December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

pseudospoofing, copyrights, and ECPA
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Some losers are still assaulting me with claims that I failed to respect His Royal Eminence's privacy by revealing his mailbomb to the list, saying I was not polite or courteous. Please, hypocrites, go away. Where does this bizarre philosophy originate? Where do you guys get your `ethics', anyway? At least have the decency to codify them, sign your names to them, and stick them on an FTP site if you are going to spout this bizarre depravity. Next: Mr. Zions, while one of the `protect the mailbombers privacy' advocates, brought up some interesting points. Does the ECPA (the law regulating communications privacy) or the copyright laws apply to material that was written under a *pseudonymous* identity? I would consider this a grey area. A court test would be extremely fascinating. What if work was redistributed if printed under imaginary identities? the whole aspect of both of the laws involves *ownership* and *identity*. If ECPA or copyright laws are interpreted to protect pseudonymous identities, I propose they be amended and revised to afford no protection. (Legitimate variations like pseudonymity and anonymity should be protected in any case.) One man's opinion. Feel free to stone me some more. Have you figured out who my personal friends are yet? Have you found any nifty blackmail on me? I can't wait for the next sordid perversion.

1 0

pseudopools
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One application of pseudospoofing, a particularly insideous and treacherous form, would be to create a `pool' of different accounts. Everyone in the group can negotiate with each other `behind the scenes' when to post from different accounts. This would be even more difficult to detect than regular pseudospoofing (and, IMHO, even that much more of a perversion) because all traces of consistency of identity are subverted and lost.

1 0

Re: Key Servers
by jim＠bilbo.suite.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

L. Detweiler writes: > I wonder if anyone would want to start a PGP key server > dedicated only to *real* identities. Obviously, there > is no such demand with the current ones. > > And please don't start with the `that would be > impossible' arguments. A key server that had the > official policy `if you register here, on your honor your > legal name is what you give, under penalty of public > exposure if you are caught' would be enough for me. > It's not PGP, but RSA, Inc. and others (Internet Policy Registration Authority) are already setting up a system for registering pubilc-keys that are "proven" to belong to actual humans. You can read about it in RSA's newletter available at their ftp site (rsa.com) The newsletter is called "Ciphertext - The RSA newsletter". Of course, their system for "proving" the identity of a human is not perfect. If you can obtain some fake IDs, you can defeat their public-key registration system. This is probably true for any non-biometric identification system. Jim_Miller(a)suite.com

1 0

cypherpunk archives?
by an12070＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I'm looking for an official cypherpunk document on `pseudospoofing' -- I looked all over soda.berkeley.edu:/pub/cypherpunks, but couldn't find one anywhere. Does anyone have one, preferrably written or endorsed by E.Hughes or T.C.May? Also, any messages they have posted on the subject sought. I have some stuff, but they seem extremely reluctant to talk about it publicly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

1 0

True Name Keyservers
by Mike Ingle 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>"ld231782(a)longs.lance.colostate.edu" "L. Detweiler" wrote: >Subject: Key Servers >I wonder if anyone would want to start a PGP key server dedicated only >to *real* identities. Obviously, there is no such demand with the current >ones. >And please don't start with the `that would be impossible' arguments. A >key server that had the official policy `if you register here, on your >honor your legal name is what you give, under penalty of public >exposure if you are caught' would be enough for me. That might be somewhat effective if there was a way to expose the person's True Name if they were caught using a nym. If the only thing to be exposed was the falsity of the nym, the person could just create a new nym, with no penalty for lying except a bit of inconvenience. Another approach would be to have some people who certify keys as being True Name keys, using special signer keys which are labeled "True Name certifier key" or something similar. These certifiers would be risking their own credibility if they were tricked, so they would have a motive to be careful. If this was a for-profit undertaking (i.e. "send me ten bucks and a copy of your birth certificate, driver's license, and a third form of ID") then it could be fairly effective. Any of you capitalists out there...? Somewhere I read about "is-a-person" certificates, which, if I remember correctly, allow you to prove your identity is unique without giving out your True Name. How do these work? Is this a blind signature of your key? Whatever is done involving True Names, nyms should have a right to exist as well. --- MikeIngle(a)delphi.com

