December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: I'm leaving cypherpunks
by W. Kinney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I know I'm just a silly lurker, but I couldn't help but comment on this one... T. William Wells writes: > Privacy is a *social* phenomenon, not a technical one. There is > no sense in creating tools for privacy unless one also works for > a society in which the deployment of these tools makes sense. I don't agree with everything that Bill said, but this here really hits the mark. And the place where the social agenda of the cypherpunks is most truly reflected is in how people interact with each other on the list. I find it incredibly ironic that Bill Wells, not too long ago, got roundly pasted by Detweiler over his practice of keeping track of True Names on ASAR, and wrote convincinly in defense of his policies to the 'punks. I dropped him some e-mail at the time to tell him that there were actually quite a few level heads around here, and that it seemed to me that the 'punks and ASAR were natural allies. Here is this guy running an anon service on the net that actually means something vital to a lot of people who don't have much in their lives that they feel they CAN count on, and running it well. Here's a place where all this lovely talk could be put to use where it counts. I don't have the expertise to do the kind of things this guy needs, but I've been reading ASAR frequently of late -- all of you should be too, and thinking about what anonymity is doing for the people who post there. He got absolutely zip out of his association with the cypherpunks. And we all passed up a terrific opportunity to be of real use to the world. Or hasn't that occurred to anyone but me? Good job, folks. And Bill, sorry to see you go. -- Will -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3 iQCVAgUBLM64fffv4TpIg2PxAQE8kwP7BnKx/CEHl3fjf4VuxcnElHJLmBcZVPuY ad3C7bDFmn2fyiao2FcklRD6uo3/NE7Gh1lvxQmKa8c5OtL2PJcUU/5J5IR+w+I2 o5xOhVdcK8RxqiTP0CZFJ0PeJLn7r7JyC40OgN//eBqidUU8mBWV2uA8A4EP91yB vO2Z0LSwpSE= =LGMg -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: I'm leaving cypherpunks
by peter honeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

t.w., i guess you're unfamiliar with sturgeon's law. as for your new, improved cpunx list, count me out. i like cpunx the way it is: uncontrolled. peter

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Re: blacknet international offers DOSSIERS for SALE
by msattler＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>...and *is* selling dossiers on people... I just don't get what the big deal is, he seems to be providing info that's publically available but not trivial to get. I'm a computer consultant; that's exactly what *I* do to pay the bills. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael S. Sattler msattler(a)netcom.com +1 (415) 621-2903 Digital Jungle Software Encrypt now; ask me how. (finger for PGP key) All that is required for evil to triumph is for {wo}men of good will to do nothing.

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Codes, ciphers, and ham radio
by msattler＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

And now for something different regarding crypto: In studying for my FCC Technician's license I ran across FCC 97.113 (Sub-part 113 of Part 97 of Title 47 Code of Federal Regulations), which prohibits the use of codes or ciphers to obscure the meaning of a message. Besides preventing me from using Pig Latin in voice communications, this *seems* to prohibit the use of any deliberate encryption (as opposed to compression) of data transmitted via radio, such as the computer packet -> radio -> Internet gateways. The data highway may be encryption-tolerant today, but the off-ramps are murder. :-) M ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael S. Sattler msattler(a)netcom.com +1 (415) 621-2903 Digital Jungle Software Encrypt now; ask me how. (finger for PGP key) All that is required for evil to triumph is for {wo}men of good will to do nothing.

