December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Bernstein
by rishab＠dxm.ernet.in 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter F Cassidy <pcassidy(a)world.std.com>: > - I am a writer on assignment from the Economist writing about a > certain cryptographers' tussle with the State Department, a fellow who is > known around the beltway crypto-anarchy, privacy, > niceness-on-the-Internet advocacy crowds as Bernstein. I have the outline There are two of them in my archives: "D. J. Bernstein" (djb(a)silverton.berkeley.edu) at Berkeley who visited the list once; and E. Bernstein, the author of papers on quantum complexity along with U Vazirani. I've never heard of either of them tussling with the State Department. Apart from the name, though, several cryptographer/cypherpunks could fit the bill, from Phil Zimmerman of course to various people who've tried to extract ITAR clearance or FOIA requests. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- For Electric Dreams subscriptions and back issues, send a mail to rishab(a)arbornet.org with 'get help' as the message Subject. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh rishab(a)dxm.ernet.in rishab(a)arbornet.org Vox +91 11 6853410 Voxmail 3760335 H 34C Saket, New Delhi 110017, INDIA

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Re: UMich student arrested for rape story
by Richard F. Dutcher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: "L. McCarthy" <lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu> > Rich Dutcher writes: > > They *do* have to prove intent -- as to how, that's what juries are > > for. BTW, he used her real name in the post, with no disclaimers > > about fiction. From what I have heard, if he had said the same thing > > in her presence, he could have been arrested for assault. > > Based on the NY Times article I've read, you're omitting some important > extenuating circumstances here. For one thing, it was apparently posted to > alt.sex.stories, which seems to obviate the use of "fictional" disclaimers. > Furthermore, he did _not_ identify her as a UMich student. > Well, I was quoting a small AP story in a paper notorious for clipping articles short, so I knew that some [if not many] circumstances would be missing. In conversations today at Potlatch 4 I learned of other circumstances, albeit not necessarily what I would call "extenuating" ones. And the lawyers, of course, will be spin controlling from now until a verdict. > I don't see the relevance of "if he had said the same thing in her presence". > He *didn't* ! There's an enormous difference between making a comment about > a person to third parties, and making the comment to that person. > Not necessarily -- there's lots of case law that the threatened person need not be present to be threatened. The people present are still witnesses. I agree there's a difference, but its nature isn't obvious. Precisely what that difference is is up to judges, juries and [goddess help us!] legislators. > According to the NY Times story, the woman mentioned in the story only heard > about it because reporters asked her about it ! I find a great deal of irony > in the report that the controversy started because an alt.sex.stories reader > in _Moscow_ tipped off the UMich authorities. > Irony noted and appreciated -- but it does illustrate the "public" nature of the forum. > It appears that the Russians are allowed to read erotic fiction, while the > Americans are forbidden to read it, and get tossed in jail for writing it. > We've come a long way, baby. Yeah. > > -L. Futplex McCarthy I was in high school while the Supremes [the real Supremes, with Earl Warren, not the bogus nostalgia group currently wearing the black robes] were doing the decisions that allowed Joyce and Lawrence to be sold in bookstores, and I was taught Shakespeare from a bowlderized edition of Romeo & Juliet. Trust me, we aren't in a place remotely like that now [not that there aren't plenty of people trying to get back there]. Which is not to say I'm complacent -- when I have money to spare from Green work, it goes to the ACLU. Eternal vigilance and all that. And this dude is entitled to presumption of innocence, a jury trial, and all the other paraphenalia of procedural liberty. However, given the information available to date, I see no reason to believe that he's been busted for writing "erotic fiction" rather than threatening a woman. Violence against women is too real, and in other contexts courts have held to a standard of what a "reasonable woman" might fear. BTW, does alt.sex.stories presume fiction, or is it pretend truth like the readers' sex stories in Penthouse?

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Laws, Feds, & the Internet
by Richard F. Dutcher 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The following was in today's San Francisco Chronicle. BTW, quoting the entire article as I have done is probably a violation of "fair use" - but de minimis ... All under *current* law, folks. [hmmm -- encryption doesn't do much for exhibitionists and braggarts, does it? ;-] ============================== MAN JAILED FOR INTERNET MESSAGES Associated Press Detroit A college student was charged yesterday with posting computer messages describing the imaginary binding, rape, torture and murder of a woman who used to be in his Japanese class. "Torture is foreplay, rape is romance, snuff (killing) is climax," prosecutors say one of Jake Baker's messages read. The student, 20, was charged with the federal crime of transmitting a threat to injure. He was jailed pending a bond hearing today. Baker, who was suspended from the University of Michigan last week, told reporters he was within his rights to post the messages on the Internet. By posting the messages, he gave other Internet users access to them. If convicted, Baker could be sentenced to up to five years in prison. The name of the woman was not released. ================================== =================================== Rich Dutcher, San Francisco Greens P.O. Box 77005, San Francisco, California 94107 USA "That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves." Kim Stanley Robinson, "Green Mars" Greens, of course, only enslave plants - so weed-whackers work better than cops ... ====================================

