December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Netscape the Big Win
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 4:31 PM 7/20/95, Ray Cromwell wrote: > I wouldn't be surprised if in 5-10 years, your operating system basically >looks like a cross between Netscape, OpenDoc, and HotJava. The "browser" >would be ubiquituous, and local/LAN/WAN data would be treated transparently. > This is precisely my view, although I try to call it an "operating environment," so as to get away from quibbling about what is and what is not a real OS. There were reasons why some folks like to do as much work as they could in an integrated environment like Emacs, regardless of the underlying OS flavor. Many folk still do, and they read News, send mail, etc., all from within Emacs. Same idea with Netscape...albeit with a different focus. And my guess, based on lots of indications, is that about a thousand times as many people will soon be doing this with Netscape as with Emacs, or elm, or pine, etc. Ray's comments about OpenDoc, HotJava, and other object-oriented tools fit this picture, I think. I am sorry that some folks heavily committed to the Linux route, or to Emacs, or to GNU/FSF, or to other approaches feel that their work is technically superior and deserves to be as popular as Netscape and simiar approaches, but reality is reality. (And I could be wrong on the way things will unfold. All I'm saying is that technology is a moving target, that plans have to change, and that ease of use will likely win out over technical sophistication. Folks who think the stronger technology will inevitably win should pick up a copy of a 15-year-old book called "The Soul of a New Machine," by Tracy Kidder.) .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Netscape the Big Win
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Well, X.509 for now. The Eastlake-Kaufman DNS Security work > (draft-ietf-dnssec-secext-04.txt) plus MOSS (draft-ietf-pem-mime-08.txt > --now proposed standard, awaiting an RFC number) promise to give us > a non-X.509 certification structure for the Internet. I have serious concerns about whether the DNS stuff will really scale. It's gonna blow out DNS server memory use, and the bigger packets means a *lot* more TCP (vs UDP) activity. /r$

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Cyberporn on NPR today
by lethin＠ai.mit.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Talk of the Nation on NPR is having a call-in program this afternoon on the "pervasiveness of cyberporn". I think it's 1:00 or 2:00. Crypto-relevance... 4 horsepeople...

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Re: Netscape the Big Win
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:25 PM 7/20/95, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: >>>>>> "tcmay" == Timothy C May <tcmay(a)sensemedia.net> writes: > > tcmay> Integration of crypto into Netscape is thus the Big Win. > > tcmay> I felt this was the case as far back as last fall, but my > tcmay> recent experiences tell me this is more important than > tcmay> ever. Integration of PGP and other crypto routines into Tin, > tcmay> Pine, Elm, Joe, Emacs, etc., is just not as important. > >Careful here. Deliberately or not, you are marginalizing the hard >work of dozens of people, including me. You are suggesting our work >should have been done for Netscape instead, a program that a) is not >free software (FSF sense); b) has no mail reader; and c) has no >extension language. Oh, and d) is horrendous as a news reader. No offense, but "marginalizing" is what I love to do more than anything! Seriously, the world is what the world is. I really don't care about "FSF" one way or the other, and will join the rest of the world (apparently) in using Netscape. And yes, I am "marginalizing" the work that anyone does on "fringe" projects like Linux, which will likely always remain in the ghetto of Unix hackers who want a cheap Unix running on their cheap 486 boxes...it just ain't gonna take over inside corporations or amongst the many folks like me. Frankly, one of the great boons of my current setup is that I can completely get away from Unix tools and commands, away from my Unix shell account at Netcom, away from the arcane commands that vary from program to program, away from tin and elm and emacs...my fingers are already forgetting the emacs commands! (Those of you like Unix, fine. I agree it is useful for many things, so I'm not trying to debate Unix vs. the world. Just giving my perspective, and apparently the perspective of the many who are adopting the Web browsers as their "operating environments," insulated from the underlying cruft.) (If the GNU folks were to do an "open, extensible, Netscape workalike. this could be a win. Some may claim that Mosaic is/was that. We can debate this in separate thread.) I acknowledge that it has no mail reader, which is why I'm still using Eudora. But as soon as it does.... And the newsreader is a matter of taste...it does all I want it to do, and I'm a fairly heavy reader of News and contributor to Usenet groups. I survived with "tin" for several years, so anything is possible. >The packages that you implicitly denigrate provide far and away the >best interfaces to PGP available today. They are written with the >tools available, whether it's a Windows shell, a hacked version of >Elm, or an Emacs Lisp package. I don't think the packages I "denigrate" are the key to the future widespread use of crypto. Look at the actual usage patterns. >Netscape is not a platform. It is a browser. It is only useful for >viewing content that others have created, with a user interface that >any idiot can use. Consequently, yes, it is very popular with the >masses and will become more so. This makes my point. We may dismiss the masses as not being true Unix gurus or as being ignorant of Emacs, but this is how crypto will become truly ubiquitous. Not when people have to learn to compile code and create clients, but when they can send encrypted messages easily and transparently. That Qualcomm (Eudora), Netscape, Frontier, Microsoft, Lotus, and others are working on an interoperable "Secure/MIME" should be encouraging. >end, but for which none has been written? If it is ever feasible to >do what you suggest, someone will do it; your musings will have no >effect on that. If you want to make a difference, try writing some >code yourself... Please, your insulting tone ("your musings," "try writing some code..") is uncalled for. You have your views, I have mine. >From the large number of messages in this thread, apparently my points struck a chord. Like it or not, huge numbers of users are using Netscape and similar browsers. This is the basic reality. This is where the bulk of crypto users are going to be, not compiling ftp-gotten PGP into their Emacs configurations. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: DOVE/Red Mercury doom U.S. Super State?
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> DOVE/Red Mercury dooms U.S Super State? =20 UNALTERED Desemination of This Important Information is ENCOURAGED :-> (or words to that effect - anyone have the canonical form available?) >& Finally: In the old Feudal days, wars weren't so bad. The >nobility would fight while the peasants watched nearby & >cheered the sport. If this is an example of the depth of your research, then we certainly don't have to worry about anything else in your post. The peasants were economic assets, and their destruction was regarded as a standard practice of war. Try reading Barbara Tuchman's 'A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th century.' [I must admit, however, that the idea of Bush and Sadaam Hussein having it out has a certain appeal - battleaxes in a blacked out cellar sounds appropriate.] Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation trei(a)process.com

