December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Killfiles 101
by Carol Anne Braddock 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

1. The best and only way you can be sure you're killing a file is to turn your machine off. Only then can you be sure it is dead. 2. If you must resort to using killfiles, (great marketer trick, make you use it again and again, and again, like a gun) kill "classes" of files, as opposed to individuals, you'll get better kill ratio. A good example is anon or wizvax users. 3. Note: Killfiles are a censor's best friend! And you'll become what you swore you wouldn't. does your signature tell the truth nesta? Can't know everything with a killfile! Eventually you'll kill the file that'd get you sex. Signature withdrawn at the request (pretty rightfully so) of my dear friends on the Cypherpunk List Coming Soon: The Internet Debut of CENSORED.COM

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Chinese EBS
by jsled＠free.org 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- I've been reading through "Applied Cryptography," as every good boy and girl should :) and one of the concepts struck out at me recently. The idea of the Chinese Lottery seemed to be rather far fetched in my first few readings, but then I came across the discussion of the new Emergency Broadcast System. This may just be an unfair helping of paranoia, but the system seems to be a perfect distribution system for a Chinese Lottery-like keychecking or cracking system. Even though the public can turn off the broadcast, the signal will still be sent. The chips may even be government-regulated... available only from the government so no one can tamper with the signal and use this system for their own information-disemination needs (*ahem* Political agendas *ahem* re-election ads). They might even encrypt the signals, for a touch of irony. Anyone find fault in this? - -Joshua M. Sled <jsled@ctp.org/jsled@free.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQCVAgUBLw3WJqTT29daLBKRAQFbRgP/RAhGdEmxMe4zOuLORY9rKu7VhapXen7S 6+cVOvrlOxJ2ohCmxZpXbwKY9oR6ggF1jURwb9LZEiHPfzaOOsftURxcmJUsC2db 1vkSRuBarkm6vOK+JIlLMwKzRdk9omt+TmJPD7/wI5M1jhMfLRNS+fkbEpDFtisn 0s1H2nvXdDs= =kGbJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --- þ KWQ/2 1.2g NR þ "MTV get off the air!" - DKs

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The first reply came 3 days later.
by Carol Anne Braddock 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

These groups are important to me. It is why I posted them there. I use PGP extensively in my usenet postings, and I am not the only one in those groups that posts with PGP. Yes, suffice to say, I endorse this letter. I dream of a day when we do not have to deal with this issue, yet it is something that affects any one who uses the program. All that was really asked was not to go to the meeting with the D.A., and make a protest. MOST CYPHERPUNKS I KNOW OF COULDN'T HAVE MADE IT ANYWAY, THIS TIME, BECAUSE THE STAKES IN THE REMAILER GAME ARE HIGH, AND WITHIN A MONTH OR TWO, THERE WILL BE SYSTEM SO THAT WE CAN GET SOME MONEY TO EAT WITH AND BUY EQUIPMENT. But on the user level, I do my best to TEACH GOOD FUNDAMENTAL COMPUTER SAFETY. Rumors are no good for this. There was PRZ's letter to us, and Dubois's letter to alt.security pgp. Those are facts. Those I can teach with, and so can even a one month PGP Cypherpunk Novice. So can you. Now, the first reply,

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SafeBoot PC Security System
by shamrock＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I helped setting up the DigiCash booth at the RSA conference last night when some guy in the same room with us handed me a copy of their SafeBoot PC Security System. It consists of a processor, real-time clock, some other gadgets, and a magnetic transducer -- all embedded in a 3.5 inch floppy casing -- as well as some supporting software. The system interacts with the read/write head of the floppy drive, pretending to be a floppy. It is supposed to do provide for secure drive encryption (DES) and other things. Seems they are giving away one of these devices to each attendee of the conference. Does anyone on this list have experience with this device? I understand it has been out for a while. I use a Mac at home, and while I am resposible for some PC's at work, these are used for alpha testing of hardware components only , which makes them pretty unstable the way it is and I don't really want to add more trouble just to them to give the device a good workout. Sounds interesting, though... -- Lucky Green <shamrock(a)netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred.

