December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

cta983.htm
by Damaged Justice 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[1]Score big with your contacts. Click here for ACT!3.0 U.S. government stepping in to sort out Net domain names WASHINGTON - Concerns about the future of how Internet domain names will be managed got an airing during a two-day forum last week. But how those concerns may get addressed remains unresolved. The domain name issue has drawn a lot of attention lately. The company that has a virtual monopoly on popular names, Network Solutions Inc. (NSI), has been notified that it will not have its contract renewed in April 1998. Many say that will bring much needed competition. Recently, the Clinton administration has gotten involved in the issue on various levels. The Justice Department is investigating NSI's role as a primary domain name registrar. Beyond that, the Departments of Commerce and State are looking into a plan, issued three months ago by the Internet International Ad Hoc Committee (IAHC), that would increase the amount of domain names (designations such as .com and .org) used on the Internet. The plan also expands the worldwide management of those names so that up to 28 new registrars may be added. The administration's involvement came after many businesses complained about the proposed plan's lack of protection for trademark and intellectual property rights. A two-day forum to address such concerns was held here Wednesday and Thursday. Sponsored by the Information Technology Association of America and other Internet groups, it was attended by representatives of the Clinton administration, businesses and advocates. "We have to keep the Internet community talking," says ITAA president Harris Miller. Domain names are essentially addresses for the Internet. Companies, agencies or groups apply for an individual address within such domains as .com, .gov, or .org. As use of the Internet has grown, companies have put increasing importance on obtaining and protecting domain names related to their companies. When entities apply to NSI, it charges $100 to register new addresses for two years and $50 annually to renew them. NSI then finds an Internet number, just like a telephone number, to correspond with the domain address. Many have complained about NSI's inability to quickly provide domain registrations. In its proposed stock offering, NSI says it is cooperating with the Justice Department inquiry. And at the forum, NSI CEO Gabe Battista said that sharing management of .com, .net and .org domains was "on the table." The U.S. government has nurtured the Internet to its present strapping status from its birth in 1969 as the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency network. "We're very anxious to support its transition to full-fledged adulthood," says Commerce Department spokesperson Becky Burr. "But we don't just let our children grow up and do whatever they want." The Internet community usually seeks to avoid government intervention, but so far, U.S. government's actions have been met with approval. Among complaints about the international plan is that it did not have adequate participation by Internet service providers or groups representing individual citizens, plus it gives too much power to the Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union. "Our customers are not well-served by (the plan's) rapid resolution," says William Schrader, president of PSINet, a large commercial Internet service provider. "The government has held back on purpose. But there is a time governments can assist, and this is one of those times." The State Department has asked for more information on the Geneva agency's role in the management of proposed new domains, among them .firm, .rec and .web. The Commerce Department takes public comments until Aug. 18. The Ad-Hoc Committee continues its plan and is taking registrar applications. But, says committee member Dave Crocker, an Internet e-mail pioneer, "We'll all keep talking." By Mike Snider, USA TODAY _________________________________________________________________ * [2]Go to High-tech index * [3]Go to Life Front * [4]Go to Lifeline * [5]Go to Money Front * [6]Go to Moneyline * [7]Go to News Front * [8]Go to Nationline _________________________________________________________________ * [9]Go to Web Traveler [10][ISMAP] 08/04/97 - 09:58 AM ET - Click reload often for latest version References 1. http://www.usatoday.com/cgi-bin/redir?SpaceID=104&AdID=913&URL=http://www.s… 2. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ct000.htm 3. http://www.usatoday.com/life/lfront.htm 4. http://www.usatoday.com/life/digest/ld1.htm 5. http://www.usatoday.com/money/mfront.htm 6. http://www.usatoday.com/money/digest/md1.htm 7. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm 8. http://www.usatoday.com/news/digest/nd1.htm 9. http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/cyber1.htm 10. http://www.usatoday.com/maps/botrib.map

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FREE GIFT!
by freegift＠S&Bmail.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

