December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) wrote: >And now that Mosaic and Netscape are such big deals (which I'm not >knocking, though--true to form--I use the character-based "lynx" to >access the Web), I expect a swing of the pendulum in the other >direction, toward a time-wasting focus on kerning, fonts, leading, >whitespace, gutter widths, etc. Actually, I see the benefit of html to be that you really _don't_ spend time on pretty visual effects like kerning, fonts, leading, whitespace, gutter widths, etc. You don't deal with any of those things, or anything like it, in a html document. Yes, you spend more time doing formatting then with straight ascii, but the structure you put in is content based structure, rather then pretty-but-useless display based structure. The type that you were doing with outliners and such, although for the goal of making them more readable rather then of helping to organize ideas. But I think html, once you've gotten the hang of it, gives you a pretty good return to the amount of work you put in. A well done html document is, in my opinion, actually much easier to read then a straight ascii document, and the amount of effort neccesary to turn ascii to html is relatively minimal. Just my opinion, of course. I agree with you that there is a problem when too much time and energy is spent on prettifying trimming rather then on content, but I'm not sure that html is really representative of this. Have you tried using MacWeb with the auto-loading of images turned off? Like I said, I find it easier to extract the relevant information quickly out of a html-formatted text then a straight ascii text. And we all know that when you are on the net, being able to extract relevant information quickly is vital. (There's a whole nother treatise waiting to be written there.)

3 2

How to Mail a Letter
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Well, with the many helpful comments here by fellow Cypherpunks, I've begun to explore how to use the new Postal Service system. I really must say that Al Gore's Reinventing Government Task Farce has outdone itself. The new "PowerVisualMail" system is much more powerful than the old "seal the envelope, put a stamp on it, and mail it" approach. But I'm having some problems in the conversion. Perhaps some of you can help. I did the Archie search and found the Installer script at ftp.gore.gov, fetched it, used MIME_Decode on it, checked the PGP sig to make sure no one had tampered with Tipper's code, then installed it as a client on my Mac (which I bought AUX for, to run this client). After reconfiguring metamail and setting the NOMETAMAIL environmental variable (under csh, "setenv NOMETAMAIL") to the AUX agent symbol, I was able to recompile PowerVisualMail to (sort of) run on my system. I found the new O'Reilly and Associates book, "How to Mail a Letter with PowerVisualMail," to be very helpful, especially Chapter 17. I hope to spend the next couple of days ironing out the bugs and getting my mail client to properly communicate with the PowerVisualMail agent. But it'll all be worth it! This will all be so much easier than licking stamps and sending those b-o-r-i-n-g paper letters. Of course, now I've got to teach my father how to decode my PowerVisualMail letters...and he doesn't even have a computer yet! I've told him that PowerVisualMail just runs too slowly on 486 machines, so I'm hoping he gets a 90 MHz Pentium. And the phone company seems stuck in the Dark Ages, completely unwilling to accept my PowerVisualMail items! I guess they're just late getting on the Information Superhighway. Well, sorry I'll be missing today's Cypherpunks meeting in Mountain View....I'm busy making my life easier. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... 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: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo(a)toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tcmay

1 0

usenet-to-mail
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Robert A. Hayden" <hayden(a)krypton.mankato.msus.edu> wrote: >More importantly, are there are usenet-to-mail gateways? My first impression was that that was just a joke. Then I thought it might be a very good idea after all. Then I thought it surely wasn't a joke, but also wasn't a very good idea. Now I'm not sure. :) It seems like it might be a good idea. All the anon remailers could watch a certain newsgroup, alt.remailer.submit perhaps, and take messages with a "anon-remailer-attn: specific@remailer", and deal with them just like normal mail input. Would there by any benefit to doing this at all over the present system? Why would someone submit a message to the remailer "bramble" via newsgroup instead of just mailing it? Unless you find an anonymous way to post to the newsgroup in the first place, your security seems to be seriously compromised. Even if everything is encrypted, you've made traffic analysis a huge amount easier. And if you are finding a way to post the a newsgroup anonymously in the first place, odds are you have some other entry point to the remailer bramble, so why make a stop on the newsgroup opening yourself up to traffic analysis? Now that I think about it, it seems that there isn't really any reason for such a thing.