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Re: Latency Costs of Anonymity
by Hal 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- From: Wei Dai <weidai(a)eskimo.com> > The points Tim makes here are quite good. However, I'm more concerned > with a slightly longer time scale, when people focus less on FILES, > but more on CONVERSATIONS and INTERACTIONS. It is then that latency > becomes more problematic. I think this is a good point. We have had some discussions about getting anonymity with web browsing. The "mix" or "remailer" concept doesn't work so well there as the connections are very short, so there is less chance of multiple communications going on at one time. OTOH I have heard discussions of asynchronous transfer mode, ATM, as a new packet-based network technology that could support high bandwidth communications. All messages, presumably even streams like video signals, get broken into fixed-size packets, which make their way through the network and are reassembled into a stream on the other end. The individual packets may not all take the same path through the network. (I am far from an expert on ATM so I welcome corrections to this description.) This technology does sound like mixing could work pretty well to provide anonymity. There is some price in bandwidth and latency but ATM is so fast that probably several steps of chaining and mixing would be possible. Naturally such mixes would have to be hardware based due to the rapid speeds of the packets. So this would be kind of a "souped up" version of our current email remailer network, with vastly greater bandwidths and switching speeds. Another possibility with connection-based communications would be Chaum's DC-Nets. These are networks where message source cannot be determined. They do face potentially severe costs in terms of bandwidth, though, depending on how much anonymity you get. As both mixes and dcnets have bandwidth costs, I wonder if it is provable that anonymity implies such costs. > Can anyone give me an estimate of when truly anonymous video conferencing > will become possible? This is not just to help me make the point, but > I'm really wondering. > > Wei Dai I think it may be more useful rather than speaking of "true" anonymity to think of factor-of-N anonymity. This reflects the bandwidth costs. I would guess that, if you have a packet-based video converencing system, that today you could probably get factor-of-2 anonymity with custom hardware, and perhaps even more than that. One other point I would make, based on Wei's original post, is that no doubt anonymity does exact some costs. However this does not mean that it is uncompetitive. It also may have, in some circumstances, advantages. People may be more frank and critical when they are shielded by anonymity. I've read articles about companies which introduce electornic "suggestion boxes" where people can post anonymously, and upper management is often shocked at the results. It is too early to judge how much of a net benefit or harm anonymity will be in general. Furthermore, it is likely that the net advantage will differ depending on the business or organization. At one extreme, a group working with illegal or restricted technology would probably benefit more from anonymity. I think it was Keith Henson who posted a story here a couple of years ago that he was working on, involving some kind of underground protest group which organized itself using crypto anonymity. So it is really not a question of whether anonymity is good or bad, but rather whether its costs outweigh its advantages in a particular situation. Hal Finney hfinney(a)shell.portal.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6 iQBVAwUBLw8c9xnMLJtOy9MBAQFZBgH/R1c3FLHECJiEHDoUl/gUPaBIVzd3kvVz Uv2jqFwJxSFQjnrb1wtGT7vLjNOOXJ7uYpBNJU+ZfPSKOvPgGFD8yQ== =+6iw -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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PV Advocate on Clipper in `95
by L. McCarthy 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Just ran across a pretty nice (IMHO) short piece of media coverage of Clipper in a local weekly, the [Pioneer] Valley Advocate. This is item #85 in the "Tech Check" section of their list of "95 Things to Watch for in 1995". Joint authors of the whole forecast are: Mark Kendall Anderson, Everett Hafner, Stephanie Kraft, Tom Mudd, Steve Penhollow, Chris Rohmann, David Simons, Michael Strohl, and Rob Weir. ------------------ begin included text ---------------------- 85. Clipper Clipping Along Unfortunately, the failure of the mainstream media to cover the government's steamroller tactics in technology policy may well continue. The ``Clipper Chip,'' what NSA, CIA and FBI spooks see as the ideal data protection measure, stands to become national standard if all goes as planned. That is, as more people communicate with digital devices (computers and TVs and eventually telephones and faxes) the need to scramble and unscramble communications will increase -- ideally so that the phone conversation you have with your uncle or the email you send to a co-worker is private and unintelligible to anyone else. However, in the brave new world as it currently is being designed, the feds will also be able to decode every digital signal the Clipper chip scrambles. Consequently, drug kingpins, mafiosi, and anyone else requiring secure communications will have it (real data encryption is cheap and relatively easy to implement), while the remaining information consumers will have Big Brother to contend with. --------------------- end included text ---------------------- FYI, the Advocate accepts letters at 71632.100(a)compuserve.com. -L. Futplex McCarthy; PGP key by finger or server "The objective is for us to get those conversations whether they're by an alligator clip or ones and zeroes. Wherever they are, whatever they are, I need them." -FBI Dir. Freeh - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLxEBwmf7YYibNzjpAQFdkgQAkciJkPMXESO9yvl3jKaH7WT6H4wGcgfG W8KyX2myH1zOmN/aZAQVSWX/Rtrs3r+gTwIlCf7DVhFnp1n+lImzrs/T8pKTx/25 gh30s6sm0AGrxcxCV8rgKbXT4KCdPOlXT+kTp5wWaLYBqbZlogvyQIivW3GLZ1U/ 9YnjTb0OXNk= =DaLq - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - --- [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 iQBFAwUBLxEC7CoZzwIn1bdtAQEl6AGAtktxeMXLzVqxHi/0qhEgGRtlCg5Oq/aa O/RrNyyqbV8eKzSr/n06bt98bGfRfbgY =ullh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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carrol(
by m00012＠KANGA.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

