December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Court Allows Unlicensed Crypto Export
by John Gilmore 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

COURT ALLOWS UNLICENSED CRYPTO EXPORT Professor Bernstein can publish soon San Francisco, August 29, 1997 - Yesterday a federal judge here denied a government motion to silence mathematician Daniel Bernstein. On August 25, District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel declared the Commerce Department's cryptography regulations unconstitutional. Judge Patel also issued an injunction to prohibit prosecution of Prof. Bernstein and others who publish Prof. Bernstein's work. In response to an emergency motion from the government on August 28, Judge Patel ruled that most of the injunction would be put on hold until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has had a chance to review Prof. Bernstein's case. However, part of the injunction will remain in effect: after September 8, Prof. Bernstein will be free to publish his Snuffle 5.0 software on the Internet without fear of prosecution. Snuffle 5.0 is at the heart of Prof. Bernstein's lawsuit against the government. Scanned images of the Government's emergency request for a stay are available from EFF's online archives at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ Legal/970827_stay_motion.images Prof. Bernstein's opposition to the stay is at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ Legal/970827_stay.opposition Full text of the lawsuit and other paperwork filed in the case is available from EFF's online archives at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ Press Contacts: Shari Steele, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation 301/375-8856, ssteele(a)eff.org John Gilmore, Founding Board Member, EFF 541/354-6541, gnu(a)toad.com Cindy Cohn, McGlashan & Sarrail 415/341-2585, cindy(a)mcglashan.com

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Court Allows Unlicensed Crypto Export
by Cindy Cohn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>X-Authentication-Warning: toad.com: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol >To: bernstein-announce(a)toad.com, eff-board(a)eff.org, eff-staff(a)eff.org >Subject: Court Allows Unlicensed Crypto Export >Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 17:21:45 -0700 >From: John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> >Sender: owner-bernstein-announce(a)toad.com >Reply-To: John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> > > COURT ALLOWS UNLICENSED CRYPTO EXPORT > Professor Bernstein can publish soon > >San Francisco, August 29, 1997 - Yesterday a federal judge here denied a >government motion to silence mathematician Daniel Bernstein. > >On August 25, District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel declared the >Commerce Department's cryptography regulations unconstitutional. >Judge Patel also issued an injunction to prohibit prosecution of Prof. >Bernstein and others who publish Prof. Bernstein's work. > >In response to an emergency motion from the government on August 28, >Judge Patel ruled that most of the injunction would be put on hold >until the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has had a chance to review >Prof. Bernstein's case. However, part of the injunction will remain >in effect: after September 8, Prof. Bernstein will be free to publish >his Snuffle 5.0 software on the Internet without fear of prosecution. >Snuffle 5.0 is at the heart of Prof. Bernstein's lawsuit against the >government. > >Scanned images of the Government's emergency request for a stay >are available from EFF's online archives at: > http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ > Legal/970827_stay_motion.images > >Prof. Bernstein's opposition to the stay is at: > http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ > Legal/970827_stay.opposition > >Full text of the lawsuit and other paperwork filed in the case is >available from EFF's online archives at: > http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/ITAR_export/Bernstein_case/ > >Press Contacts: > > Shari Steele, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation > 301/375-8856, ssteele(a)eff.org > > John Gilmore, Founding Board Member, EFF > 541/354-6541, gnu(a)toad.com > > Cindy Cohn, McGlashan & Sarrail > 415/341-2585, cindy(a)mcglashan.com > > ************************ Cindy A. Cohn McGlashan & Sarrail, P. C. 177 Bovet Road, 6th Floor San Mateo, CA 94402 (415) 341-2585 (tel) (415)341-1395 (fax) Cindy(a)McGlashan.com http://www.McGlashan.com

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Re: ncash? (was Re: pgp details)
by Feanor 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