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Financial Cryptography '98 Call for Papers
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Resent-Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 18:40:01 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: online.offshore.com.ai: list set sender to fc97-request(a)offshore.com.ai using -f Date: Tue, 5 Aug 1997 00:06:32 +0200 (MET DST) From: Ray Hirschfeld <R.Hirschfeld(a)cwi.nl> To: ray(a)cwi.nl Subject: Financial Cryptography '98 Call for Papers Resent-From: fc97(a)offshore.com.ai X-Mailing-List: <fc97(a)offshore.com.ai> archive/latest/65 X-Loop: fc97(a)offshore.com.ai Precedence: list Resent-Sender: fc97-request(a)offshore.com.ai Financial Cryptography '98 Second International Conference February 23-26, 1998, Anguilla, BWI CALL FOR PAPERS General Information: Financial Cryptography '98 (FC98) is a conference on the security of digital financial transactions. Meetings alternate between the island of Anguilla in the British West Indies and other locations. This second meeting will be held in Anguilla on February 23-26, 1998. FC98 aims to bring together persons involved in both the financial and data security fields to foster cooperation and exchange of ideas. Original papers are solicited on all aspects of financial data security and digital commerce in general, including Anonymous Payments Fungibility Authentication Home Banking Communication Security Identification Conditional Access Implementations Copyright Protection Loss Tolerance Credit/Debit Cards Loyalty Mechanisms Currency Exchange Legal Aspects Digital Cash Micropayments Digital Receipts Network Payments Digital Signatures Privacy Issues Economic Implications Regulatory Issues Electronic Funds Transfer Smart Cards Electronic Purses Standards Electronic Voting Tamper Resistance Electronic Wallets Transferability Instructions for Authors: Send a cover letter and 12 copies of an extended abstract to be received by November 17, 1997 (or postmarked by November 7, 1997 and sent via airmail) to the Program Chair at the address given below. The extended abstract should start with the title, the names of the authors, and an abstract followed by a succinct statement appropriate for a non-specialist reader specifying the subject addressed, its background, the main achievements, and their significance to financial data security. Submissions are limited to 15 single-spaced pages of 12pt type. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to authors no later than January 12, 1998. Authors of accepted papers must guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. Proceedings: Proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer Verlag in their Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series. Preproceedings will be available at the conference, but final versions will not be due until afterwards, giving authors the opportunity to revise their papers based on presentations and discussions at the meeting. Instructions and deadlines for submission of final papers will be sent later to authors of accepted papers. Rump Session: In addition to the regular conference program, a rump session will be held to provide an opportunity for less formal presentations. Although the rump session will be organized during the conference itself, any advance proposals may be sent to the Program Co-Chair at the email address given below. Rump session contributions will not appear in the conference proceedings. Stipends: A very limited number of stipends may be available to those unable to obtain funding to attend the conference. Students whose papers are accepted and who will present the paper themselves are encouraged to apply if such assistance is needed. Requests for stipends should be addressed to one of the General Chairs. Registration: Information about conference registration and on travel, hotels, and Anguilla itself will follow in a separate general announcement. There will be special discount registration rates for authors of accepted submissions, full-time academics, and students. Workshop: A workshop, intended for anyone with commercial software development experience who wants hands-on familiarity with the issues and technology of financial cryptography, is planned in conjunction with FC98, to be held during the week preceding the conference. For information, please contact one of the General Chairs. Send Submissions to: Rafael Hirschfeld FC98 Program Chair CWI Kruislaan 413 1098 SJ Amsterdam The Netherlands email: ray(a)cwi.nl phone: +31 20 592 4169 fax: +31 20 592 4199 Send Rump Session Contributions to: Matthew Franklin FC98 Program Co-Chair email: franklin(a)research.att.com Program Committee: Matt Blaze, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA Antoon Bosselaers, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Yves Carlier, Bank for International Settlements, Basel, Switzerland Walter Effross, Washington College of Law, American U., Washington DC, USA Matthew Franklin, AT&T Laboratories--Research, Florham Park, NJ, USA Michael Froomkin, U. Miami School of Law, Coral Gables, FL, USA Rafael Hirschfeld, CWI, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Alain Mayer, Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, USA Moni Naor, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel Frank Trotter, Mark Twain Ecash/Mercantile Bank, St. Louis, MO, USA Doug Tygar, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Moti Yung, CertCo LLC (formerly: Bankers Trust E-Commerce), New York, NY, USA General Chairs: Robert Hettinga, Shipwright, Boston, MA, USA email: rah(a)shipwright.com Vincent Cate, Offshore Information Services, Anguilla, BWI email: vince(a)offshore.com.ai Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager: Julie Rackliffe, Boston, MA, USA email: rackliffe(a)tcm.org Workshop Leader: Ian Goldberg, Berkeley, CA, USA email: iang(a)cs.berkeley.edu Those interested in becoming a sponsor of FC98 or in purchasing exhibit space, please contact the Exhibits and Sponsorship Manager. A copy of this call for papers as well as other information about the conference will be available at URL http://www.cwi.nl/conferences/FC98. --- 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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"Censor's Sensibility" on censorware & ratings, from Time
