December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

NBC news address correction.
by GRABOW_GEOFFREY＠tandem.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Oops! The previous message incorrectly gave the address of news:nightly@nbc.com it should be: nightly(a)nbc.com Sorry about that chief!

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GPS and security
by northrop＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

If the military is worried about delivery systems' accuracy, Phil Karn already mentioned kamikazies, but if you don't want to make suicide part of the package, you could always just have someone drop a radio transmitter on your target sometime in advance, possibly a day or two. The missile can then home in on the signal. (If you need to get it inside a high-security area, you could always encase it in foam and drop it from a model airplane or launch it in a model rocket.) Or you could just leave a suitcase with a timed bomb at your target location; plutonium bombs can be very small. It boggles my mind that the military mind prevents the use of tools that are just too complicated for the "bad guys" to bother with. Does CBS have an email address yet? :) -- Scott Northrop <northrop(a)netcom.com> (206)784-2083 ObVirus: The demand for obedience is inherently evil. ObVirus2: As a juror in a Trial by Jury, you have the right, power and duty to acquit the defendant if you judge the law itself to be unjust.

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Re: Secure Drive Distribution
by W. Kinney 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Edgar Swank writes: > If you mean a site -in- the USA/Canada, no problem. If you mean a > site which will not send files outside the USA/Canada, I don't think > there is any such animal. The only site even -attempting- to restrict ripem.msu.edu evidently has such a policy. I'm considering using it to distribute Curve Encrypt. Anybody have any experience with this site? Should be pretty funny distributing PGP-authenticated software from the Ripem ftp site, but I guess if they don't mind, neither do I :-). -- Will

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Re: GPS and security
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks to Phil for the technical descriptions about GPS; I'd heard numbers like 1 foot for Differential accuracy. One minor correction to the "military buying civilian GPS gear" issues - a lot of it wasn't the military itself buying the gear, it was individual soldiers or their parents buying the sets so their kids wouldn't get lost out in the desert. I was at an AFCEA trade show, mainly looking for imaging and crypto stuff, but two of the biggest hits were the various GPS vendors and a vendor selling small drone airplanes. (Very few people probably needed the things for work, but they were Neat Stuff and you could understand what it did.) The 6-foot wingspan model had a payload of about 35 pounds; the 10-foot model had about 120 pounds, where payload includes fuel plus whatever else. The primary applications it was being marketed for were radio repeaters and video camera transmission systems, but the Army makes a backpack-carriable nuke that leaves you enough fuel-weight to get 1-200 miles.... Bill Stewart # Bill Stewart NCR Corp, 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 # Voice/Beeper 510-224-7043, Phone 510-484-6204 # email bill.stewart(a)pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart(a)attmail.com

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Cylex is already reality
by jdblair＠nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The very first entry of the Cyberspace Lexicon, *autolott* is well on its way to becoming a reality. An Associated Press story, "Is lottery by phone the ticket?" was on the front page of my local paper today. The article describes a proposed plan to establish a lottery where one would select numbers and pay for tickets via a touch-tone phone. The system would involve depositing money in a special account which the lottery commission could also access. The system could be set to purchase tickets when the jackpot reaches certain levels automatically. "Players could bet until their accounts are depleted, withdraw mopney anytime and replenish their accounts by check, electronic transfer, or credit card." It does state that "each wager would carry a $2 service charge." It souldn't be long before they realize they save more money by not printing the tickets. I don't have time to type in the whole article, but I think you get the picture. Six states are already interested. I'm surprised they didn't suggest just setting it up as a 900 number, or are there laws against that? So how long will it be before Las Vegas goes on-line? Call 1-800-LOAN-YES for easy credit extensions today! -john. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ John Blair <jdblair(a)nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu> phone: (513) 529-4879 Insert cool signature file that makes a trendy, yet bold and original statement about my cyberspace proficiency, then mentions that I'll send you my PGP public key if you want it, and you trust that I'm actually me.

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No Subject
by ltech1!ltech1!mercury＠heifetz.msen.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Why WHY THINGS ARE MEASURED BY NUMBERS NEAR ONE by Michael E. Marotta We naturally choose scales that are naturally in tune with Nature. To do otherwise would be unharmonious and would be rejected by practice over time. Here are the numbers from an article about the Great Lakes in the World Book Encyclopedia. 5 lakes 1 in US 4 border 1909 year of treaty 94,650 combined area 600 alt of Superior 245 alt of Ontario 325 drop from Erie to Ont 1900 Chicago canal opened 1,000 miles inland 20 drop in St. Mary's 3 canal groups 1959 St. Law Seaway 182 miles of Seaway 2 times more than Panama Depths Areas 1333 31,800 Superior 923 22,400 Michigan 750 23,000 Huron 210 9,930 Erie 778 7,520 Ontario The numbers 4,5, and 6 are uncommon. You can round 7,8,9 to the next order of magnitude and make them all 1. This doesn't need explanation. Finding that measures clustered near 5 would...