On Aug 26, 13:47, Mike wrote: } Subject: Re: ncash? (was Re: pgp details) > Lucky Green wrote: > >It doesn't provide payee anonymity, coins are neither divisible nor > transferable, why do you bother? > > Could it be... because Chaum won't license? That's not nescessary, actually. All you need is for the mint to put _no_ information at with the coin except it's serial number and a signatrue (possibly a timestamp as well). Voila, anonymity. I was thinking of implementing a low-cost server ofthis type, but there's the trust problem: this nym is relatively new... > Any ecash is better than none, and until Chaum's patent expire we > probably won't have an ecash system with all the bells and whistles. > Just consider that Mark Twain has been up for two years and they still > don't have a client that implements crash recovery (recover your money > if your disk crashes)! At last count they had all of 32 merchants signed > up. There might be other reasons for this: have you looked at their _fees_??? Holy crap! That's the only reason I don't have an account. They're charging top dollar for every aspect of a system that has it's only overhead in minimal amounts of CPU time. I was thinking of having my server charge only on deposit of real money and only a tiny amount (like 1-2%). I.e. no charge at all to open an account to recieve money...

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DigiCash issuers
by Zooko Journeyman 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Feanor wrote: >There might be other reasons for this: have you looked at their _fees_??? >Holy crap! That's the only reason I don't have an account. They're charging >top dollar for every aspect of a system that has it's only overhead in minimal >amounts of CPU time. You might be a bit behind the times on this issue. Recently MTB announced new lower fees: http://www.marktwain.com/fee.html Are these the ones you consider excessive? Note that if you consider the new fees to be reasonable, then you are now obliged to open account as per your publically posted exclamation quoted above. :-) Also check out Advance Bank in Australia: http://www.advance.com.au/ecash/intro/fees/default.htm I anticipate continually cheaper ecash fees as banks start to compete for selective, price-conscious customers like Feanor here. :-) Regards, Zooko

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Snuffle Snuffed
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

For those not on the cypherpunks@toad list, there have been a few messages on the Bernstein decision which seem not to have been forwarded to the other lists, apparently because they were sent directly by "bernstein-announce(a)toad.com." We've put them on our site and can be browsed at: http://jya.com/crypto.htm The latest last night from Bernstein's attorney is that the USG has gotten a stay from Patel's on her August 25 decision (see PGP Inc. message below). The stay removes protections from those who may have posted Snuffle to the Web (as JYA did). Hence, we've removed the two versions of Snuffle we had hosted. After, we note, DoJ and Commerce had downloaded the evidence and our vitae. DoJ's Anthony Coppolino would not discuss the stay when I called him at 202-514-4782. However, we would like to offer lieu of the Snuffle files links to offshore sites if there are any who wish to host the US national security threats. Adam Back posted one version here a few days back, and Purdue has Dan's 1990 original offer to sci.crypt. For leads to the two see: http://jya.com/snuffle-c.htm http://jya.com/snuffle-txt Here's a the message from PGP, Inc.: ---------- Return-Path: <cypherpunks-errors(a)toad.com> X-Sender: kohn(a)mail.pgp.com Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 01:06:00 -0700 To: Cindy Cohn <Cindy(a)mcglashan.com> From: Bob Kohn <kohn(a)pgp.com> Subject: Re: Stay issued; modified stay to follow Cc: sadams(a)forbes.com, telstar(a)wired.com, plotnikoff(a)aol.com, Ewasserman(a)sjmercury.com, dang(a)cnet.com, steven(a)echo.net, abate(a)ccnet.com, wendyg(a)cix.compulink.co.uk, amy(a)netcom.com, courtm(a)cnet.com, alan.boyle(a)MSNBC.COM, declan(a)well.com, sep(a)cbsnews.com, kenc(a)cwi.emap.com, arb(a)well.com, exp(a)mk.ibek.com, bransten(a)interactive.wsj.com, TomBemis(a)pacbell.net, sam.perry(a)reuters.com, jimevans(a)aol.com, ljflynn(a)aol.com, wendyl(a)ljx.com, bernstein-announce(a)toad.com Reply-To: Bob Kohn <kohn(a)pgp.com> Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com Too bad. Prof. Bernstein was perfectly positioned to become a great -- and the only legal -- exporting reseller of PGP software. (no, this is not off the record) Bob At 06:21 PM 8/28/97 -0700, Cindy Cohn wrote: >During a conference call with counsel today, Judge Patel issued a stay of >the injunctive relief issued in her Opinion of August 25, 1997, effective >until September 8. > > On September 8 (or sooner if we get the papers to her) the Court she will >issue a formal Stay Pending Appeal which will stay the injunctive relief >issued in her Opinion of August 25, 1997, except that an injunction shall be >reinstated to prevent the prosecution of Professor Bernstein for the >"unlicensed export" of Snuffle 5.0 (which includes Snuffle and Unsnuffle) >and any later versions of that program which he has developed. > >This eliminates, at least for the meantime, the injunctive relief granted to >Bernstein as to any other computer programs which he may have developed or >otherwise wished to publish. It also eliminates the protections for persons >other than Professor Bernstein. > >The government has said that it may still challenge this more limited stay >in the 9th Circuit. Professor Bernstein may also seek relief from the stay >from the 9th Circuit. > >Cindy >************************ >Cindy A. Cohn >McGlashan & Sarrail, P. C. >177 Bovet Road, 6th Floor >San Mateo, CA 94402 >(415) 341-2585 (tel) >(415)341-1395 (fax) >Cindy(a)McGlashan.com >http://www.McGlashan.com > > > Robert H. Kohn Vice President, Business Development PRETTY GOOD PRIVACY, INC. 2121 S. El Camino Real, 9th Floor San Mateo, California 94403 Direct: (415) 524-6220 Cellular: (415) 297-6527 Main: (415) 572-0430 Fax: (415) 572-1932 kohn(a)pgp.com PGP Home Page: http://www.pgp.com Personal Home page: http://www.kohnmusic.com/people/bkohn.html "If all the personal computers in the world - ~260 million computers - were put to work on a single PGP-encrypted message, it would still take an estimated 12 million times the age of the universe, on average, to break a single message." -- William Crowell, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency, testifying before the U.S. Congress on March 20, 1997