3 2

Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

L. McCarthy wrote: >Bob Hettinga writes: >> At 10:48 PM 11/18/94 -0500, Amanda Walker wrote: >> >Fancy and Crap are both in the eye of the beholder :). >> Attachment converted: :Amanda Logo Sig.GIF (GIFf/JVWR) (00003907) > >You bothered ? > >$ This message contains data in an unrecognized format, image/gif, >$ which can be decoded and written to a file. >$ Please enter the name of a file to which the data should be written, >$ or just press RETURN to skip writing it to a file. Perhaps Bob is one of the many fortunate people who use a Mac to read their mail ;-) Eudora auto-converts the MIME attachments and dumps them in the folder of your choice. Give it a try. I think you'd like it. -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

1 0

tips
by Cyber City 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

:Request-Remailing-To: snitch(a)atf.bogus.gov -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Dear ATF, Here is a list of Cypherpunks members who have admitted to me that they did not turn in their assault rifles. Please execute search warrants and send me my anonymous digital reward. - -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.6 hDwCpkY8we5dNykBAX918sq0PCIgfsaVVjD3gfwsTVtumQPb74rPoeUeoWlkBcfI N2Z6OL3es4EnjlZrsgWmAAAAhj5ySLZTPVQ96fngDmbGJ8aoryignRSm43RyrdoA C41To/PJYVW9O2srJZYC+WVG+5dfVTqdRT4wSnEtr1Q6tQOfwtywVGF9djIGUVs/ oQMTxXn42gX6C+6GleUBdgXIgFX7cBVTu+j2xD3gldVOUZMLAcGN1XI/i0zih0bt jduae3T9dFtA =ud0m - -----END PGP MESSAGE----- -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBFAgUBLs5LDShcUzyq2FJRAQGqaQGAoO+oNrEW8lOKpkiPx3wAcinfxJdNg2+W d5r2rlBiFe22k/E6sfM9Werx1F4UNZZQ =Ui8K -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 1

Foreign Transactions & The Pistol Whip Test
by blancw＠pylon.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Here's a simple checklist for making decisions about foreign transactions & financial institutions. Question: Can they kick down the door and pistol whip this one: Yes No ___ ___ consultant who works in the country ___ ___ consultant who works out of the country ___ ___ relative who is in a foreign country ___ ___ relative who is in the USA ___ ___ friend who is in a foreign country ___ ___ friend who is in the USA ___ ___ bank account in another country ___ ___ bank account in the USA ___ ___ all financial institutions ___ ___ self proclaimed financial experts ___ ___ your puppy dog ___ ___ All of them! All of them! Blanc :>)

1 0

(fwd) "Process Mime Article y/n?"
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There was a lot of hilarity at today's Cypherpunks meeting, about the MIME/complexity thread. Others are reporting similar experiences, percolating into newsgroups: > From: sag(a)hera.EECS.Berkeley.EDU (Steve Goldfield) > Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.digest > Subject: "Process Mime Article y/n?" > Message-ID: <3ainnf$itf(a)agate.berkeley.edu> > Date: 18 Nov 94 17:19:42 GMT > Sender: usenet > Distribution: world > Organization: University of California, Berkeley > Approved: info-mac(a)sumex-aim.stanford.edu > > A day or so ago while trying to read this newsgroup, I got > the prompt, "Process Mime Article? y/n?" I said "y" and was > immediately sorry. Message after message came up and no > character seemed to permit escape from that loop. Seems to > me there should be a warning about such things. I had to > disconnect and relogin to my account and then delete the > message without reading it. I notice today that if I'd said > "n," I'd have got the same old very long message. Anyway, > I'd urge the moderator of the newsgroup to stick in a > warning or tell the unwary reader how to excape from the > Mime loop. > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > Steve Goldfield :<{ {>: sag(a)coe.berkeley.edu > University of California at Berkeley Richmond Field Station > > --

