P.M. ***C103- THE LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION FILE FOR THE 103RD CONGRESS, which was updated on 11/19/93 and contains 7,958 records, is now available for your search. CURRENCY: All information is NOT current through the above date, which is machine generated when ANY information is added to the file. Bill numbers, official titles, sponsors, and status (STEP) added within 48 hours. Indexing terms and digests added later, in some cases several weeks after the bill is added to the file. TO START RETRIEVE to find: EXAMPLES: SEARCH: member name --------------> retrieve rep gingrich retrieve sen kennedy bill number --------------> retrieve h.r. 1 subject keywords ---------> retrieve day care FOR HELP: Type the word HELP and press the ENTER key. READY FOR NEW COMMAND: retrieve assault guns DFH2206I TRANSACTION BGNS ABEND AZI4 . BACKOUT SUCCESSFUL 20:44:36 help DFH2001I INVALID TRANSACTION IDENTIFICATION HELP - PLEASE RESUBMIT 20:45:34 ? DFH2001I INVALID TRANSACTION IDENTIFICATION ? - PLEASE RESUBMIT 20:45:39 oh boy DFH2001I INVALID TRANSACTION IDENTIFICATION OH - PLEASE RESUBMIT 20:45:48 select * from all DFH2206I TRANSACTION SELE ABEND SECV . BACKOUT SUCCESSFUL 20:46:05 quit DFH2001I INVALID TRANSACTION IDENTIFICATION QUIT - PLEASE RESUBMIT 20:46:23 logout DFH2312 - WELCOME TO CICS/MVS - FRIDAY NOVEMBER 19, 1993. 08:46 PM UX01 ACFAE138: ENTER YOUR PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII foo ACF01004 LOGONID UT NOT FOUND DFH2312 - WELCOME TO CICS/MVS - FRIDAY NOVEMBER 19, 1993. 08:46 PM UX01 ACFAE133: ENTER LOGON ID: quit ACFAE138: ENTER YOUR PASSWORD: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII foo ACF01004 LOGONID QUIT NOT FOUND DFH2312 - WELCOME TO CICS/MVS - FRIDAY NOVEMBER 19, 1993. 08:46 PM UX01 ACFAE133: ENTER LOGON ID: ^] telnet> close Connection closed. % exit script done on Fri Nov 19 17:46:43 1993

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"IDENTITY CHALLENGE!"
by nobody＠shell.portal.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway) says: + Anonymity brings a new class of useless message, of which the + following from Black Unicorn <unicorn(a)net.digex.access> is a recent + example. I quote it in its entirety: + + Having worked in Liechtenstein banks, I can assure you numbered + accounts exist. + + "Black Unicorn" is an obvious pseudonym, and I'm assuming that it is + not one with an established reputation. (For all I know, "Black + Unicorn" might be as famous as the Legion of Doom, but for the sake of + argument I'll assume that it isn't.) + + What is the use of an unsubstantiated assertion, from an unreputed[*] + source, with no means of verification? Having read Black Unicorn's + bald asertion, I am as ignorant as before of whether numbered accounts + exist, in Liechtenstein or elsewhere. Well, that's as may be, but I would suggest to you that "actual identities" are unreliable. I believe that many here could trivially spoof almost any identity and that in any case, you would personally be unable to either verify the identity of your correspondent or hold him accountable for his output. A couple of recent examples: * A "Rikiya Asano" <ra01+(a)andrew.cmu.edu>, apparently a severely disturbed Japanese student at Carnegie-Mellon University, has been filling several newsgroups with a remarkable torrent of cross-posted flamebait for several weeks, including racist insults against whites and Chinese, physical threats and various assaults on American institutions. These rants are composed in hilariously fractured English and gain oceans of angry responses which disrupt the normal progress of the newsgroups to which they are posted. Today, I read a post by someone who makes a convincing case that Asano isn't Japanese and that the whole thing is a spoof. Maybe "Asano" exists and maybe he doesn't, but there seems to be no way of either verifying his true identity or making him stop disrupting these newsgroups. * On the other coast, "Andy Freeman" <andy(a)cs.stanford.edu> authored a particularly nasty piece of netmail forwarded on to me by its original recipient. In it, "Andy Freeman" attacks the practice of anonymity on Internet and claims to be in the government employ, implicitly in law enforcement, surveying Internet for illegal activity. He avers that all of those who post anonymously have been investigated and identified by their true names and are on a government hitlist, presumably thanks to his participation. Maybe "Andy Freeman" really is an unhinged cop involved in an illegal investigation of remailers or maybe he is just one of those sick fucks who like to impersonate policemen and bully people. * I personally challenge you, or anyone else on the net, to establish who these creatures actually are and whether they are what they claim. I've given you their "real" names and "real" addresses. In that both are bona fide assholes in any case, there's no need to be concerned with injuring or harassing them - they've got it coming.