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Update on "news rating," Internet Content Coal mtg, from Netly (fwd)
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 05:02:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Declan McCullagh <declan(a)well.com> To: fight-censorship-announce(a)vorlon.mit.edu Subject: Update on "news rating," Internet Content Coal mtg, from Netly ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 18:48:22 +0000 From: Noah Robischon <noah(a)pathfinder.com> To: declan(a)well.com Subject: ICC UPDATE The Netly News http://www.netlynews.com Afternoonline August 28, 1997 ICC You Later The Internet Content Coalition has rolled over, but it's not dead yet. In today's closed-to-the-press meeting, most of the two dozen news organizations in attendance opposed the rating of news sites on the Web -- whether from third parties or from the Coalition itself. This sharp turnabout followed criticism of the Coalition's attempts to establish voluntary ratings guidelines for the industry. "Everyone in the room agreed to a general statement that as news organizations we will not rate our content and we oppose the efforts of others to rate our content," said Dan Okrent, Time Inc. New Media's Editor In Chief. But self-labelling is not totally dead: today's membership was divided between those who still want to work with filtering software and browser companies and hardliners such as Times-Mirror who don't want to negotiate with Microsoft and Netscape at all. Such divisions lead to questions about the structure of the ICC, which is still struggling to define its membership, its mission and even its ability to speak on behalf of the world's media giants. Members of the press were barred from today's meeting, a semmingly paradoxical move given the nature of the discussion. Acting president Mark Bailey told The Netly News that reporters were barred from the proceeding so that an open and broad-based debate could take place. "We also have not invited ratings people and we also have not invited a lot of browser people," he said. "We really wanted this to be a news publisher meeting." -- By Noah Robischon

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Greetings,
by Jack Holt 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hello, I would like some information about offshore banking and opening a checking account. Thank you. Jack Holt 1004 Lakewood St. Ozark,Mo. 65721 U.S.A. Phone no. 417-485-7038 email jholt(a)intrcom.com I am interested in a checking account.

