December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

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

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In article <ac33f977080210043230(a)[205.199.118.202]>, tcmay(a)sensemedia.net (Timothy C. May) wrote: >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.) Is this the same T.C. May that used to argue vehemently that if it can't be displayed on a VT52, it was no good? Did a space alien take over Tim? - -- - -- 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 iQBFAwUBMA8F3SoZzwIn1bdtAQHKegF9GZbdSEP4Q5LlQz6KdwapuCMS3v5i693V GoyxCoWO/iEOR6M5kl7ASgkagzJgVMi8 =n2gM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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

17 Dec '03

At 11:21 PM 7/20/95, Douglas Barnes wrote: >I don't get what you mean when you say, "Java isn't ready for the >home market." True, I don't think that programming languages of >any sort are part of the "home market", but I think that Java will >enable people like cypherpunks to write extremely portable applications >_once_ that will be embeddable on web pages viewed by browsers like >Netscape. I can't think of anything that is going to come closer to >your definition of "winning" the home market. Certainly the home I agree. This is what I meant by saying programmers would use it, to put these capabilities into browsers that home users then get. Maybe this is just semantic quibbling: all I meant is that Java (or Fortran, or Perl, or whatever) will not be things the home user is ready for. --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: Java (was Netscape: the big win)
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Good. Any guesses how big a basic "Hello, World" applet would be? >Maybe 10K? The "Hello World" program I mentioned before is 325 bytes after compilation. The 800K memory usage was a measurement of the interpreter and language libraries being sucked into memory, assuming no other activity on the machine. I have a much larger program that does various kinds of reformatting and munging of Java programs that take up a whopping 8K compiled, its source file is 13K. The bytecode compiled programs seem to be much more compact than their source code versions.

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Re: Netscape the Big Win
by ethridge＠Onramp.NET 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

TCMay: > >Why is this important? > >I believe, quite strongly, that we are headed toward a situation where the >large majority of Net/Web users are using some variant of Netscape, or >Mosaic/MacWeb/etc. (but probably Netscape, for various reasons). > >Integration of crypto into Netscape is thus the Big Win. > >I felt this was the case as far back as last fall, but my recent >experiences tell me this is more important than ever. Integration of PGP >and other crypto routines into Tin, Pine, Elm, Joe, Emacs, etc., is just >not as important. > >... > >(I'm not saying one has to stand in line for the August IPO of Netscape >Communications, but the overall market will favor the Web browsers, >especially Netscape.) > >The relevance for Cypherpunks interested in writing code is that, in my >carefully considered opinion, writing for Netscape and other Web browsers >is the Big Win. Even over Windows (except Windows browsers, of course). > >--Tim May I only have time to keep up with my mailing lists on the weekend, so these may have been mentioned, but... Didn't Netscape get the short end of a major banking alliance recently? And wasn't Microsoft's network and security software favored by that? Has anyone here messed about with PDAs/PICs? The Apple Newton doesn't have much in the way of communication, but MagicCap based boxes such as Sony's Magic Link have an awful lot of (as yet unrealized) potential. I see as much promise/threat for communications security in the newer PDA/PIC devices as in Netscape. But then i also want Netscape to invoke Eudora for mail and Newswatcher for news, rather than having to use the as yet unstable Netscape tools. allen

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RE: Netscape the Big Win
by Robert A. Rosenberg 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:39 7/20/95, Timothy C. May wrote: >To state an obvious non-crypto use of such "modules," why do all major word >processing and page layout apps have their own "dictionaries"? Why do I >have to train the dictionaries of Word, Nisus, FrameMaker, MORE, etc.? That >there have not been "dictionary modules," for many and sundry reasons, is >telling. (Before anyone mentions it, one can on the Mac use things like >"Thunder" instead of the local dictionaries...this is not the same as a >module usable by all programs, but instead is a user choice to bypass the >local dictionaries. We could quibble for hours about whether this is in >fact a universal module or not. Since the support that Thunder 7 provides (with Wordprocessing and Wordprocessing-Like Programs that it supports) is indistinguishable from that provided by each program's integrated SpellChecker (along with T7 providing a common set of "extra" User-Extendable Dictionaries as well as a Glossary/Mis-Spelling/Words-to-Replace Dictionary [ie: Pre-Prime the list of incorrectly spelled words for "Replace All" so the user's personal misspellings are automatically corrected without any interaction on his/her part]), I think the ball is initially in the court of those who claim it is not a universal module (admittedly only for those WPs it supports) to explain why is does not function as one would function if it existed. IMHO - T7 is walking and quacking like a Duck so I think calling it a "Duck" (as a first approximation) is not an unjustified action <g>.