2 1

EDM--Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've gotten a few requests already for info on the book I mentioned. I usually avoid giving ISBN numbers for folks to order a book sight unseen--if they're going to spend $50-70 for a book, they at least ought to flip through it in person and see if they really want it. (Sidenote: Must be the electronic age...often when I mention a paper on something, I get notes asking me where it's available online! I admire these Net-dwellers (no relation to Detweiler!), but the fact is that most of the good stuff is only in print. The reasons are many.) Anyway, here's the EDM info: > > > ObCrytp Note: Just got the English translation in paperback of the > > > Japanese-published "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Mathematics," a large > > > 2-volume set with detailed articles on many branches of math. If the > > > math talked about in crypto is sometimes obscure to you, check this > > > out. The cost is $59, a real bargain these days. > MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-59020-4 (paperback), "Encyclopedic Dictionary of > Mathematics," Second Edition, edited by Kiyosi Ito, 1993. For $59, a real bargain. But if you don't have a fairly good crypto library (Schneier, especially, and perhaps Denning, Salomaa, Brassard, Simmons, etc.), then you'd probably do better to get some of them first. --Tim -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Note: I put time and money into writing this posting. I hope you enjoy it.

1 0

UNIX: Chaos Gains Reliability
by Chael Hall 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, all, I am about six-thousand messages behind on the cypherpunks list, but I just wanted to tell everyone that I *finally* got a reliable kernel last night. The patch to my hard drive driver has been installed and verified to be avoiding the hang problems that chaos had. The system maintenance schedule has likewise been modified. It now reboots only at 5 am daily. If it holds up this week, I will change the reboot schedule to once a week (probably Sunday or Monday morning at 5 am CST). If anyone is interested in an account on chaos, they are freely available granted you have a good reason (i.e., intend to write code, be a productive user, etc.) by request. Telnet to chaos.bsu.edu (147.226.53.28) and login as guest (all lowercase). It will direct you through the account request procedure. **IMPORTANT** Chaos has very limited disk space (200 MB) right now. The planning committee has decided that once a reliable kernel has been installed (which I believe was yesterday), we would begin to solicit donations for an additional 500+ MB of storage. The deal is (and I think this is pretty fair), once the users have raised enough to pay for half of the new hard drive, I will chip in the rest. Anyone who donates money toward the acquisition of a new hard drive will be given extra space on the new drive (we haven't quite decided how it will be done, but two plans are: give donated users write access to an additional partition OR move their home directory to the new partition). Either way, all non-donated users will be the recipients of a brand-spanking-new QUOTA! I'm sorry, there just isn't the space. Oh, another thing, when the new drive arrives, it will supplement what is already there. The old hard drive will not be removed. Any comments? Reply in e-mail, this is not particularly relevant to cypherpunks. BTW, what does everyone think of the gopher site? I'm going to work on the FTP/NFS site some more one of these days. Chael Hall -- nowhere(a)chaos.bsu.edu nowhere(a)bsu-cs.bsu.edu chall(a)bsu.edu 00CCHALL(a)bsuvc.bsu.edu

1 0

Re: "Applied Cryptography" at Cody's
by Jef Poskanzer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>As of 14:30 today, Cody's in Berkeley has 4-1=3 copys of >"Applied Cryptography" by Schneier. One fewer as of 16:30. They had it hidden in the back room upstairs, but I made them file the rest in the math section. I'm about halfway through it now. It's pretty nifty! --- Jef

1 0

D. Barnes
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>You have become major pest, you have done more than anyone else to >disrupt this list and make it next to impossible for real work to get >done on it (including work that would help mitigate problems of the >kind you believe your "enemies" are perpetrating on you.) please, characterize this `work' and your own involvement in it. >we don't see pseudospoofing as a "danger" like you >do. Personally, I consider it a necessity. I like being able to hide >behind an anonymous identity (not that I do, mind you). I don't see >pseudospoofing as "constraining". On the contrary, I see it as >freeing us. oh.

1 0

*hot* pseudospoofing ideas!
by L. Detweiler 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

here's an interesting idea. Suppose that whenever cypherpunks in favor of pseudospoofing emailed me, I put all their posts into a big pot. Since they all advocate the same ideas, I would just file all the different paragraphs in favor of pseudanonymity, against democracy, in favor of anarchy, in favor of tax evasion etc. in different folders. Then, whenever one of the cypherpunks sends me mail, I just pick a paragraph at random from the folders that match his idea. I could do this with public postings too. I have been filling out very many form letters lately anyway on the same old tired, depraved ideas. And I might even have a lot of fun with misattributing people's writing. That would be quite clever! I'm sure the cypherpunks would get a great kick out of that. The blurring of identities is perfect. No one would know who said what! Why, I might even put together software that promotes all this, and turn it loose on the Cypherpunks list (but of course, not tell anyone--that would take all the fun of it, and besides, if they knew they might leave). There's nothing unethical about it, because I *can* do it. It would be like those scenarios right out of that great science fiction, like Enders Game. I could pretend that different cypherpunks existed. No one would care. The effect would be the same. They are all interchangeable anyway. there is only a message.

1 0