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Re: SAFE D.O.A.
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Young wrote: > 29 August 1997, C4I News: > A key member of the House National Security Committee (HNSC) said > that a bill loosening export controls on U.S. encryption technology > is "dead on arrival." HNSC has until September 12 to issue > recommendations on the bill. > > "I'm not going to support something being ramrodded down our throats," > Rep.Curt Weldon said in a recent telephone interview. Rep. Weldon, I exported strong encryption today. Why? Because "I'm not going to support something being ramrodded down (my) throat." Fuck You, RamrodMonger {Don't you hate it when the 'hired hands' start getting uppity?}

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Krispin Preaches Revolution!
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Kent Crispin wrote: > On Thu, Aug 28, 1997 at 06:17:09PM -0500, snow wrote: > > Well, the current system stinks, but enough people are buffalo'd into > > thinking that it works, so it is doubtful that it will get better. > People are not "buffalo'd" -- they are happy with a system that gives > them a good life. Therefore, it has to get worse before it gets > better. I am happy that Kent has finally realized the need to Monkey Wrench the "system" to the point where enough citizens get off of their too- comfortable asses and address the issues which are leading to an increasing number of their fellow citizens being persecuted and fucked over by the government. "Then they came for the fat-asses, and I was a fat-ass, but nobody spoke up." -Roseanne "If you want to keep people from claiming they're Jesus, you have to break a few eggs." -Janet Reno/Pontius Pilate Now that Kent has realized, like McVeigh, that "it has to get worse before it gets better," perhaps he is ready to break the Big Egg. I'll be more than happy to chip in to fill Kent's private plane with fuel, and Peter Trei is at the airport, right now, stripping the identifying numbers off of Kent's aircraft. (Ever since he started forging posts to the list, Peter's gotten really radical.) TruthMonger {Now that we've got Peter Trei forging posts and Kent Crispin is ready to nuke D.C., how long can it be before we convince Blanc to bomb a daycare center?}

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Aussies discover regulatory arbitrage...
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text >From today's Australian Financial Review. http://www.afr.com.au/content/970829/inform/inform1.html ATO urges no Internet slug _By Hans van Leeuwen_ The Australian Tax Office's attempt to tax electronic commerce should include no new taxes and as little extra red tape as possible, according to the recommendations of a major ATO report to be released today. The report, _Tax and the Internet_, urges close monitoring of some key industries with a growing Internet presence -- including computer software, news and information, recorded music, gambling, travel services and retail goods. But its emphasis is on creating a tax and regulatory environment that keeps the online industries in Australia, rather than driving them to more lenient tax jurisdictions. The report will be the basis for discussions with the information industry on how the ATO can prevent the undermining of the tax base by electronic commerce. The report said the ATO would need to tax and regulate the Internet only in concert with other countries if it was to encourage online businesses and industries in Australia. "As the Internet allows electronic payment system providers to locate their operations anywhere in the world, they might choose to flee a jurisdiction that unilaterally introduces a strong regulatory regime . . . Unilateral action may be more damaging than no action," the report said. But the tax base must be protected, with electronic commerce posing a significant threat in the longer term to the revenue base of many taxes. "There are not too many existing taxes worldwide that are not vulnerable," the Tax Commissioner, Mr Michael Carmody, said yesterday. The recommendations to strengthen the tax policing of the Internet included: * Numbers displayed on websites. * Licence commercial internet sites ("webshops") and webshop hosts. * Introduce denomination limits for electronic cash, like those already existing for physical cash. * Review the current wholesale sales tax categories, given that new products were being thrown up by the process of digitisation. But Mr Carmody ruled out introducing any taxes on data flows, such as a bit tax, in the short term. "We don't see major advantages to that at the moment. For Australia to jump immediately to a bit tax would just drive Australian business out of the country," he said. The report said electronic commerce threw up some tough challenges to tax administrations, including the difficulty in identifying the parties to an electronic transaction, the ability of cyber- businesses to store records offshore and encrypt them, and the removal of "middle men" -- such as wholesalers and brokers -- from the distribution process, who usually make the ATO's tracking of transactions easier. But Mr Carmody said the ATO would not be assuming that the reason businesses went online was to avoid tax. "It's just another medium of transacting business, which does not of itself say they're not going to meet their tax obligations," he said. "But there are concerns that the Internet opens up wider fields for those who are seeking to avoid their liabilities." _________________________________________________________________ [27]Back To Top _© This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited._ --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/

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