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--------- http://pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970811/business.censors_sensi.… TIME MAGAZINE AUGUST 11, 1997 VOL. 150 NO. 6 BUSINESS CENSOR'S SENSIBILITY Are web filters valuable watchdogs or just new online thought police? BY MICHAEL KRANTZ Seeking to protect fellow citizens from depravities ranging from TV violence to rap lyrics, from Uncle Tom's Cabin to Howard Stern, some Americans have always had a hard time restraining themselves from trying to circumvent the First Amendment. And the World Wide Web, with its infinite plenitude of pro-Satan home pages and SEXY NUDE BABES! sites, has more, um, free speech in need of protection than any medium in history. As lurid tales of online obscenity seep into America's consciousness, a variety of Internet sentinels have volunteered their services. Or was that Internet censors? What one group claims as guardianship of public morality strikes another as unconscionable, not to mention unconstitutional, interference. In June the Supreme Court slapped down the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which prohibited the posting of "indecent" material over the Net. This decision in turn has created a hot market for products that derisive Net-heads call "censorware"--such software filters as CyberPatrol, NetNanny and SurfWatch ($29.95 to $39.95) that offer to help nervous parents keep inappropriate material from prying but underage eyes. Just what is inappropriate is a messy issue, as citizens of Loudoun County, Va., a conservative enclave northwest of Washington, can attest. Last month, after six public hearings and over the objections of library staff, the county library board adopted the region's most restrictive Internet-access policy. Henceforth, the library will arm its computers with filters to censor obscene sites--the definition of obscenity, of course, being largely up to whichever filter Loudoun County ends up deciding to buy. Adults who want to cruise the Net sans filter will have to ask the librarian to call off the watchdogs; children under 17 will be able to do so only if accompanied by an adult. "The issue is whether pornography will get into the library," says board president John Nicholas. "Our task is to protect our children." A more politically fireproof sentence has yet to be conceived by mortal man. On the surface the policy seems reasonable, given the prevalence of offensive sites and the ease with which even a novice Web surfer can find them (though most porn sites these days can't be accessed without a credit card). But free-speech advocates call censorware a cure worse than the disease. Filtering programs block Web pages in one of two ways. The more primitive method is to search for key words in the pages' titles, a system with all the subtlety of a Gatling gun. America Online, for instance, once banned the word breast from some areas of its service, which outraged breast-cancer sufferers locked out of their bulletin boards. And SurfWatch legendarily banned sites featuring the word couples, only to discover that that word appears on the White House's official site. A better method is to study individual sites--yes, that means hundreds of thousands of them, one at a time--and then place them on yes or no lists that can be updated as new pages pop up in the Web's endless sprawl. A program called CyberPatrol identifies 12 categories of troublesome material (violence, profanity, sexual acts and so on) that parents can block at their discretion. The software can also be adjusted for different age groups. "My six-year-old son doesn't need to know how to put on a condom," says CyberPatrol spokeswoman Sydney Rubin. "But I'll sure want him to know when he's 13." Opponents say the filter companies' banned lists can also reflect ideological biases. CyberSitter, the most aggressively conservative filtering program, is infamous for blocking access to the National Organization for Women's Website as well as entire Internet providers like Echo, New York City's oldest online community. Gay-themed sites--big surprise--suffer mightily. CyberPatrol blocks the Queer Resources Directory; CyberSitter bans the alt.politics.homosexual newsgroup; SurfWatch blocks ClariNet's AP and Reuters articles about AIDS and HIV. If conservative parents want software that will censor any Website that the Rev. Jerry Falwell wouldn't say amen to, that's their privilege. But free-speech proponents say customers looking for ideology-free screening might not be aware of how much they're missing. Censorware produces unpredictable and often unwanted results (see box), and most filterers consider their blacklists trade secrets. This puts Loudoun County in the position of letting private firms pass judgment on the contents of a medium that's supposed to offer easy access to all--a notion that's especially dubious in the case of the "free public library," Internet provider of last resort for those who can't afford a computer. "We serve the information needs of the whole community," says Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. "Identifying one standard for everyone violates the rights of everybody else." Such First Amendment echoes make even conservative Congressmen nervous. "I endorse the notion of filtering devices at home," says Bob Goodlatte, a pro-CDA Republican Representative from Virginia, "but there's certainly a legitimate debate as to how to do it in libraries without introducing a major form of censorship." There are, however, minor forms, including asking the Websites to rate their content "voluntarily." Chris Hansen, senior staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, is particularly disturbed by the growing political support for self-censorship. "Rating systems may work, however badly, in TV or movies, where there are relatively few programs and armies of lawyers," he says. "But with E-mail, chat rooms and newsgroups, the sheer volume is overwhelming." Nonetheless, self-censorship is starting to look like the wave--or at least one very big wave--of the future. Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser already includes a ratings program called RSACi. It has emerged as the leading Net-rating system that allows Web proprietors to rate their own sites instead of letting NetNanny and SurfWatch employees pass judgment for them. And rival Netscape, bowing to pressure from the White House at last month's censorware summit (Bill Clinton, predictably, loves ostensibly family-friendly software filters), has agreed to use rating systems in the next version of its browser. Even news organizations, whose free-speech obsession borders on the fanatic, are rating themselves (see THE NETLY NEWS). The Webmasters' private initiative, though, may not cool legislative ardor for rewriting the cda. Neither filtering software nor self-rating is sufficient to clean up the Net, in the view of Senator Dan Coats of Indiana. Filters are "a good first step," he says, but "it's a tax on the family--the innocent family." Of course, the same could be said for clear-cutting the Web's forests of unfettered speech. --Reported by Declan McCullagh and Bruce van Voorst/Washington _________________________________________________________________ BUSTED! Some surprising sites get trapped in the filters (www.heritage.org/heritage/) The Heritage Foundation (www.mit.edu/activities/safe) M.I.T. free-speech society (news:clari.tw.health.aids) Reuters articles about AIDS (www.odci.gov/) U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/banned-books.html) Banned-books archive (www.now.org/) National Organization for Women _________________________________________________________________ Related articles: http://pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1997/dom/970811/business.the_pres_muzl.…