1 0

Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
by jrochkin＠cs.oberlin.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:19 AM 11/19/94, Timothy C. May wrote: >Jonathan Rochkind wrote: >... >> return to the amount of work you put in. A well done html document is, in >> my opinion, actually much easier to read then a straight ascii document, >> and the amount of effort neccesary to turn ascii to html is relatively >> minimal. > >Well, I've looked at maybe 50 home pages now, with "lynx," and I'm not >convinced that html docs are "much easier to read" than straight text. >Perhaps the "well done" qualifier is what I haven't yet seen (but 50 >home pages is a pretty fair sample). I think I might not have made my point clear enough. I meant to say that an html document, viewed with a program that displays different headings in different fonts and sizes and stuff (note that the writer doesn't have to deal with font and size issues herself) are much easier to read. Meaning, "an html document viewed on anything but lynx". In my opinion. An html document viewed with lynx _is_ pretty much straight text, isn't it? So it's not going to be much easier to read then straight text, obviously. >In any case, the problem is not just html. On a Smalltalk mailing list [various problems] I agree there are problems like that. Much of the problem is due to lack of tools on the user-end of it. Which is a completely different thing from the issue of the author spending too much time on inane prettifying, form over content, etc. Still an important issue. Until nearly everyone _is_ able to use a graphical web browser, html isn't going to be as useful as it could be. Until there are easy or automatic ways to use PGP, it's not going to be as easy to send and receive PGP mail as it could be. Until everyone has a MIME-compatible mailer that behaves reasonably and can be configured to do whatever one wants it to do... etc. This is a legitimate issue, but not the same one as the form over content thing you were foaming about earlier. :) > >My point? Much wheel-spinning. Like trying to read Amanda's "X11" GIF, >and then wondering if my Netcom disk quota was being sucked up by a >hidden file somewhere! Or jumping through hoops to download a >PGP-encrypted note to my home machine, decrypting it, only to find a >"Like, wow, this PGP sure is neat! Like, rock on, dude!" message >awaiting me! All due to lack of proper tools to deal with this stuff, I'd argue. If you had a MIME compatible mailer that displayed Amanda's GIF inline, or did something logical with it, or just tossed it in the bit bucket cause you told it to, it wouldn't be so much of a problem. Yes, not everyone (or possibly anyone) has that capability at the moment, and that's a good point. [I know you asked not to have advice, but I'll quickly say that I've found that using the Eudora-compatible PGP-related applescripts makes it _immeasurably_ easier to deal with PGP stuff. Decrypting a PGP-encrypted note is a single mouse click. Lack of tools is what makes it a problem] >We are getting bogged down in banal details and platform >idiosyncracies. Dozens of platforms, dozens of flavors of Unix and >other operating systems, half a dozen major display options (as noted >above), lots of image formats (at least that's relatively >standardized, to GIF, PICT, JPEG, etc....and yet many people spend >_days_ trying to convert, download, uncompress, read, display, etc.) I agree that it's important _not_ to get bogged down in banal details, or platform idiosyncracies. The point of such things as MIME and HTML are to avoid both of these things. The MIME and HTML specifications are completely platform-independent, and their whole purpose is basically to take care of the banal details so humans don't have to. Whether theory matches practice is another issue. > There's got to be a better way. The net is evolving. I _like_ the fact that I can option-click on a ftp URL in my newsreading software, and have that URL automatically fetched. I don't like the fact that Eudora _automatically_ fetched the documents referenced by the MIME voodoo in that recent contribution to the list, but if it had merely shown "referenced document: 1994.Standards", and allowed me to option-click on that (or ignore it) to download it if I wished, I would have liked that too. At one point ASCII _wasn't_ a standard. It was never quite such a problem as we have now, admittedly, but it's not as powerful as what we are on the verge of having now either. Once MIME compatible mailers work right, and the user interaction issues are taken care of the right way, and everyone has a direct high-bandwith net connection, I firmly believe that MIME and html will be of enormous utility. No, I'm not holding my breath for that to happen, but technology has a way of moving faster then you would expect (and at times slower then you would expect too. but unpredictable nearly always). Or maybe I'm just a hopeless techno-phile.

2 1

Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim wrote: [various reasons why television is a bad thing because it can't be received on a radio deleted <g>] >Me, I think I'm just going on a personal crusade to simplify things. >Computers should not be making my life _vastly more complicated_. Amen. They also should enable people to communicate in more and better ways with more people. MIME, HTML, Maven (phone calls over the net for free), CU-SeeMe (video over the Net for free,) and similar tools are first examples of how these goals might be achieved. I love email, but I would also like to be able to see and hear from some of the friends I made all over the world. >One last note: I read my mail on-line, interspersed with reading >NetNews. Although I have Eudora, and of course use it, I don't use it >for routine work (for one thing, it may take 20 minutes to download my >mail, so I tend to use it when I'm heading out to do something else, >or to go to sleep, etc.). So all the "solutions" that involve using >Eudora are not my cup of tea. That's just the way it is. Twenty minutes for your mail? How fast a modem do you use? As for solutions, the only solutions there are and ever will be involve you getting of that terminal server. The evolution of the Internet will make ASCII terminals obsolete. If it hasn't already done so. Let's take that poll of what people use. I am curious. Happy netting, P.S. If anybody here on the list wants to know how to turn their regular shell account into a SLIP account, email me for info or read alt.dcom.slip-emulators. Please don't ask about it on the list. -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

1 0

Verifying RC4
by gnu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> "RC4" as used herein, is used to identify an apparently reverse-engineered > algorithm recently posted to sci.crypt that claimed it was compatible with > the RC4 sold by RSA Data Security, Inc. (RSADSI) and/or Public Key Partners > (PKP). Although the reaction of RSADSI and the press indicates that the two > algorithms are the same, I could have missed something. I suggest that someone apply for expedited export permission for some small piece of software that uses the "apparent reverse-engineered RC4". Tell them that you want to export crypto software containing RC4 on the 7-day plan. The State Department will send you a set of test-vectors which you can use to prove that you're really using the real RC4. If you pass, and are given export permission, then I guess the rev-eng version is the real thing. Be sure your keys are 40 bits or less (only for purposes of the test export; I don't recommend short keys for any other purpose). Full bureaucratic details are at ftp://ftp.cygnus.com/pub/export/cjr.kit. Search for "test vector". This info is also reachable from my Web page on crypto export, http://www.cygnus.com/~gnu/export.html. Please email me a full copy of any CJ that you submit, so I can add it to the Web page (along with the eventual response from the gov't). John Gilmore

1 0