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Re: I'm leaving cypherpunks
by fnerd＠smds.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE------ Mr. Wells-- Goodbye, best wishes. I'm guessing, but I think you're making a mistake in leaving, both for yourself and about us. We are not being irresponsible. We have a different, serious, view of how the world should be made into a good place. We can only "set the tone," as you say, if what we are saying is founded in truth and competence. The personal part of this letter continues after the philosophy. - -----BEGIN PHILOSOPHY------ There are tools available to protect privacy, and protect ourselves, that don't require much cooperation of others. People should adopt these tools, and also methods, habits, knowledge and attitudes. One good attitude is a basic awareness and self-responsibility. One is that insults and taunts are only words. Yes, on a personal level, in a group of friends, in a society that is still basically functioning, there are many important issues of how people should treat each other, and how a good environment should be established. But cypherpunks is addressing, and experimenting with, a more basic, raw level of things. The technical and nasty issues are every bit as urgent as the personal and ideal ones, and we constantly need to (and try to) relate them. It's bad to ask social conventions of niceness to take over jobs that people should--have to--take care of consciously for themselves. It distributes responsibilities and burdons unfairly. It is unwise in that it won't work. It seems to give play to a kind of self-delusion. And to recommend it as a course to others is to send the sheep to feed the wolves. It's to hang on to a picture of society with a false happy-face front that's crumpling behind--for all of us. There's a basic level of self-protection that people have to take care of for themselves, or higher-level social goals don't have a chance. People not protecting themselves actually increase harmful activities--besides small criminals there are whole industries of parasitism--*because* people feed them in sheepish trust. We're not talking guns or martial arts here, just purely protective things like crypto and a little dose of reality. A realistic sense of what neighborhood one is walking in, for instance. Like the cypherpunks neighborhood. Here we're trying to experiment, get a sense of the worst of what could happen, imagine ways of dealing with it. And we've been openly like this since we started. Here is how I see the situation with Detweiler: I sympathize with his pain (to the extent I can follow it). I try to be friendly to him. There have been others offering support who he could have talked with instead of the people he picked fights with. Some people shouldn't have been so nasty to him. But he should have gotten a reality check a long time ago about how rough we play here--it's not very rough!! There's no way we could have been expected to know that he wouldn't, and it is not our responsibility to police each other into treating him supportively. That doesn't mean we are building an unsupportive, hostile world. We are playing worst-case-scenario with each other just so that we can have a world that is not like that. You construe the list owners' *allowing* rjc to continue posting to be *condoning* it. That's a bad thought path. To suggest that they step in, in the kind of matter we're talking about, is not a good model for how a world should be run, and it's egregious in terms of the atmosphere we want in our own group. > In an uncontrolled environment, there is little that can be done > to further an appropriate attitude. One can reinforce the good > and censure the bad. And hope. (And give people tools, knowledge, and ideas to protect themselves. And develop methods that actively shrink the opportunities for bad behavior.) Cypherpunks is purposely a model of an uncontrolled environment, including its worst aspects. > Privacy is a *social* phenomenon, not a technical one. The convention of respect for privacy is social. It's based on a more primitive and basic ability of people to *get* privacy if they need it. The latter is breaking down, making the former increasingly a charade behind which things can get worse. But in the process of fixing things, the ground rules--in terms of which new social conventions will have to grow--will change. Things will seem rude to people stuck in old ways of looking at them. > There is > no sense in creating tools for privacy unless one also works for > a society in which the deployment of these tools makes sense. Although I can't imagine a situation where deploying privacy tools doesn't make sense, I agree that we should keep our social goals and issues in mind. I'm surprised you imply that we aren't doing that. But society has to be built on good foundations. - -----END PHILOSOPHY------ I think some of the things you suggest we do, amount to hiding from the important problems. I hope (mostly for our sake) that you aren't doing that yourself. I guess this list can seem very rough without a sense that the people are ethical and serious, and that the roughness is there for a purpose. I hope you can come around to believe that of some of us and tolerate the rest. We need people who can help think about what we're aiming for, and what it will be like for humans in the worlds we propose. Once in a while it helps to have someone to protest a thoughtless post. bye, -fnerd(a)smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) quote me ps i restrained myself from all the twelve step phrases i thot -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvtoxiQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2toust1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hanC0R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: Off-shore banking and Steve Roberts' flotilla
by Sameer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > Cool. Do you have an email address for more info? > Found it. technomads-request(a)ucsd.edu

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Re: I'm leaving cypherpunks
by msattler＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 17:34 10/27/93 +0000, T. William Wells wrote: >In a controlled environment, such as cypherpunks, those who >control the list have the final say. The excess of noise on this >can be *directly* traced to the list owner's choice to not >control its content. Rjc's ability to abuse another *and to >continue the abuse* is a direct consequence of the owner's >policies. These facts are, by themselves, offensive but would be, >barely, tolerable. I'm very sorry to see you go. I certainly agree that the list has been annoying of late, but I disagree that cpunx is a controlled environment, nor should it be. I believe that leaving is no solution, but making heart-felt comments and contributions on one hand and ignoring and kill-filing obnoxious posters on the other hand is IMHO the most direct path to a future we are comfortable in. Again, I'm sorry to see you go. It feels like a victory for the dark side. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael S. Sattler msattler(a)netcom.com +1 (415) 621-2903 Digital Jungle Software Encrypt now; ask me how. (finger for PGP key) All that is required for evil to triumph is for {wo}men of good will to do nothing.

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Security of PGP private keys
by jrk＠sys.uea.ac.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PGP secret keys are protected by a password. Yet people have said that one should not keep one's secret keyring on an insecure machine. Why? -- ____ Richard Kennaway __\_ / School of Information Systems Internet: jrk(a)sys.uea.ac.uk \ X/ University of East Anglia uucp: ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk \/ Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.