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http:--www.cnn.com-TECH-9708-04-internet.spam.reut-
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

CNN logo Navigation Infoseek/Big Yellow Pathfinder/Warner Bros Tech banner IBM Reinventing Education rule SPAMMING LEADS TO UUNET 'DEATH PENALTY' Spam graphic August 4, 1997 Web posted at: 9:34 p.m. EDT (0134 GMT) SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) -- A loose coalition of system administrators Friday began issuing a "Usenet Death Penalty" against UUNET, a major Internet service provider, for its alleged failure to curb "spam" emanating from its dialup accounts. The penalty took effect 5 p.m. (PDT) Friday, and according to a release from the coalition, "all traffic coming from these sources is to be canceled until further notice." The penalty entails the use of a program called a cancelbot that travels from site to site, looking for newsgroup messages that originate from a particular person or ISP. When it finds one of the messages, it issues a cancel order, which effectively erases the message. Spamming is the bulk delivery of unwanted electronic messages via e-mail or newsgroups. The action marks the first time a large-scale ISP has been the target of a cancelbot. The penalty's purpose, said Dennis McClain-Furmansky, is to "mobilize the user base and get them to insist on their ISP to give them a clean feed. Right now they are paying $20 a month for trash." McClain-Furmansky, speaking on behalf of the Usenet death penalty issuers, explains that, unlike other ISPs such as EarthLink and Bell Atlantic, UUNET has done little or nothing to curb spammers using its service. "The few responses they've made to our complaints have been excuses," he said. After Bell Atlantic was informed by site administrators several weeks ago that it had been targeted for the Usenet death penalty, the service took immediate action to halt spam, McClain-Furmansky said. "We told them what was being planned, and they are making a clear effort." McClain-Furmansky said that the action was drastic, but it was a last resort to close off a flood of spam that was "knocking servers offline." On Friday, one of the administrators involved said his system processed 1 million messages for the first time ever. Forty percent of that was spam, 40 percent cancel messages, 20 percent legitimate traffic." About half the cancel messages issued are for spam originating from UUNET dialups, said McClain-Furmansky. "In my opinion, this is by far the worst censorship action the Net has seen to date," said Dave Hayes, who represents a group called the Freedom Knights, dedicated to "true free speech" on Usenet. Hayes said those pushing the death decree should be "summarily condemned by all those who are in support of free speech, which unfortunately includes unsolicited advertising." Brian Moore, a system administrator in Britain who oversees the Usenet feed for his site, said he is not surprised that the action was taken against UUNET. "Amongst the 50-some complaints I have sent them in the past week, I have received nothing but form letters back. The spamming customers continue spamming and there is no indication UUNET has acted in any way at all." Moore said he has canceled hundreds of porn spams appearing in alt.sexual.abuse.recovery. "Quite frankly, UUNET is irresponsible in their inability to control their own customers," he said. UUNET declined comment Friday. Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. rule Related sites: Note: Pages will open in a new browser window * UUNET Global Homepage * The Anti-Spam Project * Internet Spam Haiku Contest * Internet Spam Control Center External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive. Search for related CNN stories: ________________________________________ ______ [Help] Tip: You can restrict your search to the title of a document. Infoseek grfk Example: title:New Year's Resolutions rule Watch these shows on CNN for more sci-tech stories: CNN Computer Connection | Future Watch | Science & Technology Week rule Message Boards Sound off on our message boards Tell us what you think! You said it... [INLINE] IBM Reinventing Education rule To the top © 1997 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you.