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"Cypherpunks Write Code" as a Putdown
by tcmay＠sensemedia.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 5:25 PM 7/20/95, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: > If it is ever feasible to >do what you suggest, someone will do it; your musings will have no >effect on that. If you want to make a difference, try writing some >code yourself... I want to comment on this latest version of the "Cypherpunks write code" universal putdown. It's become common for debates on what is possible, what is likely, and what should be done for someone to "trump" the argument with the mantra of "Cypherpunks write code." In my posting on why I think Netscape and related operating environments represent the likeliest targets for widespread crypto use (the "big win" I used in my title), I did not whine that others ought to write code for me. I said that this is where users were going in massive numbers. Take it or leave it, as an analysis, but the "try writing some code" is a meaningless insult. The world is made up of bridge designers, legal experts, authors, chip designers, and on and on. Not just programmers. The line "Cypherpunks write code"--which is sometimes treated here with a reverence its origins do not support--was a reference to our view that technology, meaning actual deployment, was more important and interesting than yet more gabbing about liberty and privacy. And what is "writing code"? Is it only Perl and C? Or does defining what a remailer needs to do count as writing code? (Attendees at the first Cypherpunks meeting, almost 3 years ago, can confirm that I was the one who spend about two hours describing Chaum's mix work, and running the "remailer experiment"...we debated how a remailer could actually work, and Eric Hughes took on the task of writing the first one.) The "BlackNet" experiment I ran actually worked...the keys worked, the mechanisms worked, and the experiment has been used by many as an actual concrete illustration of how untraceable information markets will develop. An actual demonstration is worth more than mere speculation, and this was an actual demonstration. I call this "writing code," albeit not C code. (My actual code writing, in real computer languages, is oriented toward Mathematica, on my Mac, and Smalltalk Agents. Not all programming is oriented toward writing Unix tools, and I think the narrow interpretation of "Cypherpunks write code" to mean this is misleading.) In any case, even the ur-crypto hacker Zimmermann is writing very little actual code in PGP these days...does this mean he should "try writing some code" instead of doing what he apparently does best? In short, the insulting tone of many Cypherpunks these days is saddening. I plan to continue to speak my mind, to point out what I think are the more important routes to a desirable future, and to criticize what I think are dead ends and ghettoized approaches. --Tim May .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-728-0152 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Corralitos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Plan9 press release followup
by bostic＠CS.Berkeley.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It's been pointed out to me that the recent Plan 9 article does not match the licensing agreement. Nobody has any idea why the speaker didn't understand that the software community is likely to react badly to the phrase "any changes they make will become AT&T's property", but there is a rumor that they *may* have been a lawyer. ;-} As I understand it, the license is roughly as follows: + For $350, you get copies of the complete source and binaries for Plan 9. You can make this copy available internally to your company, i.e. NFS is okay as long as it's not on the Internet. + You agree to not resell it or provide a product or service based on it without reaching an agreement with AT&T first. + You agree that if you create a derivative work, you will license it to AT&T on a royalty-free basis. (I'm also told that some of the wording means that hardware specific things are excluded). There's nothing about modifications becoming the property of AT&T. The license is on the Web at http://plan9.att.com/plan9/shrink.html. --keith

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House Waco Hearings
by Jason Burrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

application/pgp-message

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Re: It had to happen...
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 15:41 7/20/95, Douglas Barnes wrote: >Has anyone caught this yet? From "No Such Agency" to having >their own Web page... wow. > >http://www.nsa.gov:8080/ They've been on the net for years. They were dockmaster (I do not remember the domain) and were mentioned as such in Cuckoo's Egg. The address is probably being run by the same section as dockmaster is/was (RTM Sr's Group).

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Re: Netscape the Big Win
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <199507201631.MAA18946(a)clark.net>, rjc(a)clark.net (Ray Cromwell) wrote: > The answer is: integration. While TRN is a great newsreader, and >Eudora's a great mail reader, etc, if I read a post in TRN or a message >in Eudora, there is no hyperlinking. If I see a link or reference, If you used a Mac, all you had to do is click on the URL in your mailer, newsreader, even some text editors, and the correct helper aplication will open the URL. For you Mac users: ftp://redback.cs.uwa.edu.au//Others/Quinn/Config/ICeTEe1.1.1.sit requires InternetConfig, which is available at all the major archive sites. - -- - -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred. - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMA8BGioZzwIn1bdtAQGEEQF+PRWtaNDSdRuJYDZfGRGATwFM4zgetK7Q cLRAa8/r89fJvzz5yRJSZLrbm84B0yYs =qAXZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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