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Re: War of the Worlds
by nobody＠cicada.berkeley.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>taken to ensure that no one took the dramatization seriously. Also, NBC >ran into intensely unpleasant repercussions for their `fake exploding >pickup' piece (didn't someone resign over this)? > Eh? I don't think you're talking about the same case: 1) GM lost a $100 million dollar lawsuit: parents of a dead teen sued GM, they alleged faulty design caused the truck to explode. 2) NBC ran a story about these exploding trucks. 3) GM claimed the trucks were rigged to explode. 4) NBC consistently denied anything of the sort. 5) GM did their OWN extensive investigation and proved NBC fudged the results. 6) NBC finally admitted to rigging the experiment. They fired three top execs of "DateLine" to COVER THEIR ASS. >The point is that the media takes Truth very seriously. They go to the >greatest lengths to achieve it. This is crap. NBC went through great lengths to cover the truth until it became clear GM had them. If for some reason you think eliminating ``pseudospoofing'' will eliminate disinformation, you're way off since if happens ALL the time NOW.

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FWD: Publisher wimps out (PGP pulled from Ziffnet)
by anonymous＠phoenix.Princeton.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 17:47:09 -0600 (UTC -06:00) >From: "Frank A. Kaul".<FKAUL(a)kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> >Subject: PGP pulled from Ziffnet >To: libernet(a)Dartmouth.EDU > >A couple of weeks ago I downloaded PGP from Ziffnet due to the >justice department crackdown. I visited their software libraries >today and was greeted with the following notice! > >> >> Pretty Good Privacy (PGPRIV.ZIP) Removed >> ---------------------------------------- >> We must extend our apologies to those of you who read the CompuServe >> Magazine article on Data Encryption and tried to find PGPRIV.ZIP here >> in our library. Due to the controversial nature of Phil Zimmerman's >> Pretty Good Privacy program and the fact that several legal questions >> surrounding this program have remained unanswered, we have removed it >> from our library. We are investigating the legal issues concerning its >> distribution, and it will remain unavailable until further notice. >> >> Again, we apologize for the inconvenience. >> > >Talk about a chilling effect. > >Frank A. Kaul >fkaul(a)oread.cc.ukans.edu

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"True Identities"
by Matthew J Ghio 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I find it particularily interesting that on the internet (in contrast to almost every other net in existance), people have this strange fettish for worrying about anonymnity and "true names". My question is why? People on other nets never give the using of a handle or nym a second thought. (By other nets I mean Fidonet, WWIVnet, TEAMnet, C-Link, Oggnet, fvnet etc) A name is just a way of identifying a paritcular person. I don't see why people are so opposed to the use of nyms like Wonderer or Black Unicorn because those don't fit your image of what a name should be. These names identify the senders in a manner that is adequate to the discussion on Cypherpunks. Would it be any better if these people used names like Mike or John or something? Would it really make any relevant difference to the discussion on cypherpunks?

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