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Bad Ascii armour?
by J. Michael Diehl 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Why is it that when I send this message to pgp, i get an error? This was posted recently. Is it a fraud? I donno and don't want to start another flamefest. ------BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE------ Mr. Wells-- Goodbye, best wishes. I'm guessing, but I think you're making a mistake in leaving, both for yourself and about us. We are not being irresponsible. We have a different, serious, view of how the world should be made into a good place. We can only "set the tone," as you say, if what we are saying is founded in truth and competence. The personal part of this letter continues after the philosophy. - -----BEGIN PHILOSOPHY------ There are tools available to protect privacy, and protect ourselves, that don't require much cooperation of others. People should adopt these tools, and also methods, habits, knowledge and attitudes. One good attitude is a basic awareness and self-responsibility. One is that insults and taunts are only words. Yes, on a personal level, in a group of friends, in a society that is still basically functioning, there are many important issues of how people should treat each other, and how a good environment should be established. But cypherpunks is addressing, and experimenting with, a more basic, raw level of things. The technical and nasty issues are every bit as urgent as the personal and ideal ones, and we constantly need to (and try to) relate them. It's bad to ask social conventions of niceness to take over jobs that people should--have to--take care of consciously for themselves. It distributes responsibilities and burdons unfairly. It is unwise in that it won't work. It seems to give play to a kind of self-delusion. And to recommend it as a course to others is to send the sheep to feed the wolves. It's to hang on to a picture of society with a false happy-face front that's crumpling behind--for all of us. There's a basic level of self-protection that people have to take care of for themselves, or higher-level social goals don't have a chance. People not protecting themselves actually increase harmful activities--besides small criminals there are whole industries of parasitism--*because* people feed them in sheepish trust. We're not talking guns or martial arts here, just purely protective things like crypto and a little dose of reality. A realistic sense of what neighborhood one is walking in, for instance. Like the cypherpunks neighborhood. Here we're trying to experiment, get a sense of the worst of what could happen, imagine ways of dealing with it. And we've been openly like this since we started. Here is how I see the situation with Detweiler: I sympathize with his pain (to the extent I can follow it). I try to be friendly to him. There have been others offering support who he could have talked with instead of the people he picked fights with. Some people shouldn't have been so nasty to him. But he should have gotten a reality check a long time ago about how rough we play here--it's not very rough!! There's no way we could have been expected to know that he wouldn't, and it is not our responsibility to police each other into treating him supportively. That doesn't mean we are building an unsupportive, hostile world. We are playing worst-case-scenario with each other just so that we can have a world that is not like that. You construe the list owners' *allowing* rjc to continue posting to be *condoning* it. That's a bad thought path. To suggest that they step in, in the kind of matter we're talking about, is not a good model for how a world should be run, and it's egregious in terms of the atmosphere we want in our own group. > In an uncontrolled environment, there is little that can be done > to further an appropriate attitude. One can reinforce the good > and censure the bad. And hope. (And give people tools, knowledge, and ideas to protect themselves. And develop methods that actively shrink the opportunities for bad behavior.) Cypherpunks is purposely a model of an uncontrolled environment, including its worst aspects. > Privacy is a *social* phenomenon, not a technical one. The convention of respect for privacy is social. It's based on a more primitive and basic ability of people to *get* privacy if they need it. The latter is breaking down, making the former increasingly a charade behind which things can get worse. But in the process of fixing things, the ground rules--in terms of which new social conventions will have to grow--will change. Things will seem rude to people stuck in old ways of looking at them. > There is > no sense in creating tools for privacy unless one also works for > a society in which the deployment of these tools makes sense. Although I can't imagine a situation where deploying privacy tools doesn't make sense, I agree that we should keep our social goals and issues in mind. I'm surprised you imply that we aren't doing that. But society has to be built on good foundations. - -----END PHILOSOPHY------ I think some of the things you suggest we do, amount to hiding from the important problems. I hope (mostly for our sake) that you aren't doing that yourself. I guess this list can seem very rough without a sense that the people are ethical and serious, and that the roughness is there for a purpose. I hope you can come around to believe that of some of us and tolerate the rest. We need people who can help think about what we're aiming for, and what it will be like for humans in the worlds we propose. Once in a while it helps to have someone to protest a thoughtless post. bye, -fnerd(a)smds.com (FutureNerd Steve Witham) quote me ps i restrained myself from all the twelve step phrases i thot -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.3a aKxB8nktcBAeQHabQP/d7yhWgpGZBIoIqII8cY9nG55HYHgvtoxiQCVAgUBLMs3K ui6XaCZmKH68fOWYYySKAzPkXyfYKnOlzsIjp2toust1Q5A3/n54PBKrUDN9tHVz 3Ch466q9EKUuDulTU6OLsilzmRvQJn0EJhzd4pht6hanC0R3seYNhUYhoJViCcCG sRjLQs4iVVM= =9wqs -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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How do I unsubsrcibe
by AFCO73%IRMFAO01.BITNET＠vm.cnuce.cnr.it 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Good day, would someone please advise me how I could unsubscribe from this list? Thanks for your help. Johnny Hua at FAO of the UN, Italy

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