What is wrong with this person? ban her if you can, that's my opnion.

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Re: Too Much!
by pstemari＠erinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:16 AM 1/7/95 -0500, L. Todd Masco wrote: >You might want to try reading it from NNTP, via c2.org or hks.net. You >can then use Kill files. At that point, isn't the mailing list simply becoming a newsgroup? For that matter, is there some reason that escapes me why it ISN'T a newsgroup? I suppose the proportion of net.kooks is higher in a newsgroup than a mailing list, but arguably we're ALL net.kooks here. --Paul J. Ste. Marie pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com

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Re: Soapbox mode on!(but short)
by pstemari＠erinet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 01:22 AM 1/7/95, Carol Anne Braddock wrote: >Dear Paul J. Ste. Marie, > >I was quietly going through my mail after an eight hour layoff. >The first thing you do is lie. > >I have called you a liar. Point Blank! > >And for the honor of this very list, so that there is some >credibility, I shall retrieve from a tin reader the actual >posting, COMPLETE WITH HEADER. Interesting. You did retrieve the message I posted, but not the article from alt.current-events.net-abuse. If you want to call me a liar, that's fine, but post something with some relevance. I'm not in the habit of scanning the news hierarchy for spam, and I'm perfectly willing to believe you stopped after ten groups, but that isn't what I recalled seeing in a.c-e.n-a. I could be remebering things wrong, but if that is the case, kindly post something that actually shows the discussion in a.c-e.n-a was otherwise. >And what makes creeps like you going is the ability to continue, >to spread those lies. And now you're sounding like Martha Siegel. My words were: >> The discussion on alt.current-events.net-abuse seemed to indicate that the ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >> claim of "Just 10" above is a slight understandment. The newsgroups seem to >> have been hit alphabetically, and I believe the total count was in the >> hundreds. Am I rememebering a.c-e.n-a inaccurately, or have you simply decided not to rebut anything in the forum in which it was presented? All I suggested is that your account bore checking out before people leaped to your defense. An unwillingness to have your story verified speaks for itself. --Paul J. Ste. Marie pstemari(a)well.sf.ca.us, pstemari(a)erinet.com

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Re: carrol(
by m00012＠KANGA.STCLOUD.MSUS.EDU 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I would put her in my killfile, but I don't know if vms has a kill file capibility. I use my unix accounts for important email, and do not want to have to sift through the volume I get from the cypherpunks. Otherwise, given that the percentage of interesting posts is going down as a result of carrolann (and perhaps me too now), I think having an elite group capable of banning certain people is perfectly ethical. mike

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