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T-SHIRT UPDATE #2
by cvoid＠albemuth.tatertot.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Greetings. Sorry for the delay, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. We are finishing up the t-shirt design, and it will soon be made available for approval in it's entirity. The plan is to have people order before the end of January (February 1st being the cutoff), and have the shirts shipped out in the first week of February. We are doing only as many shirts as we get orders for, hence the mass mailing. I will be posting an update in the next few days with information on the preview files and ordering information. The t-shirts will cost approximately $10 each, and will include shipping, etc. All additional information will be posted in the next update... We are only doing one mass run of this design, so it will not be made available again in the future. If anyone has any questions or comments please mail me. Thanks. Christian Void /T71 | "I don't like it, and I'm sorry I | V/M/Research, Inc. cvoid(a)netcom.COM | ever had anything to do with it." | P.O. Box 170213 Tel. 1+415-807-5491 | -Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) | SF, CA 94117-0213 * PGP v2.3a Public Key Available Via Finger *

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Domestic ftp sites
by mpjohnso＠nyx10.cs.du.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>> If you mean a site -in- the USA/Canada, no problem. If you mean a >> site which will not send files outside the USA/Canada, I don't think >> there is any such animal. The only site even -attempting- to restrict >ripem.msu.edu evidently has such a policy. I'm considering using it to >... I've just started an ftp site with a USA/Canada distribution policy for crypto software. Nothing can totally prevent the theft of data from this site, or ripem.msu.edu or rsa.com, but I decided that I would exercise my right to publish within the USA anyway. About the best I can do without demanding to see proof of citizenship in person (and even that could be forged) is to make it very difficult to get the data without reading a warning notice first, and hope that a combination of conscience along with the possibility of the actions being traced by the U. S. Government and/or the government of the perpetrator's country will limit the number of violations. anonymous ftp to csn.org and read mpj/README.MPJ for details. There is also the Colorado Catacombs BBS (303-938-9654) crypto areas that I hope to expand. Mike Johnson mpjohnso(a)nyx10.cs.du.edu

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VOICE-Why not?
by charliemerritt＠BIX.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Why isn't there a cypherpunk-ish voice crypto system? I would have to guess that it has to do with compression. Compression, lack of CPU and baud rate and money for gadgets. Well I have been fooling around and I think we can get a punk-phone up real quick. My system: 286-12 2400 baud modem sound blaster With just this I can get poor quality recognition of speech, In realtime. With a 9600 baud modem and nothing more than CVD for compression algorithm, fairly decent speech is a snap for the dumbest CPU. Surely the crypto is a lead pipe certainty in realtime. I would like to see this minimal secure phone system SOON: hardware: 286 9600 BPS (7680 bits of data/sec) sound blaster software: CVD "push to talk" (one at a time, please) xor against prng If we got this up, then people could improve on it, add "real" crypto auto detection of faster cpu for "real compression" etc. My point is we have to have something to improve on. My 2400 baud 286 compression is poor quality, very poor. But interesting, it shows what can be done with nothing. If the general feeling is that it would not be too disruptive i could post a reconstructed speech snippet UU Encoded on this list. (.VOC)

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RE: GPS and security
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is still off list, so consider pressing D now... Phil, Thanks for the corrections In message Tue, 28 Dec 1993 15:03:49 -0800, karn(a)qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes: > >>[general erroneous drivel elided] >> Such as the surveying marks at the US Naval Acadamy, or >>"ground zero" in the Pentagon. > > False. > [general good stuff by Phil elided] Last time I looked, the Pentagon was more than 100 meters in diameter. One of Phil's later posts talks about SA being in a 100 meter range. Obviously the Coast Guard and FAA want pretty good accuracy. Whatever the actual numbers on the error terms are, either a moderate high explosive, or tiny nuke, guided to within 100 meters of the Ground Zero Cafe will probably take out all of the above ground portions of the Pentagon. Look at what a single smart bomb (a fairly small one at that) did in the Pentagon's favorite Gulf War video. Similarly, just off the Naval Acadamy's grounds is a huge array of naval communincations gear. It wouldn't take much to put atserious hurt in the Navy's C-cubed net. And you could easily use GPS to get close, and then image recognition for final targeting. Seems to me that the important concept here is that this is yet another technology that the government can't control once its out of the bottle. The scare tactics, and worrisome quotes about "terrorists and drug dealers" will cause confusion among the masses, but I can't see them having any long term effect. Pat Pat Farrell Grad Student pfarrell(a)netcom.com Department of Computer Science George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Public key availble via finger #include <standard.disclaimer>

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