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why pgp sucks
by Greg Broiles 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Matt Blaze, quoting Greg Morgan, wrote: > >Doesn't having some kind of central record of keys go against > >the principle of PGP? > The only "principle" of which I'm aware (and particularly interested > in supporting) is that of having widely fielded, useful and strong > privacy and authentication tools that work properly and transparently. I think the centralization/decentralization confusion comes from PGP's decentralized approach to key generation and authentication, which has been hailed as a good thing. As long as folks can generate their own keys, sign their friends' keys, and upload their keys to servers at their own discretion, I can't see what would make a centralized or standardized distribution method harmful. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLzv7I33YhjZY3fMNAQGVbAP/Sm8rXLFDXU4te0mBEhmi6CaAbvHTPqRZ kce6+auO1T/3ypEi0c0D2QCJ7mS3Xx/g/n42mHhJHzt5ClhuHlhDRyjOV2rGBpWX OElxuVFpcSIlUnnQ2cvju9k8cDtHnXN+crmmjUXxvqmUB371eyOZ6E140nxfxo2/ JqWBXLFPvpI= =AL3C -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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The NSA (Was Re: Factoring - State of the Art and Predictions )
by mpd＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry(a)imsi.com> writes: > On the other hand, the people in the black community have > the advantage that they can read anything that the open > community produces but not vice versa, and they have at > least a 15 year edge in knowledge about the design of > conventional systems, and who knows (we certainly have no > idea) how much of an edge in the modern cryptographic arena. Such a situation does not apply solely to the NSA. There are, for instance, secret lodges of French mystics who devote themselves to higher mathematics, absorb everything the open community produces, and rarely publish anything or draw attention to themselves. They solve problems, write secret manuscripts, put them on shelves, and have been doing this for centuries. Perhaps the ultimate factoring algorithm already exists within their walls. We would never know if it did, unless they chose to tell us. The NSA is very good at solving problems that require "acres of Crays". They are crack numerical analysts and algorithm designers. They also make nice block ciphers. I do not think, however, that they have deeply profound insights into the complexity of computation that exceed those of the University community, and certainly not by 15 years. > We don't know for sure if the NSA knew about Public Key > before the open community did. Certainly they knew of > differential cryptanalysis and similar techniques, and they > must know quite a lot that we don't. Rumour has it that the NSA nearly had a collective epileptic fit when they realized the implications of Public Key Cryptography. Yes, they did invent differential cryptanalysis and some other techniques before outsiders thought of them, but I'm unsure this implies some great cabal of hidden knowlege on their part. It is more likely a case of throwing research dollars at a problem which had not yet captured the interest of researchers outside the intelligence community. > Overall, I'd say that in the long run the open community is > going to catch up regardless of what the NSA likes. That > does not mean, however, that this is going to happen > particularly soon, or that they don't still know decades > more than we do. I think the NSA has lost its edge completely in the last decade, as cryptographic research in the open community has taken off. It is much the same sort of situation experienced by IBM, when they were slow to catch on to the paradigm shift created by distributed computing and workstations, and companies like Sun rose from nowhere to become major players. If the NSA were a corporation, they would be apologizing to their shareholders, restructuring, and trying to identify a market niche they could continue to be a player in. Since they are funded by government, we don't see them doing this, but it is absurd to suggest that they are still decades ahead of the rest of the world in basic research and technology. -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd(a)netcom.com $ via Finger. $

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Re: So, what's it all about?
by Network Security Observations 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In response to: > In article <199502100151.RAA25844(a)sleepy.retix.com>, you wrote: > > > > > I went to a UNIX trade show yesterday, and the main speaker was a > > > security type. He talked about "the cypherpunks" among other things. > > > He said you are really scary and dangerous and ... > > > But of course he had to also project this adress (cypherpunks(a)toad.com) > > > on the screen. > > can't imagine he is much of a security stud if he is that deluded. > > what was his name? > Lance or Vance something. Rottweiler, maybe? Can anybody tell me who this ignorant twit might be ? A correct name and an email address would help to educate him a bit. Bertil

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Re: Our Ignorance....
by M00012＠kanga.stcloud.msus.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> From: "L. McCarthy" <lmccarth(a)ducie.cs.umass.edu> > ... > BTW, with an eye to avoiding rehashes of old flamewars, this does *not* > constitute an invitation to scour the subscriber list for *.gov and *.mil and > announce the results. Consult the archives if in doubt on this point. > > -L. Futplex McCarthy Even so, my guess is that 1/4 to 1/3 of the subscribers to this list are interested government employees--though the most interested are not using addresses with .gov or .mil. Mike o

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Re: Q: ref. for DNA used to solve math. network prob. (fwd)
by cactus＠seabsd.hks.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- The Adleman paper is on the web (I put it up). The url is: http://www.hks.net/~cactus/doc/science/molecule_comp.html I never completed typing the perspectives article since an article appeared in Science that implied that Science doesn't consider it kosher to reprint their articles. As a member of the AAAS, I'm a bit appalled by this position but for the moment I've stopped any progress on entering Science articles into the Web. Enjoy, - - -- Todd Masco | "Let me get this straight. You're making a crypto toolkit, cactus(a)hks.net | and you're worried about it being _obscure_?" - Eric Hughes Cactus' Homepage - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBLz7VORNhgovrPB7dAQHd3gQAgXnpCEQRIxzO6VQSarHhK7nH9j4kncbi IlJawMbNnCf1RD9P3OD7art0w+180luFRJW9d93C5lq3Z36XhCOCgrcHrnGausCM D87DWCEYECMxjuMa362NC1u79UGQ5MThwb4Tl6/kttYzLYyRfCiJLRwexJs5B6mX 6PaKGuNQDV4= =Vgdm - -----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 iQBFAwUBLz8OFCoZzwIn1bdtAQFC3QGA39rHlZeQgpkQwtsTv0JUEK4UyftbMqSK I8IHti1XiwbwSGgc6zzg5ga0ChRg0B8P =pXZq -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: MIME based remailing commands
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> It doesn't matter if they disagree. If you don't have a To: >line in the header then "Apparently-To:" gets tacked on using the "To" >from the envelope. ... And all CC recipient and all BCC recipients as well. /r$

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Privacy digest an all
by Ben 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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