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Not-News Gorilla NutWork Rocket-Launched
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Not-News NetWork-- Mohave Desert] Aug 4/97 WHAT DOES A FIVE HUNDRED POUND GORILLA READ AT THE BREAKFAST TABLE? ------------------------------------------------------------------- - sog The "Not-News Gorilla NutWork" was rocket-launched in the Mohave Desert early yesterday morning by a rag-tag bunch of paramilitarist computer gurus who unveiled an InterNet Bill of Bytes that included the words, "MicroSoft shall make no laws..." Angered by a self-appointed council of computer industry magnates who have announced their intention to seize fascist control of the quickly burdgeoning Information Highway by controlling the definition of all information, the rebels set up a shooting range which contained a wide variety of targets ranging from copies of the Wall Street Journal to life-sized cardboard cut-outs of a hooded figure referred to only as, "a billionaire to be named later." A Che Guerva look-alike named Lefty (a nickname changed from "Lucky" after a laboratory accident took three of the fingers on his right hand) spoke openly about the group's loose-knit plans to impose their own ratings system on corporations who have "taken it upon themselves to decide what is news and what is not--what is information and what is obscenity." "We have decided on two classes of ratings." explained a tassle- haired young woman as she slid shells into a Winchester Defender sitting on her lap. "On..." she said, lifting the shotgun with one hand, then liberating the hooded head from a nearby cardboard cut-out, before turning back to say, with a Cheshire grin, "...and _off_." The wide array of luxury automobiles and high-end computer gear on display at the gathering lent credence to the claim of a quiet older man whose only comment during my presence was, "The people here probably have a combined access to more soft targets than the NSA." He turned to punctuate his statement, as many others did that day, with a volley of fire that penetrated targets carrying the corporate logos of a variety of big-name players in the computer industry. Surprisingly, the conversation consisted almost totally of issues surrounding privacy, self-determination and freedom from censorship, with hardly a word being spoken about potential plans of action of individuals or the group. As the quiet man's equally quiet wife spoke in what seemed to be a deathly whisper, telling me, "Everyone here knows what they have to do.", a man with a crude, homemade rocket-launcher sent a flaming projectile into the side of a small propane tank several hundred feet away, as if punctuating the last and most meaningful statement of the day. After quietly dispersing a few minutes later, the group packed up their weapons and climbed into their vehicles without a word between them, each seemingly going their own separate ways. I stayed on after the last of the others had left, reflecting on the fact that I had arrived at this gathering by virtue of a late-night phone call to my unlisted number, and found that I knew none of the participants in the activities. I had the strangest feeling that the others there had arrived by the same anonymous process as I had, and I wondered if they were equally mystified as to who had arranged this impromptu assembly of apparent strangers joined in a common cause. Immediately, one of the pickup trucks driving away backfired, and I thought of synchronicity, knowing that the truck would backfire once again, which it immediately did, before disappearing quietly out of sight. Climbing into my own vehicle, I took a last look at the site, which had been cleaned and left exactly the way it was when I had first arrived on the scene. I experienced a moment of deja-vue, as if I had just arrived and none of what I had experienced that day had truly transpired. Somewhere in the distance, a vehicle backfired... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Disclaimer - I am not a reporter, I am not a paramilitarist, and I am not a computer expert. I have no idea what I was doing there and I am not even certain that I should be speaking about the event...but I am. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: Clinton's threat of line-item veto affect crypto bill?
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