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Superwipe
by gjeffers＠socketis.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Dear Cypherpunks, This is mostly an old post that Monty Harder sent me concerning my program Superwipe. I got his ok to post it to Cypherpunks so that it would stimulate debate on my program. In addition to the original problem of wiping compressed sectors, I have found a second problem: with cacheing software and the now ubiquitous several hundred k hardware ram caches, it is about impossi- ble to do multiple wipes on sectors. Anyone else got any ideas? GJ> A number of problems have cropped up though. It will not handle GJ> compressed disks yet. SUPERWIPE writes all 0's or all 1's & you know GJ> what a compressed disk driver will do with them. The driver would > Since most hard drives use a form of RLL encoding at the hardware >level, the bits don't all go in the same places every time. For maximum >security, you would need to write 00h through FFh, but a fair compromise >would be five passes: 00,55,AA,FF, and finally the string > 'SUPERWIPEd for your protection.',BEL,CR,LF >(gotta get in that plug) followed by random garbage. GJ> crush them down to a few bytes at the beginning of the file & the rest GJ> of the file would not be touched. GJ> GJ> I have decided that I can solve that problem by writing a random GJ> number generator function and filling the file with non- compressable GJ> random numbers. > Nope. Won't work. Suppose FUBAR.DAT is currently compressed at 7:16 >(DoubleSpace, Stacker, et.al. typically use 16 sectors per cluster). >When the request to write the random cluster, now noncompressible, comes >along, the driver will find =another= run of 16 contiguous sectors to >hold the data, and free the old one (DS has no choice about this, but >Stacker can split clusters into noncontiguous areas if necessary. I >believe it "prefers" contiguous blocks, however. IANASU.) > Your best bet is to put right in your docs a warning that compressed >drives make reliable operation of SUPERWIPE impossible to assure, and >that sensitive data are best kept on uncompressed drives. GJ> Also, I am thinking of putting SUPERWIPE into the public domain. GJ> I would use the privacy functions presently in it and also include a GJ> few more privacy functions. If I put it into the public domain, then GJ> I will have to distribute source code. This could make me more vunerable > Why? Distribute executables, assert your copyright, and include a >GNU-type freeware license or whatever your heart desires. That would be >the international release. If you want, put up your source code with the >usual export controls, separately.

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Re: Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act of 1995 (fwd)
by an253398＠anon.penet.fi 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Ray Arachelian writes: > Hell, at this point, my guess is that the mafia(s) doesn't use crypto, or > that if it does, it can be caught via other means. A strong, well > developed crypto system in use by the mafia would more than likely never > happen... not until mobsters get into computers. Ditto for terrorists. Sounds like an untapped market segment. In which periodicals should one advertise consulting services in order to cover the mobster market? Seriously, I imagine that organized crime, like any other business, uses computers. Their level of crypto usage could be impressive, given the incentives. > If they did use crypto, I suspect they wouldn't get caught. (For the > paranoid, assuming they used crypto, and they didn't get caught, then the > FBI or other TLA is doing the same as the gov't in Farenheight 451... > pick someone else, and jail them. Otherwise, how do you explain all the > jailbird mobsters?) "There is no honor among thieves." Wiretaps, bugs, tails, informants, and good, old-fashioned, physical intimidation probably produce plenty of leads. I wasn't entirely facetious above about working for the mob, they probably pay well and don't bother with FICA and such. Plus there's that "family" atmosphere.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help(a)anon.penet.fi. If you reply to this message, your message WILL be *automatically* anonymized and you are allocated an anon id. Read the help file to prevent this. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin(a)anon.penet.fi.

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Re: Java (was Netscape: the big win) (fwd)
by Mike Bailey 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Thu, 20 Jul 1995, Bill Stewart wrote: > At 06:04 PM 7/20/95 -0800, Douglas Barnes wrote: > >Uh, no, this is a standalone Java program (includes interpreter, > >language library, etc.) > > > >Applets are treated by a browser in the same way that a GIF is treated > >(more or less); the browser may have to grab more memory to take in > >a big one, but that memory can be reclaimed when the user moves on to > >a new page. > > > >Applets run as a thread within a multi-threaded browser, they don't > >have their own processes, etc. > > Good. Any guesses how big a basic "Hello, World" applet would be? > Maybe 10K? > # Thanks; Bill > # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com While true certain small programs may be larger in size; the difference will decrease as the programs grow in complexity. With the natural stong point of true object oriented code reusing more code as the program grows the difference may still measurably be there but will be hardly noticeable. <IMHO> it is the future of the net I see this being the last step that get's coporations on the net ... making money in a *relativly* secure way ... good or bad is another thread which I don't want to be a part of. -Mike ************************************************************************** * * * Mike Bailey (hm)214-252-3915 * * AT&T Capital Corporation. (wk)214-456-4510 * * email bailey(a)computek.net host bambam.computek.net * * * * "Remember you can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish -Joe Walsh" * * http://www.computek.net/public/bailey/ * **************************************************************************

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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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