shit - the SJ Merc. reported he'll just veto the legislation, plain and simple. At 04:36 PM 8/4/97 -0700, Ernest Hua wrote: > >Does anyone have any idea whether Clinton's threat of using the >line-item veto against portions of the big spending bill could >be leverage against some pro-SAFE legislators? > >Ern > > >

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Re: Tim 1 - Joichi 0 - DreamMonger NULL / Re: Joichi gives up (fwd)
by Jim Choate 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message: > Date: Tue, 05 Aug 1997 13:25:48 +0900 > From: Joichi Ito <jito(a)eccosys.com> > Subject: Re: Tim 1 - Joichi 0 - DreamMonger NULL / Re: Joichi gives up > (fwd) > At 07:44 97/08/04 -0500, Jim Choate wrote: > > If all it takes to take over the citizens of Japan is to bash them a little > > then you folks are Doomed. Perhaps you have spent one too many days > > hammering nails that stick up... > > I meant get bashed here... and I don't hammer nails. Hammers nail me. > And it seems like there are US hammers too. "To a hammer everything > looks like a nail." Which puts just about everything at an advantage over the hammer. At least its actions are consistent and predictable. A hammer can't hurt that which it can't hit. (hint: nails don't move) Ta ta... Jim Choate ravage(a)ssz.com

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Ponzi Schemes (was Re: non-censorous spam control)
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Vulis wrote: >A similar scheme in Russia by an organizaton called "MMM", run >by the Mavrodi bothers, left a large number of "investors" >holding the bag. Interestingly, one of the Mavrodi brothers >is now in Russian jail (awaiting trial), and the other one is >still running a pyramid scheme: he accepts "voluntary donations" >from an investor, in return for a "voluntary donation" at a later >date whose amount and time are not guaranteed and depend on >the "donations" collected from others. The Russian government >does not shut down Mavrodi's latest operation so far, claiming >it's not "fraud" since he doesn't misrepresent the source of >his returns nor the risks involved. Reportedly so far he's >getting oodles of investors and pretty good returns. Eventually >of course his scheme will collapse, but the "investors" who >got in and out early enough will have made good money. Can you say "Wall Street?" Because that's exactly how it operates right now. The money being thrown at the stock market today is not "investing," it's simply a pyramid scheme. >A similar scheme recently brought down the government of Albania. >Reportedly the investors who got in late in the game and didn't >get the returns they expected (or actually lost their investments) >demanded that the gubmint reimburse them for their losses (by >taxing the money from the more intelligent Albanians). When >the idiots want the gubmint to protect them from their own >idiocy, the gubmint happily uses this excuse to screw not only >those who would fleece the idiots, but everyone. This is what happened when the US Savings & Loans Banks in the Southwest failed in the 80's. All of the people who lost money were bailed out by the FDIC, which of course is funded by taxpayer money. The final figure was approximately $500 billion, depending on whose estimates you believe. So the idiots who didn't do their homework and put money into a bogus S&L were bailed out by everyone else who was smart enough to know better. And, of course, the fraudsters (one of whom was the son of then Vice-President George Bush) got away with a slap on the wrist. Go figure. MoneyMonger

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Crypto Legislation Page - docs and links
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've collected all the stuff I've had laying around since Feb. or so regarding the Senate and House Bills on crypto, including comment papers and links thereto, Congressional Record dumps, and so forth. I intend to keep this up to date as things 'move forward' --- Thanks to these lists for a lot of pointers to valuable information; my hope is that my page provides a central location for monitoring, as much of the information has been scattered about among the .org's who are watching, JYA, etc. etc. Any comments appreciated, thx. see www.best.com/~geeman

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